Translations for our friends around the world.

Author Topic: Project Zomboid  (Read 65919 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #30 on: March 13, 2017, 05:19:22 PM »
Mondoid - In My Garage


This week’s featured image from Guenni.


Hello all. It’s been a good week at PZ towers following the overwhelmingly positive feedback, and excellent pointers from the community, over our vehicles testing video last week. It feels really good to have one of our key 1.0 features being fed into the cannon, especially given the extended wait for the animations that they’ve been brewing alongside.

In terms of the vehicles branch, this week has seen a lot of effort being put into getting the build seen in last week’s video prepped for internal stress testing and bug hunting. Initial testing found a degree of stuttering cropping up on the long drive between West Point and Muldraugh, for example, that’s now hopefully been fixed – while it’s also clear that driving through densely forested areas also ramps up the memory usage due to the number of nearby physics-enhanced tree objects.

The focus of General Arcade’s Yuri when approaching our own EP’s work on vehicles and in-game physics has been in the communication between in-game threads, and in expanding the margins of the map area that’s streamed in around the player to avoid those big black areas of nothingness that can sometimes appear when your survivor outruns the PZ mainframe.

Another change, meanwhile, has been in moving away from this ‘streamed-in area’ being related to player position – and instead shifted to being proportioned according to player speed. As such, this helps to load chunks in time when player is moving around faster than they usually do. In terms of smooth running it has also become clear that applying this approach to the player as well as the vehicles will improve everyone’s experience – so that’s another current focus of Yuri’s work for the test build.

Martin, meanwhile, keeps the vehicle model pipeline open and makes regular deliveries like this one that appeared this morning. Hopefully next week we’ll be able to have a few more vids/reports from them in motion.



Meanwhile alongside anims work and ongoing map expansion we have RJ back from paternity leave so he’s going great guns to clear as much of the bug tracker backlog (lovingly curated by Butter Bot) as he can, while also feeding extra ‘loot maps’ into the mainframe in preparation for the public release of Build 37.

Turbo too is buried in the main game and streamlining and the way we universally have devices coded- so that’s radios, walkie-talkies, TVs, handheld games, forthcoming tape recorder, forthcoming VHS and the like. He’s implementing a universal module system that’ll govern power usage, transmissions, media reading/writing, storage, audio settings and the like for everything we have in-game, and for everything we add in future.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #31 on: April 11, 2017, 02:20:50 PM »
Project Zomboid with vehicles - VERY EARLY TEST BUILD



Published on 10 Apr 2017
!Notice!

This is a very early build of cars in Project Zomboid. Everything is subject to change and not in it's final



ProjectZomboid64 2017 04 10 00 36 47 286 Crowd Surfing

funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #32 on: June 13, 2017, 02:59:03 PM »
You will soon be able to dig graves

funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #33 on: June 22, 2017, 02:10:13 PM »
Spiffo’s Speakeasy
Project Zomboid - nasKo



Tons going on at the moment, but something of a ‘in progress’ blog. So here’s some nuggets on what our various workers are up to for Build 38 and beyond.

 
•   RJ has just released IWBUMS public beta build 38.3 – which remedies the incessant fly buzz around rotten body piles, adds some new of Turbo’s new sounds for TV/radio and corrects various issues around the new graves and in-game memorials. This follows on from last Tuesday’s 38.2 that added some new sandbox options, random selection on zed strength/toughness/cognition and some darkness and nutrition balance.

•   Next up RJ is working alongside RingoD to improve the selection process for solo game map mods – and let you boot up with multiple map mods without players having to create their own combined map mod.

•   The plan is for ChrisW’s cool work on the building floor render code (stopping rooftops and higher floors being hidden all the time) to get merged into the 38 IWBUMS this week too – although this is dependent on a few fixes getting in, alongside improved window-peeking and getting the system working with garage/awning roof structures that the game currently doesn’t consider as being part of buildings.

