Dogs Of War Vu

Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on March 14, 2016, 09:07:59 PM

Title: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 14, 2016, 09:07:59 PM
Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview

https://youtu.be/Z0jwcqjdELk

Published on 14 Mar 2016

A preview of the upcoming animation and clothing overhaul of Project Zomboid

http://store.steampowered.com/app/108600/
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Stardog765 on March 18, 2016, 09:57:19 PM
Looks great! Such a great game.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Asid on March 20, 2016, 08:02:07 PM
Looks great! Such a great game.
The devs have been working hard on this for a while. Better sound, lighting, Multiplayer, graphics etc...
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Asid on March 29, 2016, 12:01:30 AM
(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwCDlRLUFYFSwEAAlA)

Binky’s new man. Doesn’t he look shiny?
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Stardog765 on March 29, 2016, 04:07:59 AM
Its real life bro!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Asid on March 29, 2016, 06:39:49 PM
Its real life bro!
I know  8)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Asid on April 12, 2016, 10:56:03 PM
METALWORKING

As we mentioned last week we’ve rethought metalworking so that it features two new skills – welding and metalworking. We’re still underlining the specifics, but welding will see players using a noisy/bright blow torch and mask to adapt heavy scrap metal found around the map into defences – often used in conjunction with our existing carpentry skill.

Metalworking, meanwhile, involves you investing a many in-game days building a stone furnace stage-by-stage – and then creating makeshift tools/items through iron that you make workable within the furnace, then hammer away at on a lump of metal used as an anvil.

mashfurnace
(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwCDlxLUFYKSwEAAlA)

Metal objects will come with their own positives and negatives (a metal sheet welded together with discovered scrap will make more noise when banged on and attract more zeds, for example) and we intend it to be a high level and high input aspect of survival – and fully complementary to our existing skills. We really want to nail the delivery of it though, which is why RJ is industriously busying himself with it all backstage.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid - Animation + Clothing Preview
Post by: Asid on April 19, 2016, 08:27:36 PM
EASY CO-OP

You can help test the easy host-a-game feature in Project Zomboid!
This is available on a branch called onlinetest with beta password hailkingspiffo. (Right click Project Zomboid -> Properties -> Betas tab)
 
Here's how it works:
•   There's a new button called HOST on the main screen, click it.
•   This takes you to a new screen where you can (if you want) edit settings for the server, or just leave the defaults for a typical Survival-type experience.
•   Choose the amount of memory for the server.
•   Click the START button.  This will start the server using the settings you chose (or the default if you didn't choose any settings).
•   Once the server has finished loading, you'll automatically join the server.  There is no need to enter a username or password.  Your username is your Steam profile name.
•   Now that you're in-game, press Escape to go back to the main menu, and click the INVITE FRIENDS button.
•   Invite any of your friends that are currently online.  They will get a notification through Steam chat that they have been invited.
 
If you receive an invite to join a co-op server, simply click the link in Steam chat.  The game will launch if it wasn't running already.  You'll automatically join the co-op server.  There's no username or password needed.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on May 03, 2016, 07:51:35 PM
BACKPACK LATEST

So with the animation update now surging through the pipeline we’ve got anims that allow the player to take bags off their back, and rifle through the contents on the floor.

As well as looking pretty as they jiggle about – they’ll also make a significant gameplay difference. If you’re carrying a bag on your back you will, in most cases, be unable to go rooting around in it unless you first take it off and put it on the floor in front of you. This means there will be no more intensive backpack resorting done while wandering around, as well as making looting much more interesting, with the potential of a panicked looter leaving their bag behind if they are not observant.

Youtube video here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ-3773oSm4

[Note: in the anim cycle the strap currently disappears when the bag is taken off and reappears when it’s put back on. There aren’t any easy ways to avoid this, but with clothing worn and in-game it will be far, far less noticeable.]

Holding a bag in your hand will add the extra advantage of being able to interact with it without stopping, which will make bag management much more strategic. Finally we may be able to look into a few more traits to further increase player’s capability to interact quickly with backpacks, as well as provide different speeds based on the type and convenience of the bag used.


If you weren’t around for the previous bag vid then
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS6o2o44JHM
Title: Project Zomboid Spear and Gun Melee
Post by: Asid on June 06, 2016, 10:30:47 PM
Project Zomboid Spear and Gun Melee

W.I.P.

https://youtu.be/qihdLM1QdrQ

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Stardog765 on June 07, 2016, 02:29:45 AM
Thats real life brah!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 07, 2016, 05:00:43 AM
Thats real life brah!
That's some funny sh*t right there  ;D
Title: Zomboid - Operation Big Tree
Post by: Asid on June 13, 2016, 10:14:01 PM
Zomboid - Operation Big Tree

https://youtu.be/ddj7e9vUx6c

Here’s a quick video to show the new trees that are going into forests. It’s mainly a visual thing, sure, but we hope you agree that it’ll be a cool addition for those who favour wilderness.
Title: Project Zomboid 33% off @ GOG
Post by: Asid on June 18, 2016, 01:24:57 AM
(http://images.gog.com/844bac20026bcb6faf3d308fe9ad38365b3df6d1b5c4b74d0db309b426c997c5.png)


33% off @ GOG

£10.39     £6.99

https://www.gog.com/game/project_zomboid
Title: A quest for a moustache..
Post by: Asid on July 06, 2016, 01:38:46 PM
I saw this on Steam in the PZ discussion.... ;D


"A quest for a moustache...
I just need some black pixels between my nose and my lips."

http://steamcommunity.com/app/108600/discussions/0/358417008712440336/
Title: Project Zomboid Map Project
Post by: Asid on July 11, 2016, 10:42:26 PM
Project Zomboid Map Project

http://map.projectzomboid.com/

Blindcoder’s amazing PZ map project has a new home at http://map.projectzomboid.com/, so it’s all nice and official – albeit still under the strict custodianship of Mister Blindcoder. There’s still work to be done on the 2x overlays for some of the community maps, but BC is happy to throw the doors open to the general public, and asks for any issues to be reported on the PZ forums. As ever, our eternal thanks go out to Benjamin and his amazing work on this.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 18, 2016, 10:19:57 PM
(https://dub112.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=KKVe9MMrfj8QjcCpLWOqf%2bmHIch7rJo2GreH0TY1qEg%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fprojectzomboid.com%2fblog%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f07%2f108600_screenshots_20160708012714_1-712x462.jpg)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 25, 2016, 10:41:24 PM
(https://dub112.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=nlJy%2bjV2xMZIt66ymntf%2fYJGWbaE6iF4oxGq1%2fXC3jQ%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fprojectzomboid.com%2fblog%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f07%2f108600_screenshots_20160717035628_1-712x462.jpg)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 02, 2016, 04:51:24 AM
Female Skin WIP 01/08/16

https://youtu.be/O4a_HePFYnM

The ladies have been finished by Binky and have been passed over to Animator Martin to do the final stage of integrating the women, getting the clothing sized appropriately for them, making sure all the anims work okay with them etc. Here’s a WIP lady model vid, with a quick image for good measure. (Martin’s only received the female stuff today, so it’s all fairly rough at the present time.)


(http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/gasstationpic-712x462.jpg)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Stardog765 on August 02, 2016, 01:02:51 PM
Real life simulator brah!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 16, 2016, 08:34:15 PM
ANIMS

Unfortunately we’re still having problems getting the female models to behave. It’s a really odd problem and we’ve tried numerous things to get them to work properly in-game. We’re not sure if it may be something strange going on with the .X file exporter we’re using, but we have lit the beacons and are getting everyone together in the same office this week so we can have a better coordinated look under the hood to try and figure it out.

Work on the rest of the animation build is going well, though obviously the female bug hunting has taken up a lot of time we’ve still made progress in getting the rest of the build sorted. This is why we don’t do ETAs, as stuff like this always seems to glee in popping out of the woodwork as you approach the day you expect to release stuff.

Here’s a few images of ladies getting up to mischief without last week’s nightmare fuel. [The lady’s face will benefit from the different lighting in-game and isometric-ness btw, and we can probably play around with her textures too.]

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwMB1ZLU1AFSwEAAlA)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwMB1dLU1AFSwEAAlA)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwMB1BLU1AFSwEAAlA)



MAPPAGE

Mash’s work continues on the new residential area south of Muldraugh continues. Also back for a quick spell on mapping is EasyPickins, who has created a ‘tree noise generator’ to make the wilderness more random/realistic and less clumpy. Here’s a ‘before’ shot, and here’s one from ‘after’ – although these are only pines, and don’t show the new big trees either.

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwMB1FLU1AFSwEAAlA)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwMB1JLU1AFSwEAAlA)

This will impact on 90% of our current map cells on the overall PZ map – everything that hasn’t been manually updated basically. It will make all future groundwork for new areas a lot less troublesome for Binky.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: budd on August 17, 2016, 02:52:09 AM
I've only played the demo of PZ,  and havent played that in awhile.can you customize the controls now? That map looks good.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 17, 2016, 01:35:21 PM
I've only played the demo of PZ,  and havent played that in awhile.can you customize the controls now? That map looks good.

Hi budd

You can change/customise the key bindings. You can also use a controller. PZ has changed a lot.

Regards
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on September 12, 2016, 11:25:55 PM
PZ VoIP Test 2016 09 10


We’ve had the first drop of General Arcade’s VOIP-ed version of PZ! It still needs finetuning, polish, UI work and complex fiddling on the Mac/Linux versions but the first test carried out over the weekend revealed plenty of encouraging details, alongside spotlighting bugs for our Russian friends to fix.

In the words of Benjamin ‘Blindcoder’ Schieder, the man behind the PZ map: “One thing that immediately stood out was that positional sound works great! When another player ran circles around me I heard his voice shift from left headphone speaker to right and back. Very good! Another thing that worked was voices growing quieter with distance, but it currently does so too quickly.”

The video of the VOIP test is below, but please remember that this is very much a work in progress. [It’s also getting us quite excited about getting the system tied into Turbo’s in-game radios.]

https://youtu.be/nfF8kWwH50M

Uploaded on Sep 10, 2016
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 15, 2016, 03:46:12 PM
VOIP NOW IN-GAME (beta version)

This feature allows you to talk to your co-op friends and survivors you meet on MP servers. It’s not a general overall PZ chat channel, but instead allows survivors to communicate when they’re in ‘audible’ distance from each other on the map itself. We’re hoping that it will add some great new dynamics to the game when played with friends, and enemies.

To enable this venture into the options menu, then choose whether you want the system to broadcast when it automatically hears your dulcet tones – or through the press of a button (default: alt). Our thanks to General Arcade for all their amazing work on this.

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwNB11LU1UCSwEAAlA)

We’d like feedback on levels, the default distance from which players hear each other (though server admins have control over this) and general usability/bugs. In future we will look into the VOIP system allowing you to broadcast your voice through Turbo’s in-game radios, and maybe record as well.

Something else we’d like to do is have lower speech volumes when players are on different floors in the same building and, although it’s quite a way down an already hefty priority list, one day have a more sophisticated sound propagation model to deal with indoor-to-outdoor sound levels and large obstacles/walls that block hearing. For now though, it’ll be as-is with finetuning – although General Arcade are currently working on giving Admins the ability to talk between themselves, which will be added into a future 35 Build.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 15, 2016, 06:57:36 PM
Build 35 Released
15 December -

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/6ebc685095cda9b563714aef33fb1ba6e1eddacb.jpg)

Build 35 is here, and has a huge changelist.

New:
•   For now Nutrition is enabled on every difficulty to get some feedback, plan is to be enabled only on hard and hardcore difficulty once i balanced it completely
•   Added nights events, be carefull where you sleep, close the curtains and turn off the TV!
•   Big trees in wilderness
•   New SadisticAIDirector sandbox options
•   Added new skill books (first aid...)
•   New world filler for container (shelves, bar shelves...)
•   You can now build while having materials inside bags
•   Barricade action can take items from your backpacks   
•   Added missing object as bed (bar stool, barber chair...)
•   Added a new MP server option FastForwardMultiplier (default 40.0, min 1.0 max 100.0), define how much the time will accelerate when all players are sleeping
•   Zombies can now tears down your sheet rope
•   You now only have 40% chance of spawning with your house key
•   You now have a minor "chance" to spawn a new player with minor injury (could be bandaged), minor panic or a bit exhausted, won't happen in easy difficulty
•   Wet items (bath towel and dish cloth) will now dry themself after a while, a progress bar is in the tooltip to show you how much time left
•   Coffee and tea bag are now food items   
•   New Evolved recipe: Prepare Beverage, from a mug of water, add coffee or tea, sugar/honey/milk if you want and cook it!
•   You now can't destroy ashes with a sledgehammer, use a shovel to remove them instead
•   Lot of fruits and vegetables now have thirst reduction
•   Added a "Transfer All" button like the Loot All, it transfer everything in your current inventory that's not equipped/not a key ring/not favorite
•   You can now favorite items (right click on it, "Favorite") meaning they can't be transfered (expect inside your own inventory, ie put it in a bag/unpack it)
•   Updated credits     
•   Updated/Added lot of items tooltips
•   Highlight selected loot container in the world (color is currently orange, may subject to change)
•   You can now paint almost any interior walls of houses (tell me if i'm missing some!)
•   You can now paint your wooden furnitures (crates, chairs, table...)
•   Drainable item (water bottle, bag of coal, painting...) now reduce weight according to their remaining uses
•   Now spawn Extinguisher in shed and garage     
•   Dismantling a TV remote will now give a Receiver, used to craft remote trigger
•   Added various info UI (character creation, inventory, health/skill panel) to help newcomers, but feedback is always appreciated anyways 
•   Added Fruit Salad (make them from a bowl and add fruits!)
•   Park Ranger and Lumberjack now move faster in forest (park ranger more than lumberjack)
•   Now grab automatically items in the first aid kit (even when not equipped!) when using the health panel menu
•   You can now consolidate 2 drainables (eg. fill a not full petrol can with another, etc.)
•   Your character no longer climb over a fence when using context key ("e" by default) if it's on upper floor, you can still use right click -> climb over to do so
•   You can now make molotov with empty glass bottle (wine, whiskey) and petrol
•   Small mail box is now a container and can spawn newspaper and magazing (including profession magazine!)   
•   Drop your cooking pot, bowl, bucket or saucepan on the ground when it's raining and it'll fill automatically! (long process, even longer for the bowl or saucepan, because they're smaller)
•   Added black & red painting
•   Added Box of Jars, spawn in houseware store and groceries, open it to get 6 jars and jar lids
•   Added smoker trait: need to have a regular cigarette or start to gain stress/unhappyness
•   Cigarettes now gives less stress relief, no more unhappyness but give bit of sickness if not a smoker, on the other hand smoker get more "bonus" from having a smoke
•   Added a OnEat lua hook on Food items (called when eating the item, check cigarettes)
•   Display a "% full" of a zone when foraging
•   [MP] Admin: Log players spawn coordinates upon fully connecting.
•   [MP] Admin: Log players death coordinates. (in the user log if by zombies or in the pvp one)
•   [MP] Admin: Log incidences of the game removing "duped" items when a player tries to have both of them in inventory. (with coordinates)
•   [MP] Admin: Log players locations when logging off
•   [MP] Removed /grantadmin and /removeadmin commands, use now /setaccesslevel "username" "none" to remove an access level
•   [MP] Added a "display name" for users, can be changed by admin (your username/loggin/save still remain the same, but the name shown to the others player can be changed)
•   [MP] Admin staff will now have UI box when something important occurs in the world (detected cheats, player killed in pvp...) and can teleport to the place via a simple button
•   [MP] Added an admin panel, press "escape" while in game and click on "admin panel":
o   In this panel you can have a little SGBD: see/modify the database (only moderators and admin can modify)
o   Admin staff can also enable carpentry cheat: construct anything in carpentry menu instantly without materials (more "cheat" for admin are coming)
o   You can see a safehouses list
o   You can see a factions list
o   You can see/modify the server options
o   See/Modify "Non-PVP zone"
•   [MP] Added a transactionID on players, should stop copying/pasting save in multiplayer (server option: SaveTransactionID, default false)
•   [MP] Added a server option to save the player status after he gets hit (PlayerSaveOnDamage option)
•   [MP] Added users log:
o   Everytime something weird occurs (lua checksum, cheat detected...) a log is added, admin staff can see them easily in the admin panel
o   Admin can also add log to keep trace of stuff
o   Added also a warning points system: admin staff can add warning point to a user (with a reason) so they can have a trace of players having bad behavior
•   Added a Multiplayer tab in the option screen:
o   You can display or not your username (works only for you, others will always see your username if the server options said so)
o   Change your username/speach color (it's now persistant!)
•   [MP] Admin: Added a /teleportto command, use it to teleport to coordinates, ex: teleportto 10607,9462,0
•   [MP] New access level for admins, check this:
•   [MP] Added a player stats UI, admin and moderator can now change a player's stats (name, surname, nickname, traits, professions, experience, ...)
•   [MP] Admin and moderator can now setup a tag name + a color for this tag (will appears like: [Coder] RJ)
•   [MP] Admins can now mute the /all chat for a player (do this from the playuer stats UI)
•   Auto set keys to azerty keyboard if azerty language (only french? meh.) detected
•   Allow key replacement in the option screen (if you type a key that's already in use, you can switch values via a simple modal dialog)
•   Changed default resolution from 1024x768 to the max possible (according to your screen, max is 1920x1080, set to 4K directly in option)
•   You can now pass through green hedge, but it slows you a lot (zombies included ;))
•   [MP] Added "Non PVP Zone" for admin
o   From the admin panel, you can manage your non pvp zone
o   Add, remove, change title of a zone easily with this new UI
o   To add a zone, click on "add new zone", then you draw a rectangle with your character (you'll see a green rectangle as you move, this is the non pvp zone you're creating) once you're done, click on "create new zone" to finalize.
o   Everyone inside this zone can't shoot or be shoot people, they also can't use melee attacks on others, you can still fight zombies
•   [MP] Added a safehouse UI for players (and/or admin):
o   Once you've claimed a safehouse, right click it while inside it and choose "View Safehouse"
o   From there you can addremove players in it (with list of connected players)
o   Change safehouse title (new thing!)
o   Change ownership (again new!)           
•   [MP] Admin staff now have unlimited weight capacity
•   [MP] A safehouse now need to have a bedroom (can't claim police station etc...)
•   [MP] Added DisableSafehouseWhenPlayerConnected server options, if true it make safehouse not safe (you can enter/loot it) while someone from this safehouse is connected and some times after he disconnect   
•   Added lot of new things to translate.
•   New map areas for survivors to discover! We want the community to discover these together, so all we'll say for now is that to find them you go in a generally south-western direction from Muldraugh. If you see a new road, follow it!
•   [MP] Faction
o   Create your faction from the user panel (press escape while in game to see it), admins can use FactionDaySurvivedToCreate options to make players needs to survive some days before creating one
o   Add a tag (4 letters) and choose a color for it, it'll be show over your head (or not, use the faction panel to disable your tag for players outside of your faction)
o   Admins can use FactionPlayersRequiredForTag option to set a minimum of number of players in the faction before crerating a tag
o   Disable PVP for players of your faction from the faction panel! Be carefull though, as it only works for melee, firearm will still hurt them if you enable pvp
•   From the user panel, players can now also send tickets to communicate with admins
•   Admin can answer and manage those tickets, players will see the answer.
•   VOIP!
o   VOIP lets you talk to your co-op friends and survivors you meet on MP servers.
o   It’s not a general overall PZ chat channel, but instead allows survivors to communicate when they’re in ‘audible’ distance from each other on the map itself.
o   To enable VOIP enter the options menu, then choose whether you want the system to operate via Voice Activation or through the press of a button (default: left alt).
•   Added lot of new zone for foraging (not 100% is done yet)
•   Added a "Known Recipes" on the crafting UI, showing total recipes you can do and how many left to discover
 
Alarm clocks/Sleeping tweaks:
•   Your alarm clock and digital watches are now usefull to wake you up!
•   Without them, you'll wake up only when your character is not tired anymore
•   Set the time to ring the alarm, enable it and you're good.
•   And don't forget to turn off the alarm...
•   Your character can have trouble falling asleep, meaning he could wake up still a bit tired
•   You'll not be able to sleep if you're in pain or panicked (you can counter this with sleeping pills...), while being anxious could bring some nightmares...
•   Clock (top right screen) is hidden if you don't have an alarm clock or a digital watch in your inventory
 
Disassembling:
•   You can now scavenge (disassemble) world items (chair, shelves...) to obtain materials
•   This often require tools and skills, low skill could end in the destruction of the item
•   Metal welding:
•   Craft various objects from walls to fences, windows... In metal!
•   You'll need a blowtorch (works on propane) and a metal welding mask in order to craft anything involving metal
•   You can also barricade your windows and door with metal plates or metal bars
 
Multiple stage building:
•   You're now able to upgrade your constructions if you have to appropriate skills
•   It'll take some materials to upgrade your constructions and you need the right skill (ex: you build a wall lvl 1, then hit lvl 4 carpentry, right click on the wall and upgrade it!)
•   You now first need to build a frame (wooden or metal) before building a wall or a window.
 
Added sleeping quality:
•   Sleeping on a good bed could reduce the needed time to sleep a tad
•   On the other hand, sleeping on a chair or some couch could make you tired even after waking up (understand you had a bad night, trouble to fall asleep..) and some pain in the neck
•   You can't sleep if too much in pain or anxious, take some sleeping pills to counter this     
 
Added compost:
•   Build them from the carpentry menu, under furniture
•   Put food in it, when the food is rotten it'll start to transform slowly into compost, more or less depending on it's hunger value
•   When the compost is at least 10% full, you can grab some compost with an empty sandbag
•   Then use the compost just like the fertilizer, it'll make your farming plants grow faster!
 
Inventory Experimental Tweaks:
•   Goal: make it feel more like a windows explorer
•   Using "shift" key now select a list and not a single item (you first select an item, press shift and another item, it'll select everything between your first selection and your second)
•   Using "control" key now select one more item/unselect in the list, just like the "shift" key did before
•   Increased a tad the highlighted white rectangle of selected items
•   Unselect items when clicking outside the inventory
•   Ctrl key (or anything you binded on "Aim") still stop moving the camera when inside the inventory
                       

Balancing
•   Balanced nutrition, weight progression should be more linear... (really need feedback on this one ;))
•   Adjusted zombie behaviour in terms of night-time house lighting
•   Changed way "lucky" and "unlucky" traits works, changed the way lower odds, it's now a fixed % instead of weird numbers calculation.
•   Renamed "Build" menu into "Carpentry"
•   Chef and Burger flipper can't take the "Cook" trait
•   You can now find watches sometimes directly on dead zombies
•   Claustophobic panic will now depend on the room size + Capped it so beta effect still works
•   Made some fixes in the tutorial/improve it.     
•   "EXIT" -> "QUIT", "RETURN" -> "RESUME" in Main menu
•   Trap Stick -> Stick Trap   
•   Barricade context menu becomes now Barricade (Planks)
•   Falling take your weight, athleticism and type of floor to calcul fracture/damage done
•   Falling more than three storeys is always fatal
•   Reduced how the stats multiplier sandbox option impact fatigue in easy difficulty
•   Stairs planks and nails requirement increased from 8 to 15   
•   Tweaked a bit how the fire spread, should less spread/start on non desired tiles (roads...)
•   Increrase weight of mattress from 2 to 8
•   Inventory context button: drop all/drop one/unpack is now Drop all/Drop one/Unpack
•   Rest option is now possible even with no exertion moodle
•   Boredom/Unhappyness no longer increase while reading
•   Digging hole for farming now drain much less fatigue
•   Removed electrician skill requirement to pick up fridge but increased their weight from 30 to 40
•   Reduced move speed even more when carrying heavy objects
•   Scale endurance loss while running being heavy loaded with current weight
•   Now also reduce endurance if you're walking while heavy loaded   
•   Beans Bowl now have happyness reduction just like the open can of beans, cook the bowl to remove the happyness debuff
•   Increased planks and nails required to build wooden crates from 2 to 3   
•   Renamed "Empty Sang Bag" into "Sack"
•   Increrased the time for a rotten food to totally disapear (x10)
•   Food poisonning (from eating rotten food) is now tied to it's hunger reduction (meaning bigger items poison you more), it's generally less than before
•   Generators will now drain more or less fuel depending on how much electrical objects they're plugged on
•   Use 2 nails instead of 1 to barricade a window with a plank
•   Balanced how XP is given for recipes: lot of cooking recipes has been tweaked, opening jars/etc won't give xp while making bread etc will give more
•   Same for sawing log, it now gives 3 xp if your woodwork level is under 3, but only 1 xp point then
•   Stress now reduce the damage done by your weapons (shaking hands..)
•   Being stressed for a while start to increase unhappyness
•   Changed paperclip weight from 0.1 to 0.03 (same as nails)
•   Changed notebook weight from 1 to 0.5

Bug Fix
•   Fixed a bug in eating food ("can't eat more" sometimes wouldn't appears, thanks vanorfeadiel!)
•   Now reduce nutrition value to pasta and rice when put in a saucepan or pot
•   Now remove curtains if a windows burn
•   Fixed wrong burnt fencing on some fencing
•   If you killed zero or one zombie, write "zombie" and not "zombies" in the death screen.
•   Pot of soup and stew from evolved recipes now reduce thirst
•   Fixed thirst not changed when pouring soup/stew into bowls   
•   Firing a firearm don't give blunt maintenance and guard XP anymore
•   Soup from canned soup now also reduce thirst   
•   Changed "SMall" chest to "Small" chest
•   Stop spawning double bag + stuff when choosing easy and a starter kit (first week or sandbox)
•   Can't barricade wooden fences
•   Fixed a bug making you're health not decreasing if starving
•   Now take the weapon needed from the container if needed when upgrading/removing upgrade on it (thanks Snakeman!)
•   You can now barricade with planks if nails were inside one of your backpacks
•   Fixed a bug when sometimes the paint menu appears empty of painting
•   Removed inaccurate ping in top left of the screen (+ key binding)
•   Fixed some translation problems (button not aligned, etc... Thanks Teesee!)
•   Fixed making sheet rope invisible when building a wall over it
•   Fixed ultra fast stomp glitch
•   [MP] Create the servertest.ini even in dedicaced server (not only in host)

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 20, 2016, 01:14:00 AM
MAP STUFF

Blindcoder anticipates that the new areas of Rosewood, March Point, the Rosewood Prison complex and all the rural areas in-between will be a part of the main Project Zomboid Mapping Project next week  https://map.projectzomboid.com/ . Updates to the PZ online map require a lot of time and processing power, due to the vastness and detail of what’s being hosted.

Until then there’s a good annotated map on the TIS forum http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwNAVZLU1QCSwEAAlA , while the recent release of our CartoZed tool means that there are now handy ‘standard’ maps available for your viewing pleasure. Rosewood is NW, March Ridge is SE.

(http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/new-area-landscape.png)






Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on January 30, 2017, 07:13:53 PM
Where're The NPCs?

nasKo  Officer 2 Jan

Since it keeps coming up, a little update on this.

Once the animation build has finally found its way out to the stable branch, we will explain our future schedule that will see pretty much all the so far promised yet unreleased features begin to drop into hopefully subsequent builds.

It's the 5 step roadmap that we have mentioned before, which is currently covering 5 hopefully consecutive builds all containing things that people have been looking forward to (including NPCs).

Make no mistake, we are perfectly aware of the frustration the wait has caused and understand that it can also seem like no work has been done on NPCs when you as the players can't see the progress we are making.
In the background, we've had plenty of work carried out on the promised big features, though.

As we've mentioned before, each and every step of the 5 stage roadmap provides big and meaningful features while simultaneously laying the foundation for the next stage.
Animations are the first fundamental stage of this plan.
Also, each stage will allow us to release the stuff that's been piling up and that we’ve been constructing in the background for a long time, piece by piece instead of one huge mess, making it easier to manage, test, bug fix and polish them up one by one.

I am sorry that we are so silent on NPCs and other features people are waiting for, but after all these years, we have learned quite some lessons by mentioning them and we keep on learning.

Tl;dr: The silence will have an end once animations are out.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on February 27, 2017, 05:06:28 PM
V for Victor (and Vehicles)

Vehicles


A big milestone today as vehicles officially went into closed testing, which is a big step toward getting them out there to you all. They aren’t completely finished yet–There will undoubtedly be bugs to fix reported by our testers, and at the moment there is only a test model, a blue pickup-truck with an oddly placed wheel on the bumper, in the game. The cool vehicle models Martin has been pumping out still need to be implemented, and on a cosmetic level some additional work needs doing on the lighting to make them appear less uniformly lit and a bit more metallic in appearance, we may bump up their size a little too, but they are getting close and all the heavy lifting has been done.

Feedback so far shows that the streaming seems to work extremely well, and the vehicles controls and handles surprisingly well considering the isometric perspective. You use a radial menu to start the car, rolling down windows, turn on the heater, change seats, or play with the car radio. It’s also extremely fun running over zombies–as you can imagine!

We’ll save on the videos until we get more cars implemented and feel an IWBUMS is more imminent (also, as cool as it looks already it’s a bit odd to see neighbourhoods of blue pickup trucks!) but here are a few pics to whet your appetite.

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFB1YOHVMFBk4FA1EO)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFB1cHHVMFBk4FA1EO)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFB1cGHVMFBk4FA1EO)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 07, 2017, 01:03:40 AM
Mondoid - Here In My Car


(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/veh-712x459.png)

So, what are we looking at? Physics-enhanced vehicles in Project Zomboid, both online and off, and some hefty improvements on map streaming and object processing to handle it all. You enter a car with ‘E’, control with WSAD and have various vehicley-options open to you through a radial menu when you’re in the driver’s seat.
We’ve had the vehicles branch on the boil for a while (alongside the usual anims branch, standard build branches and a few others) but this year’s work in melding of EP’s car physics and framework with General Arcade’s special sauce has seen great things occurring. Progress has been good this past week too (as you can hopefully tell from comparing this video with one recorded five or six days ago) and we’re really excited about how the vehicles look and feel to drive. There have already been tests in multiplayer that went very well, with the new map streaming changes working niftily and boding well for future optimization.


https://youtu.be/vlJzeCB4Vow


So what’s still to be done amidst the general bug fixing? Well, in amongst others and the tidying up of zombie collision visuals – the following:
•   Firstly, and most importantly, we need to make sure that we’re not introducing a new breed of indestructo-tanks to Project Zomboid. We have to make sure that survival times aren’t hugely extended by cars, and that their use carries as many negatives as positives for the players. Also we need to figure out a good balance between zombie squashing fun and the realism Zomboid tends toward, avoiding the vehicles being too OP and sturdy against groups of zombies, while still providing the satisfaction of mowing down zombies in bigger vehicles.
•   There’s an issue to resolve with how cars are drawn into the scene, sometimes resulting in weird draw sorting bugs with ground grass or zombies drawn in front of the car when they should be blocked by it. This is due to the fact that currently 3D models are drawn at the same time as the tile they are ‘stood’ on. This doesn’t cater for larger 3D objects very well, so we’ll need to think on how to handle this and make sure they all occlude each other correctly.
•   The current sounds of the vehicles are 100% placeholder, and we’ll be working on these before release.
•   More cars! This video is fairly packed with ‘speciality’ vehicles, and Martin is currently in the process of making more vehicles to provide more variety and/or Kentucky normality.
•   Balancing: Each vehicle type needs balancing not only on their rarity, but in terms of handling, top speed, and all the other factors to make them feel different to drive. Right now, apart from their size and wheel positions, they are all functionally identical.
•   Wrecks and pile-ups: At the moment all cars spawn in parked locations, neatly parked in car parks or outside homes. We need to add wrecks, abandoned vehicles, pile ups and other more apocalyptic set ups of cars while also keeping in-touch with what Will’s set up in the PZ lore.

