Subscriber Town Hall: January 2018 Written Wednesday 31st of January 2018 at 09:59pm by StormyWinters Summary of the Subscriber Town Hall for January 2018, featuring Jared Huckaby, Sean Tracy, Forrest Stephan, and Gaige Hallman.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

On today’s show is Jared Huckaby, Sean Tracy(Technical Director of Content), Forrest Stephan (Computer Graphics Supervisor) and Gaige Hallman (Tech Artist)

[Are tools done?] While they’re implemented and somewhat working, they still need a lot of work.

[We recently released our feature trailer which led to you(Forrest) working on another tool, tell us about that] In the past we would run the game through the editor and then render it out into video format and we would do everything by hand. Our tools got more and more complex and surpassed our cinematic methods and we decided to make a tool by taking the current spectator/director’s cam and building on that.

[We just released our public roadmap and many people have seen character customization is slated for 3.1. You talked a bit earlier how sometimes you have a thing going and it’s done on the development side but implementation side is still waiting] It was definitely a goal for 3.0 but it wasn’t where we wanted it and again not because the actually assets weren’t ready it was more the interface wasn’t where we’re demanding the interface has to be.

[What will it have versus what it won’t have, this first version] Just won’t be sculpting, the DNA because we could absolutely give you but there’s complexities because of the rig logic and because of things like we want drive the face with face work, we would like animation shared and even further we would like to be able to runtime rig code implementation(DNA) at runtime and be able to save this for your given character. You’re going to have head/hair/eye selection.

[Insurance system and pirated/stolen ships?] Recent comments by devs were speaking specifically about the current and near-term (3.0, 3.1, 3.2, etc) implementation of piracy/insurance/ship stealing. Long term implementation plans for ship stealing/piracy/insurance are unchanged. More information on this Friday’s RtV with Todd Papy and Brian Chambers.

[Chris talked about on last week’s RtV that the Hull C was having retraction problems due to the animated physics grid, know anything that we’re doing with that?] Haven’t come up with a solution because we’re not working on it right now.

[We talked a little bit about what Forrest is working on, what are you guys working on right now?] Sean: Right now I’m spending a lot of my time in Outlook at this exact moment, not where I want to be but where it needs to be. Working with various tool teams and making sure we’re supporting all the feature teams. Gaige: Tools development for the character side.

[We haven’t heard about Faceware in awhile, what’s going on with that?] It’s coming along good.

3.01 patch for testing to Evocati last night

Summary

[So in the last year, you’ve built a lot of the foundational tools such as subsumption, UI, SolEd, etc… can we assume that we now have them all, are tools done?]

Sean: Totally done, they don’t need anymore work. It’s perfect on the first delivery. Next question.

Forrest: Tools go through stages, you do it as a way it works, it gets a task done. Once it’s in there you have to reevaluate it and does this get the task done as quickly as we like? Is it user friendly? While they’re implemented and somewhat working they still need a lot of work.

[We recently released our feature trailer which led to you working on another tool. Tell us about that]

Forrest: We spent some time getting some footage together for Chris, then it came back and I was asked to take a pass at it and revise it with some additional footage.

Jared: We capture it the same way, you guys do, load the game up, open up OBS and record using the same game client.

Forrest: In the past, set everything up in the editor, run the game through the editor which is what you see is what you get from our engine. Then it would render that out into a video format that we’d upload to YouTube and people would see. We would do everything by hand… if I wanted a ship to fly past I’d have to make a quick particle effect attach to the thruster then in the software I’d have to say at this moment in time I need to keyframe a boost to the thrusters so it flares out. Everything was very manually done.

Then our tools got more and more complex. The tools started surpassing our cinematic methods and it became difficult to doing these type of trailers and cut scenes and to show off the current art. These cutscenes had kinda evolved from showing off art to showing off the game. This was one of the first times that the goal was very clear, capture in the game, that was the goal that Chris was very clear he wanted in game captures. A lot of the footage was fairly rough and it was clear very early is because we have a very rudimentary tool, spectator cam.

How did I get the framerates... I would log in at 2:00 in the morning and I would go undercover and record my experiences with players. I essentially learned the toolset and did the best I could and just played the game and I captured my experience in the game. So Chris was excited about and he wanted it to be revamped, he wanted and loved a director’s cam. We want to be able to bring this beautiful universe in a cinematic mode, not just Sqaudron 42, but also in the MMO PU. We decided we were going to make a tool and we were going to take the current director/spectators cam and build upon it.

[We just released our public roadmap and many people have seen character customization is slated for 3.1. You talked a bit earlier how sometimes you have a thing going and it’s done on the development side but implementation side is still waiting]

Sean: As we wanted to do this very much out of the gate we just want some form of customization: select a head, some hair, eyes… select some colours, for the first part and call that a day but even at that limited sort of customization experience... you can still make mistakes on the way here and some of the mistakes would be an interface that isn’t as intuitive as you would like even for that kind of thing. As well as making sure that whatever system that is developed is a totally scaleable thing. It’s basically gone to a full feature team now, cross discipline team. It was definitely a goal for 3.0 but it wasn’t where we wanted it and again not because the actually assets weren’t ready it was more the interface wasn’t where we’re demanding the interface has to be.

[What will it have versus what it won’t have, this first version]

Sean: Just won’t be sculpting, the DNA because we could absolutely give you but there’s complexities because of the rig logic and because of things like we want drive the face with face work, we would like animation shared and even further we would like to be able to runtime rig code implementation(DNA) at runtime and be able to save this for your given character. You’re going to have head/hair/eye selection.

[Insurance system and pirated ships?]

Recent comments by devs were speaking specifically about the current and near-term (3.0, 3.1, 3.2, etc) implementation of piracy/insurance/ship stealing. Long term implementation plans for ship stealing/piracy/insurance are unchanged. More information on this Friday’s RtV with Todd Papy and Brian Chambers.

[Chris talked about on last week’s RtV that the Hull C was having retraction problems due to the animated physics grid, know anything that we’re doing with that?]

Haven’t come up with a solution because we’re not working on it right now.

[We talked a little bit about what Forrest is working on, what are you guys working on right now?]

Sean: Right now I’m spending a lot of my time in Outlook at this exact moment, not where I want to be but where it needs to be. Working with various tool teams and making sure we’re supporting all the feature teams.

Gaige: Tools development for the character side.

[We haven’t heard about Faceware in awhile, what’s going on with that?]

It’s coming along good. Most of the heavy lifting is done so the only things they have to do is wrap an interface around it, design will need to take a look at it… it as a feature is ready but like we said it’s not gotten much further progress in terms of implementation.

StormyWinters Director of Fiction Moonlighting as a writer in her spare time StormyWinters combines her passion for the written word and love of science fiction resulting in innumerable works of fiction. As the Director of Fiction, she works with a fantastic team of writers to bring you amazing stories that transport you to new places week after week.

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