•   The public Vehicles Tech Test has been getting Yuri love backstage for the past week or so, as he’s been hunting out memory leaks through profiles of different machines running the build. It’s been a tricky process, but it seems like we’ve finally got to the bottom of one of the issues that was hampering FPS – and as such we’ll hopefully be returning to more ‘fun’ updates on the cars themselves, and remedying the MP inventory difficulties, later in the week. Our thanks to EG and Nasko for their help in the performance bug hunt.

•   The Vehicles Tech Test has been going so well that we’ll definitely be doing something similar with Anims when the time comes. MarkR’s got a pipeline toward that locked down now – building on the new model format he’s put in for us, tidying up the work we already had in the can with his technical cleverness, as well as creating a quick tool to aid creation of more complex animation states, implementing ‘layers’ which is like an extra dimension to the current animation system that would exponentially simplify all the remaining game logic stuff that still needs fixing up and tying together. [TLDR: There’s a hell of a lot of technical chat going on, the guy who writes the Mondoids doesn’t really understand it all, but there’s a real push on and we are going to owe MarkR more than a few beers.]

•   We also have another bold Russian, also from the General Arcade stable, currently tasked with improving the PZ online experience. Stas’ current task is to improve how servers perform ‘SaveAll’ – and in turn hopefully address the terror of ‘black boxing’, frozen zeds and map stream pauses. His is a long term mission, it could take a while, but it’s great to have someone of his talents getting in amongst it all.
 

Hopefully more developments on all fronts next week, and clearly Mash’s next map expansion isn’t a million miles away – oh and we’re also back in touch with Zach Beever now he’s finished up his studies about polishing the PZ soundtrack, and maybe a few new tunes too. More on that when it happens.

 
This week’s Spiffo Speakeasy from Tasma. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #34 on: July 15, 2017, 09:04:41 PM »
Attila & I in a session.  Attila started to make out with the zombie woman :shocker




funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Frankie

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 1506
  • From Dogs of War to Pipes Of Peace
    • Frankie's Moodurian
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #35 on: July 16, 2017, 04:34:12 PM »
Where's Woody Harrelson when you need him.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

After the Dogs of War are let slip, let us smoke the Pipes Of Peace.

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #36 on: July 16, 2017, 05:14:47 PM »
PZ very deep and involved. There is a lot of crafting and base building you can do. I will be playing more mp  :zombiewalkright
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #37 on: July 19, 2017, 12:04:28 AM »
Thank you George Romero
18 July - EnigmaGrey



It should go without saying that without George Romero there would be no Project Zomboid. In fact, the entire face of video-gaming would have been very different without his vision. Since its genesis PZ has been about trying to recreate the feeling of Romero’s movies, and there’s no doubt that alongside legions of other video-games, books and movies we owe the man a great debt.

We were greatly saddened to hear of his death at the age of 77, and our thoughts are with his family and friends. The legacy he leaves behind is a brilliant and astonishing one.

VEHICLES
As mentioned last week the public vehicles build is going to keep on getting updates until the point it’s ready to have its stream crossed with an IWBUMS beta – so we can get an ‘experimental vehicles’ option into the main beta channel, get its optimizations into the main game and make tester life easier.

Tomorrow Yuri will be updating the public build with a few cool changes. Firstly while playing around with sound implementation we realised that the noise of gear shifts was fairly vital, but also that the behaviour of the cars themselves didn’t leave much room for this – and the inclusion of actual player-controlled gear shifts seemed a little too hardcore.

To give a feeling of gears then, to accompany the sounds we have brewing in an FMOD studio, Yuri has changed the way vehicles accelerate. Top speeds are now on a curve: acceleration slows in the last 25% of your potential full speed. This will likely need further tweaking, so feedback is welcome, but should allow us to space out RPM increase in sounds and implement the gear shift noises. It will also, hopefully, make high speed driving more rewarding.

To accompany this Yuri has also added a speedometer (kmh) and engine gauge (revs) to the UI[projectzomboid.com] – although it should be noted that the visuals and read-outs for these are placeholder, and we’ll be converting to mph with an options toggle in due course. Yuri has also fixed a few bugs, so the people of Muldraugh have now stopped occasionally parking their cars on top of other cars.