OTHER STUFF
•   RingoD has patched up the faults in the TIS-curated community map Bedford Falls that were introduced through the 2x revolution. It should now be fully playable and can return to general PZ MP server use. Download here.
•   Turbo has updated his modding and dev tool ItemZed, along with some fresh easier-to-read instructions that explain how you too can play around with recipes, items, looting locations and lots lots more.
•   Mapper Cardenaglo’s crazy/awesome Gaia is out in its first form. Do check it out!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 13, 2017, 05:19:22 PM
Mondoid - In My Garage

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Guenni-712x462.jpg)
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.

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Martin-small-car.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on April 11, 2017, 02:20:50 PM
Project Zomboid with vehicles - VERY EARLY TEST BUILD

https://youtu.be/9Fhc2WwYpyI

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

https://youtu.be/NKAXSADiUtU
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 13, 2017, 02:59:03 PM
You will soon be able to dig graves

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFBlQCHVMEAE4FA1EO)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 22, 2017, 02:10:13 PM
Spiffo’s Speakeasy
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Spiffo-SpeakEasy-712x462.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 15, 2017, 09:04:41 PM
Attila & I in a session.  Attila started to make out with the zombie woman :shocker

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/850469194753854201/350512FD16892EC8AE775EA9B46FB5BB728ED635/)


(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/850469194753852327/F99A19181A426852591848E29B8934B4C0D5FA3E/)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Frankie on July 16, 2017, 04:34:12 PM
Where's Woody Harrelson when you need him.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid 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
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 19, 2017, 12:04:28 AM
Thank you George Romero
18 July - EnigmaGrey

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/3da5e09f36509e05c5b96ec931f12efecce43af6.png)

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:

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/%5EBEAC7CC042D5107642010F3C045B9EE0855D37A8B376BB243B%5Epimgpsh_fullsize_distr-300x196.jpg)

•   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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 15, 2017, 01:00:12 AM
(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/boop-712x462.jpg)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFBlYBHVMLB04FA1EO)

(http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFBlYAHVMLB04FA1EO)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on September 22, 2017, 12:35:25 AM
Behold the Thursdoid
18 SEPTEMBER

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nice-house-712x462.jpg)

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!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on September 22, 2017, 12:38:39 AM
Thursdoid Rising
21 SEPTEMBER   

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Thursdoid-Rising-712x462.jpg)

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

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ModernCar01.png)

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Truck_Fire.png)

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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid 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 (https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/tracker/projects/1/). Thank you!

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/scenic-grove.jpg)

Version 38: The Pre-Vehicles Build

Riverside Map Expansion

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nice-room-1.jpg)

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

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/comparison-map.png)

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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid 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!
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Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid 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:


(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/old-dash-300x48.jpg)

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


(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/dash-solo-300x76.png)

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzpGqFN4kac

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.


(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/silverton.png)

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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 23, 2017, 05:52:10 PM
Something in the Air
Project Zomboid - EnigmaGrey

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/7478adbf03b80179e758502909a0d1a41580e625.jpg)

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:

https://youtu.be/clZrKB7FfVk

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.

https://youtu.be/oKT8LZ9t3mg

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.

https://youtu.be/p4LkjPi2dBM

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?
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 31, 2017, 05:17:14 PM
Zombies in the Stream
15 DECEMBER   - ENIGMAGREY

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/5037cc734513c6ec57189534fbf55b6267e1adf5.jpg)

Hey all. Current PZ thinking is to get final features into Build 39 (current Vehicles beta) as soon as we can – then concentrate on bug fixing, polish and further optimization in the new year. Outstanding features include injuries to player in car crashes, a few more Mechanics components/repairs, better SFX and Turbo’s new fog/snow effects seen below. There are a few threads popping up now detailing how cars are changing people’s play-styles and mixing in some new fun elements, so it would appear that we are on the right track.


VEHICLES BETA
Vehicles Test Build 30 has been released – and its full patch notes can be found here[theindiestone.com]. The biggest change in this is probably the addition of BitBaboon Steve’s optimization to map streaming – which removes locks between game threads when it comes to chunk loading. This should make for a smoother ride for our testers.


This said, there’s still work to do – our internal build was running with a better FPS in West Point so we need to do a smidge of digging today, while Steve needs to figure out a few remaining locks. After which the next optimization improvement will likely be in the zombies themselves. Zed attention is currently called in to cars over a wide radius which (while difficulty still needs balancing) still has too big an impact on performance in high population scenarios than we’d like.


Elsewhere, Vehicles 30 also introduces WIP collision detection for road furniture, and damaged sprites from Mash to accompany them. This work isn’t complete, and we’d like any weird behaviour reported. Mail boxes, stop signs, garbage bins etc will now appear as damaged when hit at the correct speed.

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/ff9e708d0b30d61bcb37fff8d65dd7f6fb6439dd.jpg)

In terms of other new content (generally Thursdoided last week[projectzomboid.com]) there’s a bunch of new stuff for the Mechanic skill – from which we’d like to get some more feedback if possible. There are now Mechanic skill books, a lug wrench for removing tires, Mufflers to impact on vehicle noise and an update to the key system that gives the key-bearing driver an icon above their head when close to the vehicle. Likewise keys are now visible in the ignition, and to more clearly demark which car they belong to are coloured the same as the car’s paint job.


Annoying bugs fixed include railings now rendering properly, shoved zeds no longer being drawn behind walls, furniture being rotate-able again and walls no longer obscuring the player on staircases. In general game-wide fixes, meanwhile, trapping has now been fixed – alongside a bunch of longstanding recipe and crafting oddities.


FOGGY BIZNESS
Turbo reports that his fog and snow effects are almost ready for integration into the vehicles beta and proffers this car-starring video as proof.


https://youtu.be/PpFkEuSnJuc


ANIMS
In terms of Animation work, as we haven’t mentioned it in a while, Bitbaboon Mark currently has the existing anims working with a skinned mesh renderer – which as we’ve mentioned before means that dev-side we can toggle between the two and make progress without breaking anything. This also means that as we bind in the rest of the new anim code, Mark’s Animzed dev/modding tool and start to optimize to cope in densely populated areas then we’ll be able to be a lot more visible in terms of progress.


As ever, we understand the frustration that all this remains out of reach while the rest of the team beaver away on vehicles – but we have the right people doing the right stuff backstage. Likewise we have an ever-growing catalogue of models to flesh out the game world from Martin when general work moves on from vehicles and into the builds beyond.


MODDERING
Connall, alongside being king of the small suggestions thread, is now the overseer of The Modder’s Wishlist[theindiestone.com] – requests from the modding community for documentation and small tweaks to game code that will make their lives easier. The first part of this mission, meanwhile, has been in curating this reference list of lua events[theindiestone.com]. Connall is also regularly available in the modding channel on Discord should anyone need pointing in the right direction for anything.


Today’s hail of bullets from John. 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 Centralized 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. ShylokVakarian’s Great Loot Search remains open[theindiestone.com], meanwhile, and oh man: how good is this Wild West map starting to look[steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net]?
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 31, 2017, 05:19:01 PM
Slay Bells Ringing
21 DECEMBER   - ENIGMAGREY

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/7ab0cd5834e950f3040080627858b25ffb5aac39.jpg)

Merry Christmas survivors, joy to the world and all that business. With opening sentence festiveness over then, let’s see where we’re at with a few things.


VEHICLES BUILD 31

Vehicles Build 31 is out now, and is primarily one of bug-fixing – with corrections, balancing and optimizations being the primary focus as work towards pushing vehicles toward stability and their public release.


We’ve still got some work to do with remaining MP sync issues, which Yuri is currently addressing, and there’s an annoying rooftop rendering regression bug to address still – but general issues covered in this latest public test build include: disappearing skill books, lock syncs, giganto cars on 1x tiles, everlasting street lights and various issues related to vehicle loot.


In Build 30 zombies were also given the ability to set off house alarms when swarming a house and breaking windows – but we’ve turned this off until we’ve looked ‘zombie awareness’ optimization in the new year. People did seem to be enjoying the added chaos to the first few hours of the game, however, so it’s been made available as a sandbox option.


ZED OPTIMIZATION

The combination of BitBaboon Steve’s map streaming smoothening and ChrisW’s work with the non-rendering unseen tiles has resulted in a far more playable games when it comes to the vehicle build – with the biggest strain on performance now being the zombies themselves.


In towns and densely populated scenarios the combination of players covering large distances more quickly and their vehicles having wide radius of zombie attraction means that more zombies are being stirred up than ever before.


Yuri, then, has been investigating the best ways to optimize their heightened enervation – to give us some wiggle room when it comes to difficulty and zed population without sacrificing FPS. He’s even done some graphs like this[projectzomboid.com] or that seen below:


(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/6467645e3c6f9f69d02a097f583c1f767927afcc.jpg)


Right now zombies will ‘walk towards’ sounds they hear in a straight line, until they hit a fence, wall or building. At this point they enter a more costly ‘PathFindState’ that will direct them towards the player, which in all honesty isn’t very zombie-like in any case. As the above graph shows, with hundreds of zombies responding to car sounds at long range this is causing major lag in areas like West Point.


To improve this over Christmas Yuri will be creating a ‘WalkAroundBuildingState’ which will be used for any zombies outside of close range of the player (off-screen to a SP player). This will be a simplified version of the traditional zed pathfinding that funnels them along a building’s wall in a direction that brings them closest to the player, going back into ‘walk toward’ when they have circled the building.


As such zombies will be able to navigate past buildings without dragging processor power, while still displaying suitable dumb zombie behaviours to MP onlookers, or the player themselves if they are watching a horde following a distraction or a house alarm.


ANIMS


As of the public release of the vehicles build we’ll have the full animation system lying dormant in the released code, waiting to be turned on bit-by-bit in the test versions that follow.


Right now it’s all behaving better than expected – but has a sweep of bug-fixes required that’ve either appeared during the grand unification process and the introduction of Bitbaboon Mark’s tool-based ‘AnimZed’ editing and implementation.


As you can see in this vid, for example, for some reason vehicles (despite being drivable and tinkerable) aren’t visible – and elsewhere the player character turns into a squiggly nightmare when climbing through windows, and can often snap a full 360 which looks decidedly strange.


Once these kinks are ironed out Mark will be moving onto optimizing these processes (the focus has been on getting stuff working, with the tightening of loose nuts and bolts to come later) while Martin can concentrate on improving visuals – and maybe have a model for a trouser-wearing male that doesn’t look quite so… tight-fit and 1980s.


A full sanity data pass of the entire data set will also be required soon, so Mark will no doubt be calling on his Technical Director management skill-set to get a full export/validate system going with Martin to get it done quickly and easily.


Today’s supermarket sweep from persol. 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 Centralized 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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Selva on January 08, 2018, 11:29:05 AM
The PZ devs are great people. Very dedicated to their project. I love PZ and it's, surely, in my top 5 favorite games of all times. It's a game that i don't get bored definely and i always get back to it from time to time.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on January 08, 2018, 02:37:48 PM
PZ is very immersive and one of the best zombie survival games IMHO.  :zombiewalkright It has changed so much with constant additions. The dev team are good.

It is also great in multiplayer  :thumbsup
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on January 16, 2018, 06:03:31 PM
Spiffospaced
11 JANUARY   - NASKO

(https://i.imgur.com/0hOeaR3.png)

Ello all. Hope you’re well.

Vehicles Spiffospace Test Server
We’ve reached a point at which we need a place for MP vehicles testers to hang out, drive cars, bash zombies and report bugs. With that in mind, then, the Spiffospace server has been revived[theindiestone.com] – and is accessible from the vehicles beta server list. Please post feedback in the server thread, and bugs in the tracker.

There will almost certainly be crashes and lag issues that we’ll need to sort over the coming weeks, so some patience is required, but initial testers are reporting that they’re having a lot of fun. We’ll keep the server up and running as long as possible, and avoid resets as much as we can, and a little further down the line this is the server that’ll be used for Community Megatests too.

We’re currently on Vehicles Build 31.2[theindiestone.com] and 31.3 will follow tomorrow – loot sync issues have improved in these builds, but Yuri has also just committed a fix for loot that could be lost/duplicated when two players were in the same inventory space at the same time. (We’ll be resetting the Spiffospace server once this released, with some player-requested new time settings etc too.)

In terms of the vehicles build itself RJ is now back and working on bugs and XP balance, while resident artist Mash is working on a more final version of the Mechanics Skill vehicle UI overlay. Another issue we’re dealing with is coming up with a way to prevent players locking their own vehicle keys in the trunk – which, while providing some hilarious anecdotes from testers, probably isn’t the optimum situation.


Vehicle SFX
Our optimization guru Bitbaboon Steve recently revealed that he has a bunch of experience in working with vehicle noises over the years. He’s done sound work on vehicles for big games by folks like Atari, Ubisoft and Disney so it seemed wise to pass the audio baton over to him.  The current car sounds have been crappy for too long in the vehicles beta, and this should get them done well and efficiently.

“Right now I’m adding support to the audio code to allow me to pitch shift samples” explained Steve when we nudged him. “This will mean that we can take four steady samples from the vehicle idling through to it going fast – and then let me set the volume / pitch so there’s a seamless blend through the whole RPM range.”

(https://i.imgur.com/ozUmnH4.jpg)

“This will then be hooked up directly to the vehicle simulation to provide a basic vehicle sound. Once it’s complete I’ll add an additional on/off ‘load’ so the vehicles sound different when accelerating and stressing the engine when compared to players easing off the accelerator. After this I’ll then find different sound sets to use for the different varieties of car – sports, truck etc.”


Anims
Our goal is to have anims in a state that’s ready for us to jump straight into once vehicles are wrapped. Right now, in the unified anims build that’ll be used as a base for the releases beyond vehicles, Bitbaboon Mark has fixed up mesh rendering with new system – so we can now see anim models alongside vehicles and judge how they size up against each other. [Screenshot taken before the wheels bug had been worked out though!]

(https://i.imgur.com/LCfp6rm.png)

Next up he’s adding some extra anim debug info that’ll let him display anim state info about each character in the world – which will help Animator Martin and himself track down exactly when the system bugs out / gets stuck. AnimZed, the tool that will allow us/modders to edit anim states live to the game is doing its job fine but still needs some functionality issues ironed out – after which the sanity/data pass that we mentioned in previous blogs can get going.


Zed pathfinding
Performance in the vehicles build is currently pretty okay, apart from when the wider sound radius of moving vehicles attracts the attention of a whole bunch of zeds – which then knocks into FPS repercussions.

To address this, then, EP is experimenting with the implementation of a C++ navigation mesh to find paths to replace the Java version we currently have – which will both remove some memory from the heap, and also dispense with the ‘thinking time’ of zombies who’ve lost their way far more quickly than our current set-up.

(https://i.imgur.com/VdcEM5y.png)

Other stuff
•   Zomboid won’t have Steam achievements for a while yet, and so PZ modding hero Nolan has stepped in to provide for all those who love the sweet caress of a cheevo notification. Check it out, and make suggestions, here.
•   RingoD has written a guide for map-makers with some simple steps[theindiestone.com] as to how to update maps to handle the roof occlusion system.
•   Our fair RingoD has also provided some guidelines for mappers who want to add car spawn zones to maps in preparation for the release of the vehicles build which can be found here[theindiestone.com].


Today’s rooftop gunning from Anima Chimère du Chaos [FR[/url]]. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept[url] 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[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.
As previously mentioned, ShylokVakarian’s Great Loot Search study is still ingoing here[theindiestone.com].Fanks!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on February 22, 2018, 10:59:37 PM
Hunt for the Wilderdoid

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/wanktarded-712x462.jpg)

Hey all. Here’s the news on what’s happening with current/forthcoming builds from Zomboid HQ.

We’ve got public Vehicles beta 37 just about ready to drop – it includes:

•   Work that stems from our friendly Technical Director favourite uncle Bitbaboon Steve on our netcode – intended to address MP lag via the discovery of elements of vehicle data clogging up the pipes, and the way that server saves work. We’ve also put some extra work into being more strict with what the game considers as physics objects, which should cut down on memory and processing. (Internally we’re seeing some higher FPS read-outs from built up areas like West Point, and we’d be very interested to hear if this is replicated on beta tester set-ups come release).

•   New map areas filling in countryside, farms and smaller settlements between West Point and Riverside, and March Ridge and Rosewood. This includes new town zones and foraging zones, especially around Riverside – alongside missing map elements in that town, and general decoration map-wide. A few secret areas will be hiding in amongst it all too.

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/newplace2-768x484.jpg)

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/newplace3-768x450.jpg)

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/newplace1-768x417.jpg)

•   In terms of gameplay – tire pressure’s impact on speed has been nerfed significantly, while we’ve also polished the Mechanic UI to give clearer indications of success/failure via visuals and SFX. A fair amount of irritation caused by dual keybindings (on foot vs. in vehicle key functions) will also be cleared up.

•   Connall, fresh from zoning the new map, is now coming back to the ‘Small But Important’ Community Request thread – while elsewhere the general bug blitz continues when it comes to vehicle textures, item transfer speeds, crawlers damaging vehicles and zombies attacking the relevant part of the car where you’re visible to them (or were last visible to them) as opposed to banging on the driver door. The annoying issue of occasional item loss has also been tracked down and, hopefully, consigned to oblivion.

•   New vehicle SFX for vans and higher performance vehicles are part of the new build. Although, with this said, these still aren’t perfect – so we have found someone who works at a friend’s game studio who’s created a procedural engine sound system – which means we can obtain custom engine loops for different car types to feed into Bitbaboon Steve’s new code. This means that we no longer have to dredge internet sound banks, or consider making actual vehicle recordings ourselves – and likewise will make the process easier when adding new vehicles, and hopefully noisier industrial/military vehicles, later on down the line.

Vehicle beta 37 had been aimed for a Thursday release but internal testing has revealed some FPS hitches in MP as well as occasional unsightly streaks that would likely annoy. We’ll release when these irritations are nixed, and have Uncle Bitbaboon Steve on duty tomorrow to help improve stuff further too.

Outside this more imminent work on vehicles coding continues for the builds ahead including Bitbaboon Mark preparing the animation system so we can move over to it in the versions beyond vehicles, Turbo back with us and working on his improved snow/fog/mist and general weather upgrade, and General Arcade’s Stas working on our new chat/admin system for MP.

(With the latter we’re slightly changing tack and opting for a less multi-tabbed variant, and have also compiled a checklist for Stas to ensure that all the commands/features are in-keeping with what’s expected from MP in this day and age so we hit the ground running with something we’re pleased with. It should still be ready to drop into testing once vehicles are done.)

While discussing this with Stas, the issue of PZ text appearing really small on high resolution screens came up – itself something we know we have to deal with, and hope to as a part of our upgrade to lwjgl3. In the mean-time, however, if you have issues then as a part of our conversations EnigmaGrey also came up with this nifty Big Freakin’ Font mod – that’ll help with high res and couch play users. Let us know how you get on with it.

This week’s snowfield caper from Wanktarded. 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. Fanks!

Little Green Dot versus The Evil Red Dots

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 03, 2018, 12:52:10 AM
SirenZ -- Project Zomboid's Thursdoid

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/sirenZ-712x462.jpg)

Hey all. Here’s the current goings-on over in Zomboid Towers.

CURRENT VEHICLES BETA:

We’ve just released Vehicles Build 37 – and it’s got quite a long changelist given as a case of the judders held back last Thursday’s release. You can see the full version details, and find details on how to join the beta, in this thread.

Vehicles are easily the biggest technology upgrade that PZ has had since its inception – and Build 37 builds on work already complete by including the MP lag work we mentioned last week directed by our Technical Director friend BitBaboon Steve, but now also has had a lot of improvements to our map/chunk streaming both online and off, and a big change in how our game handle’s Java’s jolt-inducing ‘garbage collection’. To this end aspects of it remain fairly experimental, in that they work nicely behind closed doors but require wider testing – which is where you guys and your bug/performance/gameplay reports come in.

We’ve also made some changes to how the frame compensation is handled, and have fixed issues with the framerate smoothing which resulted in time slowing down during gameplay, which led to occasional uneven gameplay and treacley movement in a few recent builds. Instead the game may occasionally hitch for a frame, whereas before it might drag the framerate and game speed down for a second or more.

This far more mild hitch is something we can tackle later on, in general the smoothness of gameplay should more than make up for it. Beyond this other highlights of the build follow, some which we mentioned last week – others have been added to the version as the week goes on.

•   Mash’s map expansion that fills in many of the gaps between our major towns and zombie troublespots – which will hopefully allow for vehicle exploration and more out-of-town hideaways and safehouses. [Here’s that map showing the general areas you’ll be able to find new stuff.]
•   Item and bag loss bug tracked down and patched, that will come as a welcome relief to our testers. This comes alongside a multitude of fixes to the various vehicle parts, errors in the UI screens for the various new vehicles, issues that arose when a co-op friend was in your vehicle and switching seats or trying to sound the horn and bugs that arose when zeds attack your car.
•   For testing and MP admin purposes – an admin can now spawn keys, gas and repair cars. [In a quick side community requested side-project Tim also allowed for day length in sandbox to allow all hours up to 24.]
•   New switch-seat keybind (Z) to allow you to move around inside the car easier (and choose which door to exit from if there’s a horde pawing at your wing mirror), a ‘V’ keybind to hide/show the radial menu and other interface improvements/fixes.
•   Increased spawn chances for tire pumps, barbed wire, sandbags and milk. XP tweaks for the Mechanic Skill. Nerfed tire pressure impact on speed. Fixed up interactions when you’re looting piles of crates – which previously could be a pita – and some player-requested improvements to the composting system. Lots of other tweaks and fixes,
Next week’s build should have some new vehicle sound effects – the new ones in Build 37 are better that what we have before. These will be alongside further optimizations to world streaming, tile-rendering and loaded vehicle textures that we already have in the can, but didn’t want to mix into an already change-heavy beta version. (We realise the code-y aspect of this news isn’t particularly sexy, but hope you’ll feel the difference when you play.)

Beyond this, the process is to knock off tasks from our internal management system (whether found by our intrepid QA twosome of Jake and Sasha, or transferred from community reports) to the point at which we want an influx of new testers from the move to IWBUMS, and beyond that the influx of a LOT of new testers from a public release.

FUTURE VERSIONS
We have the majority of the team working on finalising vehicles at the moment (specifically RJ, Yuri and EP) but in the background there’s clearly Bitbaboon Mark prepping anims for the team to switch over onto once the vehicles dust settles, alongside various other members of the team working on the framework of future map content.

Two other features currently in the oven for a build beyond vehicles, meanwhile are GA Stas working on his chat window – and Turbo’s revamped fog/snow weather progression that we hope to have new timelapse vids/details on next week.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 09, 2018, 01:34:00 PM
Performance Enhancements -- Project Zomboid's Thursdoid

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/joescore-1-712x462.jpg)

Ello’ Zomboids and Zombettes. Some cool stuff to talk about this week!

CURRENT VEHICLES BETA

Today we released public vehicles build 38, which is a general fix/polish update while the more structural optimization work detailed below has been running in parallel. You can find the changelist here. http://projectzomboid.com/lists/lt.php?id=eUwFBlMHHVMLAU4FA1EO

Items of note include an improvement to vehicles clipping over each other – although to eradicate this completely will require structural work on a depth buffer, and more importantly the rewritten 3D model system that’s a part of future animation builds. This said, this build should at least see a marked improvement.

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/111-1024x280.png)

Other bugs fixed that’ve proved an irritation to testers include far more satisfying zed/vehicle collisions in MP, key loss lessening, a limitation on the threat of invisible trees and the removal of in-car 3D sound to make the sounds less disorientating.

NEXT VEHICLES BUILD

Despite a lot of work and improvement over recent builds, for a little while we hadn’t been satisfied with the performance in our vehicles beta. It was workable, and clear that testers are having a lot of fun with it, but not something we felt was good enough.

As such over the past couple of weeks we’ve been working on what we feel are rather special and significant optimizations – basically going through every area of the game code and shaving off every millisecond we could, and the results have been quite profound.

On our internal test PCs (fairly good set-ups) it’s now possible to obtain a solid 60fps when zoomed out at almost every point in the map, save for the mall and downtown West Point – which regardless are themselves a lot more playable now.

The following video is shot in 1920×1080 and shows the improved performance we’re seeing on standard settings. Note the FPS read out in the top left. We thought about editing together pieces from different tests, however felt that cutting between them may look like sneaky editing, so have opted to use 5 minutes of uninterrupted recorded footage from two runs.

Run one

https://youtu.be/tQ9W5gpuErM

This video is recorded in 3800×1600 and shows the sort of performance you could expect on much higher resolutions. Hopefully not that much different from 4k framerates:

Run Two

https://youtu.be/HJLHXqNmuk4

Additionally, as you may be able to tell from the videos, we have also added support for uncapping the FPS into the game options, now the FPS has improved significantly to make use of it. Hopefully this will make those with high refresh-rate monitors happy. Internally we have hit 300+ fps when zoomed in in low density areas of the map with FPS uncapped, which is pretty nice and silky on a 144hz G-Sync monitor!

We had hoped this optimization build would have been ready to release today, but when doing such deep and all-encompassing optimization that touches on many areas of the game, there are always new unintended side effects and new bugs introduced from changing the code to make it faster. Aspects of the UI suddenly become unhinged by the frame-rate, lighting refreshes go wonky etc, as well as some more serious issue of invisible items being dropped on the floor and a few others that sadly meant we couldn’t push it out today.

As such we decided to release the existing changelist of Vehicles Beta 38 and leave this until next week, when there’s a few less gremlins in the system. We hope this will then be the candidate for moving vehicles into our established IWBUMS beta as we step up plans for animations etc.

BUILDS BEYOND VEHICLES

As mentioned previously, alongside the animation systems that Bitbaboon Mark is prepping, we have a few other new systems to drop into testing once vehicles are out of the way.

The first is Stas’ new chat window and functions for MP, and the second, meanwhile, is the new snog/fog that will come hand-in-hand with a general improvement/deepening of how weather works in-game. This all comes from Turbo, once a modder and now a valued contributor to PZ, who generally sits aside from the main team cooking up crazy/intricate concoctions that can then be passed on into the main game.

We should have a full time-lapse next week, although existing fog vids live here,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR8HPvnu17Q&feature=youtu.be 

but for now you can see how it all works on Turbo’s debugger. Right now we only have a single daily temperature, precipitation values etc, but now an extra layer on top of the existing climate system will have more varied weather/temperature change throughout the day – and also more realistic weather systems over multiple days.

So a quick example, here you can see a foggy day – in which the sunlight is a white line. Here you can see the light blue fog line building up in the morning, just before the sun rises, after which the sun has rises and the in-game fog starts to fade away.

(https://i.gyazo.com/e0f1d7a6bc986b0624e1fdd34f55aaad.png)

Meanwhile over longer periods, rather than it feeling rather random, precipitation will be clustered so you can have lots of days without rain and then a longer period of days with a lot of rain/snow.

(https://i.gyazo.com/914d438aa83c8ab6e02c9cd58a129800.png)

As you can see from the following picture, the climate modelling goes much deeper than that though, tying temperature, wind, and other factors together into a pretty deep system worthy of Project Zomboid:

(https://i.gyazo.com/8dc33e3178b259b55d29b8ed63d4860f.png)

This week’s zed race from JoeScore. 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. Fanks!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 16, 2018, 05:16:38 PM
Climate Change
15 MARCH - NASKO

(https://i.imgur.com/R9YqZpx.jpg)

Evenin’ all. Here’s the latest from the Knox Event.

CURRENT VEHICLES BETA
We have just released public vehicles build 39. It’s another fairly weighty changelist[theindiestone.com], but the highlight of it is that the many, varied and major FPS optimizations we discussed last week[projectzomboid.com]have arrived. We’d love to hear about any changes you notice in performance. Likewise, however, we will need to hear of any bugs this has introduced. We’ve eradicated most of the gremlins backstage (like checkerboard lighting updates, flickering UIs windows, invisible ground objects etc) but there may well be other curiosities that our in-house testers haven’t found. Please let us know in the build release thread[theindiestone.com].

Something we are aware of is that in this version there’s more work to do with the UI. We’ve made significant optimizations by sacrificing UI FPS for the sake of the FPS of the overall game, which is clearly of a greater priority. On top of this, some of the windows may appear more transparent than usual. We’ll look to improve smoothness and responsiveness in future builds, but we hope any additional bugs or annoyances will pale compared to the significant FPS improvements. Elsewhere in the vehicles beta, meanwhile:
•   In preparation for the full release of the vehicles we’ve also added some tutorial windows that appear when new players first boot the game up. If there are any salient details we’ve missed here then please let us know! We’ve also made it so that vehicles are automatically enabled in all games, unless deselected in Sandbox options.

(https://i.imgur.com/nXIRuvd.jpg)

•   For MP we have raised the speed limit we previously imposed when map loading was far more of an issue. The default is now an in-game 80mph, although this can now also be played around with in your Server Options.
•   Car spawn zones have been added to the small settlement south of Riverside. Various unclear aspects of in-game text and UI icons have been improved. Car damage at low speeds has been nerfed. Radio transmission ranges have been increased to cater for the extended map.
•   In terms of fixed bugs, there are a few, but the biggest irritations hopefully salved include: miniature MP vehicle sizes gone, reversed textures and backwards writing on some vehicles fixed and the much-reported self-duplicating cars on servers addressed. Likewise various background memory leaks and the like have been knocked out of the build, and your FPS no longer holds as much sway over your steering.

Beyond immediate bug fixing from community reports the coming week’s focus will be on wider player-built gates to let players store their vehicles more safely, addressing the teleportation issues that can occur when passengers sit in a lag-impacted vehicle and implementing the final sounds for our ‘normal’ and ‘small’ car types.

BUILDS BEYOND VEHICLES
While the majority of the team work on the vehicles build – Stas (chat upgrade), Mark (animations) and Turbo (fog, snow and new climate/weather system) continue to work away in the background.

Turbo tends to sit away from the main team (his speciality being over-arching systems that we can tie into the main game like his existing seasonal changes and radio systems) and he’s currently working on an improved dynamic weather system that he hopes will make his existing seasons feel more real, and give a greater sense of day-to-day variety.

This will also mean that different weather effects will move over the map in real-time. Here, for example, is a debug thunderstorm moving over the south of the current map – between March Ridge and West Point.


https://youtu.be/ETaYRyFJbnE


This all generated by a system of simulated cold and warm fronts of varying strengths. An in-game change from Warm to Cold, for example, will result in a day with rain in the morning getting heavier as the day goes on, with the possibility of a tropical storm in summer, or a blizzard in winter. The intensity of the rain, and thunder, meanwhile is all dependent on the simulated front strength.

(https://i.imgur.com/elRGlZV.jpg)

When mixed in with the new fog that’ll see misty mornings slowly clearing in the sunshine this should give a far greater feeling of variety as each day passes. What’s more, as a part of this weather upgrade Turbo is also looking at improving our current use of shaders to increase the feeling of seasonal change in PZ – giving it a subtle yet tangible feeling of it being either a warm and vibrant day of summer, or a pale and hazy day in winter.

Alongside this Turbo intends to improve the SFX to reflect seasonal change better too – removing birdsong from winter, introducing snow crunch etc. When this ready, in the world beyond vehicles, we will also need to rebalance our farming system too in terms of the change in daily/seasonal rainfall – itself a fairly old system that could do with some TLC.

