Happy Friday the 13th!

Folks,

Happy Friday the 13th, all! It’s been a really good couple of weeks here at City State Entertainment. We got a lot done, and we are pleased to end the week the way we hoped: with our next C.U.B.E. push and the first test of a multi-player C.U.B.E. build on Hatchery. The multi-player C.U.B.E. push is somewhat like Camelot Unchained without combat, although it does allow you to build/remove blocks from any plot, whether you control it or not.

We’ve made lots of improvements and additions to both the C.U.B.E. and game builds, but one of the biggest was another reduction of the memory footprint. With this build, we took about 500MB out of the client. Now, this 500MB is also dependent on just how many blocks are used in C.U.B.E., but some of these savings apply to the main game as well, even when there are no blocks there. This will result in even more players with older cards being able to access the game, and another overall improvement in performance. We are also moving forward on other fronts quite nicely, and we’ll have more to talk about regarding some of them in June. 🙂

Now, as to overall improvements to our code base, here is the User Stories update for the past two weeks. We had 22 old cards with 94 completes and 2 new cards with 7 completes.

As a Backer I’d like to see general improvements in C.U.B.E.’s interface and functionality.

Perfhud UI: New panel displaying rendering performance for additional developer feedback. – Complete

Reduce building material textures by 75% – Material scaling was 8×8 meters, now 4×4 meters. – Complete

Update all previously available material art assets from 1024 textures to 512×512 for new scaling. – Complete

Additional minor bug fixes. – Complete

Updated UI provided by Mod Squad! – Complete

Remove extraneous control game models, floating assets, material spheres, etc. – Complete

Fix missing water in zone. – Complete

Add rendering options that can now be adjusted in the options menu on C.U.B.E. and game client. (Shadow quality, distance, on/off, texture quality, HBAO toggle, shader quality.) – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to test the updated female human model.

Third pass underwear using masking system, and overall visual improvements. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to see graphical and networking performance improvements, when building and destroying structures.

Additional memory reductions to building meshes. (Approximately 500MB!) – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to know about all the smaller enhancements the MOD Squad makes to Camelot Unchained.

C.U.B.E. UI Block & Blueprint selector Pass 1 – Complete

Bug fix where ‘unread messages’ notification was not going away. – Complete

Auto-join the new private message “room” in chat when you whisper someone. – Complete

Added history to patcher chat which can be scrolled through using the up/down arrows from the chat input area. – Complete

Fix auto-scrolling bug in patcher chat. – Complete

Allow new lines and multi-line input in chat. – Complete

Set focus to the text input on the join room modal when it opens. – Complete

Verified PMs notify the user of new messages. – Complete

Fix room name parsing to eliminate duplicate parsing. Prevents some false positives and better performance – Complete

Fix error message if you have a failed log in, it will show success instead of fail when you try again. – Complete

Pause all video playback on the patcher when launching the game – Complete

Player, Enemy Target, Friendly Target module clean up — hide unused things, display percent update style – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like the Camelot Unchained website to convey its main features in a more concise and visually impressive manner.

Add CU comics page. – Complete

Add Picts race to Arthurian races section. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to improve some of our fundamental tech to improve client performance.

Reduce memory usage on client when passing assets from patcher. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to have a sampling of Viking light, medium, and heavy armor to wear in game.

Light Armor – Second pass fur and feathers geo/mats. – Complete

Light Armor – Weight and integrate assets into editor. – Complete

Light Armor – Beta 1 version of mats created. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to play as a Crafter with basic gathering and crafting mechanics for testing.

Placing a Vox actually places the Vox model art asset. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to play in a Party, or Guild.

First Pass: Group invites via Web API. – Complete

First Pass: Party roles and permissions. – Complete

First Pass: Party Invites and Status through SignalR. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – Arthurians

First pass concept Art: One-handed swords. – Complete

One handed sword – V1: Modeling pass. – Complete

One handed sword – v1: Materials. – Complete

First pass concept Art: One-handed axes. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – TDD

Concept Art: One-handed swords. – Complete

One handed sword – V1: Modeling pass. – Complete

One handed sword – v1: Materials. – Complete

First pass concept Art: One-handed Axes. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – Viking.

Concept Art: One-handed swords. – Complete

One handed sword – V1: Modeling pass. – Complete

One handed sword – v1: Materials. – Complete

First pass concept Art: One-handed Axes. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to be able to pick an item up off the ground, put it in my inventory, and if applicable, equip it.

First pass solution: Items spawned within world (dropping an item) now support sound events. – Complete

As a Backer, I would like to be able to give to my friends and family the extra tiers that come with my pledge.

Test test test test test. – Complete

More solutions to additional edge case and security issues. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like a better instrument library to build interactive music.

Keyed fiddle ambience. – Complete

Bowed cymbals. – Complete

Wwise better supports smooth sound transitions between parameter changes. – Complete

First pass ambient combat music demo to video. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to be able to choose from a selection of classes for each Realm.

Animation:

Right hand dagger throw with shield. – Complete

Right hand dagger throw with left hand weapon. – Complete

Left hand dagger throw with right hand weapon. – Complete

Left hand dagger throw with right hand spear. – Complete

Left hand dagger throw with right hand focus. – Complete

Right hand dagger throw with left hand focus. – Complete

Right hand focus throw with left hand weapon. – Complete

Right hand focus throw with left hand shield. – Complete

Right hand focus throw with left hand focus. – Complete

Left hand focus throw with right hand weapon. – Complete

Left hand focus throw with right hand spear. – Complete

Left hand focus throw with right hand focus. – Complete

Archery arrow grab from back. – Complete

Design:

First pass Banes and Boons of existing Beta 1 races based off refactor of ability system. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to interact with the first pass of a Place of Power in Camelot Unchained.