IWBUMS BETA
RJ released Build 38.5[theindiestone.com] into the IWBUMS public beta with a rewrite of his ‘zombie corpse build-up’ code that tracks decaying bodies in a much more localized area than previously. Feedback appreciated as we can certainly tweak this system further.

We should be also be getting some ChrisW fixes to the new ‘rooftop exteriors’ engine code later this week – making players beneath supported roofs and overhangs look less broken – before moving onto player-built structure issues and any other issues the system raises in general gameplay.

OTHER STUFF
•   Mark R will be doing a big check-in of his anims code rewire and layers system (explained here[projectzomboid.com]) this week, bringing it all together and providing a new and improved base from which to get ‘em out to you. In the mean-time Martin the animator and model guy has been working on more military clothing, military vehicle wrecks and other stuff so we’re ready when the time comes.
•   Mash’s map work continues, and will likely land in Build 39. It’s a spread out area that should be fun to explore with vehicles. There’s a bit of it that looks like this:



•   Our composer Zach Beever is back (and graduated! Congrats Zach!) and will be experimenting with layered music that can be heard during play actively fits what’s happening on-screen – build-ups during lulls of non-zombies, more intense during confrontations etc. It’s all quite experimental currently, but its fab to have Zach back in the saddle.

A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here[projectzomboid.com] – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki[pzwiki.net] should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List [projectzomboid.com]that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord [discord.gg]is open for chat and hijinks too.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #38 on: August 15, 2017, 01:00:12 AM »




funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #39 on: September 22, 2017, 12:35:25 AM »
Behold the Thursdoid
18 SEPTEMBER



Hello everyone. A little bit of a short Mondoid this week. In fact the last one ever. But don’t worry, we’re still keeping up with the weekly updates.

It’s the end of an era. This Mondoid is just an announcement to say that from this point the traditional Mondoid blog will be moving to Thursday – henceforth to be known as ‘Thursdoid’.

There are several reasons for this. We know some people look forward to Mondoids to combat the back to work/school Monday blues, but as our team has grown quite dramatically over the past year, it has become more and more clear how inconvenient Monday updates are, how much harder it is to coordinate the week’s work after a weekend, and how they are ultimately of detriment to the game, player-base and developers. From the game’s side, it means we’ve had an entire weekend just prior to the most important day of the week, where it may have been more difficult to get hold of people, or work has been at its lightest. From the developers side, many of the contractors we’ve taken into the fold have families, and its a bit crappy of us to impose our historic looming Mondoid pressure onto them.

We feel that moving to Thursdays will be better for everyone, as we’ll have had several working days of preparation and week day communication to make sure the Thursdoids are on point, versions have had sufficient time in the incubators during the week, and yet we’ll still have Friday to fix up any problems that crop up before the weekend starts (that’s not to say the workaholic elements within will not continue to poke at the game during the weekend as we always have). It’s also closer to the weekend, so when versions emerge, players have less time to wait to have dedicated time to enjoy them.

Also we ran out of Monday puns a long time ago.

We had hoped to sweeten this final Mondoid with a public release of build 38, but in the last hours discovered a few issues we really need to address. As such we will warm up for a full release as soon as we can this week, and we’ll see you on Thursday!
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #40 on: September 22, 2017, 12:38:39 AM »
Thursdoid Rising
21 SEPTEMBER   



And so begins a bold new era of… Thursday.

Build 38

We realise the 38 release has been built-up a fair amount, it’s been on the brink for so long while we mop up this bug and that – but on the approach to release on Monday we realised that some aspects of the build’s optimizations hadn’t been properly integrated in recent 38 builds, and as such as a whole the ‘release candidate’ hadn’t received sufficient public testing. There’s a lot of changes under the hood in Build 38, and the last thing we want is for an unironed version to go out and disrupt people’s ongoing games.