This week’s bannister-less deathtrap from актёрище. 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. Oh, and check out the findings of the latest great loot survey[theindiestone.com] from ShylokVakarian. Fanks!

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on April 03, 2018, 04:53:27 PM
Hellgate: Muldraugh
29 MARCH - NASKO

(https://i.imgur.com/hbcHACG.jpg)
 
Happy Thursday all, and a Maundy one too – if you’re partial to that sort of thing.

CURRENT VEHICLES BETA
We’ve just updated the Public Vehicle Beta to version 40, the details of which can be found here[theindiestone.com] . It’s quite a long changelist as it’s two weeks of tweaks and bug fixes, but the headlines run as follows.
•   We’ve made quite a few changes to speed up zombies when they respond to sound. This will hopefully reduce the amount of lag from zombies when they’re lured by car/siren noise, and indeed in general when a horde is on the move. The change under the bonnet is that sounds are heard on the game’s chunk system, so will there will be less iteration and tests made by each individual zed. We’ve also slightly lowered the frequency of long range car sound triggers to further ease this, without making too much of a dent on zombie attraction.
•   Currently in Six Months Later it’s too hard to find a working car as batteries have generally died. As such we’ve now changed this to spawn some fully charged batteries, no matter your chosen difficulty or the time since the outbreak, to simulate a more recent use. We’ve also nerfed the impact of world age on the battery remaining delta to help with this.
•   Since the introduction of vehicles it’s been an issue getting them into player-made bases. As such, RJ and Mash have conjured up a variety of gates to make your entrances/exits a little more dignified.


https://youtu.be/-slZcP7X56U


•   Loot discovered in vehicles has been bugging out for a while now – so in Build 40 this has been fixed up and there should be a lot more varied in-car discoveries. We’ve also added a lot more varied ‘general crap’ in vehicles, and likewise a few extra ‘owner profession’ loot spawns – like construction worker, taxi driver, painter and decorator etc.
•   After our recent bout of optimizations we’ve added a menu option to let people choose their own preferred framerate levels for UI vs. general game FPS, and upped the default UI setting too. We’ll use user feedback from this to determine the best default value in future versions.
•   A big problem in MP has been that passengers got cruelly dumped by the roadside while the driver sped off ahead, and vehicles could get a bit ‘blinky’ too – an issue compounded by lag. General Arcade’s Yuri has been on the case and this should be improved. There’s still a slight issue with the passenger-view of the vehicle jumping around a bit, but on the whole it’s a lot more playable – and Yuri is looking to get it fixed up for next week’s version.
•   There may be a few issues with cars visibly juddering at top speed and occasionally on gear changes in multiplayer. We’re looking into these issues and will resolve as soon as possible.

BUILDS BEYOND
For next week’s build (which we intend to be moved into the traditional IWBUMS beta slot as long as public testing of Build 40 doesn’t throw up any clangers) in amongst many/varied other improvements and fixes, General Arcade’s Yuri has been working on a neat little system that will decrease the irritating occasions upon which the player character is super-imposed on the car it’s standing behind – essentially creating shifting ‘bounding boxes’ around vehicles that are separate from the physics one.

Also for next week’s version Uncle Bitbaboon Steve has done some work improving network connectivity in the fight against lag, and will be with us again tomorrow to implement the final sounds for normal and small cars.

Steve’s colleague Mark, meanwhile, has been plugging away at the animation system we intend to switch dev over to once Vehicles are out of the door – most of his work last week comprising of bringing it all up to date with the considerable amount of core engine adjustments brought about in our recent optimization push. General Arcade’s Stas, meanwhile, has provided a first iteration of his new MP chat update to check out, and is now doing the same ‘bringing up to date with optimizations’ task with our forthcoming lwgl3 upgrade.

Elsewhere Turbo has been working on the new weather system we hope to get into a post-vehicles build – details of which can be found here[projectzomboid.com]. He’s been on a lot of ‘under the hood’ aspects this week, but has also improved how general periods of weather work – setting them up so they can be easily changed and transition a lot better. His intent is so that periods of showers, heavy rainfall and thunder clouds generate in a more variable way, and don’t always have the same expected pattern.

Now that the new wilderness/farmland map expansion is out and players are finding cool stuff like the kiddie summer camp[theindiestone.com] Mash is officially moving entirely onto a bigger, and much more urban, setting with our fictionalised version of Louisville – an area that won’t be as big as the real thing, but will still be really big (and plenty big enough) in existing PZ terms.

The broad layout is done (redesigned from what we’ve shown as hints previously) which was no mean feat in itself – and now begins the process of hand-crafting all the buildings and adding details. We’ve got a stash of interesting and previously unseen pre-made buildings to slot in though, and RingoD will be stepping in to help out with residential areas, but even with this it’ll be a long, long task to complete, and as such we won’t be talking about it much about it again until it nears completion.

This week’s featured rooftop party from Bromo BR. 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 Centralized 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. Finally, those open to a spot of YouTube zombie parkour might be interested in a movie version Indiegogo. Cheers all!

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on April 06, 2018, 03:43:44 PM
Vehicle IWBUMS
5 APRIL - NASKO

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/vehicles-iwbums-712x462.jpg)

Hey everyone – today we’re retiring our Steam vehicles beta branch and moving it into our traditional ‘I Will Back Up My Save’ beta slot as Build 39.

If you’ve been holding off from trying out our trucks, vans and cars as you were waiting for them to feel stable and (almost/increasingly) non-buggy then we’d politely ask you to consider entering the fray today.

We need an extra burst of community testers for the final patches before launch. We need to know:

•   What’s unclear about the way we’ve implemented Vehicles and the Mechanics skill
•   How the game runs on your machine. [And if there are any issues we will 100% need to know what sort of computer it is, alongside your tech specs]
•   How vehicles are changing the way you play – both in the early and late game. And, of course, whether or not you’re having fun.
•   Any bugs and weirdness that stick out like a sore thumb.

Please post feedback in the Build 39 in the new thread on our forums[theindiestone.com].

You can find the IWBUMS beta branch in your Project Zomboid – right click on Project Zomboid in the Steam games list, left click on properties and navigate to the Betas tab.

(Please note that, due to the extent of engine and gameplay changes in Build 39, existing savegames will not be compatible – a Steam beta branch of the pre-vehicles Build 38.30 will be available at the time of launch should people wish to finish off their existing games before moving onto vehicles.)

Clearly the team’s main focus is currently on getting Build 39 polished and out of the door – yesterday releasing Vehicles Build 41[theindiestone.com] that addressed issues impacting on community translations, missing car spawn zones, lots of player-crafter gate related bugs, split-screen niggles and lots of other fixes.

In the background, meanwhile, Bitbaboon Mark continues his animations work for when the team crosses over to them, Stas is polishing his new MP chat system to drop into Build 40 and Turbo is working on ‘type of sky’ game colours (the shade of the screen when its sunny, normal, cloudy etc) and should have some time-lapse vids to show next week.

(https://i.imgur.com/4c5KAh3.png)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on May 25, 2018, 05:57:50 PM
Death Cab for Zombie
24 May - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/33uFnPL.jpg)

Evening all, we do hope y’all are well.


IWBUMS BUILD 39.64
We’re hopeful that today’s public IWBUMS release (39.64[theindiestone.com]) will be the last before the full vehicles release. It contains:

•   A few physics and vehicular position fixes that will hopefully help those playing on co-op and dedicated servers.
•   Improvements to loot kept on car seats, tweaks to the item disassembly system, and the removed item transfer progress bar being restored by public demand.
•   Fixes to faulty item spawn rates (especially skill books) in MP, sheet rope levitation, aspects of zombie pathfinding, missing collision on various objects and various bugs squashed when transferring items between containers. And many other fixes besides.

One other thing we might like to get into the build before release is some recent work that General Arcade’s Yuri has been doing on our Steam integration. We anticipate that quite a few people will want to come back to PZ to check out the vehicles, alongside their friends, and as such it seemed a good time to fix up some player invite issues – namely that PZ has always struggled with inviting players into games when both players already had the game open. We’ve got a build running that smoothens this out backstage, and may also consider adding this to the mix if it’s working as intended.

Please also note that, as mentioned last week, in preparation for the vehicles release, the PZ map has been updated[map.projectzomboid.com] with Build 39’s countryside/vehicle exploration additions between Riverside and Rosewood. For community mappers and interested parties: new versions of PZ tools TileZed and WorldZed have been released, alongside the latest array of Tileset images[theindiestone.com].

ANIMS
As regular readers will know, our Technical Director friend Bitbaboon Mark now has his own company called TEA – and he and his cohorts Zac, Chris, Gar and Schnitz are working on getting the new anims and models ready for the PZ codebase to switch over to them.

This week from a technical standpoint they’ve been sorting meshes/textures and data that’s loaded from .X files and have hooked up character masks and ‘items’ to create individual characters from with everything hooked up correctly.

The intention is to have the character config inside the dev/modding tool AnimZed – so people can quickly add and update meshes and put them onto characters to validate alongside the animations themselves. In fact Zac has a ‘random’ create for characters all running from AnimZed, and it looks a little bit like this.

https://youtu.be/dhhjHrPQ0sg


Music credit: MrEldfuel from free sounds[freesound.org].

Please note: there’s clearly lots of different outfits and items on-show in this video – initial anims build releases will not contain everything seen above, especially if it involves combat markedly different to what’s already in-game. This is purely to show what AnimZed can do now, and the way that anim stances now change based on the weapon being held – which is all data-driven now. (Please also note: Spiffo’s Restaurant mascot outfits are supposed to look a bit… threadbare).

WEATHER AND CLIMATE SYSTEM
Turbo is working on his remedy for the new snow/fog/storms system – in that it’s all fine and dandy having a climate system with morning fog and real-time storms forming and passing overhead, but not helpful when (as it currently is in-game) you can’t look out of the window to see what the weather’s doing.

As such he has been exploring the possibility of using screen masking to allow for the player’s building to not be included in the rendering of rain, fog or other atmospheric effects. This will mean they will be visible to the character through windows, instead of being turned off across the screen when a player enters the house.

Please note this is just a proof of concept and not fully implemented into the game yet.

(https://i.imgur.com/stpxJPw.jpg)
 
Meanwhile Stas continues his gamepad set-up improvements, Zach continues with his additions to the PZ soundtrack and Mash continues to build some of the larger new building locations to place within the expansion out to Louisville.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on May 31, 2018, 10:45:18 PM
Build 39: Vehicles released!
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/ibEUIpX.jpg)

Survivors of the Knox Event can now drive vehicles and explore every nook and cranny of the vast Project Zomboid map.

Vehicles are enhanced with real physics, and come with all the expected sundries such as a UI dashboard, headlights, expanded inventory space, car horns, air conditioning and car radios – and the capacity for breakdowns, part replacement and collision damage.

Mark_exe has been kind enough to record a short video to explain ’em. Please consider going and subbing to his channel if you don’t already!

https://youtu.be/O8Js_oVLD14

Nine different vehicle models are available – not including variants on these such as branded vans or emergency vehicles. The PZ garage runs the gamut from family cars to police sedans, to Spiffo restaurant vans.

Vehicles can be found outside homes and in parking lots – while keys can be found in nearby homes, in the vehicle itself or on the floor. Hotwiring is also a skill option.

(https://i.imgur.com/f6GIurb.png)

Players can replace spare parts, tyres, suspension, brakes and more – all of which can be damaged by situations such as overuse, off-road driving and collisions.

Vehicles must be topped up with gas, have charged batteries and each variety of vehicle has its own set of replacement parts for players to add to their chosen transport.

To accompany vehicles a Mechanic profession and skill have also been added to the game – allowing for increased chances of successful part installation, and trickier repairs.

(https://i.imgur.com/GX6ovls.png)

PLEASE NOTE:
Due to the massive engine and gameplay changes required for vehicles, game saves from the previous build 38.30 are NOT compatible. If you want to continue your game a Steam beta channel for the previous Build 38.30 has been provided.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE:
While we’ve taken a lot of effort to get this build as bug free as possible, due to these huge changes to the PZ engine we can anticipate many bug reports, and also the potential of operational issues on computer set-ups that weren’t part of our IWBUMS beta process. Please report any issues here, and thank you for patience.

OTHER BUILD FEATURES:
•   The PZ map has been expanded – filling in the countryside between Riverside and Rosewood with farmsteads, camp sites and various nooks and crannies to explore in your cars, vans and ambulances. The official PZ online map has been updated to reflect this.

(https://i.imgur.com/IW9YWZF.jpg)

•   A lot of optimization has been done under the hood to make way for vehicles: general map streaming performance, garbage collection improvements, UI framerate changes, rendering of non-visible internal tiles to provide smoother play around tall buildings etc.
•   Many, many other improvements to game systems including: player-crafted double-doors and gates, new sandbox options, map improvements, MP and co-op tweaks, external generators, loot and XP balance, UI improvements, better gamepad controls and much much more.

For the full changelist, and information on about a million other fixes and tweaks, please visit the Build 39 release thread on our forums. https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/23821-wip-released-build-39-the-vehicles-build/

While vehicles have been a massive group effort from a lot of people within the team, we’d like to give a special thank you to EasyPickins, who did a lot of the technological framework and put a lot of sweat and blood into the system for a long time before everyone else got involved. We’d also like to thank General Arcade, and especially Yuri, for his invaluable help in their integration and evolution.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 10, 2018, 09:21:14 PM
On the Move
7 June - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/OyvmGz8.jpg)

Evening all! Last week’s vehicles release felt like it went well. The release version was fairly stable, people are enjoying having transport in the game and we’ve seen a huge boost in player numbers – which has in-turn revealed plenty of bugs for us to squash over the next few weeks in patches. Many thanks for all your reports, and please keep them coming[theindiestone.com]!

There are clearly a lot of people returning to the game and wanting to get their friends involved on co-op, so we’ve also decided to put the game on sale from tomorrow for a few days with 40% off. (If people find this helpful we’ll probably do so again whenever bigger features get into the main game.)

VEHICLES FIRST PATCH
We’ve been running an IWBUMS patching some of the more serious issues – but due to the expanded number of people currently playing MP we don’t want to mix it into the fairly stable release build without giving it its due testing.

As such, if you fancy grabbing some free PZ codes for participation, then keep your eyes on the forum over the next few days / week and we will likely be running some impromptu community IWBUMS megatests for those on the beta channel.

UPDATE: In addition we have just updated 39.67.2[theindiestone.com]. In amongst many and varied other things, currently in the patch we have:
•   A fix for the disabled VOIP bug, double doors imbued with physics and fixes to zombie positions on the client.
•   Fixes for players riding shotgun in MP being teleported to elsewhere on the map by preventing drivers from entering areas of the map that haven’t been loaded in their passengers’ game.
•   An increased the spawn rate of mechanic tools in car trunks, lowered player panic when inside vehicles and increased knockback when you’re ramming zeds.
•   A new Car Battery Charger item. This can be used to charge your car battery if you have electricity around you (generator included).
Fixes we are still working on include disappearing keys in MP when someone else removes the key from the ignition, occasional vertical parking splurges[projectzomboid.com] (!) and a few cases of MP invisible zombies. If people notice any particular replication steps for any of the above then we’d love to hear them in our bug report section on the forum[theindiestone.com].

BEYOND VEHICLES
We’ve got a few complete, and almost complete, things that were a bit logjammed while we polished vehicles that we’re hoping to drop into testing over the coming weeks, mainly the new MP chatbox and Turbo’s ‘virtual climate’ weather and seasons upgrade.

In the past week Turbo’s worked out ways to show fog/precipitation from inside buildings, but our larger and taller buildings (mall, prison etc) need some extra thought, as do outside balconies – although this does look pleasingly Exorcist-y even with the visual bug[i.gyazo.com]. Here’s a quick video of the fog system as nature intended it though…

https://youtu.be/WeXrnBCTzyU

Meanwhile, over with our friends at T.E.A. the animation build push continues. One aspect of this is that Zac, who is working on the new dev and modding tool AnimZed, has built a nifty clothing and outfit editor into it – from which both ourselves and modders will be able to easily hook up new models and textures to items, and create new looks for zeds and survivors alike.

If you didn’t see some of these looks in our vid the other week you can check it out here. The updated tool within AnimZed looks a bit like this currently[projectzomboid.com], although the bottom of the left hand column did raise some eyebrows…

This tool work is probably going to be followed up with another utility that shows in-game items vs the visual items. At the moment we/TEA/modders have to check an item’s name, then lookup how it appears in-game separately and it would be very handy to have it done in an automated fashion.

Elsewhere Gareth has been tweaking/polishing shaders for body masks, and Bitbaboon Mark has been blending, simplifying and ironing out kinks[projectzomboid.com] so that our animator Martin can jump in and get used to the new suite of tools available to him and polish up his work in-game. So hopefully we’ll have a bit more to show/discuss next week.

Thanks so much for all your continuing feedback and bug reports on the vehicles everyone. Please keep it coming!

This week’s station wagon from Julio. 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.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 14, 2018, 11:05:14 PM
RELEASED: Build 39.67.5
The first patch for the vehicles build has been released.


[NEW]
Changed default UI Render FPS to 20.
Added Linux version of libPZBullet64 without OpenGL for headless servers.
Added proper physics to open double doors.
Added "Pan camera while aiming" display option.
Cell grid now drawn in the lua debugger map.
Pressing 'T' in the lua debugger map now teleports player 0 to that location.
Added the ability to smash the car window that a player is facing using right click in the car's context menu.
Added "remove vehicle" using the right click context menu if you are in debug or an admin.
Admins or people in debug mode can now open the Vehicle Mechanics screen instantly while inside a car.
Added a Car Battery Charger item. It is used to charge your car battery if you have electricity around you (generator included).
Added PZBullet and trove.jar to various Steam build scripts.
Added 32bit PZBullet for Linux
Only show 'Dig Grave' in context menu when clicking on appropriate ground tiles.
Dirty Rags may be used as tinder or fuel in campfires.
Vehicle key is returned to the keyring it came from when removing it from the ignition.
Added better support for large fonts - for example with the Big Freakin' Fonts mod.
Replaced the placeholder car battery charger.
Size and position of the crafting and vehicle-mechanics UIs now saved.
The vehicle mechanics window can be resized vertically.
The crafting UI is resizable and supports large fonts better.
Added correct Mechanics skill icon


[BALANCE]                                   
Increased the spawn rate of mechanic tools in car trunks.       
Lowered the panic increase caused by zombies when player is in a vehicle.
Increased the knockback done to car when ramming zombies.
Decreased the consumption of fuel by generator.
Lowered the impact of timeSinceApo sandbox & world hour age on spawning car battery.
Increased a tad the number of cars spawning on Low sandbox setting.
Increased the spawn rate of remote control.
Increased the odds to find an animal with trapping.


[BUG FIX]
Fixed VOIP not working.
Fixed issues with players riding shotgun in MP being teleported to elsewhere on the map by preventing drivers from entering areas of the map that haven't been loaded in their passengers' game.
Fixed client doing collision checks for zombies that should only be done on a server.
Fixed zombie positions not updating on the client correctly.
Fixed zombie animations not updating on the client when near a vehicle.
Fixed trove.jar not being on Mac StartServer scripts.
Fixed Server not directing admins to 38.30(pre-vehicles) branch when trying to load an old world.
Fixed potential slowdown by not calling getResourceAsStream() in IndieFileLoader.
Fixed "Bad file descriptor" bug on Linux (hopefully, please let us know if you see this)
Fixed linux issues by rebuilding Linux libZNetJNI64.so
Fixed "Auth failed response" message on server when a client disconnects.
Fixed issues around server sending map_zone.bin to clients.
Fixed pzbullet/CMakeLists.txt
Fixed linux issues by updating Linux PZBullet.so and PZBulletNoOpenGL64.so
Fixed unpinned inventory/loot window time auto-collapsing at different framerates.
Fixed zombies near player 1 overlapping each other when player 2 was far away in split-screen.
Fixed longstanding visual glitch when climbing over something onto a staircase below.
Fixed potential infinite loops by adding sanity checks when loading map_zone.bin.
Fixed VoiceManager.DeinitVMClient() not terminating the thread properly.
Fixed exception cooking items with both BadInMicrowave and ReplaceOnCooked.
Fixed line spacing in the in-game changelog.
Fixed exception causing return to main menu with Bedford Falls and other maps with buggy .lotheader files.
Fixed missing RCON .class files.
Fixed clothes becoming dirty even if the sandbox option was disabled.
Fixed some debug messages players don't need.
Fixed checking doors to enter a vehicle checking hood/bonnet.
Fixed checking windows to enter a vehicle not seeing if a window had been smashed.
Fixed car batteries being created at 50% charge on most spawns.
Fixed Driving on player-made wood floor being considered as offroad and damaging vehicle.
Fixed VehicleInterpolationData objects not being reused.
Fixed in-game changelog not displaying changes to previous versions of the game.
Fixed issues with vertical force to vehicles after collisions with objects/zombies.
Fixed vehicle headlights being slow to turn on and off.
Fixed vehicle positions not updating for passengers after a collision.
Fixed Multi-core rendering not working on Linux.
Fixed linux server issues by removinf -XX:-CreateCoredumpOnCrash from Linux server .json.
Fixed seeing key icon above another player's head when near a vehicle.
Fixed further linux issues by adding -XX:-CreateMinidumpOnCrash -XX:-CreateCoredumpOnCrash -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow to server .bat/.json.
Fixed collisions between vehicles and zombies being counted when the vehicle is stationary.
Fixed small car's plate number being stretched.
Fixed flat building roofs being hidden when the player was obscured by player-built floors.
Fixed roof on lot_house_small_36.tbx.
Fixed a missing wall in a house near 13814,4682.
Fixed trunk capacity not always updating when it should on the client.
Fixed wrong end of a vehicle sometimes taking damage after a collision in multiplayer.
Fixed DropOffWhiteListAfterDeath only working for accesslevel that isn't "none" (this is the reverse of what was intended)
Fixed being able to use Car Battery Charger outside while there is electricity (you need to be a in a building now, or close to a generator).
Fixed client not updating vehicle stats when part condition changes.
Fixed Linux server failure with libPZBulletNoOpenGL*.so
Fixed text such as "The door is blocked." being visible above other player's heads in splitscreen.
Fixed translation for "You failed to produce any usable materials" not being used.
Fixed words not appearing above the player's head when trying to open barricaded or blocked doors.
Fixed C/F/R keys activating if identical to the "Toggle Crafting UI" key when displaying the crafting ui.
Fixed crafting UI appearing in the main menu if the assigned key is pressed.
Fixed VehicleManager error when more than 64 players are connected.
Fixed error compiling ProjectZomboid.exe with UNICODE defined.
Fixed both halves of a grave not being destroyed when using a sledgehammer.
Fixed pathfinding (and other) data not being updated when remote clients added objects to the map.
Fixed not being able to climb through carpentry window frames above ground level by holding the E key for half a second.
Fixed not being able to hop over fences using the controller B button above ground level.
Fixed not being able to climb down sheetropes when tapping the 'E' key.
Fixed remote players juddering up and down while climbing sheetropes.
Fixed display not updating when climbing sheetropes.
Fixed player not facing fence/window when adding/removing sheetropes.
Fixed controller context menu missing commands to climb over and add/remove sheetropes to fences.
Fixed double-tile carpentry objects (like Bed) not consuming materials.
Fixed scrollbars not working in the options ui when a controller was active.
Fixed using the controller A-button on a vehicle hood not opening the mechanics ui.
Fixed aspects of many UIs to handle different font sizes.
Fixed font-rendering bug.
Fixed UI not updating when an error occurs setting vsync.
Fixed the crafting UI constantly setting the help text for the info-button window.
Fixed ISModalRichText updating when not visible and not being centered on screen.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 27, 2018, 11:00:39 PM
Zedlights
Project Zomboid - EnigmaGrey

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/5f3ec3e146e572b10b211df37c268cd03c94669f.jpg)

We released the Build 39 vehicles patch this time last week – release notes for which can be found here: https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/23982-released-39675/
This seems to have remedied the most pressing issues with Build 39 and
(given that we also don’t want to add any major changes to the pot
without enough testing) further tweaks and improvements will go into
Build 40.


All of Build 40’s bigger features are already complete, if untested,
so we’re hoping to get it into IWBUMS public beta testing within the
next few weeks and for it to be a fairly quickfire version. As such a
lot of work in the coming week involves bringing work done while we were
polishing the release candidate for Build 39 into the main 40 build –
stirring each ingredient in one after the other.


First off Yuri from General Arcade has done a lot of work on MP
networking, vehicle clipping, floating cars, headlights, vehicle shadows
and zombie reaction speeds – and then Stas’ new chatbox will also
finally get its time in the sun. Finally Turbo’s work on the new climate
system, improved rain/snow/fog and general ‘greater sense of season’
work will also be added to the mix.


As we’ve discussed in previous dev blogs, Turbo’s final hurdle was
finding ways to make the new precipitation and fog visible through
windows – initially in pre-made buildings, and then with the trickier
proposition of player-made structures. Telling the game not to conjure
up internal fog in a constructed base was a big issue.


As such, this week he has been finishing a system that can accurately
detect player-made rooms and regions on each height layer – now the PZ
engine can properly detect if an area is enclosed by walls, windows,
door frames and fences. The system also checks whether said area is
roofed, and then mask a feature like fog from that and all connected
rooms. It practice it looks a little bit like this…


https://youtu.be/c_n5J2BbtIo


Having this functionality in the game will also make it far, far
easier to prevent the occasional ‘zombie in my base!’ bugs that have
been known to creep back into the game – and also be very handy for
other independent zoning systems for farming improvements etc.


While the above features are being added to Build 40 other team
members are blitzing through our internal task system – verifying
reported bugs, fixing up legacy issues and generally sorting out
long-term kinks in the game that have sat in the system unaddressed for
too long. The advent of the new animations system, and the dev
changeover to it, will bring a lot of new work and issues so the more of
these 300-ish minor tasks we can strike from the record the cleaner our
plate will be.


This sort of stuff deals with missing loot spawns, errant nutrition
values, trait issues, places you can’t sleep but should be able to and
other general irritations. In addition, meanwhile, we’re adding stuff to
improve vehicles – like the ability to use metalwork skills to
dismantle car wrecks and retrieve construction materials, and making it
very unwise to drive your car while drunk.


Once we’ve cleared out these tasks we can also add in some more community suggestions,
start to polish some of our more elderly game systems and also do some
planned work on our current loot system to give us more power on what
spawns where and by how much – which is also a requirement to get the
best out of the new animation/models system as we’ll certain zombies
spawning in certain locations, with certain loot around then.


The work on the animations system, and the AnimZed tool itself,
continues with our friends at T.E.A. It’s relatively dry dev work this
week, but all necessary stuff. Zac has been going through AnimZed
changes following the feedback of our animator Martin last week, and
will continue to supply new versions for him to check out. Grant has
been working on the Game state hook-up, and compiling guidelines for
coders and modders to follow with T.E.A.’s data-driven approach to
animation integration. Mark has been investigating load/rendering issues
with backpacks, and Gar is adding new masks/test textures for
texture-based pants/tops which are coming in the editor.


Thanks so much for all your continuing feedback and bug reports on
Build 39 everyone. It’s been great having so many new and returning
players, and hopefully we’ve got some good stuff in the pipeline for all
concerned parties.


This week’s night cruise from Cocoa. 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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 08, 2018, 04:16:07 PM
Snow DaZe
5 July - nasKo   

(https://i.imgur.com/aDIitIm.png)

Happy Thursday all. Work continues on two fronts: the stuff that was developed concurrently with the vehicles build that we intend to get out into an IWBUMS beta as soon as we can, and the stuff that the five guys over at T.E.A. continue to improve our new animations system with in terms of more flexible/data-driven code and an improved AnimZed animation tool to match. Let’s go round the houses then and see what’s new.


WEATHER TEST BUILD
As flagged on the PZ website last week, we currently have a public test version of Turbo’s new weather, climate, storms and fog system available for players to try out. You can find full details on how to access this in the forum thread: https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24075-released-weather-test-build/

Initial player reports have been really positive – with people reporting that they’re feeling a greater sense of seasonal change and are feeling nicely hemmed in (and are having more difficulty driving) in heavy fog.

The primary piece of feedback we probably need at this point is whether players feel some of the new time of day and season shaders are too intense or washed out – you can find details of the debug tools that’d be useful if you wanted to quickly check a variety out in the link above.

Turbo has also just released an updated version of the test weather beta, which features a multiplayer component of his IsoRegions system – this should allow the information about enclosed player-built spaces across an MP network so fog/precipitation can only be shown in outdoor areas. Please note that this will break current saves on this test build.

Turbo will now start to address some of the great feedback he’s received this past week in terms of bugs and suggestions, such as the occasional foggy starting houses and black lines that are visible on some zoom levels.


NEXT IWBUMS
In amongst the bigger headline features like weather and MP chat improvements currently in the mix, there a variety of smaller features and fixes also on the boil to benefit players, modders and admins. In-game fonts have been made bolder to help with legibility, car wrecks can now be dismantled with a propane torch and welding mask and we’re also tightening the difficulty levels of our more noob-friendly scenarios – as we can’t help but feel that some of our players are getting too easy a ride at first.

Also fresh from the coding furnace, meanwhile, is EasyPickins’ in-game Sandbox Options Editor for server admins. This will allow admins to change in-game settings that don’t require a full restart, and should make managing a server for you and your friends a little more forgiving experience.

(https://i.imgur.com/BfaNqMi.jpg)

T.E.A. WORK
This week Zac has built a ‘Paper doll’ interface into the AnimZed dev/modding tool, as seen below this replaces a big list of numbers and toggles – letting you/us design zombie and survivor outfits for in-game use and testing in a far more user-friendly and efficient way. He’s also got 2D blends working in the tool, but still needs to work out the best way to visualize them in AnimZed.

(https://i.imgur.com/Cd25v0N.pngng)

(https://i.imgur.com/Cd25v0N.pngng)

A lot of what T.E.A. are currently doing is improving the system, and adding flexibility, by making large chunks of it data-driven and greatly simplifying (and modularising) the player code. It’s complicated stuff that’ll make devving and modding easier, and should put the game and community in a good shape for many years to come. This has been Grant’s primary work with the ‘state machine’ recently, while Bitbaboon Mark (although we should probably call him T.E.A. Mark at this point) working out the best ways to transition the T.E.A. workflow over into the core PZ team.

Our thanks to Mad Dan for his snow pic, and indeed just for being Mad Dan. 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 Centralized 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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 20, 2018, 11:24:20 AM
Too Hot For TV
19 Jul Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/pA2W4i0.jpg)

Hey everyone! This week on Thursdoid:

We’ve just released a new test build into the weather branch, which contains many improvements to the new weather system, and in addition contains a whole slew of fixes and additions. However, we’ve had a few issues confined to only a couple of testers and think a couple of bugs have slipped into the mix that we’re having trouble tracking down or replicating reliably, and we’d love to get some wider testing done to try and figure out if this is a widespread issue or not, so multiplayer feedback would be much appreciated! Details on the build can be found here, we’ll look to get you a complete change-list in the next day or so but this is a combination of various branches so general feedback on any issues would be very appreciated!


Multiplayer optimisation
Recently we’ve had a sharp uptick of streamers playing our game, and have been paying close attention to Klean’s awesome Blacksite server (Long live Trader City) which has managed to amass 100 concurrent players on a couple of occasions–which while we were impressed it functioned at all, did start to fall down under the load. We’re hoping we can use our observations to improve the multiplayer syncing and server performance.