Concept place of power dais design. – Complete

Concept additional secondary structural elements. – Complete

Integrate additional rocks and rock sets into scene for use. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to see the pre-existing textures in Camelot Unchained make use of the new rendering and lighting systems.

Update beach/sand materials that were hiding under a rock and were missed during first pass. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to improve integration of plots into existing building code to improve performance, reduce development time, and reduce bugs.

ManagedBuildingPlot – Simplify how c++ and c# talk to each other to reduce surface for future bugs.

Is aligned properly, and stays aligned – Complete

Internalized bounds/ground checking – Complete

Internalized cell limit – Complete

Matches the minimum needs of Building.cs – Complete

Does all the relevant IO – Complete

Cache off niceties like cell count/bounds – Complete

ManagedBuildingDelta – Simplify the way we update changes to buildings to reduce surface for future bugs.

Supports range – Complete

Matches the minimum needs of Building.cs – Complete

Accepts deltas – Complete

Internalizes ClearChanges – Complete

ManagedCellData – Substance stats are communicated between c++ and c# from a database.

Broken out into its own file – Complete

ManagedBuildingRoot – Refactor how plot data is attached to the root building cell structure.

All static methods gone – Complete

Merge code duplicated in ManagedBuildingPlot – Complete

Minimized as much as possible – Complete

ManagedBuildingHeightfield – Simplify and automate the way heightfields are generated.

No longer exists. – Complete

BuildingShapeData resource + collection: Improved information storage. – Complete

BuildingShapeBuilder – shape translation from editor to client. – Complete

BuildingShapeCog – How the editor represents building shapes. “It makes me cry a little bit in my sleep.” – Rob. – Complete

BuildingSubstanceData resource + collection: Improved information storage. – Complete

BuildingSubstanceBuilder – substance translation from editor to client. – Complete

BuildingSubstanceCog – How the editor represents substances. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a first pass Camelot Unchained UI style sheet for visual consistency.

Create CSS page of Viking style sheet. – Complete

Create CSS page of Arthurian style sheet. – Complete

As a Backer, I want to learn more about ley lines, places of power, and ? – in Camelot Unchained.

Second pass design. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like the Camelot Unchained ability system to fully support the design scope of the game for B1.

Preliminary completion of all core updater features. – Complete

New Cards:

As a Developer, I’d like to improve the visual fidelity and speed of creation of our art assets through the investigation, and possible use of, new third party software.

Investigate the use of 3rd party program in the creation of materials. – Complete

Integrate our material shader into third party program to test viability in pipeline. – Complete

Audit third party programs in use for art asset creation and correct format output. – Complete

As a Backer and Developer, I’d like the rubble from building destruction to be awesome and performant.

Client can make rubble without server. – Complete

Client can remove rubble without server. – Complete

Plots on server track their rubble. – Complete

First pass: Netcode tracks rubble. – Complete

Some really nice improvements to the game and to C.U.B.E., and our “re-abilitation” of the ability system proceeds nicely as well, more improvements to the game/C.U.B.E. than the last pass.

For today’s art reveal, we’ve got lots of weapons to show you. Now, they are all one-handed axes, but let me axe you something, aren’t they cool? When Andrew saw the review, his first reaction was “I would happily use any of those weapons to kill someone,” and I couldn’t agree more. As you can see, the weapons follow our approach to ensure that each Realm’s armor and weapons have a unique look.

Here’s some Arthurian axes –

Now some TDD –

And now some Vikings –

Now a group shot –

These axes will be modeled and put into the game in time for the opening of Beta 1.

Fortunately, the Realms can’t live by axe alone, and here are some swords to take a look at. First up, an iconic sword from each of the Realms –

Here’s nine swords from the Realms.

As we have been saying, we’ve also been working on the environment, and here’s a screenshot from the current build. Lots and lots of trees.

And, just for fun, here’s a screenshot with just a wee bit of flair. As you folks know, we don’t retouch screenshots, so this IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WON’T BE SEEING IN OUR GAME!

OK, I meant flare, lens flare that is, in the style of one of our favorite geekdom-focused filmmakers, J.J. Abrams, not to mention maker of one of our favorite T.V. and film series. I/we love your work man, you can have a free, nice big reward tier in our game any time you want! And yeah, you folks might notice something that doesn’t belong in the picture, if you look really carefully (we tried to be really stealthy about it). Again, Happy Friday the 13th, all! 🙂

Now here’s the real screenshot, one that shows off another environmental asset that has been out of commission for a while: water! So, thanks to Dave’s programming and to Backer Stihl Reign’s structure building skills, here’s another screenshot.

And, just for fun, here’s what happens when Rob is working on building destruction and scatters SEVERAL THOUSAND BLOCKS from a building at the same time.

So, that about wraps it up for this week. The TL;DR version is that C.U.B.E. is open for all of our Beta 1, Alpha, and IT folks, and running great. For you Alpha and IT folks, Hatchery (not Hatchery C.U.B.E. but just Hatchery) is open for a multi-player C.U.B.E. test. Don’t be surprised if it goes BOOM, trying this out was a last-minute decision. Post your bugs from either the C.U.B.E. build or Hatchery build here (https://forums.camelotunchained.com/topic/14264-post-your-cube-bugs-from-the-may-13th-build-here/)

We got a lot done, we’re looking forward to the coming weeks, and especially to June.

Enjoy your weekend, all!

-Mark