It’s all in place now, however. As such, if you’re an IWBUMS tester or fancy being one for the day, please jump into the latest beta[theindiestone.com] – let us know how it runs for you, and we’ll press ‘go’ when we see enough green lights.

Build 39 (aka Vehicle Test Build 21)

As mentioned in a previous Mondoid, we now have various people working on Build 39 (the vehicles build) so have a ‘gameplay’ coder and Bitbaboon Steve doing general optimizations – all alongside Yuri’s existing ‘nuts and bolts’ engine and physics work.

As such, Vehicles Build 21 has been released[theindiestone.com] with a bunch of stuff intended to gel our vehicles ever tighter to PZ gameplay. This includes:

•   Simulated gear shifts are now based on your engine rpm, the number of gears your car has and the max speed. Previously it would just work on the speeds you hit.
•   You’re now slowed and have less traction if you’re driving off-road. [In future builds constant off-road driving will also reduce a vehicle’s condition.]
•   Car keys are now a more important aspect of the game. They are mandatory when it comes to starting an engine or turning on headlights, and have a (small) chance of spawning already in the ignition or in the glove box. A ‘car locked’ sound is also heard, rather than the characters say ‘locked’ out loud like a weirdo would.
•   If you have Level 2 Electrical Skill then you can Hotwire a vehicle if you can get inside. Better and more modern cars are trickier to hotwire, and a failed attempt will result in damaging the ignition.
•   In larger vehicles like vans and emergency vehicles you can fit more characters inside in MP – and rear seats can also be used as containers now.
•   Vehicles are no longer empty of ‘life detritus’. They now have loot tables that reflect their past owners. Every day vehicles might have bags of rotting groceries inside, uneaten candies and old magazines. Meanwhile there’s a small chance that a pick-up might have a fisherman’s equipment, while a pick-up could have been a carpenter’s work vehicle – and as such have a trunk full of items that reflect his work.
•   General changes: gas consumption now dependent on what gear you’re in, and more forgiving. Reduced chances of stalling. Balanced vehicle storage capacities. Vehicles audible from a greater range. Can no longer drive through double doors. (Sorry   )

Moar vehicles

A few threads have popped up on the forum saying that we could do with a bit more variety in vehicle models to make things look a little bit more realistic – and as such Martin has been modelling up some different variants on existing car models, as well as creating a few new ones, for Mash to paint up some textures for.

These won’t appear in Build 39, most likely, but will pop up in the relevant areas in the versions that follow





A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here[projectzomboid.com] – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki[pzwiki.net] should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List [projectzomboid.com]that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord [discord.gg]is open for chat and hijinks too.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #41 on: September 22, 2017, 04:06:21 PM »
Build 38
Project Zomboid - EnigmaGrey

Build 38 has been released to the public, the details of which can be found below.

Build 39 will be the current vehicles test build (Vehicle Build 19 available for you to play and feed back on here), which will be moved into our normal public IWBUMS beta branch once the dust has settled on 38 in terms of patching.

Please note that from this point the traditional Mondoid blog will be moving to Thursday – henceforth to be known as ‘Thursdoid’. This is intended to fit in better with the work schedules of the 3-4 extra contractors we now have working on PZ, provides a better lead-in times for releasing new builds and also because we ran out of Monday puns a long time ago.

If you come across any annoying bugs then our tracker lives here. Thank you!



Version 38: The Pre-Vehicles Build

Riverside Map Expansion



New map area added! The spawn-point town of Riverside, the nearby Knox Heights Country Club, Spa and Golf Course, and many/varied wilderness areas are now ripe and ready for exploration.