One thing we’ve observed repeatedly in recent times is that it appears certain players seem to suffer worse with getting delayed or missing packets leading to much more extreme lag to other players. This doesn’t seem to be tied to ping, so we’re looking to investigate the lower level networking code to see if a problem could reside there that would cause some players to be starved of packets on busier servers – we’re currently looking to organize a large non-Steam multiplayer test with which to test if the Steam communication layer may be causing any additional interferance, after which we’ll hopefully be closer to nailing down these issues. We’ll post on the forums about such a test when it has been organized.

We’re also noticing some oddities with sound pop up here and there, seeing people not hearing other player’s guns, and a few reports of inaccurate ranges for different sounds, so feedback on this would be much appreciated!


Thermal Expansion
On the weather front, the test build in the weather branch has also had an update to the weather overhaul – the big focus of this build is to improve the game’s simulation of player body temperature, to more accurately model how a player will get hot or cold within the environment, with internal body temperature interacting with the character’s surrounding with various modifiers based on the character’s situation, dress and health. Extra elements are simulated such as sickness lowering resistance to cold, wind and rain reducing the player’s body temperature, as well as adding hyperthermia and hypothermia into the mix.

We’re aware we may have to provide more ways for the player to handle extreme heat or cold, such as more varied clothing – some of this will clearly need to wait until the animation build, so we’ll decide in a future test build whether we need to disable or reduce the more extreme temperature effects until these features or added.

If people are giving the new temperature system a try out, you can pull up some debug information to track the player’s body modifiers. This will hopefully show the depth of these systems!

(https://i.imgur.com/3qRwWFK.png)

Full details on the weather build can be found here, with instructions on how the new body temperature system works.


Shiny!
Yuri’s been improving the look of the vehicles, adding environment maps to make cars look much less matte and have the reflective shine one would expect.

https://youtu.be/QH_kxAocCO0

We’ll probably have a lot of fun tying the reflective values into how clean a car is, and providing another weirdly in-depth mechanic to the vehicle system in Zomboid in future!
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 26, 2018, 01:47:04 PM
Thurs…weather…shaders….chat!
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/PmQsZ7F.pngg)

Welcome to this week’s Thursdoid! (Last week's Thursdoid can be found here) We’re a bit light on the team this week as a few of us (including, as you can probably guess, the developer in charge of Thursdoid punnage) are having a well deserved holiday after the exhausting and mega stressful vehicle push for so many months finally came to an end, and like buses several of those holidays coincidentally happened to come at once, but still a few things to report.


Weather Build Update
We’ve just updated the weather branch. The main addition is the first version of our overhauled multiplayer chat system developed by Stas at General Arcade. The new chat is a bit fancier and more functional and more in line of what you’d expect on an MMO or similar types of games. You can activate the window to chat by pressing T or Enter. Let us know how you get on with it and if there are any problems

Various fixes include reintroducing the low lighting mode, and an option for disabling the new building hiding system, which will provide better performance on low end machines (more on this subject in a moment), removed the weird sound echoes, various Linux compatibility / java fixes, fixed multiplayer zombie attacking / defending issues, and many more. We’ll try to get you a complete change-list soon.

Work continues apace with animations, nothing flashy to show or talk about, but many fixes have been made to the tool and Martin the animator now has access to regular builds to help integrating all the anims. Steve at BitBaboon nears completion of the new build system overhaul, which will vastly improve our internal organisation of builds, and should allow us quicker testing and releasing of builds. With this we’re making wider changes to the team organisation to help us deal with the bigger team size and the various irons we have in fires.


Shaders & Compatibility
We’ve had a small number of people reporting that cars are invisible on their low end machines. This is due to the fact that the way the vehicles are rendered require shaders to overlay damage and other effects, so cards that are unable to use shaders, as with the 3D characters which use GPU skinning, will not be able to render the vehicles.

We’ve fought for many years to keep our minimum specs where they are, wanting to keep our potato running Zomboiders in the game for as long as possible. However, as the years progress, the numbers dwindle as more people upgrade, and at this point we’re talking about an extreme minority of PCs, bottom end Intel laptops any of them close to or over a decade old, at least in terms of technology, and constituting less than 1% of all our customers – It’s gotten to the point where retaining compatibility with machines mostly over a decade old is starting to hamper development in several ways.

1) For example to add support for vehicles for this minority of machines, including testing and bug-fixing would take a substantial amount of development time, which at this stage could be spent working on the features, optimisations and improvements the vast majority of our customers would benefit from and that would take us toward the fabled 1.0.

2) There are a whole host of avenues for optimisation that we’ve for a long time written off because they would end up raising the minimum spec by requiring shaders to work and would be too fundamental to switch off. Since the game and simulation have become massively complex at this point, optimisation is becoming ever more important. Vehicles at one stage ran so badly on top end machines that we simply had to spend significant time doing extreme and very disruptive optimisation work, and the game still doesn’t run adequately in built up areas on machines that should on the face of it be able to handle it.

However the available routes for optimisation are becoming extremely sparse–there’s only so much blood you can wring out of a stone and we’ve shaved practically every millisecond we can from the game’s frame time, so we really need new directions to be able to explore to keep the game running well particularly when features such as Louisville, the new animations (which will bring performance benefits and pressures, and it’s unclear what the net result will be) and of course the NPCs go into the game.

The way the rendering system works with the lighting, shading and isometric perspective is hugely costly and it’s difficult to see how it can possibly be improved having no guaranteed access to literally any of the rendering advancements developed in the past 13 years.

Having guaranteed shader support will open up many optimisation opportunities in the future, our rendering being far and away the biggest bottleneck, and there comes a point where it becomes unfair to the huge majority of our customer-base not to exploit these. While it’s frustrating the game not running well on an old laptop, it’s certainly much worse for it not to run well on a top of the range gaming PC and that’s something we have more responsibility to fix and avoid in future.

So while we understand this decision will upset a few of you (though it’s a decision we hope you appreciate we did not take lightly, and resisted as long as humanly possible to give as many the opportunity to upgrade as possible), we hope that the few affected by this understand why we’ve come to this decision. In the meantime, build 38 will always be available via the Steam betas, and there are many affordable old laptops with GPUs that have the requisite shader support, so hopefully we’ll see you back in the new builds before long.

This week’s tense disagreement from QwencGames. 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 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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 26, 2018, 01:50:25 PM
Zombies in Bloom
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/kSB0Vq1.png)

We’ve just updated the public weather build beta to version 40.7, which will probably be the last one before we widen it out to the more heavily subscribed IWBUMS public beta channel. (Steam beta password is ‘weathertestbranch’ for those wanting to check it out.)
Primary new features in this include:
•   Turbo has hooked the Winter is Coming game mode to the new climate system. After three full days of preparation time a powerful weather period is generated, that will always feature a blizzard. The mode will still follow seasons, of a sort, with the mode’s ‘Summer’ having a high temperature of 0 degrees centigrade, and the ‘Winter’ dropping to -30. A time-lapse of the initial Blizzard in Winter is Coming can be seen below.

https://youtu.be/bSemqtKJA5Y

Before the public release of this build we will likely also add in an Endless Night and Mega Stormy scenarios too (names placeholder!), and likewise experiment with zombies being attracted to the rumble of thunder.
•   Placeholder moodles have been added to show the ‘heating up’ and ‘cooling down’ of player temperature, but this will likely change to being shown on the player health screen. We don’t want this aspect of the game to become too distracting and micro-managey, and don’t feel that an over-population of the moodles is entirely the way to go. [In the meantime, however, they are quite useful for tracking impact of the WIP system. This build hopefully nerfs some of the more extreme impacts of temperature too.]
•   RJ has coded a new MP Admin UI to help server owners quickly search through, and spawn, items. It looks a bit like this.

(https://i.imgur.com/R7cc54M.jpg)

•   Stas has continued to update his new chat system – and this version has a bunch of bugs fixed that have arisen in testing, alongside a much neater fade-in and fade-out for the input field.
•   New car stuff: When dismantling a car wreck metal items are now spawned on the ground instead of player’s inventory. The player can also now sleep in a car that has its engine running, and Turbo has also played around with the visibility cone when driving through more intense weather effects.
•   General Arcade’s Yuri has also exposed various elements of the vehicle code to modders, essentially rewriting stuff like LoadVehicleModel and vehicle spawn governance, in lua. This will aid modders who want to add in new/individual cars to operate alongside the existing ones of the vanilla game. He has also written a guide for this, which will go onto the forum in the coming week.

The full changelist for 40.7, which also contains a lot of handy fixes and tweaks, can be found here. If you missed the full current changelist for the version 40 weather beta last week then that can also be found here.

[As mentioned in the last blog this build also contains a system that converts items placed by mappers into in-game objects, the rethought soundbank system, an improved car battery charge system, in-game sandbox options for MP admins more readable fonts and players damaged by vehicles in MP.]

Elsewhere we had a productive anims meeting with Bitbaboon Mark and the team at TEA this week, with work like a tidy-up of the state system, improved documentation of current player functions, a motion extraction build for Martin the Animator to play around with and an investigation into depth buffer usage to help with model issues all now being worked on over in their HQ. (None of it sexy stuff, but all of it necessary and in good hands.)

Meanwhile RingoD is now helping out Mash when it comes to Louisville, and in particular the suburbs, creating house variants on what we already have in-game so that when the larger urban area finally arrives (as we’ve said before, this is a huge project so will be several public builds away at least) the expanded number of buildings won’t feel cookie-cutter.

This week’s roof garden from Eddie. 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 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.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 26, 2018, 01:53:52 PM
Build 40 IWBUMS
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/YK1cO21.jpg)

Hey all, we have just moved Build 40 into the wider IWBUMS public beta – which contains Turbo’s weather and climate system (proper seasons, new shaders, fog, mist, storms that move over the map etc), vehicle improvements and an awful lot of gameplay tweaks, balance and bug fixes.

A brief ‘highlights’ changelist can be found below, while the full changelist can be found here. Please leave feedback in the thread, and bug reports here. Details on how to join the public IWBUMS beta can be found here.

Some quick housekeeping notes on this build:
•   There *might* be an annoyance with players still getting wet and feeling temperature effects in vehicles, though this will be patched pretty soon if so. Likewise, – the general impact of temperature on players will be balanced over the course of the IWBUMS beta.
•   This version has various aspects of car integration converted into Lua so that modding full cars, not just changing skins, is now a lot more viable for modders. Yuri has written detailed guidelines which RingoD has posted up here, and we’ve also included a new script to help you convert textures into PZ’s required form.
•   A lot of engine work and general vehicle improvements have carried on into this build, but still require substantial testing on servers – not to mention a lot of improvements and fixes we’ve been making to MP Admin in general. Feedback on MP, and especially people connecting to distant servers, would be much appreciated. We will be bringing our own public SpiffoSpace IWBUMS test servers online next week.

40.9 CHANGELIST HIGHLIGHTS
(For full changelist, and to provide feedback, please visit this thread on the forums. There are many, many other fixes and balance improvements.)
•   Full weather and climate simulation system recreating true-to-life weather patterns through 365 days of the year. Morning fog, thunderstorms created by virtual weather fronts that move over the map, improved rainfall visuals, visible snowfall and improved rendering to better evoke the time of year, and the time of day.  New SFX. New player character temperature system.

https://youtu.be/MLg4pLyrrWQ

https://youtu.be/aJVLFNxlhTI


•   New MP Chatbox. Primary features include separate chat streams (safehouse, local, global, etc), customizable chat and more intuitive usage and commands. It’s hopefully a lot more convenient now.
•   New ‘A Storm is Coming’ and ‘The Mist Descends’ scenarios
•   New system to convert objects placed by mappers so they can be used as functional game objects. This covers items like barricades, campfires, rain barrels, traps, composters, crops etc.
•   Winter is Coming game mode now works with new climate system. Seasons still impact on this mode – ‘Summer’ highest temperature is 0 degrees centigrade, and winters may drop to -30. After 3 full days a powerful weather period is generated, that will always feature a blizzard.
•   New MP Admin UI additions including an Items list viewer in the admin panel that can be used to quickly search through, and spawn, items. Also includes the functionality to change in-game settings on the server that don’t require a restart, and clear ways to change admin powers within the UI so hosts can remain admins and play along without advantages.
•   Improved car handling. New driving traits. New car-battery charger item that’s placed on the ground and interacted with using a context menu. Drunk moodle now has an impact on driver steering input. Players can now be harmed when hit by a car.
•   Car wrecks can now be dismantled with propane torch and a welding mask. Gathered metal material will depend on your metalwork skill.
•   Many UI changes to handle different font sizes. Added context-menu font-size option. Re-exported the map to improve zombie density in some farmland and rural areas.
•   Changed First Week and One Week Later and adjusted settings to make sure that new players aren’t given too easy a ride. Removed Initial Infection.
•   Added Display option to disable the new roof-hiding feature for low-spec users. Updated menu screen with vertical rather than horizontal options – due to problems with taskbar in latest Windows Updates.
•   Added chevrons on character screen next to the weight to indicate if weight is increasing or decreasing.
•   New isoRegions system to detect an enclosed area – player-made or dev-created – to keep weather effects on the outside.
•   New functionalities for the PZ sound system. Formerly modders couldn’t override sounds in PZ FMOD soundbanks, so when players find certain sounds are too loud or annoying (heartbeat, zombie alert, flies, level up noise etc) it was hard to raise/lower them independently. Details about all the game sounds now go into media/scripts/sounds.txt. A new in-game UI allows users change the volume of any sound they feel is too oppressive.

Again, fuller examination of what’s in the changelist in terms of balance and fixes in this thread on the forums. https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24407-released-iwbums-build-409/

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on September 14, 2018, 12:27:53 PM
Beeverdoid
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/D0asBf8.jpg)

Hey all, Thursday greetings.

 
IWBUMS BETA 40.14 RELEASED
We’ve just released IWBUMS beta 40.14, which is another release that’s primarily fix and polish – our current aim for the devs working on this build being to make lots of quality of life corrections and adjustments while Turbo finishes his weather/climate work and the version can get a full public release. You can see the patch notes here.

To this end this version fixes missing raindrops, absent MP storms and other climate errors – while EP has also figured out the annoying sound volume and delayed sound issues, which should now be eradicated. The telepathic ‘terminator’ zeds trailing after players in MP that several of our IWBUMS testers have reported have also been stripped of their powers.

EP has also made improvements to alleviate longstanding woes with zombies appearing in your vision cone all-too-late in large buildings like the Mall, and Yuri has made fuel caps more accessible through his vehicle anti-clipping force-field.

EP has also been through all the various vehicle features and made them operate as you’d expect when the car battery is dead or uninstalled, also having them still operational until the car is powered down when the battery is removed and the engine is going. Another minor, but irritating and ancient, bug he’s figured out is the frozen food that’s been spawning in freezers long after the final power outage.

Please be aware that SpiffoSpace remains open for IWBUMS testing. This server, based in France, has no password and can be found by anyone running the beta (access details here). Once we’ve added in some admin power over weather (admin-triggered storm/snow/fog etc) we will be coordinating a Community Megatest on here.


IWBUMS NEXT
Due for internal testing over the weekend and early next week, Turbo has redone the way the IWBUMS beta currently has changes in temperature, and resistance to hot and cold, impact on the player. Although it works okay-ish currently, the edges were too rough – and deaths were often broken/cheap.

His revamped system focuses on how resistance to the elements is calculated – and the way it takes hunger, thirst, worn clothing, wetness and exercise all into account should be a marked improvement. The temperature ‘safe zone’ range will be wider too, and the system takes ‘real time’ minutes into account rather than ‘game time’ – so fast forward peril is decreased, alongside being dead by dawn next to the embers of a camp fire.

The next version will also improve weather visuals to better distinguish rain from snow, and add in temperature conversions – so our Kentucky setting gets its proper and correct Fahrenheit readings, rather than horrid old European centigrade.

 

MUSIC MAN ZACH
While the four guys over at T.E.A. continue to work on our new animations system, we thought it might be worthwhile mentioning the fifth horseman of that build: our music composer Zach Beever.

Since animations are such a fundamental evolution of the game, we want a whole bunch of new music to bring players along emotionally with the new visuals. Zach’s been working with us for months now, preparing a whole host of new tracks, many including familiar themes and motifs from old favourites.

Rather than drip them in one by one, and to give him time to work on them as a collective whole, we felt their impact would be far greater if they all went in together. To this end, behind the scenes, Zach has now completed 19 new music tracks, with more to come – and a part of one of the latest can be heard below.

https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/zacpreview.mp3?_=1
            
For thoughts on his direction and inspiration for the music, we thought we’d ask the man himself.

“When I began work on the soundtrack some years ago, part of the overall vision was to incorporate instruments that were totally removed from the Kentucky setting. The thinking was to mirror the massive shift in the world—that whole zombie thing—with an equally big change in the (expected) music. What could have possibly been played by the banjo and fiddle, for example, went to the tar and duduk.”

“Recently, though, the team brought up a player’s suggestion to reexamine this and tie in aspects of the local music. This took some thought and a good bit of experimentation, as I didn’t want to upset the identity we had created for Zomboid.”

“The result is a new set of tracks that, I believe, expand on the old ones faithfully—the mood is still there, but now we’ve got American-style sounds mixing with the more middle-eastern sounding ones. When everything’s heard together, I hope the occasional appearance of these instruments (and their distinct playing styles) hints at the past world.”

 
VEHICLE ENHANCEMENTS
Behind the scenes there’s currently a lot of conversation about revamps of existing systems (farming, last week’s thoughts on polishing the power outage etc) but something else we’re discussing are ‘survival-style’ skill and recipe-based enhancements to vehicles. To which end, we thought we’d float this image of our potential direction with this in front of the community – to gauge opinion and gather some feedback.

Please note that this is NOT a final representation – it requires a full art pass, not to mention a lot of coding work that will likely come from General Arcade’s Yuri for a future build. It does, however, show how a modular model system could work – and we’d like your thoughts on it.

(https://i.imgur.com/8RmIxm1.png)
 
PENISHAM FESTIVAL
It’s currently the Annual Penisham Celebration on our forums. Feel free to join in, but be aware that Penisham will only be available for another five days.

This week’s patriotism from GodImtrash . 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 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. And did you ever wonder how the Knox Event played out in the UK, well wonder no more…
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on October 02, 2018, 01:02:41 PM
Men with Ven
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/VJoJYyI.jpg)

Hey all, here’s a quick run-down on where we’re at with Build 40 and beyond.

BUILD 41+
With the final touches being made to build 40, we’re now at the point of making a decision on what to do for the next build.

The issue with huge features like our new animation and clothing system, and everything that comes with it, living on another code branch is you tend to have to play catch-up a lot. The developers on the base game add or fix things on the non-animation branch, those changes need merging in – and due to the vast differences in the underlying code due to the animations this tends to add in extra work for the four guys over at TEA working on the new systems.

There comes a point you’ve just got to go all in and commit, or you’ll be playing catch-up forever. So (even though we have a few non-anim things ready to roll for Build 41 – like improved MP admin and gamepad functionality) as soon as build 40 is live and patched, we will be making the leap and merging in both the work we originally did, and all the extra animation tech that’s been worked on by TEA into the main development branch

This will mean that every developer at Indie Stone, including the chaps at TEA and at General Arcade, will all be working directly on the same version, and the focus of the entire team will be shifted onto making sure the entire game functions with the new animation system.

There is still a lot to do, there’s a lot of game there and things like cars and multiplayer will need some work to get functional, but this move will commit us and the next non-hotfix and non-patch build after 40 goes live will be the animations build.

It also means that blog updates about it all (once the dust has settled from the big switch-over) will hopefully become a bit clearer and less dry and technical. As well as, say, this week’s news that ‘Zac has made improvements to the BlendField renderer to help visualise how the anims blend together’ we can increasingly show how the PZ gameplay we all know and love/hate is coming together with the new visuals etc. Which will hopefully prove less frustrating.

Before this happens, though, TEA need to bed down a few things and prepare some documentation –and we need to get Build 40 out of the door and patched. So….

PUBLIC IWBUMS BETA 40.17 RELEASED
We just released version 40.17 to the IWBUMS beta, patchnotes for which are available here. We’re pretty much done with Build 40 at this point, but do need to smuggle in some more temperature balance and seasonal SFX.

We’re going to do a new internal test build for 40.18 tomorrow with some required fixes for admin commands and the chatbox, with the intention of then releasing it to IWBUMS early next week so we can have one final Community Megatest to shake out any remaining cobwebs.

There will, as always, be free PZ codes for people who help out – and due to the additions to the game mentioned below it should be a lot of fun. Please keep an eye on the forums for details.

•   Turbo has added climate and weather MP admin panels that should make for some really interesting roleplay and gameplay opportunities on PZ servers. Storms, snow and fog can be triggered at will to cover the entirety of the map – as well as overall climate values can be now be ticked to override what the game has conjured itself depending on what time of year it is. Server admins can also play around with how night appears, whether the game appears in monochrome etc We’re hoping that it’ll be a lot of fun.

https://youtu.be/_b-b9D675Ig
 
•   Rain and snow now look like they hit the ground, which makes for a huge visual improvement. Rain then disappears, and snow fades out. Likewise, Turbo has also fixed how precipitation wasn’t clearly visible when zoomed in.

https://youtu.be/KQC3PcCBn7E

•   There’s also a bunch of fixes including: issues with various in-game tiles, gun sounds not being heard far enough away in multiplayer, two bugs that spawned a random zombie in a barricaded bathroom and the ability to learning from the TV and radio when asleep.

Full list  here (https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24407-released-iwbums-build-4018/&page=5&tab=comments#comment-274942)

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on October 30, 2018, 12:52:17 PM
Zombie, it’s cold outside
Project Zomboid - nasKo
 
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/5da60233ca37da9e76e96bd04ccc89136b570647.jpg)

As mentioned in recent weeks, we’re now on clean-up duties before the release of Build 40 – which will then be patched with whatever’s necessary, before the animation branch being worked on by the guys over at TEA is fully merged into the main dev codebase for work on Build 41.

Last week, on IWBUMS beta 40.21, we put in the reflective windows skybox to better show season/day/night (and in prep for a future build’s reflective water), and also included Turbo’s more natural-looking snow, which can also be seen in the featured image above.

In the mean-time we’ve had several other test builds backstage, and are now putting out beta version 40.25. The full changelist can be found here, but the headlines are below.

•   Weather patterns are now more random, generally shorter, less intense in terms of screen darkness and have more periods of clear sky.
•   Cloud patterns seen on the ground have been updated, and have new textures – night has been improved.
•   Ground snow accumulation has been improved and updated, also working better when snow is turned on with admin/debug tools.
•   Weather periods can now also be fully modded, including a designated ‘modded’ stage which can be freely modified.
•   Insulation properties of different clothing now more clearly shown in the UI.
•   Spawns have been added for McCoy Logging and Fossoil vehicles, which weren’t appearing – alongside improved car spawns at gas stations in general.
•   Fixed: various chatbox and admin issues, a longstanding MP issue in which loot was respawning way too soon, the weird tile visual effect with some zombie corpses, crowds of zombies launching cars like bottle rockets (!) and players sometimes being trapped in their car (and zombies getting confused) by Yuri’s invisible anti-clip forcefield.
 

Megatest
We will be holding an IWBUMS Community Megatest tonight to see how many major irritations remain, and to gather info on the login issues that hampered the last Megatest – should the same problem arise.

If you would like to join in then keep an eye on the TIS forums. Free PZ codes for participants will be available (usual conditions apply) but please note that this isn’t a stress test so the required player number on the server might be limited.

 
Anims
It’s been a busy week for TEA preparing for the code merge of the animation build into the mainline development branch as soon as build 40 goes final. They have completed the vast majority of the tasks required for the handoff, at which point they will continue to work on bits of extra technology to make the main animation build development go smoother, and end up with better results, while the rest of the team beavers away converting the main branch’s character states to use their new fancy state system.

TEA have implemented all the character control and combat features that were present in the early animation build, but with the new elegant and fast to implement data driven state logic that will act as example for the rest of the team to use as a basis, as well as being a much more robust and bug free base than what existed before, so we’re hoping that while it certainly won’t be a quick task, with the entire team pushing toward it we’re hoping progress will be swift, and we can finally start showing more exciting videos on the Thursdoids with the confidence that they are finally around the corner. Animations represent a huge amount of work as well as a linchpin for the rest of the major features to be implemented into the game. Each build after and including animations (intermediary quick builds aside) on our roadmap to 1.0 and filling in those missing features everyone has been waiting for (yes, those). It’s going to be an exciting 2019!

After the hand off, TEA will be looking at some extra tech, such as animation retargetting, which will not only mean a much easier time for modders to implement their own animations and models by allowing animations to be adapted to slightly differing skeletons, but will also save poor Martin many many hours of reexporting hundreds of animations whenever we decide to add a bone to the skeleton (looking at you, backpacks!). In addition, they are going to look into finally getting the proper rotation blending working nicely, which has been a thorn in our side since day 1, and would if nailed allow for better turning and much more immersive turning animations. Though obviously it’s key that we retain the nice responsive character movement, so we’ll need to experiment with how to allow for animated turning without the character feeling sluggish to control.

 

This week’s snow scene from Taquitosito. 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 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.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on October 30, 2018, 12:58:19 PM
Sway of Things
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/nYFEMpj.jpg)

Hey all, here’s what’s happening.

BUILD 40
Build 40 is for all intents of purposes done now, with one addition that might need a few fixes that we’ll explain the reasoning behind below.

On Tuesday we released Version 40.26 to the IWBUMS public beta. As we forecast last week, this contained:

•   New, rare, inventory clothing types to better insulate players.
•   Thunderclaps when players are banned on a server. (Optional)
•   Better admin control over weather effects
•   Fixed map bugs. Fixed missing vehicle skids sounds in MP. Fixed broken MP car locks. Fixed container bugs. Lots of other fixed bugs.

Being the first product of Bitbaboon Steve’s new internal autobuild system though, there were a few teething troubles that caused issues for our Linux server operators. Which has expedited the release of today’s Version 40.27. This contains remedies for annoying small tree collisions, and car battery fun.. but predominantly it contains the below.

SHAKE IT
We’re pretty happy with the fog, mist, storms, improved snow and other general additions of Build 40 – but something we weren’t 100% satisfied with was getting an indication of wind speed and direction across to the player. There just weren’t any indicators on-screen, and we weren’t making the most of a lot of the work on the simulated climate and weather systems. It was something of a blemish on an otherwise really cool feature. And so Turbo scurried off to his experimentation chamber and…


https://youtu.be/uO-RkLWUF_Q


This is now playable on the IWBUMS beta, but will need some balance and feedback from testers as to how strong the effect should be at different wind speeds. We also, clearly, need to know if anyone notices any change in performance. Right now, trees sway slightly in low wind – and in storms, especially, at night they’re a bunch more atmospheric. (We’ll also be adding in better wind, and other, SFX in Build 40 patches.)


https://youtu.be/Qq3WR8bq2hY


Through building this system into the game, Turbo has also unlocked some helpful visual niceties that the game has needed for a long time. They will also be of huge benefit to our players who are hard of hearing.  In this build, this includes:

•   Doors shaking when zombies hit them
•   Locked doors shaking when the player tries to open them
•   Trees shaking slightly when the player is chopping them down.
•   Trees rustling when the player, or zeds, walk through them
•   Trees shaking after car collisions

Please note, however, that in the current IWBUMS beta the bigger trees move too much in response to player/zed actions – and some of the SFX are a bit off. Here’s a compilation vid of the new feature:


https://youtu.be/Vo80PqbvUXI


BUILD 41
Work continues with the TEA’s preparation for the entire team moving onto animations once 40 is final and patched, a lot of it under the bonnet kinda stuff. A big improvement to the animation system and tools is the ability to clone animation states and override aspects of them without needing to completely duplicate the state logic that drives it.

An example of this would be for handling (quite literally) weapons while walking, strafing or attacking. We can now define the core states for handling walking, strafing, sneaking, attacking without a weapon equipped, and then creating other states using that as a template that say hold a one handed weapon, or a gun, and substitute animations while still retaining all the logic tying together and blending the animations with the gameplay. Functionality such as this will speed up Animator Martin’s job of implementing all these states into PZ, and cut down the replication of work from the coders once we’re all inside the system.

OTHER STUFF
•   We’d like to welcome ChrisW back to our bank of coders, who will be picking up where he left off with the Sims style cutaways we’d like to make internal building navigation a bit slicker.
•   As mentioned last week RJ is now working with Xeonyx, creator of New Denver, to help debug his new Hollywood Studio map and come up with an Official PZ Challenge system for it – for when it’s added to the main game. Here’s another screenie from it.

(https://i.imgur.com/7ISxP9z.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/Gl3v5Dq.png)

This week’s sunday service from KurtZ. 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.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 01, 2018, 12:15:16 AM
Build 40 Released!
Project Zomboid - incogme

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/5da60233ca37da9e76e96bd04ccc89136b570647.jpg)

To both of you out there who aren’t playing Red Dead Redemption 2 right now, we have a treat! Build 40 has been officially released!

Build 40 contains a simulated weather and climate system – recreating true-to-life weather patterns through 365 days of the year following a virtual warm and cold front system.

Once this version is out and fully patched, then the team will moving into the animation codebase currently being prepped by our friends at T.E.A. for Build 41.

As far as Build 40 goes, the following video gives you a brief taster of what to expect.

https://youtu.be/1UmCQZNf5hU


New stuff that can be seen in the above video includes:
•   Storms that pass over the Zomboid map.
•   Different levels of fog and mist, that will often clear during the day.
•   Simulated wind speeds that can be seen in the moving foliage around you, and in how precipitation falls. Trees sway, and move when crashed into – or hordes pass through them.
•   New shaders and post-processing effects to give a better feeling of different times of day, and for different seasons and times of year.
•   Improved rain effects, with more realistic ground impact.
•   Improved snow and snow effects.

Build 40 also includes:
•   Improved player character temperature system, moodles and inventory clothing types to help you fight against the more extreme temperatures. (Stuff the game now tracks seen here]

(https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/climateplayer.png)

•   New Chatbox. Primary features include separate chat streams (safehouse, local, global, etc), customizable chat and more intuitive usage and commands. It’s hopefully a lot more convenient now.
•   Reflective windows on vehicles and skybox generation. This takes into account: the time of day, the Global illumination color, fog, cloudiness, precipitation intensity, wind direction, wind speed and the temperature of the ambient air / cloud level.
•   Added ‘shake’ sprite effects for hits on doors, chops on trees and zeds/players walking through vegetation.
•   System to convert objects placed by mappers so they can be used as functional game objects. This covers items like barricades, campfires, rain barrels, traps, composters, crops etc.
•   MP Admin Items list UI that can be used to quickly search through, and spawn, items.
•   New MP host Sandbox options that can be enabled, where possible, in-game without a restart.
•   New C++ version of ZombiePopulationManager. This system is what governs the placement and movement of zombies when they’re not directly on your screen, and this updated version should be an optimization for SP and MP – hopefully helping out lower spec machines and busy servers.
•   New weather-based challenges: A Storm is Coming, and The Descending Fog. Improved Winter is Coming challenge.
•   Also: Car battery charger now available. Driving drunk is no longer recommended. MP players can now be damaged by cars. Clearer weight gain and loss. Revamped PZ sound system. Loads of optimizations, MP and Admin improvements, map fixes, improved UI readability, a fair bit of balance and 300+ general fixes.
For the full changelist and details on all the balance changes and fixes please check here on the forums.