•   Found west of West Point, and is of equivalent size.
•   Contains new building types, architecture and item tiles.
•   Includes Riverside lootable map



World View update
•   The homes, businesses, advertizing hoardings and outhouses are now seen in all their glory – rooftops and all. Building levels above the player are ONLY hidden for the ‘current building’.
•   Windows must now be peeked through by walking up to them, and looking through.
•   Higher levels blocking your view are removed on approach, and hen zombie hazards are present.
•   Exterior walls are no longer stencilled to transparent when you’re outside unless they are actually blocking the view of your character.
MP and Co-op Improvements
•   Zombie placement and movement data shared between players heavily optimized to address cases of zombie lag, zed teleportation, unfair bites and general server strain.
•   ‘Server Save’ pause server option for larger servers that pauses the action when saving, reducing instances of sudden zombie lag.
•   Added a “Level Up” button on the player stats UI to quickly level up a perk without using global point.
•   Added a n easy way for modders to add columns to their scrolling lists.
•   Added an UI for admin to manage player’s inventory.
Corpse Management
•   You can now dig graves with a shovel and bury multiple corpses inside.
•   New carpentry crafting items: wooden cross, a cairn and a wooden memorial picket to go alongside the graves you dig.
•   Large piles of rotten corpses will make you feel ill and sad if you stay close to them for extended periods.
New Sandbox options:
•   Generator Spawn: Increase/decrease the chance of electrical generators spawning on the map.
•   Generator Fuel Consumption: Impacts how much fuel is consumed by generators. A generator that needs no fuel should be set to 0.0. (Replaces GeneratorFuelConsumed server option)
•   Randomized House Chance: Increase/decrease probability of discovering randomized safe houses on the map: either burnt out, containing loot stashes, dead survivor bodies etc.
•   Annotated Map Chance: Impacts on how often a looted map will have annotations marked on it by a deceased survivor.
•   Zombie Construction Damage: Governs whether or not zombies can destroy player constructions and defences.
•   Free Trait Points: Adds free points during character creation.
•   Player-built Construction Strength: Gives player-built constructions extra hit points so they are more resistant to zombie damage.
•   Day/Night Active Zombies: Governs whether zombies are more active during the day, or whether they act more nocturnally. Inactive zombies will be slower, and tend not to give chase.
•   Nocturnal Darkness: Governs how dark it gets at night.
•   Injury Severity: Increase and decrease the impact that injuries have on your body, and their healing time.
•   Bone Fracture: Enable or disable broken limbs when survivors receive injuries from impacts, zombie damage and falls.
•   Time Before Corpse Removal: Number of in-game hours before zombie corpses are automatically removed from the map. (Replaces former HoursForCorpseRemoval server option).
•   Decaying Corpse Health Impact: Governs impact that nearby decaying bodies has on the player’s health and emotions
•   Clothing Degradation: Governs how quickly clothing degrades, becomes dirty and bloodied – or if it does at all.
•   Randomization of zombie Speed, Strength, Toughness and Cognition. (Or just Strength, Toughness and Cognition.)
•   Fire spread (previously ‘No Fire spread’ in server options): governs whether or not fire can spread.

Clothing Degradation
•   Clothing can now become dirty over extended periods, dependant on your activities.
•   Fighting zombies will make your clothing bloody.
•   If you’re wearing dirty or bloody clothing over an open wound then chances of infection (normal infection, not zombie) will increase.
•   Clothing now also has durability, every time you get hit you’ll lose a little.
•   Some clothing is more resistant than others.

Optimization – in preparation for incoming Vehicles build
•   Optimized Garbage Collection.
•   LightingJNI optimized.
•   Fixed surge in memory usage of 2-300 MB that can stall the game.
•   Optimized map loading.
•   Fixed Voice Manager being enabled in SP. [Should give an improvement in FPS, especially on slower systems]

Custom Map Loading change
•   New “Select spawn location” screen after map mod selection
•   All map mods now load, including spawnpoints.
•   A ‘multi-map’ mod no longer needs to be created. ‘Map Mod Priority order’ setting added to highlight which maps are given precedence if there are geographical overlaps and conflicts, with warnings also given to player.