As ever, we do rigorous testing both internally and within the IWBUMS community beta channel – but due to wide range of hardware out there in the Steam wilds there will always be issues that need to be fixed after a build release. So please have patience while we patch up anything that arises.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 23, 2018, 12:47:24 AM
Crepe Expectations
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/8ded886e2d62ff3117300cc536b2bb61a9d5772c.jpg)

We released Build 40 last Tuesday, and gave it a first hotfix on Thursday. We currently have the next patch in a public IWBUMS beta channel – and if you don’t mind then we’d love you to jump over there and see how it plays. Primary fixes/changes include:

•   More frequent changes in weather systems as the weeks tick by, and a little more extreme weather. We were concerned that people weren’t seeing enough of the new weather events, particularly rain, and so things should be more variable with this patch. We would still love to hear feedback on the current build’s weather too, and if you’d like to let us know then the relevant thread can be found here.
•   Some restored/improved chat functionality, and admin commands.
•   Sandbox options for snow on the ground, and rain/fog fx intensity.
•   Fixes to player wetness: you won’t get soaked inside tents anymore, and likewise driving with a smashed windshield will get you wet.
•   Fixes with crate-stacking, car horn/alarm radius, MP door and tree shake, construction issues, vehicle reflections and various other stuff.

We aim to release this next week, although also plan to look a few other areas including issues with the muted appearance of indoor lights, flashlights and headlights during night scenes.

In terms of build 41 TEA have provided all the guidelines and reference materials for our own coders to get to grips with what’s required of them, which in time will also be released for modders. We’ve also got an irl meet-up for our Europe-based team coming up soon, where we’ll be discussing the changes and what other cool stuff they can bring.

In the meantime this week Zac has continued to improve the AnimZed dev and modding tool alongside Animator Martin, and now has the Clothing module bound in nicely so Martin can quickly add new costumes and ultimately bind them to in-game inventory items.

He gave us a quick demo video to show the system in action as seen below, being able to quickly switch the player’s costume with the external tool. Please be aware, though, that the tool is just demoing costumes and items held in hand. It hasn’t been set up with all the custom animations for holding weapons, so the guitar will obviously not look as wonky in the finished thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6362F7JCAM

General Arcade’s Yuri is already inside the anims build, and working on his new water shader. These are the current fruits of his labour, although currently the system doesn’t know where water borders can be found on the map. It does work as a proof of concept though (faaar down the line! like: real far) for localised flooding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LREZzaohbI

We’d also like to thank Clerkius who made this cool fan-made trailer for us, which shows off the game really nicely – so we thought we’d spread the link a little wider;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxV2JgNds0U

This week’s featured image (that we’ve used to make a pun on a Dickens novel that starts out with a lot of fog as a vague attempt to make use of a degree in English Lit) from ♔Потерянная.ѡℛ. 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.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 23, 2018, 12:52:34 AM
The Darkness
Project Zomboid - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/h9slq4j.png)

Hey everyone, lots to get through today soooo…

PUBLIC BUILD 40 PATCHED
We’ve just patched Build 40, which is now up to version 40.36. Primary improvements you’ll notice are:
•   Local text chat now audible/legible from a distance, and no longer obscured.
•   Weather period frequency throughout the whole year increased, and more heavy weather.
•   Car alarms now attract zeds again.
•   Chat now logged on server (format will be improved later)
•   Less getting wet in inappropriate places

There’s a fair amount of other stuff too though, details on which can be found here on the   forum (https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24842-version-4036-released%C2%A0%C2%A0full-patch-notes/)

NEXT 40 PATCH: BETTER NIGHTS
One of the biggest problems with Build 40 on release was that the new time of day, and time of year, shaders didn’t play very nicely with the lighting system. Flashlights, internal lighting and vehicle headlights all suddenly look very washed out. Players who venture out in the dark weren’t having as much fun as usual.

As such, Turbo has been working on an improvement that we want to get into the current public version before he moves fully into Build 41. Vids of this can be seen below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m64s12l00yY

We hope you agree that it looks far, far better – and more than a little scarier to boot.

“In the above videos the ambient values have been changed along with the colours during dark periods (night/storms)” Turbo explains. “This fixes the headlights, flashlights etc and makes darkness look better in general.”

“Also seen below is some improved and indoor lighting during dark times. In the initial Build 40 release my shader overlay coloring messed it all up – so now the shader coloring is disabled when you’re indoors. This did come with the problem that when you’re looking outside you wouldn’t see darkness or weather effects, however, so I’m now using the mask cut-out I created for rain to overlay an external colored texture too.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27jT7cTmbV0

“Before we patch I will probably adjust storms a bit too though, as currently they lose a bit too much of their storm tint.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP_WnlsiM9I

BUILD 41
We’re transitioning the PZ coders over to the work that TEA have done on animations for Build 41, but in the mean-time guys like Zac and Grant are continuing to improve tools and, in the case of Grant, do some optimization of the anims codebase.

“I’m doing a lot of work on the new clothing tech at the moment” explains Zac. “Using AnimZed wearable bags like backpacks are now visible on the character, and characters can equip custom clothing meshes on top of the base rig.”

“This allows outfits such as baggy jeans, coats, dresses, hoodies, jump-suits, and so on and parts of the base mesh can be now be masked out to prevent clipping and/or overdraw. When this gets to the modders then it’d be fairly simple to even do something like replace a character’s hand with a pirate’s hook or something.”

“It’s all customized for each clothing item, using the paper-doll UI inside the new ClothingItem Editor. There’s also random tints for more variety in the clothing too.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F1Yqi9dTOA

(please note: on the spot turning animations are not in the build yet but will be before release!)

WATER STUFF
Regular Thursdoiders will know that Yuri is currently working on the improved appearance of water for Build 41. Below you’ll find what it looks like currently, but here’s a note on what to look out for:
•   A ripple effect has been added to the water, that will let players to see the direction and speed of the wind added to the game in Build 40 on the water’s surface.
•   The water shader now accepts data for flow direction and speed for each tile in the map, so rivers are now more realistic. In the video you can see how the water flows more slowly near the bank, and also how the flow of water smoothly changes its direction along the river.
•   Three water ‘visual quality’ options have been added. There is now a high and low quality option for both dynamic water and static water. Low quality dynamic water puts a very small load on the GPU, so it should be okay on most PCs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruRCJxvRJ64

You can also see Yuri playing around with the different debug values for this system here.

PUBLIC CONTROLLER BUILD TEST

(https://i.imgur.com/2Kn4SoO.jpg)

We’re currently running a beta for the work that Stas has recently been doing on gamepad controller improvements, and folk have been contributing some absolutely brilliant feedback.

If you enjoy playing PZ with a pad want to join in, and earn yourself a FREE PZ CODE, then simply visit this thread[/b], install the controllers beta, play for a few hours and answer the ten questions we’ve provided.

This morning we released a new version of the Controllers build using your feedback, and Stas has quashed many of the bugs that were irking people. So now is a great time to join in.

Please note that currently only PC players can run the build, and also that the joypad back-end system, configuration and bindings have been completely rewritten from the ground up. In the process some aspects of the controls and default bindings have been changed in the rewriting process – if you have any issues with the default bindings and behaviours of the controls we’d like to hear about it.

NEW DENVER UPDATED – NOW SLOCAN LAKE
A quick shout out for Xeonyx, the creator of the wonderful map mod New Denver – which has recently been renamed as Slocan Lake. Jamie is now making Challenge maps for the main game, the first of which will likely appear in Build 41 at this point, but wanted to bring his most famous mod creation up to date.

The new version of Slocan Lake now has vehicle spawns and lootable maps, and no longer covers up areas of the vanilla zomboid map. You can find it here.

(https://i.imgur.com/LgQbcIl.png)

“With the additions of the towns of Silverton and Rosebery,” explains Xeonyx, “I felt it necessary to change the name of the map mod to Slocan Lake BC to better reflect the region the map takes place in, and not just the first town that was completed.”

“Players can now choose to start in one of the three towns as opposed to just New Denver, and with vehicles being added it makes for easier travel between places. I’ve also added forage zones to let players to gather supplies, even when they’re kilometers deep in the bush.”

“Traveling players will find the map no longer covers parts of the vanilla map (Farmlands, Rosewood Prison etc) and has been pushed South. So if you find a road going South off the highway here, this will take you to New Denver.”

“I’ve also added lootable maps to the mod, so you have maps of Silverton, New Denver, Rosebery, Full Region Map and Golf Course Cards out there to find. I also added in the real world street names on the town maps for players wanting to better navigate, and clearly to underline how the map mod is a 1:1 scale recreation of the real life region where I live.”

(https://i.imgur.com/QD06nAt.png)

This week’s pile-up from Maris. 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. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all our American survivors!

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 21, 2018, 12:13:15 AM
Nightzedding
6 December - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/CiGMKgf.jpg)

Hey all, Thursday greetings.

40 PATCHING
We’ve currently got the final Build 40 patch in a public IWBUMS beta, and since last week have released 40.37[theindiestone.com] and 40.38 [theindiestone.com] into it. This includes Turbo’s new night shaders and more colourful/useful interior lights, flashlights and headlights as we felt that Build 40 had moved away from what we wanted in this respect. You can see the video of this from a previous Thursdoid here.

So far IWBUMS testers have reacted really positively the new nights, which is heartening to see. We’ve had quite a few comments like “Night-time looks like the old PZ nights and flashlights finally have a function, this is amazing!” and similar, which is exactly what we were hoping for.

IWBUMS beta 40.39 was due for release today ready for the public patch, but Stas is still hitting a chatbox whisper bug with a code hammer. It will also add in, upon arrival, a fix for players getting wet in some player constructions and add back in the system we have that governs on how dark nights are depending on how bright the moon is.

Turbo has also added the dither circle stencil to the weathermask system (the ring of visibility around the player) when it comes to being inside buildings, which really improves the look of it all. Here’s a video of it without, and here’s a video of it with.

41 ANIMS AND MODELS
Work continues with the AnimZed tool, clothing, layering, spawned zed outfits and similar. There’s still loads of stuff to do under the hood for 41, but we’re now in a position to hopefully provide more visual updates in blogs each week.

This first video touches on what we discussed last week – the ability to layer clothing in whatever order we/you please for added player/zombie variety.

This allows for full length clothing items like dresses, different sorts of shoes, the ability to wear an apron under a jacket, different underwear etc.

https://youtu.be/0mfKRC1c258


This week Zac has also added a zombie spawn test function that creates zeds wearing different outfits from our assigned collection – or all dress the same. This is so we have a convenient way of testing all the different randomized and non-randomized clothing items at once.

https://youtu.be/eD-2fUw69Mg


Finally for this section, here are some of the dev-defined Career Zed outfits that the system’s easily conjuring up for Martin.

(https://i.imgur.com/ZgNRczG.jpg)


WATERZED
Yuri this week has continued working on the code for calculating the direction of water movement that we discussed last week – meaning that the game now knows where water should be still and where it should flow.

He’s also fixed some model issues he was having with the anims build, and improved the way banks look. As we’ve said before, it might look too realistic in some aspects of it – but the different quality options give us room to play here.

https://youtu.be/wRl2Z1wlC1w

https://youtu.be/TZLwe8OHAwU


SIMS-STYLE CUTAWAYS
Chris W is back with us and back in the code, picking up where he left off with improving the way that building interiors are displayed – to the extent that one day our aforementioned friend the dithered visibility circle stencil will no longer be a requirement.

“I’m replacing the old method of stencilling out walls that obscure the interiors” he explains.  “The new method will cut the walls down to ankle height, so you can still see where they should be.”

“The system uses shaders to combine multiple texture samplers, while the old method used multiple passes. When it’s finished, it’ll include curved transitions between the full walls and the cutaway walls. You can see my first work on this in the screen below, but there’s still a lot to change and fix.”

(https://i.imgur.com/1y7g3qh.jpg)

OTHER STUFF

•   Stas continues his work on the ControllerTest Build, with a fixes version released to testers today[theindiestone.com]. If you would like to join in the test beta and earn yourself a free PZ code, enquire within[theindiestone.com].
•   Bitbaboon Steve is back with us and investigating ways to optimize MP.
•   RJ is looking into ways to allow us better control over our loot spawn system and difficulty levels, given the many new items that future builds will bring.
•   Mash continues with her work/marathon in the creation of our take on Louisville, and is currently creating the crumbier/seedier end of town.

This week’s plea from the forum from Sick Boy[theindiestone.com]. 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. TheCentralized 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.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 21, 2018, 12:16:52 AM
ZedLocation
13 December - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/VlGxOxB.jpg)

Howdy almost-yuletide survivor.

PATCH 40.40 RELEASED
Today we released our final (sort of, read below for more on that) patch for Build 40. Full patchnotes can be found here[theindiestone.com], but this covers stuff like:

•   Improved darker nights, and less washed out night-time interiors. Car headlights and flashlights will be more of a necessity now. Sandbox settings also updated, so you can adapt it to a brightness you desire.
•   Improved appearance of weather effects when in a building.
•   Moon calculations re-added to game to govern night brightness.
•   Extended disassemble ability to many more items,including: fridges, ovens, more chairs, washing machines, lockers, fitness equipment, metal barrels and some missing shelves.
•   Some balanced player actions related to injuries, sleeping, window-breaking and bandages in a saucepan.
•   Fixed whisper problems in the new chatbox, stair teleports, rain rather than snow in Winter is Coming, community translation font issues, plumbed sinks not working in MP and various other issues.

40 MP NETWORK STUFF
While the rest of the team move into the animations build and version 41, we’re leaving optimization specialist Bitbaboon Steve investigating what easy-win MP networking improvements we could potentially still patch into 40.

The first of his discoveries, the removal large number of empty and unnecessary data packets being sent over the server, has been released in 40.40 and should be a mild salve for current lag issues but his investigations also came up with an idea we thought it’d be wise to test out with a forthcoming IWBUMS beta and Community Megatest.

Essentially, Steve has been working on some server configurable optimizations for zombies in multiplayer. Since vehicles, performance in multiplayer servers has seen added strain (particularly in handling zombie hordes) and we’re hoping this might improve matters.

In essence, we’re about to release a test version in which there are several configurable options to allow server owners to fine-tune how much zombie data is sent to their players.

There will now be two ‘player client zombie awareness’ circles: the first a smaller radius that defines at what tile-range zombie positions are sent to clients with a high precision in every frame, and then a second larger radius in which the zombie location information can be sent to clients less frequently. Server owners will also be able to play with how much time there is between the low frequency updates.

On low population co-op servers these values can be set pretty liberally, so the players are getting all zombies in the visible area smoothly. But on high population servers that experience lag issues, server operators can sacrifice the smoothness of zombie movement in the distance (or even cap zombie visibility completely over a certain distance) in order to VASTLY reduce the amount of internet traffic they produce when lots of players are involved.

We think this will sharply decrease the amount of work the server needs to do and should lead to a much better player experience with a little bit of visual compromise toward the edge of the screen. Distant zombies might pause a bit or appear to teleport slightly between updates, but these movements are also something we’d hope to blend better (and make far less noticeable) with the added functionalities of the animations build. Server operators can decide on their own level of compromise too.

This work is pretty much done, and as such we will add it into the IWBUMS beta as soon as it’s clear there’s nothing from 40.40 that needs hot-fixing. Please keep your eyes on the forum if you want to participate in a special Yuletide Megatest.

41 ANIMS
This week in TEA-land Grant has improved things dev/modder-side with live texture reload, through upgrading the Filewatcher mechanism. It now watches the media folder instead of polling individual files, and is much more efficient. Upon a texture filechange, the game now reloads it live and in-place. This should make iteration times on textures much easier and faster.

https://youtu.be/lXtz_Owm_V8


Zac, meanwhile, has fixed up AnimZed for Animator Martin to the extent that he can now get a lot more variation on different individual outfits. Take these cops for example:

(https://i.imgur.com/qW2VLl4.png)

Martin has also been creating a better range of skin tones for player characters, to allow for better customisation should people desire it.

OTHER STUFF
•   Stas has just updated the Gamepad Test beta with a lot of fixes[theindiestone.com], for our lovely select bunch of gamepad testers. If you fancy helping out with this part of PZ work, and earn yourself a free code, then enquire within[theindiestone.com].
•   RJ has been tinkering with in-game loot, and has occasionally been popping into the PZ Discord to look for willing testers. The overall plan is to have more information in the game code in terms of what’s a desirable item, and what’s junk – so we can then fill containers with a lot more realistic junk items even on higher difficulty levels. He’s also experimenting with having more specific containers in homes for more specific items (all the cutlery in one drawer, male clothes in one wardrobe, female in another etc) but the jury is currently out on whether it actually detracts from the looting gameplay.
•   ChrisW’s work on in-building Sims-style cutaways and the abolition of the dithered circle view stencil continues. As seen here both with, and without.

(https://i.imgur.com/bXt79Qq.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/NBZ4x0m.png)


Today’s warehouse horde from Frank. 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 Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZWiki[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! OurDiscord [discord.gg]is open for chat and hijinks too.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 21, 2018, 12:20:06 AM
Spooky Santa
20 December - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/qcEpMkG.png)


Hello! Merry impending Chrimble.

On Tuesday we ran a pretty successful Community Megatest using our new MP networking system that Bitbaboon Steve has concocted for us. Users generally reported a much smoother experience in overall play, and had a lot of fun with the storms, snow and admin-created blood moons.

This said, we did see a few potential issues around mega-hordes and vehicles that we need to investigate deeper – so didn’t want to inflict our Megatest settings as default ones on players over the Xmas break until we’re sure they’re the right ones.

To this end we’ll be running more Community Megatests in the near future, with different system settings – and some handy network debug tools that Steve is currently coding into the system.

We have, however, also released it into the public build today in Build 40.43[theindiestone.com] for server owners to play around with – and have already heard some positive feedback. In essence, and with a video deliberately set to explain it best, it looks a bit like this:

https://youtu.be/bhm521K5gv8


In this video there are the two visible circles around the MP player, and then the mini-circles which appear around the zombies. Essentially: every time a circle appears around a zombie it means it’s getting a position update over the network from the server and then wired into your game. The client’s zed placement signals are received – and then the game knows where to show the zed.

The essence of the system is that server operators can now adjust the circle of ‘close dangerous zeds’ and the circle of distant ‘no trouble zeds’ – and the update times. This will cut down on the network traffic taken up by faraway zombies on your screen, and reduce strain on servers as a whole.

[Please note that this vid is an example only and made to explain the system – we haven’t judged what the best radius for these circles are yet and will be running a series of Community Megatests to help us judge what works best.]

So… here comes the science!

In the vid the low priority (larger radius) dictates the zombies which are going to update on the update delta. So every x seconds they will get an update, and in the video you can see these as the pulses. [It’s set purposefully long on the video to highlight it].

Meanwhile the high priority zombies get updated every server frame, and it will send out the closest Y zombies within the smaller circle around the player.

•   ZombieUpdateHighPriorty is the radius around the player for sending the high priority zombies.
•   ZombieUpdateMaxHighPriority is a cap on the number of high detail ones to send, and it will send the closest zombies to the player up to this limit.
•   ZombieUpdateRadiusLowPriority is the maximum radius to send the lower frequency updates to – at 45 this is essentially the entire screen at 1440p fully zoomed out.
•   ZombieUpdateDelta is the time between sending these lower frequency larger blobs of zombies

In the Megatest the values we used were, so if you run a server give it a spin with these and see how it goes:

ZombieUpdateMaxHighPriority 6
ZombieUpdateDelta 0.7
ZombieUpdateRadiusLowPriority 45
ZombieUpdateRadiusHighPriority 20

The next Megatest, meanwhile, will use a smaller high priority radius but a larger cap – to see how it all responds to hordes. It’s all a balancing act, really, so let us know how you get on if you have a play with it yourself.

Sorry for the technical stuff! Here’s some Build 41 stuff to compensate, along with something seasonal that will be one day be stashed in a cupboard in the mall awaiting the Xmas season.

(https://i.imgur.com/qcEpMkG.png)

Grant and Zac have been finetuning the clothing and animation modules. Clothes are now shader-driven and individual Clothing items can have custom shaders for special fx. Animations now auto-reload when modified from the Editor, and Martin has also been hard at work adding new clothing outfits, and adding more variety to existing outfits. Here’s a quick vid.
We've been working hard on fine-tuning the Clothing and Animation modules. Clothes are now shader-driven and individual Clothing items can have custom shaders for special fx.

https://youtu.be/OZt_MOIM5TM


That’s about it for today but Russian holidays mean that Yuri and Stas will continue their 41 work over the Western Xmas on current issues with upturned vehicles and the gamepad bindings screen, respectively, while there’s plenty of other stuff bubbling under too.

There will be a Thursdoid next week, but it’ll be a brief one featuring anything people have done over the holidays, and then back properly in the New Year. Have a great one if you’re celebrating!

This week’s Walking Dead-style not belonging here from non_curo. 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 Centralized 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 MailingList [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. Merry Xmas etc hohoho

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on January 30, 2019, 12:54:51 AM
Zedsmoothening
10 Jan - nasKo   

(https://i.imgur.com/3gXRGRg.jpg)

Hey all, quick run around the houses talking about who’s on what this week.

In anims-land for Build 41 Zac’s been looking at optimization, which we’ll be coming back to pretty routinely from this point – as we want to make sure everything is nice and smooth. Here he’s sorted out some locks in the render thread, and from the Before and After you can see a marked improvement in quality.

https://youtu.be/1fZ03VjhJr0


He’s also working on getting the shiny helmet / coats / leggings shader effect going for different clothing items, and also investigating with Mark as to why over the course of development with the animations system we’ve lost some of the earthy colours[projectzomboid.com] and harsher lighting that tended towards a slight over-saturation and bleached effect that doesn’t quite make the new character models fit the scene.

(https://i.imgur.com/NIdY3il.jpg)

Animator Martin, meanwhile, is looking at all the different locations we’ve got on the map (and those still to come) and creating new outfits to discover in their cupboards and lockers – and likewise to find the local zeds dressed up in.

(https://i.imgur.com/6VK86kt.png)

In other news:
Xeonyx, the creator of the much-loved New Denver / Slocan Lake map, is now working on Challenge Maps for the main game. These, including the Film Studio map we’ve discussed previously, will most likely be a part of Build 41. His current mission is a fictional map called Kingsmouth – a ‘paradise island’ vacation resort in the Caribbean. The map will feature vast hotels, seaside locales, a military installation and much more – but we’ll go quiet on it for now while Jamie gets on with his work. Here’s a quick screen from the map editor though.

(https://i.imgur.com/RYI2mZn.jpg)

Chris W continues his work on improving visuals within buildings – aiming for more Sims-style cutaways and the removal of the circle stencil we currently use. Here’s a quick before and after of the start of this work – the second image showing walls in the foreground cutting away to skirting height – with smooth transitions curving up to full height.

NOTE: Very much WIP and not a finished system, of course. The other room currently isn't cut but will be in the final version. This is just a sneak peak for the WIP system and showing off how the rounded corners look; the goal for the final version is improving vision, not limiting it.


(https://i.imgur.com/qxPRTU0.gif)
 
Meanwhile:

•   Yuri is working on improvements to the way we render the ground surfaces, especially road textures that have been rained on, to complement his recent improvements to how water appears in-game. (This said, right now, he’s shackling a hilarious car physics demon that’s sprung up on an internal server.) 
•   Stas just released an updated Controller Test beta[theindiestone.com] for those helping out with our gamepad improvement scheme. If you are interested in getting a free PZ code for your troubles, then join our band of testers[theindiestone.com]. 
•   While BitbaboonMark does some TEA-side code repository movements and merging: RJ is doing some improvements to food crafting and prepping a (non-anims) forum test for his new loot table improvements, EP is doing some very exciting experimental work with a new player map system and Turbo is plotting his next move after the successful integration of his weather/shaders in Build 40. (Most likely picking up on his work on in-game devices, or maybe those seasonal sound effects we discussed before).



Community stuff:
We’d like to direct your attention to the new Hashima Island map by Woldren, a map based on an IRL location you might recognise as the place where James Bond shot a woman who had whiskey on her head in Skyfall. It’s pretty damn cool.

(https://i.imgur.com/Ib3Z7ZL.jpg)

We’d also like to direct your attention to the Redboid server[theindiestone.com], which had a season refresh/reboot/restart yesterday and is a grand place to start your PZ MP adventures if you haven’t done so yet.

If you run a PZ server and would like a shout-out in a future blog, then please get in touch. And while you’re at it -please use these values in Bitbaboon Steve’s recent networking optimization options, as they certainly seem to be helping those currently using ’em.

ZombieUpdateMaxHighPriority=50

ZombieUpdateDelta=0.5

ZombieUpdateRadiusLowPriority=45.0

ZombieUpdateRadiusHighPriority=10.0

This week’s infested neighborhood from Dark Oracle. 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 MailingList [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.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 04, 2019, 11:27:52 PM
Spiffo’s Round-Up #5
4 Jun @ 2:43pm - nasKo   

(https://i.imgur.com/0zGmv2Y.gif)


How do everyone. Back again for update #5, here’s the highlights of the last few weeks of Project Zomboid Build 41 development – compiled from the Thursday blogs that appear at http://www.projectzomboid.com/blog/ and on the PZ Steam boards.

First off, a quick vid that shows the current state of the internal test build.

We’re not going to tell you what’s changed beyond the general polish we’ve been doing, but please make sure your sound/speakers are turned up.


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/1595876762854461161)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 06, 2019, 12:00:27 AM
Spiffo’s Round-Up #6
5 Jul @ 3:26pm - nasKo

(https://i.imgur.com/U9aYNlk.gif)


Hi everyone, here’s the highlights of the last few weeks of Project Zomboid Build 41 development – compiled from the Thursday blogs that appear at http://www.projectzomboid.com/blog/ and on the PZ Steam boards.

First off, here’s the latest gameplay video taken from the internal test build – which shows off many of the developments we discuss in the blog below.

https://youtu.be/1VlOR5JAWgQ


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/1594753310299731420)
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on October 16, 2019, 11:26:21 PM
Build 41 IWBUMS Beta out
Wed, 16 October 2019

(https://i.imgur.com/rDmXaxU.jpg)
 
The public ‘I Will Back Up My Save’ beta for the long-awaited Build 41 is now open for testing by the Project Zomboid community.

HOW?

The IWBUMS beta is accessible to anyone who plays Project Zomboid. Right click Project Zomboid in your Steam library and hit “Properties”. Then, navigate to the betas tab and select the “iwillbackupmysave” branch from the dropdown menu.

(https://i.imgur.com/ZZLOKaI.gif)

Those who test IWBUMS beta builds must be aware that what they’re playing is a work in progress.

IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS - MAKE SURE ALL MODS ARE DISABLED - then please try verifying the steam local cache within those same options. If this doesn't work, try a full uninstall and reinstall (while also deleting or renaming the installation folder as well as your user folder in C:UsersYourUsernameZomboid). Sometimes Steam updates can be buggy with big updates.

The beta is put out for public consumption for player feedback and bug reports. Please direct gameplay feedback to our forum beta release thread, and bugs to this section of our forums.

For further details on what IWBUMS testing entails, please check here.

WHAT?

Build 41 is the most fundamental and wide-ranging update that Project Zomboid has ever had. We intend it to be a stable foundation for us to build on for many years ahead. For this reason too,however, we anticipate a fairly long public beta while all the various issues presented to us by community testers are spotlit and remedied.

Some key features, primarily MP, are initially disabled in the IWBUMS beta build – and will be turned on during the testing process.

Build 41 currently contains:
•   New gameplay styles: Builder, Brawler and Survivor
•   More deadly ‘Survivor’ (Survival) gameplay balance – player can be dragged down by horde and feasted upon etc.
•   New survivor abilities: sitting, sneaking, sprinting, jogging, racking, reloading, climbing, fence-jumping, collapsing and much much more.
•   New combat, new weapons, new difficulty balance.
•   New character creation – many, many different new clothing options both on spawn and discoverable in the world as loot or on zombies.
•   New zombie behaviour: feasting on recent corpses, lolling against walls, falling over fences etc.
•   Blood system that progressively bloodies bodies and clothing of survivors and zombies
•   New injury system – movement and combat visibly hampered when injured. Lacerations now possible, an injury state that lies between bites and scratches.
•   Improved gunplay: green/red aiming outline, new guns, improved racking and reloading, increased gun loot spawn.
•   Zombie Death Scenes – zombies discovered in the situations in which people died. Prayer meetings, sports-viewing parties, survivor zeds wearing backpacks etc.
•   Situational zombie type/clothing and inventories – cop zeds in police station, firemen zeds in burnt buildings, Chef zeds in restaurant kitchens, bride and groom zeds at a wedding ceremony in church etc.
•   Clothing protection: different clothing provides different levels of protection from zombie attacks.
•   Visibly ripped and damaged clothing.
•   New Sims-style cutaway vision system.
•   Vehicle handling improvements, resizing and appearance tweaks.
•   Updated, remastered and improved Kentucky-themed soundtrack. Original music still in rotation, and also accessible through game options.
•   New SFX: weaponry, zombie moans etc.
•   New water visuals – including visible flow direction.
•   New puddle system during heavy rain.
•   Broken glass and related injuries.
•   Garage doors may be opened / closed and shake when hit.
•   New Challenge maps: Film Set and Kingsmouth Vacation Island
•   3D Store Mannequins – can be dressed however you like
•   Working washing machines and driers
•   Server-side saving: MP save system now in a server-side database. Offline SP-side, also means no more lost cars via irl power outages.
•   New game cursor
•   New level-up sound, and tweaked levelling system.
•   Faint isometric aiming cursor that shows where you’re aiming in iso space.
•   New loot balance and loot balance system: houses and stores now have loot in the containers you would expect from real life – and not in a jumble.
•   Two tiers of loot priority – allowing for more realistic ‘filler’ loot amidst the more valuable gameplay items.
•   Many, many general fixes including remedies for: floating cars, farming issues, inaudible house alarms, erosion shrubs blocking vehicles, desensitized survivors being panicked by crawlers and much more.
•   VISIBLE BACKPACKS!


Build 41 and is the first (biggest) step in our overall plan to bring more life, variety and activity to the Knox Event. From this build onwards we will be adding in (and improving) our existing AI work layer-by-layer.

Build 42, for example, will use the power of the Build 41 animations build to introduce animals and wildlife.

We will also be releasing AnimZed, our animation tool, to the community during the IWBUMS beta process – meaning that modders will receive a huge boost in what they can create within PZ.

WHAT NEXT?

During the IWBUMS beta process for Build 41 the following features will be re-enabled and/or improved.
•   Multiplayer – alongside significant MP Networking improvements
•   Improved visual fidelity of survivor character and zombies
•   Further optimization to improve performance on both low and high end systems.
•   Sprinter Zeds
•   Fire visuals
•   Tutorial
•   Zombie skin appearance/decay
•   Ability to repair ripped clothing


WHAT ELSE?

Due to the extent of engine and gameplay changes in Build 41, existing savegames will NOT be compatible.

At the time of the full build release, for those wishing to continue playing on old saves, a Steam beta branch of the current Build 40 will be available – and will continue to be available at all times.

This will be known as ‘PZ Classic’, and will also allow people to continue to play with their favourite mods until such a time as they are updated.

Below is a sneak vision into the future beyond build 41!

(https://media.giphy.com/media/mAPgiF6mZ97JZrdDUg/giphy.gif)

(https://i.imgur.com/WTQ0p57.jpg)

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on December 23, 2021, 01:05:04 AM
Project Zomboid Trailer: This Is How I Died

https://youtu.be/2-laFSqQcFU

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on February 03, 2022, 11:48:54 PM
42 Techdoid
Thu, 3 February 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/600e96bc5fb8d3214f1ff391eb3de6fadae8a572.png)

Hey all, here’s a general update from TIS Towers on various things. We do hope this finds y’all well.

First off a quick heads-up on the forthcoming 41.66 patch. It’s now content locked, and is now receiving required fixes reported by our internal testers. We will look to put it out into a new unstable beta branch as soon as we can.

The full current changelist can be found here for those interested https://pastebin.com/e3KXcmzd

Next up, a few details on our Build 42 work.

As previously mentioned the core MP team will be sticking with Build 41 patches to improve life out on the servers for the immediate future, but work on the next big build has nevertheless now begun/continued in earnest.

Already announced for Build 42 was a major expansion of late game crafting and a major focus on game balance – details on which can be found here https://projectzomboid.com/blog/news/2022/01/2022-and-beyond/

There are a few other irons in the fire for this build too though. As ever, no ETAs on any of this.

We are very much still in the early versions of this build, and indeed much of the late game crafting update is currently in the ‘pen and paper’ planning stage. More on this in future blogs.

Engine Tech Improvements
We have recently taken some time to get rid of a bunch of our longest standing issues with the game’s engine.

Whilst this is definitely not a b41-style level of disruption, we’re digging deep inside our renderer and looking for ways to get rid of the quite severe problems that have been baked into our engine for a long time in terms of both capabilities and performance.

Performance
Of course, the biggest issue our engine struggles with daily is the extreme CPU and GPU heavy requirements of having a map composed of so many unique tiles, shaders and other stuff without the ability to use a z-buffer to let us render in an optimized way like most 3D games.

Ironically the fact that its ‘a simpler looking 2D game’ is what works against using a lot of the power of the GPU to render the map fast. This results in large FPS drops, particularly when zooming out due to the mind meltingly inefficient draw method that the ISO perspective forces on us.

We’ve had a few rather bold ideas on how to solve this, using the caching of chunks that have already been rendered, which we hope will vastly increase the FPS in B42.

It’s early days, but looks promising. This tech requires heavier use of the GPU memory, however, so it may be that this optimization will only be able to benefit cards with a few gigs of free VRAM. We’ll have to see which generations of GPUs will be best able to leverage it when its dev time is a little further down the line.

Speaking of not being able to use a z-buffer to render things in an optimized way: in actual fact, we’ve also been working towards being able to use a z-buffer to render things in an optimized way.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/0091565e2b584c8f325a72503001116639712353.png)

This essentially frees us from having to slot the draws of zombies, vehicles or players in between the appropriate tile draws in ‘back to front’ order.

We’ll be able to simply draw all the characters and vehicles on-screen at the end, their pixels then discarded if they are deeper into the scene than an existing building object’s pixel.

This should massively optimize the rendering speed of zombies, and allow us to sort them by materials. It will free us to use cached chunks indefinitely, until the lighting or cutaways demand a change, rather than rendering all the tiles individually.

We have had some surprising FPS results in 4k on max zoom,
however
 
we also expect this will likely fall a lot in practice – once the work is complete and everything is drawing. Please excuse any visual glitches at the moment!

https://youtu.be/G6t5h0_Sfqc

Due to all this, in B42 it currently feels safe to assume that zooming out will have significantly lower performance penalty – and that higher resolutions will become more feasible for at least mid-range GPUs, and possibly lower end GPUs too.
 
Read on.... https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/3121559923978499941

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 07, 2022, 11:26:06 PM
Project Zomboid UNSTABLE 41.68 Released
Mon, March 7, 2022


41.68 RELEASED TO UNSTABLE BETA

NEW

- Added allow changing safehouse owner to players which are a member
- Added extended server quit logging
- Print 'command entered via server console (System.in): "xxx"' in GameServer.launchCommandHandler().
- Added isConsistent() call to GameServer.receiveSyncClothing().

FORAGING

- Updated focus check to occur before item preview is placed
- Added blocking search focus for sprite affinity items

FIXES

- Fixed the result of FMOD Studio System getCoreSystem() not being checked properly for errors.
- Fixed Lua error clicking the close button in the titlebar of the Horde Manager debug ui.
- Fixed a BufferOverflowException when the number of reanimated player zombies is high. (It was taking about 600 player zombies (assuming 1.6KB per descriptor and 1e6KB packet buffer)
to be loaded for this exception to happen)
- Fixed dragging VHS tapes from world containers to the Device Options ui not being synced in multiplayer.
- Fixed repairing a hole in a long Leather Jacket with level 8 Tailoring not restoring condition.
- Fixed phantom item-transfer actions playing after crafting sometimes.
- Fixed IndexOutOfBoundsException in WorldItemModelDrawer.renderMain().
- Fixed starting the MusicCombined event doing network stuff.
- Fixed the MusicCombined event being stopped and then restarted the first time Lua is reloaded.
 
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 15, 2022, 12:02:17 AM
41.68 RELEASED
Mon, 14 March 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/108600/ss_d4a0f78dc94273c7f0eedc186569efc091387066.jpg)

41.68 compiled changelist

(Also including 41.67 from the unstable branch)


MP

•   Cheat control
•   Each anti-cheat can now be disabled via server option
•   Several anti-cheats can now be configured via server option
•   Anti-cheats are disabled by default for co-op hosted servers
•   Max/Min/Default values hint is added to ServerOptionChange UI window for double and integer server options
•   Old SafetySystem tooltip text is changed in accordance with new icon
•   GhostMod and NoClip are removed when admin gets player access level
•   Adjusted anti-cheat thresholds
•   Player is not kicked on coop host server
•   Adjust MP gain XP limit by sandbox XPMultiplier value
•   Fixed typo in UI\_ValidationFailed\_Type9
•   System property "rconlo" is added to make RCON server listen on loopback interface only
•   New IsoObjectID class replaces ZombieIDMap.
•   Limit the "mods" string reported by Steam servers to 128 characters. A new keyvalue "modCount" reports the actual number of mods used by the server. The server browser and favorites list will display "... and N more" after the list of mods, when there are more mods than are displayed.  This is to fix some servers reporting ??? as their version number, which prevents people from joining.
•   The server will exit if there are syntax errors in the servername\_SandboxVars.lua file.
•   The server's servername\_SandboxVars.lua is saved after loading it to update it to the latest version with comments.
•   Added missing buttons to disable toggle in admin panel UI
•   Added closing admin panel UI if player has no access level or revoked privileges
•   Added closing safezone tool UI if player has no access level or revoked privileges
•   Clarified safehouse tooltip - show all reasons why a safehouse cannot be claimed
•   Added server option "SafehouseAllowNonResidential" to allow claiming all buildings
•   Added confirmation before releasing a safe house
•   Fixed the owner sometimes showing in safehouse member list
•   Added check when releasing safehouse if player is the current owner or an admin
•   Fixed DisableSafehouseWhenPlayerConnected teleporting players outside when a player is removed while there are members online
•   Fixed DisableSafehouseWhenPlayerConnected never replacing the safehouse after a player disconnects
•   Added updating of the safehouse online member count periodically
•   Added allow changing safehouse owner to players which are a member
•   Added extended server quit logging
•   Print 'command entered via server console (System.in): "xxx"' in GameServer.launchCommandHandler().
•   Added isConsistent() call to GameServer.receiveSyncClothing().
•   Fixed both options on yes/no confirmation when quitting a safehouse removed the player
•   Fixed zombie that can be deleted by admin or zombie owner
•   Fixed server hanging on quit command because of active RCON connection
•   Fixed CD and VHS tapes possibly being different for each client.
•   Fixed GlobalModData.save() not being called on the server.
•   Fixed ZomboidRadio.Save() not being called when other things are saved on the server.  It was called every 10 game-world minutes, however.
•   Fixed Lua error in ISPlayerStatsManageInvUI after calling the /additem command in multiplayer.
•   Fixed issues with the Stitch packet.
•   Fixed repeated exceptions in GameClient.sendAddedRemovedItems() when a container object is null for some reason.
•   Fixed adding items to or removing items from containers not being synced in multiplayer if the player teleports before the changes are reported to the server.  This was one cause of the issue fixed above.

NEW

•   Added "Enable left joystick radial menu" accessibility option.
•   Updated community translations.
•   Added 3D models (not all in-game yet)

ENGINE

•   Updated Windows and Linux FMOD to 2.02.05.
•   Added error checking and logging when initializing FMOD.  The sound system is disabled when errors occur.

MODDING

•   Made the maximum allowed tiledef file number 16382. File numbers 0-99 are reserved for the game, as was already the case. The old unenforced maximum was 1000, which some mods ignored. Sprite IDs must fit in a signed 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647). Each tiledef file is reserved 512 tilesheets of 512 tiles each. However: please note that values higher than 8190 result in NEGATIVE sprite IDs. Numbers higher than 16382 definitely aren't allowed due to using 32-bit integers to hold sprite IDs.

 
FORAGING

•   Added Search Focus system for foraging
•   focus is set in the investigate area window
•   only one focus may be active at a time
•   increases chance to find certain categories of item when searching
•   player must be skilled enough to identify the item category to focus on it
•   focus effectiveness is determined by player skill and category
•   hidden item categories will not be rerolled (rare find protection)
•   square must be valid to roll the item type (cannot be used to find plants on roads)
•   Fixed duplicate clothing effect displayed in ZoneDisplay tooltip
•   Fixed missing per player render flag in ISBaseIcon
•   Tidied spriteAffinities definitions
•   General tidying and alignment of tables
•   Removed stone/firewood identify category skill requirement
•   Added translations for search focus functions
•   Added controller support for search focus
•   Fixed medicinal herbs requirement - check for recipe instead of trait "Herbalist"
•   Fixed tooltips flickering in Zone Display
•   Added tooltip to make long tips easier to read without scrolling
•   Added zone display tip for using search focus
•   Updated focus check to occur before item preview is placed
•   Added blocking search focus for sprite affinity items

BALANCE

•   Fixed Axeman not applying bonus for swing speed
•   Added correct adjustment of exercise fatigue.
•   Updated community translations.

FIXES
 
•   Fixed car dashboard delay when taking damage
•   Fixed doors missing their glass, and the triangle-shaped floors\_exterior\_natural\_01 dirt tile.
•   Fixed disassembling player-built floors resulting in two floor tiles after reloading, an auto-generated wood floor plus a dirt tile.
•   Fixed the result of FMOD::Studio::System::getCoreSystem() not being checked properly for errors.
•   Fixed Lua error clicking the close button in the titlebar of the Horde Manager debug ui.
•   Fixed a BufferOverflowException when the number of reanimated player zombies is high.  (It was taking about 600 player zombies (assuming 1.6KB per descriptor and 1e6KB packet buffer)  to be loaded for this exception to happen)
•   Fixed dragging VHS tapes from world containers to the Device Options ui not being synced in multiplayer.
•   Fixed repairing a hole in a long Leather Jacket with level 8 Tailoring not restoring condition.
•   Fixed phantom item-transfer actions playing after crafting sometimes.
•   Fixed IndexOutOfBoundsException in WorldItemModelDrawer.renderMain().
•   Fixed starting the MusicCombined event doing network stuff.
•   Fixed the MusicCombined event being stopped and then restarted the first time Lua is reloaded.
•   Fixed split-screen players, except the last, being unable to drive vehicles in multiplayer.
•   Fixed unnecessary pause when starting in debug

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on April 01, 2022, 12:12:44 AM
Milky Milky
Thu, 31 March 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/dc5861d78c7c4d59a9d0b037a94868f315aca5d7.jpg)

How do, all. Let’s visit a few different PZ departments to see what’s cooking.

41 PATCHING
We are currently partway through the journey to the 41.69 patch. Planned patches to Build 41 are intended to be, generally, not feature-led and instead focus on balance, QOL, fixes and polish. The current contents of 41.69 includes:

•   New items and 3D models
•   New foraging discoveries.
•   Many improvements for controller and Steamdeck play
•   Many improvements to the MP experience in areas such as: the sometimes weird vehicle physics, the PvP safety system, the PvP cooldown timer, safehouse bugs, sleeping and radio/VHS sync.


There’s a lot more incoming next week, but we intend to keep this patch relatively short and sharp if we can – though of course will also need to be sure of MP stability before any release (even to unstable) as there’s still quite a lot of large adjustments to the MP code going into the pot.

Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/3211636989459977867

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on May 22, 2022, 02:46:34 PM
41.71 - Released
Sun, May 22, 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/8e7eb31f8e62bbcdd5e6e98baffb2ebcff9eab8a.png)

41.71 compiled changelist

(Includes changes from builds 41.69 to 41.71 from the unstable branch.)


NEW
•  New action music system
Instead of switching between tracks mid-combat, the music is reactive and can increase and decrease in intensity during combat and other dramatic moments.
•  Added "Stubble" checkboxes to the Hair and Beard sections in the character-creation ui.
•  Added new items + updated 3D models
•  Added new forage items
•  Added the skeleton mannequin and scarecrow.
•  Added additional item categories and addressed some blunders
•  Added compilation of new hair types
•  Added option to "add all" to partially full Thread, Duct Tape, Twine etc
•  Added media/scripts/mannequins.txt which describes the model/texture/animation/etc for different mannequins.
•  Added BackupsOnVersionChange server option.
•  Added a second set of translations to the Survival Guide that are displayed when using a controller.
•  Added <JOYPAD:XXX> formatting to rich text, where XXX is the name of a Joypad.Texture.XXX texture.
•  Device options can now be opened when radio is on floor, in loot window or when radio just dropped from inventory
•  Added methods Texture.saveToCurrentSavefileDirectory(filename) and Texture.saveToZomboidDirectory(filename).
The filename may contain folder names, but not "..", to prevent saving to arbitrary locations.
These methods replace the broken Texture.save(filename) method.
•  Clicking and holding the left mouse button when placing items now locks the item to the clicked square.
•  Added XBOX_Menu.png and XBOX_View.png controller icons.
•  Added autouse new sack of gravel/sand/etc when pouring it on ground
•  Renamed Skill books so that they are easier to categorise.
•  ISClothingExtraAction now sets the item's job type to "Wear" and displays the progress of the action in the inventory window.
•  Updated credits
•  Updated community translations.
•  3D items now shown as textures instead of models. They shouldn't slide around as much when the player moves.
This helps a lot with framerates when there are 100 nails on the ground, for example.
In debug mode, holding the HOME key will disable the item atlas and render models as before.
•  Added IsoSprite.ItemHeight and IsoSprite.Surface debug options to display a rectangle around surfaces that items can be placed on.
•  Changed some ItemHeight and Surface tile properties.
•  Added a title bar to the mini-map window which allows the mini-map to be repositioned. The title bar and bottom row of buttons are hidden unless the mouse is over the mini-map.
•  Changed setHaveConstruction to apply only when constructing and placing objects

MODELS/ANIMS
•  Changed Diamond Pattern Sweater Vest and V-neck Sweater Vest to use Sweater body location
•  Changed High Viz vest to use Sweater body location
•  Added a different animation played when destroying floors with a sledgehammer.

MP
•  Removed vehicle physics from server (not client) to address some of the vehicular weirdness sometimes seen online
•  do not apply impulses to static / kinematic vehicles
•  limit changes of linear and angular velocities
•  Passengers no longer allowed to exit the car while moving
•  Enable packet processing on the server
•  MultiplayerSeeNonPvpZones debug only option is added
•  Local admin check is delayed after set-access-level command
•  Player update replay is commented out
•  Check for local admin kick is improved
•  Turn on player teleport logs on the server
•  Admin is not kickable from safehouse
•  Burnt or smashed vehicle check is added for dismantle vehicle command
•  Car wreck is removed via new "dismantle" vehicle command
•  Only admin can delete vehicle via "remove" vehicle command
•  Add vehicle UI allows creation of burnt and smashed car wrecks
•  Anti-cheat: fixed kick local admin issue
•  Cancel auth ticket on client shutdown
•  Toggle timer is disabled in non-pvp area
•  MultiplayerLightAmbient debug option is removed
•  Refactored SafetySystem
•  Server option process cycles for SafetySystemManager are simplified
•  PVP safety is now set to true when PVP is disabled on server
•  Set the default Host server memory to 4GB on 64-bit systems. This is the value displayed in the "Server memory" combobox which is saved in Zomboid/Lua/host.ini.
•  Don't create a backup of the server savefile in Zomboid/backups/version if BackupsOnStart=false. This backup is created when a new version of the game is released, but only for the first server that is launched.
•  Hide the black overlay when the sleeping players are killed

Improvements to how the MP game handles dead player bodies
•  DeadBody creation is moved to the server
•  DeadBody ID is added (World version 192)
•  Client does not allocate dead body ID
•  Fixed player death animations
•  Fixed desaturation being set for dead player
•  Fixed reanimation delay timer starting immediately without 10 seconds delay
•  Fixed reanimation delay of 0-30 seconds
•  Fixed player death final animation
•  Fixed possible null point exception when zombie bites dead player
•  Fixed dead body grabbing breaking reanimation
•  Fixed dead body id not changing when added to world
•  Fixed desync of safety cooldown timer
•  Fixed sleeping player not being woken up in case of kick from safehouse
•  Fixed PVP icon being located over the map
•  Fixed players who could be kicked when admin removes that player from safehouse
•  Fixed when a non-owner player quits a safe house, other players also getting kicked.
•  Fixed when safehouse owner goes offline, the non-safehouse-members get teleported immediately
•  Fixed PVP button becoming inactive for each player across the map if Admin shot\got shot by a player"
•  Fixed player being kicked when admin creates or removes PVP zone
•  Fixed SyncNonPvpZone packet send/receive loop
•  Fixed newly connected player not having all the non PVP zones
•  Fixed possible nullpointer in checkForNearbyRadios
•  Fixed zed texture 4 being used for player texture 5 instead of random index
•  Fixed reanimated player corpse disappearing
•  Fixed being able to turn pvp on when server option PVP set to false.
•  Fixed BufferUnderflowException on the server in SneezeCough packet processing
•  Fixed possible NullPointerException in ClientPlayerDB.getAllSavedPlayers().
•  Fixed player appearance sync in multiplayer with greater than 32 connections.
•  Fixed erosion growth not being suppressed when building floors or digging graves in multiplayer.
•  Fixed radio sync in MP
•  Fixed players outside the Non-PVP zone being able to kill a player with a bomb located in that zone
•  Fixed player being able to remove PVP button cooldown in non-PVP zone
•  Fixed unexpected anti-cheat kick just after leaving non-PVP zone
•  Fixed being able to turn pvp on when server option PVP is set to false.
•  Fixed player being able to remove PVP button cooldown when in a non-PVP zone. (Safety cooldown timer is now stored/restored when player enters/leaves non-pvp-zone)

VHS Fix
•  Fixed listened-to media lines being saved globally instead of for each player. This could add over 200KB to each player's saved data if every line is listened to.
•  Fixed ClientPlayerDB handling of WorldVersion.
•  Transfer known media lines from recorded_media.bin to the player on the first load.
•  Check for null arguments to RecordedMedia.hasListenedToAll(). A mod seems to pass null for the IsoPlayer argument, which was ok when listened-to lines were stored globally instead of per-player.
The mod file is es.info.books.main.lua.
MODDER WARNING: This could break any mods that modify ISRadioInteractions.lua or are using the OnDeviceText event (which gained a new parameter).


MODDING
•  Fixed mod animations not being loaded if they aren't in a subdirectory of anims_X, or aren't in a subdirectory registered in animations_meshes.txt. Any such animations are added to the MaleBody model by default.

Item tagging changes

MODDERS: PLEASE READ ADDENDUM DOCUMENTATION FOR INFO

•  Added new tags to some items: BlowTorch, Fork, GasMask, Glue, HazmatSuit, Knife, Razor, Scissors, Sledgehammer, Spoon, StartFire, WeldingMask. These tags are used in multiple places instead of looking for specific item types.
•  Added methods ItemContainer.getBestConditionEvalArg() and ItemContainer.getBestConditionEvalArgRecurse().
•  Script properties item.staticModel and item.worldStaticModel are set to the fully-qualified "module.type" after loading scripts. This is to fix mod items not finding "model" scripts that aren't in the Base module.
•  Added a new item-script property ReplaceTypes which supersedes ReplaceOnUseOn (which is still supported).
The format is "ReplaceTypes=Key1 Type1;Key2 Type2;..." where each key is some string (such as WaterSource) and each type is an item type.
ReplaceTypes allows specifying different replacement item types for different uses of an item, for example, filling an empty item with water and/or with gasoline.
It is used for the same thing as ReplaceOnUseOn, but allows multiple key/type mappings instead of only one.
These new methods were added to both Item and InventoryItem classes:
String getReplaceType()
HashMap<String,String> getReplaceTypes()
String getReplaceType(String key)
boolean hasReplaceType(String key)
The existing ReplaceOnUseOn lines in items.txt add a new value to the item's ReplaceTypes HashMap.

SOUND CHANGES
•  Added global parameters Electricity, RoomType, and Water.
•  Added a new tile property named "AmbientSound" to support custom ambient sounds from objects. Current values assigned to some tiles are:
FactoryMachineAmbiance
HotdogMachineAmbiance
PayPhoneAmbiance
StreetLightAmbiance
NeonLightAmbiance
NeonSignAmbiance
JukeboxAmbiance
ControlStationAmbiance
ClockAmbiance
GasPumpAmbiance
LightBulbAmbiance
•  The FMOD global parameter "Electricity" is set to 0.0 when the new WorldEventElectricityShutdown event passes the "ElectricityOff" timeline marker.
•  Added FMOD parameter value RoomType=Factory.
•  Changed debugSetRoomType() to accept an integer instead of the name of an enum value.
•  Added sounds:
ArcadeMachineAmbiance
CanisterAddFuelFromGasPump
CanisterAddFuelSiphon
VehicleAddFuelFromCanister
VehicleAddFuelFromGasPump
VehicleHeadlightsOn
VehicleHeadlightsOff
VehicleWindowHandleOpen
VehicleWindowHandleClose
VehicleWindowElectricOpen
VehicleWindowElectricClose
•  Synchronize room lights and other objects losing power with the ElectricityOff timeline marker.
•  Added PlaceOneSound and PlaceMultipleSound item script properties.
These are played when placing items using the "Place Item" command.
The default sound played if these aren't defined is PutItemInBag (the same sound played when dropping items).
•  Added BoxOfRoundsOpenOne and BoxOfShellsOpenOne sounds to some recipes.
Increased the time of these recipes to allow the sound to play. The time is still quite short (was 5 ticks, now 15 ticks). Probably nobody will die waiting.
•  Added FountainBigAmbiance sound played to the multi-tile water fountain.
The sound doesn't seem to loop and stops after several seconds.
•  Added RepairWithWrench sound played when plumbing sinks and for the moveables Wrench tool sound.
•  Added value MetalGate to the FenceTypeLow and TripObstacleType parameters.
•  Added sounds:
BBQPropaneTankInsert
BBQPropaneTankRemove
BBQPropaneRunning
BBQRegularAddFuel
BBQRegularLight
BBQRegularRunning
CampfireAddFuel
CampfireRunning
CampfireLight
CampfireBuild
FireplaceAddFuel
FireplaceRunning
FireplaceLight
ZombieTrip
ZombieThumpGarageDoor
•  Added EquippedBaggageContainer FMOD parameter.
•  Added "SoundParameter = Name Value" item-script property.
•  Added FMOD parameter SinkType=Generic|Ceramic|Metallic which affects the WaterDrip sound.
•  Hitting trees with weapons and bare hands plays the weapon's HitSound instead of ChopTree.
•  A melee weapon's SwingSound is now played via animation events instead of at the start of SwipeStatePlayer.
This allows using different sounds for different attack animations.
Currently this is used to play a different sound for spear stab versus spear slash attacks.
•  Play the WorldEventElectricityShutdown event from the nearest square in a building when outdoors.
•  Set the FMOD parameter "RoomType" using RoomType objects added in WorldEd.
•  Changed how ambient sounds are played from doors and windows.
Instead of choosing random objects, only the nearest exterior objects will play sound.
Different sounds are played depending on whether the door or window is open or closed.
This will be used for playing rain and wind sounds when the player is inside.
•  Fixed the BurningFlesh sound not stopping in multiplayer after a player dies.
•  Fixed the barbecue and fireplace extinguish sounds stopping instead of being triggered to fade out.
•  Play an animation when turning a propane barbecue on and off.
•  Fixed crouching when extinguishing a charcoal barbecue.
•  Fixed SFX and music cutting out in busy situations (often seen on MP servers)
•  Reimplemented ZombieVocalsManager to limit zombie voice events to the nearest 20 zombies.
•  Optimized sorting objects in DoorAndWindowEmitters and ZombieVocalsManager.
•  Changed handling of object ambient sounds so they only play from the nearest 20 objects. This includes doors, fridges, trees, windows and any sprite with the AmbientSound property set.
•  Removed DoorAndWindowEmitters. This is combined with ObjectAmbientEmitters.
•  Fixed ZombieVocalsManager not actually stopping vocal events when one of the 20 slots was reassigned to a different zombie.


CONTROLLER / STEAMDECK IMPROVEMENTS
•  ProjectZomboid64.exe will disable the -XX:+UseZGC option if a required function is undefined in Kernel32.dll.
Steam Proton does not define the MapViewOfFile3() function, which prevents the Windows version of the game starting on the Steam Deck.
Conveniently, MapViewOfFile3() is only available on Windows 10 1803, the same version ZGC requires.
•  When options.ini doesn't exist on startup, set the display to fullscreen desktop resolution.
•  When options.ini doesn't exist on startup on Steam Deck, call Core.setOptionActiveController() to enable the controller.
•  Allow precise positioning when placing items using a controller. This is done by holding the Y button and using either D-pad or the left joystick to move the item around the square. When there is more than one surface, it can be changed by pressing the right shoulder button while the Y button is held down.
•  Enabled the on-screen keyboard in CoopUserName.lua.
•  Leave room for two lines of tooltip text at the bottom of the character-creation profession ui.
•  Several panels in the main menu can be scrolled using the right joystick.
•  The Start/Menu button will display the main menu in single-player, or resume normal game speed.
This is instead of pressing once to pause the game and double-pressing to display the main menu.
The game can still be paused using the Back/View button radial menu.
•  Added controller navigation in the Workshop ui (for submitting Workshop items). NOTE: The controller doesn't work in the Steam overlay, which some buttons display.
•  Allow mouse clicks etc in the inventory and loot windows when a controller is active.
•  Added controller navigation to the Temperature tab of the character info window.
•  Made the selection in the Health panel easier to see.
•  Made the character-info window more opaque.
•  Made CharacterCreationMain wider at lower resolutions to avoid overlap.
•  Added a button to the on-screen keyboard to hide and show password text.
•  Enabled controller navigation in the server browser ui.
•  Enabled controller navigation in the server-settings editor.
•  Put the inventory and loot windows in their default positions if the controller is disconnected and "Use Keyboard and Mouse" is selected.
•  When placing items, the inventory and loot windows are collapsed if they aren't pinned open.
•  When placing items, mouse clicks on world objects are ignored to prevent the loot window popping open.
•  Set the width of ISEquippedItem to match its buttons. This fixes the wider invisible area blocking mouse clicks.
•  Set the texture compression option to be on by default.
•  Fixed navigation in the Multiplayer tab in the options.
•  Fixed editing server spawn regions with a controller.
•  Fixed the filter checkboxes going outside the ui on small screens.
•  Fixed being unable to navigate to the filter checkboxes and some other buttons.
•  Fixed controller focus when creating a splitscreen player.
•  Fixed toggling the mod under the mouse pointer when pressing the controller A button.
•  Fixed several cases of improper controller focus after clicking buttons with the mouse.
•  Fixed Lua error in MapSpawnSelect when the filename entry is hidden.
•  Fixed LoadingQueueState disconnecting immediately due to the A button being pressed, after pressing it in the last character-creation panel.
•  Fixed ISGameLoadingUI not receiving the controller focus when an unexpected error occurred while loading.
•  Fixed BootstrapConnectPopup, ServerConnectPopup and ServerWorkshopItemScreen not working with a controller.
•  Fixed Build 41 popup and DebugScenarios ui appearing overtop BootstrapConnectPopup.
•  Fixed cancellation in ServerWorkshopItemScreen throwing an exception in ConnectToServerState due to GameClient.connection being null.
•  Fixed using the controller X button to "Toggle Vision Info" in the foraging ui.
•  Fixed rendering the post-death ui for split-screen players 3 and 4 in the top half of the screen.
•  Fixed a Lua error pressing the Y button when moving furniture when the player isn't on a square.

BALANCE
•  Added BedType property to the Pizza-Whirled seats which fixes pizza spawning on them.
•  Added amount of bait items to Fishing UI
•  Added dismantling cameras for scrap/skill points
•  Plastic bags and paper money can now be used as tinder.
•  Doors broken by zombies now give unusable wood instead of planks.
•  Container items now grouped together into their type in the context menu, so you can 'fill all' of a certain container.
•  Players now able to stack and unstack logs on the ground
•  Cars now remember their cruise control setting
•  Breaking vehicle windows now produces broken glass
•  Decrease zed attraction volume of “remove broken glass action"
•  Updated and fixed item categorizations
•  Updated evolvedrecipes.txt and items_food.txt.
•  Removed Cookable:true from the Burger evolved recipe.
•  Added the "|Cooked" flag to Burger ingredients in farming.txt.
•  Updated distributions Lua files
•  Muffins produced by the "Get 6 Muffins" recipe have the name of the ingredient added to the muffins, if any, such as "Apple Muffin".
•  Muffins produced by the "Get 6 Muffins" recipe are marked "Cooked", so the hunger-reduction bonus due to being cooked is applied.
•  Fixed adding a spice to a stale Taco increases boredom and unhappiness.
•  Added new methods to the Food class (to fix the above issue):
getBoredomChangeUnmodified()
getEnduranceChangeUnmodified()
getStressChangeUnmodified()
getThirstChangeUnmodified()
getUnhappyChangeUnmodified()
•  Higher level carpentry crates now have more space.
•  Can now move empty composter.
•  Can now move military crates.


DEBUG
•  Updated Debug context menu.
•  Updated Debug Menu UI.
•  Added Z param to teleport.
•  Added change vehicle skin option to debug.
•  Added Sync for changing color, blood and skin of vehicles.
•  Refactored "Remove Item"-tool UI.
•  Added option to the F11 UI: Disable Welcome message (Works only in debug mode).
•  Added Reload Lua button to main screen (only in debug mode).
•  Added Cheats Panel in debug menu. Updated cheat list (merged in options from Admin and F11 menu).
•  Added fast move cheat (Controls: Arrow keys, Page Up/Down) (Debug and Admin panel).
•  Added Admin context menu options (some options from debug).
•  Added cheat Spawn Key door
•  Added LootZed tool
•  Added LootZed tool cheat (Check what can spawn in a container with what chance)
•  Added remove items tools
•  Added Remove items tools in Debug mode (Option for remove items from container menu and option in Debug UI for remove items in area)
•  Added options to the "[DEBUG] Objects" menu to:
1) Change a mannequin's script.
2) Create a Moveable item in the player's inventory for a chosen mannequin script.
•  Changes to the debug Items List UI:
•  Don't recreate the ui each time it is displayed, because it's slow.
•  Keyboard focus is set to the "Type" text-entry box each time the ui is displayed.
•  Pressing the Tab key switches focus between the "Type" and "Name" text-entry boxes when either one has the focus.