Balance Changes
•   Increased nutrition values of fish and berries slightly.
•   Increased player construction hit points.
•   TV and Radio programmes now have an impact on the character’s moodles. If watching an instructional show then an XP multiplier is received.
•   Sleeping outside in rain will wake players up, unless they are in a tent or under a player made structure with roof.
•   First aid kits now spawn with sterilized bandages, rather than regular bandages.
•   Can now sterilize bandages in a boiling pot of water.
•   Mattresses can now be made using a suture needle as well as a regular needle.
•   Spices now usable as the first item in pasta/rice (eg. marinara).

Fixes
•   Fixed zombie memory “none” sandbox option not working.
•   Fixed a bug with phases of the moon not affecting ambient light at night.
•   Fixed water pouring bug.
•   Fixed street lights still being active when electricity was down.
•   Fixed being able to access rival player’s safehouses through cheeky carpentry cheating.
•   Fixed being able to climb through windows into a player’s safehouse.
•   Fixed multiple aspects of UI not working with a gamepad (foraging, lootable maps, sandbox options etc.
•   Added ‘deadzone’ options to settings to alleviate problems with gamepad players sleeping.
•   Large amounts of smal items will now correctly fill up container space available.
•   Fixed Book Reading interrupted when player aims a weapon.
•   Fixed Characters losing fraction of XP on save.
•   Added missing “spawn point” options in the server settings GUI.
•   Added missing ‘world filler’ sprite visuals.
•   Fixed possible bug with alarm being reset.
•   Fixed always raining when loading/starting a game.
•   Fixed rare bug with the crafting UI.
•   Fixed a bug with the getLightFoodMod() calculation.
•   Fixed evolved recipe drinks not being able to be drunk when an item could be added to it (the coffee bug).
•   Fixed crafting issue with Hot Cuppa.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #42 on: November 16, 2017, 06:56:02 PM »
Rules of Attraction
Project Zomboid - nasKo


Vehicle Build 25 (aka 39.25) got a release yesterday. Added in Build 25 were the new Mechanic profession and related traits, random highway wreck collisions, Mechanic XP gains through car tinkering and a lot of general optimization in terms of UI, net code and traffic congestion spawns. Today RJ also released a hotfix to reduce zed attraction to car noise, tie engine sound to RPM rather than speed and remove collisions with small items.

It’s all shaping up quite nicely in terms of the general handling/feel of what we want – but also highlights that we need to get back on top of the performance and garbage collection issues that have crept back in over recent builds. So, next up, Yuri will be optimizing the java garbage collection to address the stutter that some people are reporting – while resident artist Mash is also hard at work creating ‘damaged’ sprites for some aspects of road furniture for the next coder task.

Right now static object collisions are improved in that you can’t drive through solid street furniture – which perhaps makes sense for street lights and concrete walls, but less so for household mail boxes and traffic cones. As such we’ve gone through the various things that players are likely to collide with while driving – and working out what should remain impervious, what should look damaged but remain impassable after a collision (as below with the unhappy post boxes) and what should be smashed/crushed when hit at speed (as below with the even more unhappy household mail boxes).

In this way driving will feel that little bit more realistic, and an extra feeling of lasting change to the map will also be added to your survival run.





Meanwhile, Mission: Optimization continues. As discussed last week ChrisW is playing around with what PZ draws – hiding all squares behind solid walls from the game’s rendering system, and thereby freeing up your processor. Our chosen FPS hot spot was the four level flats in March Ridge which pre-optimization was coming in at 26 fps on ChrisW’s system, but is now coming in at 41 fps on an internal test build– which is a significant improvement.

Next on the list for Chris, then, is in optimizing the code so that it also brings benefits to general play – ensuring that the new background calculations themselves don’t clog up any performance gains. Bitbaboon Steve, meanwhile, continues to spotlight other areas for improvement.

In other technical areas of the game, meanwhile, we’re happy to have beckoned General Arcade’s Stas back into the fold – who will initially be finishing off our java upgrade from lwjgl2 to lwjgl3. This will open up a bunch of necessary day-to-day improvements for the game – better support for different resolutions, dpi awareness, neater alt-tabbing and general smoother operation.