FIXES
•  Fixed the player's head being semi-transparent where hair and beard stubble appears. This also fixes semi-transparency that has always been there around the edges of holes in clothing.
•  Fixed the controller tooltip text in the character-creation profession ui not displaying.
•  Fixed the overly-long delay before changing the volume of a cd player or television when using a controller.
•  Fixed spam messages about CDplayer's invalid world sprite.
•  Fixed the player not running when moving too slowly to sprint.
•  Fixed the character-creation Add Trait button being covered by the controller tooltip text.
•  Fixed placing multiple items locking the items to the first square that is clicked.
•  Fixed controller focus not being set to the "Check back cover" ui.
•  Fixed exploit holding down the Escape key before starting certain actions.
•  Fixed taking damage when walking down stairs while faster-forwarding.
•  Fixed a NullPointerException in InventoryItem.update() when an item's ReplaceOnUseOn refers to an invalid item type.
•  Fixed the post-death ui appearing in the main menu in multiplayer, if the player dies while the main menu is displayed.
•  Fixed use of an undefined variable in SPlantGlobalObject.stateToIsoObject().
•  Fixed buggy player rendering in the in-game map when the player is attacked.
•  Fixed "Decaying Corpse Health Impact" health reduction for "Low" and "High" both being less than "Normal".
•  Fixed some duplications and formatting in MainCreationMethods.lua.
•  Fixed custom Sandbox floats displaying too many decimals in the tooltip.
•  Fixed walls in Fire station in LV remaining cutaway for no reason.
•  Fixed character being able to rest on seats seen through some windows.
•  Fixed siren and light bar shutting off once you get a certain distance away from the vehicle. Now even when you go over 1000 blocks away and come back, the lights and sirens on cars are still going off.
•  Fixed not being able to attach sheet ropes at certain locations.
•  Fixed cars not remembering their cruise control setting.
•  Fixed "Place item on ground" ignoring item's favourite status when placing items.
•  Fixed being able to interact with rain collectors through the wall.
•  Fixed player-built doors inside houses being transparent at any angle of view.
•  Fixed Walkie-Talkies not showing new "equipped" weight when equipped.
•  Fixed Metalwork locker container name being "Crate" in the loot window.
•  Fixed a spawned bowl of pasta or rice not being edible.
•  Fixed Painted Crates becoming white after Pick up / Place down.
•  Fixed Rotten food showing in right click menu as (Fresh) when newly spawned.
•  Fixed Applying Disinfectant to an un-infected wound making that body part immune to infection.
•  Fixed player-built walls cutting away completely when built inside of another building.
•  Fixed typo in AdjacentFreeTileFinder.lua.
•  Fixed "Cake Preparation" not spawning rotten in 6 Months Later scenario.
•  Fixed Dish Towel having option to "dry self" even if char is dry.
•  Fixed Hair/Beard types grow back to their dyed colour, instead of their natural colour.
•  Fixed Coffee / coffee beverage fatigue reduction values not saving on quit / restart.
•  Fixed replacing disassembled floors with dirt tiles above ground level.
•  Fixed clock Size option not being changable while in game.
•  Fixed nil variable in ISWorldObjectContextMenu.doSleepOption() when tired enough to sleep on the ground.
•  Fixed disassmbling floors playing the standing animation instead of crouching.
•  Fixed saved Radio Stations being removed when a radio is removed and reinstalled.
•  Fixed Foundation Makeup requiring a mirror when it already comes with one.
•  Fixed characters not using a Knive that was equipped or in main inventory when crafting while a better Knive was in a nearby container.
•  Fixed ISPaintMenu error when near a placed radio.
•  Fixed weirdness installing and uninstalling radios in vehicles.
•  Fixed NullPointerException in ParameterInside.
•  Fixed Composters not having a container icon and title.
•  Fixed blank VHS Home tapes spawning. They are now replaced with a random Retail VHS when spawning loot.
•  Fixed an occasional exception in ISInventoryPane.sortItemsByTypeAndWeight() caused by a bad item-sorting comparison function.
•  Fixed parts of weather effects not being rendered sometimes. This resulted in some clouds not being rendered at different zoom levels, causing the scene color to change when zooming in/out, for example.
•  Fixed items replaced by their ReplaceOnCooked type not being synced in multiplayer correctly.
•  Fixed Lua error when the mini-map doesn't exist.
•  Fixed jumbo item-atlas textures being drawn the first time models are loaded.
•  Fixed mannequins that spawn in containers being invisible when placing them the first time.
•  Fixed being unable to transfer the same item between containers until a timeout expires, if the first attempt was interrupted. This happened in multiplayer only.
•  Fixed item models being drawn jumbo-sized for one frame when they are still loading, when using the old way of rendering 3D items.
•  Fixed item-atlas textures being drawn in the incorrect position sometimes.
•  Fixed items floating in air or remaining on the ground after removing or placing furniture.
•  Fixed items on furniture being visible through walls. Item alpha is set to match that of the furniture it is placed on.
•  Fixed not setting the keyboard focus on the debug Items List ui the first time it is displayed.
•  Fixed the character-creation profession screen displaying controller icons after activating mods in the New Game ui, when no controller is active.
•  Fixed building Wallframe using two planks but giving three when disassembled
•  Fixed cooking an egg showing the progress bar twice
•  Fixed shirts and other clothing items getting auto-removed from the world when they shouldn't be.
•  Fixed the character-creation profession screen displaying controller icons after activating mods in the New Game ui, when no controller is active.
•  Fixed ISMap.canWrite() and ISMap:canErase() not using the Write and Eraser tags.
•  Fixed support pillars for stairs not being created on the server or other clients.
•  Fixed inability to burn corpses in MP
•  Fixed Millipede and Millepede2 in forageDefinitions.lua both using type=Base.Centipede.
•  Fixed forageSystem.modifyItemDef() incorrect use of _itemDef.type.
•  Fixed forageSystem.removeItemDef() possibly using a nil _itemDef variable when printing a warning.
•  Fixed HumanVisual.naturalBeardColor possibly being uninitialized before being copied in HumanVisual.copyFrom().
•  Fixed OldBrake1 VehicleType being 3 instead of 1.
•  Fixed the "Enable left joystick radial menu" option not being saved.
•  Fixed a Lua error pressing the Toggle Search Mode key before starting a game.
•  Fixed the Toggle Search Mode key getting in the way when the game is paused.
•  Fixed crafted radios getting less maximum range at higher Electricity levels.
AND MORE
Changes to food and balancing can be read on our forums, since they would have this post hit the character limit.
https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/54121-4171-released/


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on May 26, 2022, 11:44:01 PM
Bad Red vs. Good Green
Thu, 26 May 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/696882dba6499b767db8012be05f073ccfe0da11.png)

Hey all, here’s a Thursday round-up. We released version 41.71 last Thursday. We’re big on Thursdays around here.
41.71 contained a huge range of stuff, but topline features included: new and improved dynamic action music, a raft of improvements for Steam Deck players, new items, scarecrows, less wobbly and less performance-costly 3D items on your safehouse floor, loads of MP improvements under the hood, the fabled one-watch VHS video fix, new ambient and shutdown noises, modding improvements and tons more.

Better to read the forum release post than a long paragraph in the blog, I guess, if you are in need of a catch-up.

Since last week we hotfixed some issues with sound cut-outs on busy servers and with rapid-fire weapons, and so now we find ourselves moving onto…


41.72
Seeing as we already have a fair amount of MP changes, fixes and balance in the pot for .72 at the moment it feels like it won’t be too long until we move it into the Unstable beta – unless of course a more disruptive feature comes to the boil over the next week or so and requires added internal testing.

The current changelist for what we have in this patch can be seen here if you are interested https://pastebin.com/vbqhfsBy

Primary items of note involve a lot of fixes and polish to radio use in-game, improvements to the representation of weapon-part upgrades in 3D models, and various issues with generators and batteries.

Also in the patch will be the opt-in ability for fellow faction and safehouse members to be visible on your in-game map.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/a91c5bacfab151400c6ab245d6eafd69e0f19e60.jpg)

And also some support for our colour-blind survivors, who will now be able to choose their favoured new text colours instead of BAD RED and GOOD GREEN. Thanks to Fox for this one.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/5d62fc4d6d9954412170f25af8bb4283ee874bf9.png)

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/09dbfd714558ceadf71bf9ed2739d82d4ce8e22e.png)


BEYOND
There are many advantages of having a tight small team when making a game like PZ. However, one of the biggest disadvantages is that when serious ‘irl’ stuff happens to any of us it makes aspects of development difficult. We’ve never really mentioned it before, and still won’t go into any detail, but this was one of the reasons that Build 41 itself took a long time to come to complete fruition.

The reason we are bringing this up is because one of the primary architects of the revamped B42 crafting system, Turbo, has been very ill (and often hospitalized) for much of the last three-four months.

Turbs said it was okay to let you all know this, as it clearly has meant that while RJ’s work on domestic animals and some roaming beasts has been rocketing on ahead – Turbo’s own work on the post-apoc crafting, tech-trees and recipes has had to be on hold.

We are so, so relieved and happy that Turbo’s treatment led up to an operation and a complete return to health – to the extent that he has been back working with us again this week. It’s been awesome having him about the place again.

We don’t yet know how much this will impact on build content, timings etc, and will be working out what’s what in the week or two ahead – tho B43 stuff is being worked on in parallel, so it hasn’t been detrimental to that.

Sorry if this has been a bit of a ‘too much info’ update, it’s probably not something you’d catch in a Call of Duty blog, but with Turbo’s permission, we thought it would give everyone a more accurate insight into where we’re at with things.

We also hope that everyone will join us in wishing Turbs continued good health – a phrase for which the Dutch probably have their own term for and that we will google later on.

To circle back around to more developmental matters-at-hand, here’s an image from RJ and Tim’s work on ways in which our non-domestic animals will roam the map. These are AnimalZone paths that share points, and allow for both long paths that cross cell boundaries and branching paths too.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/e4f8f8fd73612c8e5bf24034fd8cc26a6d61b8dd.png)


MAPPING
We love seeing the maps our community produces – each with their own flavours, design and challenge. To support all our mappers today we are releasing almost 1500 buildings and associated assets of our own in-game housing, garages, sheds and patio sets for use in community maps.

These should help map-builders flesh out their worlds without having to rely purely on their own constructed (and shared community) houses, flats and outbuildings.

If you are a mapper then you can find the released assets here https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/54395-vanilla-buildings-pool/

We are not releasing ‘special’ and governmental/military buildings – but there are many, many houses, apartments, sheds, shacks, shops and restaurants here for folks to use in their own apocalyptic zombie nightmares.

In terms of our own future map improvement and expansion, meanwhile, check out what Ayrton has been doing to our Louisville rich districts.

“To bring more diversity to some locations of Louisville, I am converting some streets or blocks into Victorian-style districts, it should enable us to add a new layer of complexity to the urban plan with areas that are more/less wealthy, ancient, etc. Those new tiles are also being added across existing relevant buildings.”

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/c6ab57e7dab82680cfc733251e98da5b472237c6.png)

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/04a18fc38ac7a2a4e5e6f7a1fbc1d5e92a9c2dad.png)

Elsewhere Aiteron is playing around with his improved fishing system to mix in some added ‘fun quota’ alongside the improved anims/visuals we showed last time round. Long-term work on server-side items and timed actions for MP continues, and the Noiseworks/Formosa soundscape revolution continues with their next missions due to be discussed in the coming week.

Pat_Bren is also, meanwhile, crafting a bunch more annotated survivor maps to bolster our current stock – and also to cover Louisville and other newer areas of the Knox Event map.


JOB AD AGAIN
Following the success of Build 41, we find ourselves in a position where we can hunt down other experienced Games Programmers to join the Project Zomboid team.

We are looking for coders willing and able to refresh some of our older systems, polish the existing ones and then to delve further into the features that will be part of the Knox Event’s exciting future.

Interested applicants should check our jobs page, but we should underline that we currently don’t have any entry-level positions available. You will need to have a fair amount of experience we are afraid.

This week’s touching crime scene from hp.tf. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.



Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 10, 2022, 09:59:10 AM
BaZil Brush
Thu, 9 June 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/024d245cf9656089e6853eefdc6bacf5ce15423a.png)

Hey all, here’s a quick update on what we are all up to.

Our initial plan was to release our next 41.72 patch to the Unstable beta today, but annoyingly last night’s internal playtest had too many niggles with vehicle gameplay for us to comfortably let you loose on it.

This is slightly annoying in terms of today’s blog, but probably not quite as annoying as you happily downloading the new version only for MP passengers to be stuck revving on the tarmac while their drivers whizz off towards Louisville.

Still, once the MP Strike Force have checked everything out and we’ve had another (more successful) test then this is some of the stuff that will be punted out for you to try out:

    As mentioned in the last blog, the opt-in ability to see fellow MP players in your faction or safehouse on your in-game map.

    A huge range of new and improved admin powers that should breathe a little more life into online play. First and foremost of these is a brush tool that will allow admins to create tiles, walls, fire, smoke, water etc. in-game.

    There’s also the ability to easily trigger thunder, a more synced health panel, improved spawning of vehicles and trailers and the ability to change player weights. Also, also are more zombie-attracting options, improved zed spawns and some powers over whether doors are locked or not.

Here’s a quick video Aiteron has made to show it all off:

https://youtu.be/re09QALrvl8


    Another more minor, but quite pleasant all the same, addition from Aiteron is the possibility of adding icons to the context menu. As seen here.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/e3239786d84d936e44d484d1cd6f2fab4808d375.png)


    New loot maps. Previously we didn’t have any loot maps for Louisville, but Tim has now integrated a bunch from the hand of Pat_Bren into the loot table. There are nine different maps in all, which means that as well as the usual ‘treasure map’ aspects you will be able to reveal a ninth of the Louisville map upon reading them.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/702c55b7a1573b6d3bcbbb6f59fadb9686251c34.png)

    Also of note in .72 is an improvement to the way in which mod errors are reported. We have added a list of mods to the pause menu, and if one of them is causing errors and ‘the red box of doom’ then the culprit will be highlighted within the list.

    Perhaps of greater import to mod authors and our tech support team, however, is the improved lua error log that goes with the above: this will show if any files reported in call stacks are overridden by mods. We hope that this will allow modders, players and our own community liaison peeps to easier find mod conflicts and other issues.


SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
While it’s not exactly excitement dynamite, we know, this week we hit a point at which our internal tasklist board got a bit… silly. When you have been making a game for as long as we have there is a tendency for minor tasks, small bug fixes and ‘easy win’ suggestions to stack up, and up, and up…

The boards were just clogged, and it was hard to see the wood for the trees – and as such we pulled some coders from their features to blitz through and give our testing and production staff some temporary relief. Not sexy: we know, but also necessary for the sanity of some of our team.

This sort of stuff:
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/4460946/9abba841608a64df0a5a816fda6b09cb3207acd8.png)

Having made a sizable dent in this sort of bug, everyone is now back at their usual post – but ‘Enforced Small Task Clearance Week’
also culminated in an event that will hopefully mean that we don’t have to have one of these mandated periods again in future.

Prolific modder Blair Algol has joined the team, and his role will be clearing out as many of the remaining hundreds (!) of these minor (but sometimes time-consuming) issues as he can.

Blair’s many mods touch so many different areas of the game that it seemed like a very natural fit for such a duty, while he also, of course, comes packaged with many ideas of how to make modding life easier for others in the community too.

Once the boards have been cleared, and Blair has a firmer grip on the codebase, it’s also our hope that he will be able to bring some of his own ideas and ingenuity into the game proper.


SOUND PHASE III
Much like the Marvel movies, our soundscape improvement operations have worked in phases – and we recently had the meeting that kicked off Phase 3. The following are Noiseworks/Formosa’s next primary missions:

    Improvements to how the sound system deals with multiplayer characters and sound priorities. Primary work here is to try and solve the issues where sounds drop out due to clashes in sound priorities and limits when multiple players are around.
    Expand the reactive music beyond action moments. The ultimate goal is to allow the other non-action tracks to evolve and change: triggered by walking into buildings, looting a container, or any other little action that may trigger a change in the track that’s playing. Likewise making sure that they all also blend more organically between each other.
    Gameplay related sound effects, like modelling the realistic effects of using firearms in enclosed spaces without ear protectors. Also: improved noises for large crowds of zeds, sprinters and bullet world impacts if the coding team can provide their support for implementation.




OTHER STUFF
We are currently debating whether to release the map team’s current work (fixes, polish, improved farm buildings and agricultural areas, more defined Louisville upper class suburbs) in a 41 patch, or whether to outright say that the next export will be for 42 later down the line – alongside some sizable planned expansion into other towns and conurbations that would be beyond the edges of our current area. More on that, and where we are taking the Knox Event location-wise, in future blogs.

As we mentioned last time, we’re coming off the back of Turbo’s serious illness currently – so it’s been something of a month of consolidation rather than massive exciting strides ahead.

That said, sometimes strides ahead come in the form of things that will pay off in the far-flung future. Ever since the success of the 41 release we have had a lot more resources at our command, and have been able to invest it in both middleware that could bring PZ to new heights – and the talent to integrate it with our codebase.

As we all know, one of the weakest things about PZ is the UI. We all get on with it fine, but let’s face it: it aint a looker, and it can be a bit clunky, fiddly and slow. We’ve always said we’d give it an overhaul, but it’s always been a daunting prospect.

Since March, alongside our friends at General Arcade, we have been experimenting with some super fancy AAA high-end UI tech middleware that will make this process easier, and will make the end result better.

For the past few months we’ve been making sure that it’s compatible with the game, doesn’t negatively impact performance and will still allow for lua UI for our modders – and it has been this week that we feel comfortable enough to say out loud to each other that it’s going to work, and is safe to proceed.

So next time you see someone moaning that the PZ UI isn’t exactly glamorous – just tell them ‘they know, and it’ll take a while – but they’re working on it’. It’ll be some considerable time till we talk about this again, but we just wanted to let you know that this is another iron that we have in the fire.


Today’s pile-up campfire from Mr.Crab763. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Want to work with us? Details here.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 10, 2022, 09:59:35 AM
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/108600/ss_d4a0f78dc94273c7f0eedc186569efc091387066.jpg)

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on June 24, 2022, 01:14:23 AM
Migration vs Craft
Thu, June 23, 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/e9b7c8ac8d96c92aaa9836e1d0081bd252436cc6.png)

Hello survivors! Today marks the beginning of one of the most significant and important periods in the modern world’s social and religious calendar: the Steam Summer Sale!

 
Because of this, all you existing survivors will no doubt get a little swamped with all the fresh meat turning up for the PZ grinder.

The Zomboid community has always been amazing in terms of supporting new players, and this time won’t be any different, but our tech and support teams will be working flat-out – most likely.

As such we just thought we’d say that (entirely fictitious and non-existent) bonus Spiffo points will be available for those who jump into threads to give advice or survival tips to survivors fresh to the Knox Event.

Likewise if you are one of the aforementioned noobs: hello! This is a dev blog we do every two weeks.


PATCH 41.72
We are still working on the next update to Build 41, which we are hoping to release to an Unstable beta as soon as we possibly can.

The hold-up (we were originally planning to put this out two weeks ago) is due to us wanting to smoothen out MP issues that arise when driving alongside (or in the same car as) players with a far higher or lower ping than yourself. It becomes very stop-start, and quite unplayable.

These are essentially the edge-case ramifications of the necessary decision we made to remove physics-calculations from the server, but there are a lot of people playing PZ these days so edge-cases aren’t an inconsiderable number of players.

The MP team have put a LOT of work into improving this over the past two weeks, and as soon as we’ve had a successful internal test with their latest changes we will feel in a position to punt the build out into unstable.

A top line of major changes in 41.72 includes: fellow players optionally visible on the in-game map, new loot maps, new SFX and a new music track, polished emotes and a new way for players to be able to identify exactly which mods are misbehaving when they throw errors. Also an admin brush tool letting server chiefs paint items and walls etc. onto an ongoing game, and reams of small issue bug fixes.

Additions that have gone in over the last two weeks also include:

 
A huge amount of polish to the game’s food and recipes from BlairAlgol: filling in illogical gaps, expanding recipes, making foodstuffs previously absent from food crafting part of the system and making sure that you can no longer store a football in a toaster. Also a fair amount of food-related balance and common sense additions.

An improvement beneath the hood to foraging – meaning that the game will be able to recognise polygonal foraging zones on the map, rather than the more inaccurate squares and rectangles it currently works from.


The map team are also currently gearing up to do a final export of the current Build 41 map ready for the 41.72 unstable release. This will contain all the polish recently mixed into the main map, after which the team will turn to concentrate purely on mapping new areas beyond the current boundaries.


There’s nothing huge in this map update, we are primarily releasing it so that all the map bugs the community have been reporting are fixed up before the team moves onto Build 42 content, but there are a few treats:

 
Improved farms and farmsteads in readiness for 42’s animals, these include scarecrows that can be dressed up in the same way as shop mannequins.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/baf519e982ab17fc45b52343c67d1adb64d0442b.png)

Improved rich district houses in Louisville

Various new tiles like baby cribs, heavy factory machinery, standing floor lamps, farm related tiles, atm machines, heavy safes, medical related tiles, and new car wash tiles. [And no, baby cribs are not a harbinger of baby zeds]
[/list]

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/c5b694d74c81e046e63b17c5c43d6fa062b1eb08.png)

We are now at a point at which it’s increasingly becoming a pain keeping 41 and 42 content separate on our internal build. We won’t be calling time on 41 patches any time super-soon, we’ll leave it polished and stable, but we’re certainly now well on the way the flipping the switch and working purely on Build 42 content. (Clearly we will still be able to return to implement super-important fixes and changes though)


42 CONTENT
We haven’t spotlit much from Build 42 recently – partly because one of its primary coders had been seriously ill (now recovered), and partly because a lot of what’s been done recently isn’t super visual yet.

However, if you’ll forgive the primarily textual blog, here’s a few updates on what’s been happening. First from our newly-healthy Turbo, who is responsible for our crafting update.

CRAFTING IMPROVEMENTS
“Hello! This is Turbo! As mentioned in earlier blogs, the new craft update introduces a good bunch of new professions, new items, crafting tree and profession work stations etc as well as some other changes to how the game code ‘creates’ and records things.”

“To explain what I’m currently working on and why, I’ll focus on a few aspects of the update:”

A) Crafted items that have more RPG-like variable attributes that are based on the crafter’s skill.

B) Stats of input items that may also influence the attributes of a final output item.

C) The fact that a newly crafted item will be able to be placed as what we call a worldobject, then picked up again to item form – with all its attributes transferred in the game code between the two.”

“As an example, we are currently working on crafting that will occur deep into the apocalypse: so a blacksmith may be making a hammer which requires a wooden tool handle and a hammerhead as the input. The wooden tool handle may have a ‘quality’ and ‘condition’ attribute with values that are based on the skill of carpenter who made it,  and perhaps for the ‘quality’ of the wood used by them. Likewise, the hammerhead may have similar attributes – based on the skills of the blacksmith who made it, and the attributes of the ore/iron used in the craft.”

“Mixed into this we also have to take into account aspects such as the skill levels of the crafter – and also take in a random factor so that not everything produced is of a uniform quality.”

“The attribute system I’m currently working on should help with these kind of things, and it will not only be used for the new stuff in 42’s crafting update – but we will also be able to refactor things currently in the game’s existing crafting systems to work with it all really easily.”

“Lastly, a simple use case example. (And this is an example – not a promise of item inclusion!)”
 
•  Consider a shotgun item that can be crafted with attributes like damage, range and condition – based on the skills of the player who has been upgrading, improving and caring for it.
•  The shotgun is then crafted into a new shotgun trap item, where the attributes of the original shotgun are copied over.
•  The trap item is placed on the world as what we call an IsoObject – and the attributes are once again carried over to it. The range and damage attributes are now being used for the trap’s code.
•  The trap gets triggered a few times – lowering the condition attribute.
•  Another player decides to disassemble the trap to retrieve the shotgun from it, and the newly instanced shotgun item copies the attributes from the trap – and we end up with the correct damage and range values as it was originally crafted with. However, it now also has  a lowered condition due to its activity while it was being used in the trap.”

“With the new system I’m coding, this daisychain of steps can be achieved with very minimal additional coding required.”

LES ANIMAUX
“Hello everyone! RJ here.”

“Okay, so everything that’s outside of your current surroundings in PZ doesn’t really exist. It exists as ‘meta’ – it isn’t streamed in, and the game calculates hordes moving around in distant places.” 

“For animals, however – this needs to change somewhat. You need to be able to travel the distance of the map, but for the game to still remember things about them that don’t matter for shambling zombies. Animals need to age, eat and drink – if you leave them too long they can’t be in perfect condition when you get back. They, most likely, need to be dead.”

“Not only are there lots of things to consider with animal, but there could also be a LOT of them on the map – although we’re current not 100% on our final list we have models for rats, squirrels, larger birds, deer and domesticated animals. So, even though the game knows everything about them and their movement – there’s a risk that when they’re properly streamed it might get too intensive for the CPU.”

“To avoid this I have coded it so that their stats (hunger, thirst, age etc) are updated every in-game hour. Realistically you’ll likely only have one or two cows, but if you want to breed rats for… some inexplicable reason you could end up with a ton of them. We don’t want players with 100+ animals having their stats updated every tick, or things could melt.”

“As such, animals won’t be updated real-time while they are off-screen (except for animals in a migration path, more on that below) but they will update themselves once you (or anyone else) returns to them. So be sure to fill up their feeding trough before you head out on loot run!”


LA MIGRATION DES ANIMAUX
“We don’t want wild animals to always spawn in the same place. So for creatures like deer, we need to have them follow a set path – as they usually do in real life. This is being done through additions that Tim has made to WorldZed – and where we can ‘simply’ draw all the paths that animals could take – with nodes all along it where they can eat, drink, etc.”

“It’ll be up to the player to try to understand and learn these paths, so you’ll know where you could find your animals to hunt. We can also perhaps provide lootable items that can mark up rough hunting trails on your in-game map too.”

“This aspect of animals will be updated in the meta though, as animals need to always be on the move and some animal paths will cross with others – meaning that a group of deer could decide to change its path if it chooses to.”

“A deer group will contain all relevant members of the deer family. If you kill the buck in a deer group, they won’t have fawns for quite some time – until they find another buck to add into their group. As such, it will be important for players to recognise what animals they should kill: which are still too young, which might be pregnant etc.”

“It’s not done for B42 yet, but we are planning tracking to an extent via the deer excrement they leave behind and its freshness – all discovered via the foraging system. This way you’ll start to know on your server/game, what are the path animals are currently on, and could quite easily track back to them to “collect” your meat. Again, this aspect isn’t 100% up for inclusion yet – but hopefully shines a light on our plans.”


JOB AD MK II
Sadly due to unforeseen circumstances we are back on the hunt for an Animations Engineer / Technical Wizard  – most likely someone from the AAA game development space who has pines for joining a close-knit team of indie devs. If this is you, or someone you know, then our job page lives here!


Today’s Rosewood base from Poffie_was_here. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games dev and want to work with us? Details here.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 08, 2022, 12:01:04 AM
41.72 Unstable
Thu, 7 July 2022

Today we are releasing version 41.72 to the Unstable beta.

If you need directions to this, then here’s a handy gif!

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/3bda4621a34bdf8608402fc18ea79c2b70fdcca2.gif)

As always with the Unstable beta – be aware that some mods might
break.

We don’t anticipate a huge amount of disruption with 41.72, but should any of your workshop mods become non-operational then please inform the relevant creators – and be patient while they find the time to update their wares. They have jobs / families / lives too!

So what’s in 41.72? Well the changelist can be found here on our forums, and there’s a lot of small tweaks and fixes to scroll through, but we’ll detail the main stuff here also.

It’s always HUGELY helpful for us when people, and server owners, jump over to the unstable beta – so please dive in and let us know how you find it.

41.72
Lots of general stability and security work has gone into MP – and specifically work on vehicles when you are driving alongside (or are a passenger sitting next to) players with far higher or lower pings than your good self.

The first of several layers of polish to the game’s food and recipes. New foodstuffs, improved containers, expanded recipes and all manner of different things to put together to feed yourself and your doomed friends. Various elements of balance too and, as mentioned before, no more footballs that can be jammed into a toaster.

Fellow co-op, faction and safehouse member positions can now be seen on your in-game map should you choose to enable it.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/8b56d17b8fc1abd0e5cb97389dcbee3bbe92543c.png)

An improvement to the way in which mod errors are reported. A list of mods has been added to the pause menu, and whenever one is erroring out then it’ll be flagged within the list. This is going in alongside an improved lua error log that shows whether any files reported in call stacks are being overridden by mods. This should help modders and our support teams no end.

The game’s foraging system will now understand polygonal foraging zones on the map, rather than rely on its former basic rectangular brain. This should help with decreasing the amount of non-forageable spaces on the map.

A slight tweak to zed pathfinding, which means zombies targeting players have a higher priority in the game code than those shambling around more aimlessly.

The final large map export that we’ll be doing before Build 42, most likely. This is primarily to fix user reported map bugs, but also contains improved farmsteads, scarecrows (that might be bugged and appear as mannequins currently – sorry) and improved Louisville upper class districts.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/8272982810d3a38c8bd861c537151e84ecf1e659.png)

Alongside the above there are various new tiles going into the game: including baby cribs, heavy factory machinery, standing floor lamps, farm related tiles, ATM machines, heavy safes, medical related tiles, and car wash tiles.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/c5b694d74c81e046e63b17c5c43d6fa062b1eb08.png)

For MP: new admin powers and tools – for example a brush tool that will allow server chiefs to create tiles, walls, fire, smoke, water etc. in-game. Also: a thunder trigger, better synced health panels, improved vehicle/trailer spawning, player weight changing and heightened control over zombie movement, zed spawning and locked doors.

https://youtu.be/re09QALrvl8


New loot maps for Louisville – which previously didn’t have any. There are nine different maps in all, due to the size of LV, which all unlock the area they show in your in-game map – alongside a wide range of different survivor ‘treasure map’ annotations.

A smidgen of improvement to corpses. More of these will now be ‘fake dead’ zombies, alongside improvement to their rotting – such as the chance of spawning maggots in their inventory and on the floor around them. Handy for fishing!

Polish to player emotes and idles. Better representation of weapon-part upgrades. Generator/battery improvements. New action music track. Fixed blood appearing on destroyed objects, and about a million other fixes – best to check the changelist! https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/55851-4172-unstable-released/



JOBZ

While we have your attention: another quick flag to the fact that we are back on the hunt for an Animations Engineer / Technical Wizard.

This will most likely be someone from the AAA game development space who has pines for joining a close-knit team of indie devs.

If this is you, or someone you know, then our job page lives here!


This week’s exciting and no doubt doom-laden story-via-map from Athiuk! A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.
Experienced games dev and want to work with us? Details here.

Oh, and Spanish-speaking community! Be aware of a biiiig PZ streaming event on Twitch starting this Sunday, hosted by @EscocesSL. Spiffo hopes everyone has fun!


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 22, 2022, 10:58:24 AM
Liquid Zedball
Thu, 21 July 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/5c5268b453535b8270ad3ec6cfc8d3e2886ad58d.png)

Haylo survivors.

41.73 STABLE
We have the next patch to the stable branch primed and ready to go, however an issue that our fantastic Unstable beta testers have flagged is keeping it held in its pen for a little longer.

Players reported that some houses they’d cleared were spawning zeds upon booting up the new build, which alerted us to a snag in our map export process not dealing with map boundaries changing with map expansions. All previous map expansions came along with forced save incompatibility so this crept through unnoticed until now.