Finally, last night’s Community Megatest for the IWBUMS Build 38 patch had to be put back a bit due to various serverside issues we’re still trying to get to the bottom of. Keep an eye out on the forums for more information on when the test will be once we’ve gotten to the bottom of it. We’ll be handing out PZ Steam codes for family and friends to some of the people who help out, so please do pop along. Thanks!

Today’s featured image from Jodidosciervos of Steam parish. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Ooh and check out Texas956’s AWESOME TileZed buildings!
Share:                
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #43 on: November 16, 2017, 06:57:29 PM »
Dashdoid
Project Zomboid - nasKo

Ello survivor. Come in, take a seat.


Public Build 38.28
We just released a huge patch for the public build – bringing Build 38 up to 38.28. This not only marks the entrance of our new internal automated build process, but is also an extensive clear-out of nagging issues that have crept into the game in recent times.

You can find the full changelist here. Much of it is necessary ‘tidy up’ work – but you might also notice improvements with alarms and clocks, fixed stash map issues, a volume option for fly buzz, that annoying ‘add spice’ recipe bug gone, corpses no longer remaining highlighted and the sad end of the ‘infinite ice cream bug’.

There’s a lot more than that though, so check out the patch notes if you’re a PZ regular. Many thanks to Tim for all his hard work on this.


Vehicle Test Build 26
This morning we booted Vehicle Build 26 out onto our public vehicles beta (details on how to access found here). There are two primary aspects of this version – the first being some general optimization improvement. Following on from this, most likely in the next build, we will also have ChrisW’s work on increasing FPS (quite dramatically, when compared to current versions) when in towns and around tall buildings – and likely some java garbage collection optimization too that’ll further limit occasional stuttering.

The other main addition, meanwhile, is a more authentic and aesthetic dashboard constructed by RJ and our artist Mash. Up until now the vehicle read-outs have looked like this:




And with Vehicles Build 26 they now live in a dashboard that looks like this:




We’ve also done this to fit in with the general ‘the player sees what the character’ sees mantra of PZ – so if there’s a general issue with the engine you’ll see it through a dashboard warning light, just as you would in real life. You’ll only be able to truly get to grips with it however, and analyse the issue, if you have the necessary Mechanic skills. Here’s a general vid showing how it all works:



Elsewhere Yuri is doing a large-ish chunk of work on how we synchronise objects over the PZ map, which will also hopefully provide some performance benefits for vehicles, and we also have Bitbaboon Steve on-hand to hopefully chase down the map streaming optimization/fix we mentioned last week.

The plan is, once the newly patched Build 38 is clearly stable, to officially make our vehicles beta known as Build 39 and move it into our traditional ‘unstable version’ IWBUMS position.

Amidst all the general vehicles work we also anticipate some new rural map areas to be added to this, the (boring but essential) lwjgl3 java upgrade currently being implemented by Stas from General Arcade and many/varied gameplay nips and tucks from Connall the curator of the community suggestion list.

Beyond that Martin, Bitbaboon Mark and others continue to work on stuff for Build 40+: our larger workforce these days allowing for a far greater degree of rolling development.


New New Denver
We love so many of the mods and maps created for Project Zomboid, but the moving story behind New Denver and its creator XeonyX (told here) has always made the New Denver mapstand out for us – just as much as its size and authenticity to a real world location.

As such, we’re super-pleased to direct you towards its latest (and final) big town expansion – that of Silverton which lies to the south of New Denver itself. Thank you very much Jamie, and we do hope that you’re doing well.




This week’s imperilled survivor from FACAG@MES on your Steam service. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Offline Asid

  • HAVOC
  • *
  • Posts: 26362
Re: Project Zomboid
« Reply #44 on: November 23, 2017, 05:52:10 PM »
Something in the Air
Project Zomboid - EnigmaGrey



How do all. Happy Thanksgiving to our American survivors, and indeed to those of us who choose to give thanks at alternate times of year.

38 Patch Bizness

First off, just a quick note to say that in the past week we’ve updated Build 38 with a couple of extra patches, as there were still a few MP bumps and issues that were niggling at us. Details for both can be found behind the links: 38.29 and 38.30. Highlights include generator fixes, outdoor lighting oddities and hopefully some stuff helpful for servers. We’ve had a few hiccups with Mac builds the last few days, which should be resolved now and hopefully GOG builds will be updated with these today.

Vehicles Build 27 (aka 39.27)

We released Build 27 of the Vehicles alpha today (access details here), and it contains a few performance improving aspects – although, as detailed below, the bigger-hit work on this is still to be integrated.

Elsewhere the build contains a few other system tweaks. First off there are updates to the naming, spawning and operation of car keys – and also the addition of the game having your character walk to the relevant part of the car when installing/removing. It also syncs up lots of aspects of the Mechanic and vehicles system between co-op and MP players – from engine temperature, to tire inflation. The full changelist can be found here.

Next up we’ll be adding in crafting/repairing level requirements for the Mechanic Skill, alongside dripfeeding in the optimizations we’ve been brewing with ChrisW, Steve et al. More on which below.

Optimization fun

Regular viewers will know that we have not one but two mega-experts helping out with the game these days – both established Technical Directors within the world of gaming. Mark is tasked with getting animations in order for the builds beyond 39, while Steve is addressing optimization for vehicles.

This past Friday, with the help of copious tea and loud metal, he made some huge strides in improving our map streaming – which will pay dividends once integrated into Build 39. There’s still a fair amount of work to be done: playing coder ‘whack-a-mole’ with issues that crop up due to the changes, and trying to eliminate nasty locks between the code’s loader thread and the main thread. With that balancing act still to come, then, the improvements let him run the game so it ran like this:



We can’t guarantee this level of perfection when it comes to the main game, especially at the highest resolutions, but it does seem that we’re making good progress towards nullifying stutters and pauses – as well as allowing for speedier/smoother vehicle movement around the map.

Weather upgrade

With vehicles, meanwhile, come required vehicle hazards. As such, returning from a spell on the sidelines, Turbo is back and bringing a few additions to his existing weather system.

We’ve always needed stronger indications of seasonal change, and likewise new weather effects. Although we’ve always had snow appear on the ground – we’ve never actually shown it fall.



Likewise, we’ve always wanted players to wake up to mists and fogs that’ll dissipate as the day goes on – that’ll hopefully add an extra level of fear to your daily chores exploration on the days it descends.



In the video it is at its more extreme levels, however we can also add more subtle mists and fogs to add additional ambiences to the game.

We’ve always been quite rigorous when it comes to having weather authentic to the area that the PZ map covers (in 1993, which is close to our start year, Muld had 11 days of fog) and currently there’s an internal debate as to how much poetic license we can take with this to bolster gameplay. In any eventuality we intend to add a dose of it to the vehicles build in the near future, and it may also make for engaging new Challenge modes in times to come.

Today’s featured image from Biker. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Ooh, and could PZ user maps make the leap to la belle France?
funny
0
informative
0
Thanks
0
No reactions
No reactions
No reactions

I stand against Racism, Bigotry and Bullying

Tags:
     

    Half Life: Project Lambda

    Started by Asid

    Replies: 0
    Views: 2800
    Last post March 19, 2018, 12:57:54 PM
    by Asid
    Project Reality: BF2 Standalone Trailer

    Started by Asid

    Replies: 0
    Views: 5813
    Last post June 05, 2015, 11:13:10 AM
    by Asid
    Something for FREE and it is GOOD - Project Reality BF2 1.4

    Started by Attila

    Replies: 4
    Views: 3744
    Last post February 23, 2017, 09:38:02 PM
    by Asid
    Project Stream Official Gameplay Capture

    Started by Asid

    Replies: 0
    Views: 1841
    Last post October 02, 2018, 12:22:43 PM
    by Asid
    Decisive Campaigns : Community Project

    Started by Asid

    Replies: 1
    Views: 4871
    Last post December 10, 2015, 10:01:49 PM
    by Asid