While it’s an aggravation rather than a save-breaker, we didn’t want to send a build with a known issue out to the masses – and have spent the last few days setting up a fix. This will need some testing, after which we’ll be looking to pump out the latest version next week.

If you’re interested in the changelist, or want to jump in to try it out, then you can find the unstable release notes for 41.72 and 41.73 behind the hotlinks.


42 CONTENT
One of the focus points of Build 42 is on extended survival in the months and years beyond the initial Knox Event outbreak.

For this, we are revamping our crafting system – and Turbo’s role has been in laying new foundations for a set-up that allows for: crafted items that have more RPG-like variable attributes based on the crafter’s skill, stats of input items that are reflected in the attributes of a final output item, and the ability of the game itself to recognise all these different attributes when an item is being passed between all of its various different locations and systems.

The next stage of this work, meanwhile, has been in taking this same sort of mentality to the liquids in the game – and also making them ever more interesting in our new crafting set-up.

Read on.... https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/3409805520233943837
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 09, 2022, 11:31:24 AM
41.73 Released
Tue, 9 August 2022

41.73 compiled changelist, also including 41.72 from the unstable branch

Due to character limitations, the full changelog can be found on our forums and in the pastebin below:
https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/58075-4173-released
https://pastebin.com/PW9F8TNn


NEW

- Added the MapRemotePlayerVisibility server option for Multiplayer.
    1 = Remote players aren't visible on the in-game map
    2 = Remote players in the same faction or sharing a safehouse are visible
    3 = Remote players are always visible

- The OPT button in the in-game map that was previously visible only in debug mode or for admins is now always visible.
  When not in debug mode, these options are available:
    - Players
    - Remote Players (client only)
    - Player Names (client only)
    - Symbols

- Added MapRemotePlayerVisibility server option to the server-settings editor and admin panel.
 
- Added a new volume slider to the Audio options which affects the jump-scare sound.
 
- Fixed updates to the map causing zombies to spawn inside previously cleared buildings.
    - Fixed BuildingDef.calculateMetaID() and RoomDef.calculateMetaID() possibly creating the same ID for different buildings or rooms. This was why zombies would respawn in some already-seen rooms.

- Give zombies that are targeting a player higher priority for pathfinding than other zombies.

- Added new loot maps from Pat Bren.
- Split the single Louisville map-item into nine separate maps.
- Added Louisville maps to the loot tables.
 
- Gas container tooltip tweaks:
    1) When adding fuel to a generator, tooltips show the percentage the generator's fuel percentage will increase.
    2) When adding/siphoning fuel to/from a vehicle, tooltips show the item capacity in liters (to match the mechanics ui).
    3) When taking fuel from a gas pump, tooltips show the item capacity in drainable units.

- Updated Community Translations
- Added icons + textures for Medical/Trauma Bag and Canned Fruit Beverage.

- Added highlighting to changed Zombie Lore Sandbox Options (options that differ from Apocalypse mode are highlighted).
- Added an "AttachedToGlass" tile prop to fix signs attached to windows not being removed when breaking the window.
- Prevent the loot window from popping open when clicking on objects when using the furniture-manipulation tools.

- Added "Default=" to combobox sandbox-option tooltips.

- Allow empty bottles to store gasoline.
- Added water capacity in context tooltip when filling water container (if only 1 item type)
- Updated community translations.
- Updated credits.

- Improved icon draw for context menu
- Added ISContextMenu.addDebugOption() which adds an option with iconTexture=media/ui/BugIcon.png.
- Added a way to rename a savefile in the load-game "More..." panel.

- Added the various pictures frame missing (not spawning yet, also no inventory icon yet - currently using empty frame icon)

- Allow building double doors inside buildings.  This is to fix a bug where double doors couldn't be built on some outer walls of buildings.
- Added checks for wall-like obstacles that should prevent opening or closing double doors.
- Don't allow building stairs where there are walls or obstacles at the top. The player will pass through these when going up the stairs. Building walls or obstacles at the top of stairs was already disallowed.

- Incorporated Baph's latest additions, which include: new movable script items; new modder-orientated procedural distributions tables; new zombie outfit distributions; new vehicle distributions; more through junk tables; new items.
- Longer evolved recipe names; now up to 3 ingredients will be displayed in the display name of compound recipe items.
- Updated ISAddItemToRecipe and translation text with translation string support for new recipe naming system.
 
- Added a panel to the Attachment Editor (Shift-F7) that is displayed when a "world" attachment is selected. This new panel displays the selected model as it would appear on the ground.

- Removed the -Xss1280k stack-size JVM parameter from Linux ProjectZomboid.json files.
- Increased Linux and Mac -Xmx=2048m to -Xmx=3072m max-heap JVM parameter to match Windows.


SFX

- Updated sound banks.
    - New action music track.
    - Fixed one male zombie voice looping the Hit sound.
    - Added missing sound for taking water from a dispenser.

- Added an ambient sound to the Gas-2-Go pumps.

- Set the value of the FMOD parameter "Generator" on powered items so they play a sound when powered by a generator.

- Added ZombieCrawlLungeSwing and ZombieCrawlLungeHit sounds for zombie fence/window crawling attacks.
- Zombies play their Attack and GettingUp sounds during fence/window crawling attack animation.
 
MAP

- Full export of the current Knox Event map. This will be the final B41 map update.
    - Updates many farms and farmsteads
    - Improves upper class areas in Louisville
    - Adds many new tiles on the tilesheets
    - Fixes many and various community-reported map issues and bugs
 
FOOD AND RECIPES

- New Ice Cream Cones now melt and produce a Melted Ice Cream Cone item.
- New Gravy Boat, Baloney Slices, Salami, Salami Slices, and Snack Cakes models.
- New Canned Condensed Milk item; can be used for the same recipes as milk.
- Balance adjusted assorted values of food items and recipes.
- Appropriate bottles can now hold gasoline.
- Baloney and salami can be sliced.
- Many food items have more options for being used as evolved recipe ingredients.
- Recipes for Onigiri; Baguette Dough; Biscuit Dough; Meat Patty; Scooping Ice Cream; and Trays of Cookie Dough.
- Crayons can be used to write notes and mark the map.
- Toast can be made from Bread Slices by cooking them.
- New recipe for a Cheese Sandwich item; cook a Cheese Sandwich to make it into a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
- Evolved Recipes for Ice Cream Cones; Sweet Pies; Bread; Toast; Bowls of Oatmeal; Mixed Beverages; and Glasses of Wine and Beer. This makes it possible to make foods such as Ice Cream Cones with candy and fruit on them, chocolate, cheese, or sunflower seed Bread, Toast with beans or avocado on it, Bowls of Oatmeal with berries and honey, cocktails, and such.
- Whole Pizza item added.
- Glasses and cup items can be filled with water.
- WildGarlic item replaced by WildGarlic2 which is edible; this was done so that Wild Garlic could be a food item and be used in recipes. Otherwise identical to the old Wild Garlic.
- Canned Condensed Milk item; can be used for the same recipes as milk.
- Maggots that spawn with zombie corpses will be mildly poisonous.
- Added evolved recipe item PizzaRecipe; "Pizza(Uncooked)" can be used to make an evolved recipe pizza with toppings.
- When Hot Drink beverages are made using Black Sage, Common Mallow, or Lemon Grass the medicinal properties of those items are transferred to the Beverage, "Herbal Teas".
- For herbal tea purposes, Hot Drinks are more flexible re ingredients and have special naming.
- Coffee and Espresso Machine stoves will now only accept mugs and other appropriate items.
- Added placeholder texture for Bag_MedicalBag.
- Added BrokenGlass tag to broken glass movables and smashed bottle, and added recipecode code for the tag, for modding purposes.
- Added support for the tag "SewingNeedle"; this will allow modders to add new mod items that can perform tailoring and wound stitching tasks.
- More flexible Tag support for writing notes.
- Added Tomato Paste item for pizza crafting.
- Added Prepare Pizza recipe to make a RecipePizza base evolved recipe item.
 
BALANCE
- Baloney, Salami, Ham, Onions, and Watermelon must be sliced before being able to be used in evolved recipes.
- Watermelon must be sliced or smashed before being able to eat it.
- Values of many food items adjusted for balance, consistency, and QOL purposes such as allowing one instance of an item to be used in more evolved recipe portions.
- Only Bread Slices and Toast can be placed inside Toasters.
- Some recipes now require a bowl as well as a spatula, spoon or fork, to mix ingredients.
- Many recipes adjusted to allow for more ingredient flexibility.
- Hot water is now required to make Bowls of Oatmeal. Tim is now satisfied.
- Added new param to Recipe: "InSameInventory". When this param true items gets only from same outermost inventory. (Need for fix Rip clothing only from player inventory or only from Floor/Container)
- Changed Rip Clothing recipe
- HandWeapon.weaponSprite is saved if it is different than the item-script's value.
- Slightly increased zed attraction to gunshots in MP
- Reduced the endurance loss when missing a hit (especially when pushing).
- Set sprite properties on the "Wood Pegboard" and "Wood Top Workbench" in location_business_machinery_01 so they are movable.
- Added all the missing translations to Moveables_EN.txt. Any missing translations for this are printed to the console when loading a game.
- Added a "Slice Onion" recipe so Fried Onion Rings can be made.
- Made the Composter thumpable by zombies.

- Sometimes the corpses that spawn as the player explores the world will be fake dead.
- As corpses progress in rot stages they have a chance of becoming fake dead.
- Additional appropriate corpses spawned in randomized world stories will rarely be fake dead.
- As corpses progress in rot stages they have a chance of spawning maggots in their inventory and in their square.

- Food value and evolved recipe name adjustments for more flexible recipe usage and shorter compound names.
- Obese is now mutually exclusive with Light Eater and Very Underweight is mutually exclusive with Hearty Appetite at character creations.

- Adjusted weight of Spears
- Floor tiles will now provide a maximum of 1 nail when dismantled.
- Eggs are dangerous uncooked but now with a greatly reduced chance of causing food sickness.
- Ice Cream Cones now melt and produce a Melted Ice Cream Cone item.

- Ginseng now provides an Endurance Buff when used to make a Hot Beverage as a spice.
- Added Basil to more recipes.
- Better handling of evolved recipe item name when they only have spice ingredients.

- Added the ability to install Makeshift Radios into vehicles; this was done for consistency with the requested fix of allowing Makeshift HAM radios to be installed in Ham radio vehicles.
- Allow vehicles that have HAM radios to allow any sort of HAM radio installed in them; Luxury and Modern Cars will also always spawn with Premium Radios installed.
- CDs in Premium radios will transfer to/from the vehicle they are being installed into/uninstalled from.


ANIMS

- Added new fill from bourbon bottle anim
- Changed fill from bourbon bottle xml to use new anim

Emote Wheel adjustments:
- Adjusted some emote bone masks to reduce clipping
- Added some stealth emote versions to reduce clipping and posing awkwardness
- Added emote states for different weapon poses

- Added an eating animation for WaterPotPasta WaterPotRice. The animation is the same as for drinking out of a pot.
 
Idle extension adjustments:
- Adjusted normal stance extensions bone masks to avoid clipping and awkward poses
- Added normal stance extensions anims, where appropriate
- Added normal stance extension xml for different weapon stances, where appropriate
 
- Added masks to extended idle xmls to not clip as much,
- Added relevant extended idle anims where needed
- Capped off hoodieUP xfiles to stop transparency
- Adjusted hoodieUP texture for new cap
- Added blood locations to a couple of missing shirts
- Re-exported female and zombie female base textures after eliminating some erroneous pixels causing holes
- Adjusted Hat_Spiffo mask to display properly on character
- re-exported missed zombie body textures that had outlying pixels
- Adjusted male and female HighViz vests to visually work similar to hunting vests
- Reworked Male and Female HighViz vests
- Changed HighViz vest body location
- Tweaked Hunting vest masks to work better with underlying clothes

 
MP

- Various anti-cheat improvements

- Sync and physics improvements for vehicles.
    - Refactored and decreased vehicle physics packet size.
    - Vehicle interpolation was refactored and improved .

- Improved towing physics and behaviour.
    - Updated PZBullet library on all platforms.
    - Rope constraint is added to PZBullet. Now used for vehicles instead of z-offset for point-to-point constraint.


- Optimized Vehicle authorization on exit

- Allow admins to repair clothes via Edit -> Condition, and remove wholes when the item is set to max condition when the item is in their inventory.
- Visual data for damaged/fixed clothing will now sync between clients.
   
- Hit reaction translation length is now calculated by appropriate animation clip

- Use WaveSignal packet on client
- Improve auth/towing for cases with two drivers/swap tow

- Stopped clients updating rotting corpses and fake-dead corpses.
- Added check for IsoDeadBody.getHumanVisual() being null.

- Server will send the success result of recipes checksum validation if the client is untouchable.
    - The game will calculate the checksum using the original recipe name.


- The driver now stops the vehicle before they exit from the vehicle or switch seat.
    - Added ISBaseTimedAction timed action.
    - The BaseVehicle.setForceBrake function was added. Calling this function activates the brakes for 1 second.

- The SystemDisabler.doDisableTunePhysicDelay variable was added

- If FPS is capped the updatePhysic function receives time delta uses the PerformanceSettings.getLockFPS function.

- The game server will not send the PlayerUpdateReliable packets from players who are far away.

- Improvements for some anti-cheat checks
- ServerOptions to enable/disable AntiCheatProtectionType checks for types 21-24 are added.
- Added log message for LUA debugger


- Improve vehicle logging
    - Add DebugLogStream noise methods
    - Logs can be filtered by severity
- Reformatted log streams for damage, death, and multiplayer log types

- Added server log command for vehicle traces (ex.: "log vehicle trace" or "log ve t" for short)
    - Command entered in general chat tab changes severity on the client
    - Command entered in admin chat tab changes severity on the server

- Increased allowed map_meta.bin and map_zone.bin file size from 20MB to 50MB in multiplayer.

- Fixed Zed appearance not syncing between players.
- Fixed one player being able to use two radios / walkie talkies.
- Fixed text not displaying above the placed HAM radio if there is a Walkie talkie in your hands.
- Fixed vehicle radio using wrong coordinates.
- Fixed vehicle radio not working in the same way as world placed radio.
- Fixed other vehicle radio issues (radio stations, text, chat, VOIP).
- Fixed vehicle radio text processing.
- Fixed trailer authorizations / floaty trailers.
- Fixed Item Remove tool not removing items from containers on a server.
- Fixed clients sending StopSound packets to the server for zombie vocals.
- Fixed clients sending climb-over-fence sounds and climb-through-window sounds for players and zombies. It seems each client runs the ClimbOverFenceState and ClimbThroughWindowState, so these sounds may be kept local.
- Fixed clients sending climb-over-wall sounds.
- Fixed seat authorizations.
- Fixed null pointer exception in the VehicleManager.serverPacket function.
- Fixed incorrect delay-tuning algorithm.
- Fixed issues with Handle BufferOverflowException sending map_meta.bin and map_zone.bin for servers that use many map mods.
- Fixed issues when characters are hit by trailers.
- Fixed corpses disappeared when killed by trailer
- Fixed issues with vehicle physics debug log messages.
- Fixed Admin being kicked because of incorrect checksum.
- Fixed car changing its place after re-login.
- Fixed normal vehicle not being removable in mods.
- Fixed movement sound when vehicle is stopped.
- Fixed movement sound when player changed seat from driver to passenger. Redundant vehicle packet EngineSound flag is removed.
- Fixed disappearing trailers.
- Fixed physics update limits.
- Fixed a vehicle and towed vehicle having different physic delays right after they were attached, causing clients to see the two closer than they actually were.
- Fixed attached cars being disconnected after re-login.
- Fixed passenger not being able to exit attached car if they occupy driver's seat while the car is being towed.
- Fixed attached trailer twitching after player gets in car. The server gives authorization for a short time to a player if both vehicles don't have drivers.
- Fixed empty RequestGetFull being sent.
- Fixed vehicle passenger could have vehicle authorization after collision.
- Fixed vehicle collision owner.
- Fixed tow re-attach.
- Fixed vehicle seat switching.
- Fixed passengers seeing black boxes at high speeds.
- Fixed vehicle not damaging players after re-login.
- Fixed vehicle local simulation pass through another vehicle.
- Fixed player can't become owner of pushed vehicle.
- Fixed bouncing vehicle authorization at the end of local simulation.
- Fixed player can exit or sleep in moving car.
- Fixed rare incorrect vehicles authorization after towing.
- Fixed engine sound disappearing without a driver.
- Fixed car not stopping when driver changes their place due to cruise control.
- Fixed error when try to type "[" in Item list viewer.
- Fixed bug in the GameTime class. The class had insufficient precision when calculating the time in the syncServerTime function.
- Fixed car stopping condition. The vehicle is stopped if the speed is less than 0.8 kmph.
- Fixed clipping vehicles.
- Fixed remote cars lag. The stepSimulation function will receive fixed update period. This period will not depend from FPS.
- Fixed Vehicle simulation speed depending on locked fps.
- Fixed the server kicking players when SystemDisabler.doAllowDebugConnections variable was set to true.

- Added MapRemotePlayerVisibility server option to the server-settings editor and admin panel.


MODS

- Improved log for lua errors. Now it shows if it modified file error
- Added list of mods in Pause menu + this list show mods that cause errors
- Added additional check to Vehicle Create, Update and Install Radios that may help prevent mods that modify what data is sent to it from causing errors.


FORAGING

- Adjusted the position of foraging pin icons and direction arrows. The arrows always pointed to the northwest corner of a square, which didn't look right for dropped items.

- Turn the player to face a forage item when picking it up.

- Fixed the foraging system not handling non-rectangular zones (i.e., polygon or thick polyline zones).
- Zone.getRandomSquareInZone() now handles polygon and thick polyline zones.
- Zone.getTotalArea() returns the area of polygon and thick polyline zones.
    Note this isn't an accurate count of the squares in such zones, it is the sum of the area of each triangle that forms the polygon.
    For other types of zones, width * height is returned.
- Added the OnLoadedMapZones event which is called after map_zone.bin is loaded.
    As before, the existing OnLoadMapZones event is triggered before map_zone.bin is loaded.
- forageSystem.init() is called by the new OnLoadedMapZones event instead of OnLoadMapZones.
- forageSystem.integrityCheck() checks whether the original map zone represented by each ForageZone still exists.

- Changed double click behaviour of search mode pins to place items into the current selected player inventory panel if possible
- Adjusted the search mode snow cover penalty limit as snowy weather combination could easily hit the penalty cap
- Fixed an exploit with search focus when spamming the search mode button which could force items to change type
- Fixed a visual issue with search focus trigger after spotting items which caused picked up items to sometimes be the original item

 
ADMIN/DEBUG

- Added Brush Tool for copying, destroying, and building specific Tiles, as well as a Fire, Smoke, and Explosion-Brush. .
    - Controls:
    - Turn on Brush Tool cheat via the Debug Menu -> "Cheats" -> "Brush Tool"..
    - Right-Click on any tile -> "Brush Tool Manager", "Copy tile", "Destroy Tile".
    - When a tile was picked from the Bruth Tool Manager -> keys "[" and "]" for scrolling between tiles.

- Added trigger thunder tool (for admins).
- Added respawn new loot in container by RMC-ContextOption on container button (when LootZed cheat on or isAdmin).

- Changed LootZed manager opening on RMC-ContextOption on container button.
- Allowed admin to create any VHS out of spawned VHS-home (like in debug).
- Added sync for Health panel cheats.
- Trailers debug is improved.
- Small fix to Lua closure.
- Improved spawn vehicle menu.
- Added ability to change weight in Player Stats window.

- Added destroying objects without a sledgehammer if building cheat is on.
- Added sliders for change weight and calories in debug panel.
- Added Step Into, Step Over, and Resume buttons to the Lua debugger.


- Improved ContextMenu
        - Now you can add icons for context options:
                local myOption = context:addOption("My option name", ...)
                myOption.iconTexture = getTexture("media/ui/MyIconForOption.png")

- Added new functions for context: insertOptionAfter(...), insertOptionBefore(...), removeOptionByName(...), getMenuOptionNames(...)
- Improved Debug/Admin options.

- Added new options for doors - Now you can set a building ID for doors and force-lock doors inside buildings.
    - Added Door Options can be found in the Right-Click Context Menu -> Objects.
    - To lock a door inside a building, set a Building Key ID for the door, set Force-Lock to "True" and click "Objects" -> "Door Lock" in the context menu. A key for the door can be spawned via the "Get Key" option.
   
- Added 'make noise' options to attract zombies.
- Added option for removing all zombies in a zone to the Admin tools.
- Added icons in context menu for ADMIN/DEBUG options.
- Added elapsed time since server started in server statistics info.
- Added access to some Admin tools for moderators.
- Added an external anim debug UI for Martin.

- Removed the line "Press Esc to open Admin panel" from Server toolbox UI

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 19, 2022, 12:18:56 AM
Camp GigaMart
Thu, 18 August 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/2b4c4e107e916d9d0c01ee5970a5abab187b3ace.jpg)
 

Hey all, we’ve had our heads deep in MP stuff this past ten days – so please excuse a blog that’s heavy on busywork and housekeeping.

We released 41.73 to stable last week, which came with an unanticipated issue that saw Linux servers (of which there are many) having frequent crashes – generally when multiple users tried to connect at the same time.

This wasn’t great, to say the least, so a lot of the B41 team’s bandwidth has gone into investigating, testing and finding a solution for this over the last ten days.

We’ve recently released version 41.74 to the Unstable beta, which has fixed the crash issue at our end – and we would ask that anyone who hasn’t been able to play due to linux server crashes to try it out. This includes a full update to Valve’s latest Steam API.

If you continue to experience crashes on the Unstable branch after this patch, please head to our Discord techsupport channel or forums and send us your hs_err_pid**.log file (you’ll find this in the server installation folder) in addition to a download link to a .zip file of your Home/Zomboid folder (remove the “Saves” folder from it to save space).


Doing a wholesale update to the Steam networking interface like this isn’t small beans, and it has thrown up a few issues that we will be remedying in the coming days – but in the interest of getting folks missing out on their PZ ASAP we have released the fix to Unstable to get people back on-board, and report back on any other misbehaviour.

We will also be making some of the new anti-cheat additions far less twitchy, as these too caused issues for some people on 41.73 launch.

NEXT PATCH
Slightly logjammed behind 41.74 is a wide-ranging patch full of many and various things. To minimise future disruption to B41 players we are thinking that it may well be the last major patch before all coders are moved to B42 and more feature-based development.

Clearly there will still be fixes and maintenance where necessary. We’ll be wanting to leave 41 in the best state that we can, and with as many annoyances removed as possible. Plans can change of course, but this currently our direction.

Some of the logjammed items ready-coded and awaiting internal integration and testing are:

New flatpack model for movable icons. Cleared up plastic/metal bucket confusion. New watering cans.
Added compass support for the forthcoming compass item. When an item with the Compass tag is in a player’s inventory, the tooltip on mouseover will include text indicating which direction the character is facing.
Recipe improvements: – more food items capable of being added to tacos and burritos.
Rebalanced weights/encumbrance of: walkie talkies (for French speakers: talkie walkies), fire extinguishers, branches, spears, more.
Adjusted the capacities of pistol and revolver cases from 7 down to 4. Changed the sawed off shotgun recipes to only use the hacksaw, and not the garden saw.
Longstanding bugbear that using lighters with Molotovs completely drains them fixed. Also when a Lighter is equipped it will no longer automatically become lit, instead it will do so only if activated using the flashlight keybind or radial menu, or using the inventory context menu option to activate them.
Several new zed and building stories.
Added a new sandbox setting “EnablePoisoning” which has the settings “True” (default), “False”, and “Bleach is Disabled”. It governs if poison, or only bleach, is disallowed from being added to foods. Although this is primarily intended for MP servers, as an anti-griefing/no-PVP allowance, it has been requested for singleplayer as well, thus why it is a sandbox setting and not a server setting.
Building keys spawn on zombies and corpses when they spawn inside buildings, when appropriate, instead of when they die inside of one. (WIP – may be B42)
Set some traits to be mutually exclusive to remove exploits or illogical combinations: Brave & Agoraphobic/Claustrophobic; Adrenaline Junkie & Agoraphobic/Claustrophobic/Cowardly.
Rebalanced the maggots that spawn on corpses so that they spawn less often in spring and fall, and also so that the maggots that spawn on zombie corpses have a poison value of 5 instead of 3.
Improved how current fakedead zombie spawns function.
Improvement to buffs and debuffs in terms of XP and moodles shown.
Fixed issues that involve spawning in barricaded/burnt/randomized locations.
House keys will no longer spawn with a long string of numbers in their display name. (Should’ve improved this previously – apologies)
Added attachments to most food models so they appear in the player’s hand while eating
/gunshot command can now target a specific player
Some work-in-progress changes to zombie behaviour. Random offset to where zombies think a sound came from for unseen squares. Rain increases zombie hearing random offset range and decreases chance for zombies to react to player sounds. Zombies wander more during heavy rain. (Potentially B42 content)
Fixes and improvements to the admin tile picker system in MP.
Some logical improvements to clothing items. Motorcycle helmets protect from head fractures, firefighter gear protects from fire etc.
A fix to how you’re unable to claim a safehouse unless standing on the ground floor, and how game currently doesn’t check upper floors for other players or zombies when claiming.
“Streamer Mode” audio option which changes vehicle siren sounds to avoid bizarre copyright strikes.
Various improvements and fixes to the cutaway system.
Colour-blind friendly accessibility addition – letting you add:another variant to red/green in aiming outline – and also to reduce difficulty when zed is standing on snow.
Added highlight to crates so it’s easier to differentiate which one player is interacting with.
Optional Sandbox Setting To Disable The Tainted Water Tooltip/Warning For Hardcore Play
Improvements to level of damage burnt food does to players with weak stomach trait
Changes to how car alarms function in-game, seeing as currently they are an extremely rare threat.



Although its early days yet, and unconfirmed for B42, we are also currently spending some time doing some backstage experimentation with basements and improvements to our loot/inventory UIs. If these are successful we may well see them surface in future blogs.

Thanks all!

This week’s supermarket camping trip from 지혁. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games dev and want to work with us? Details here.


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on September 02, 2022, 12:54:08 AM
Broadened HorizonZ
Thu, 1 September 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/1c36d99414a109d7d21c353f5bff581a7a013a13.png)


Okay, so here’s a run down on our current basic plans for finalizing Build 41, and then beyond.

NEXT
We’ve left Linux server operators hanging out to dry a bit over the last two weeks and feel awful about it – especially ones with larger/busier servers.

41.73 came with crashes on Linux servers, and the version with the updated Steam API we put into the Unstable beta in 41.74 turned out to bring in as many issues as it solved.

As such Yuri and Andrei are currently working on another approach that will be going into Unstable beta (and then Stable) as soon as we can muster – which will have the crashes fixed, and should also have increased networking performance and improved connection stabilities for everyone. We’re hoping to conduct an internal test on it tomorrow.

In essence the game will now also use direct communication with dedicated servers, instead of going entirely through Steam’s own networking. This should improve things for all players on dedicated servers – including the Linux servers that were sadly the canary in the coalmine that flagged up the fact that something needed to be done here.

Again, our apologies to those impacted – we are thinking of ways to repair some of the damage done during the outage and appreciate your frustration.

THEN
We have a staging branch backstage that all our coders are feeding aspects of their work that they wouldn’t want people to have to wait until Build 42 for – so no big features, but instead a lot of fixes and balance.

We will also be trying to limit mod disruption and big/controversial changes, as this will be the version that we leave folks with for quite a while when all of us are 100% working on new features alongside the existing 42 team. (Apart from anything urgent we might need to attend to on 41, clearly).

The sorts of things we’re currently testing for this patch include: many and various visual issues with the cutaway system, colour blind accessibility options, better crate highlights, many recipe improvements, better ways for the game to handle car alarms and (hopefully) fixes for sounds cutting out in busy MP situations.

There’s also some new 3D models where we’ve had icon mismatches, new tooltips to better explain what different items can do, weight/encumbrance rebalancing on some items, the lighter/Molotov fix we mentioned last time and many and varied other fixes. We’ve also done some work improving the in-game server browser that we would certainly like to include as well.

There’s a lot of other stuff too, but you probably get the gist. Nothing that’s going to rock the boat, but also enough stuff to keep the boat sailing until we reach the glittering shores of 42.

MAP NEXT
While we can’t and won’t go into forensic detail on which towns and what design themes we’re going for, it’s perhaps time to talk about the next map expansion – which will most likely hit with 42.

Xeonyx and Ayrton are essentially pushing the map out on all sides, apart from beyond the game’s traditional Ohio River boundary.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/025e3bee0a6cdc1e67f05ccbcd6f173260d82f22.png)

The map team are returning to fictionalised versions of real places on the Kentucky map – Riverside and March Ridge being entirely fictional. We don’t want to name exactly which ones, but it might be worth mentioning one of them will be Ekron.

The location currently commonly known as Ekron within the community is not supposed to be our version of that place, and (for reasons that will become explicit when viewed on the PZ map) is internally known as Fallas Lake. We will erect a sign in Build 42 to make this information more prominent.

Here’s a few WIP screens of some of our future locations to keep you all going.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/5d7ca65a3781bc452bc4d82dbdc87c80ce1cf5b8.png)

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/6ade8530d6d3f5c7c1ac3ee6872122a25cd8e3e9.png)

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/a4a0662f9ca4ca86082fe5f6c7bc117b21fd2791.png)


ALSO
Other things currently being worked on for B42 inclusion that we haven’t mentioned before are:

    The Sound Team are working on sprinter zed growls and screams – our first inspirations here will be the Dawn of the Dead remake but we will iterate until we get it right. Formosa have also created a variety of bullet impact noises (on cars, dirt, glass, plastic, trees, walls and wood) that we will be integrating come 42, alongside the further improvement of the dynamic music system. They will also clearly have their hands full with the cows, chickens, sheep, improved fishing and many and various new post-apocalypse items and actions that B42 will bring along with it.
   
 RJ is currently experimenting with rats, which could also become part of the Knox Event alongside domestic animals. Martin, meanwhile, has been working on animal transportation – namely new trailers and potential new vehicles.
   
Pat_Bren has been expanding the breadth of different TV and radio channels available to tune into at the start of the outbreak, and is now moving onto some other frequencies that players might be lucky enough to come across later on within the PZ timeline too. Right now he’s added Public Access TV, a Music channel, a Sports channel, a movie channel, a new entertainment channel and a radio station called Upper South Radio.


We can’t remember if we showed it before, apologies if so, but seeing as RJ is back working with his rats – here’s what a PZ rat looks like when it bugs out with human hair.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/45ec73940f32b8c714e16347246e9992ab5c5d08.gif)

Thanks all, and thanks for your patience. We’ll see you next time.

This week’s foggy overview from the Universe of Gamer. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games dev and want to work with us, especially if you’re an Animations Engineer as Christ alive that would be handy? Details here.


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on October 05, 2022, 01:15:53 AM
41.77 Released
Tue, 4 October 2022


Compliled changelist (41.74-41.77).
These small updates were intended to address the crashes affecting Linux MP servers and improve the client-to-server connections.

 

MP

- Improved client connection.
Important for server providers: Servers now have two ports for clients to connect to.
The game port (UDP 16261 by default) is used to handle Steam queries. The additional port (UDP 16262 by default) is used to handle the direct connection. These ports can be configured through the server options.
Clients will first try to use a direct connection. If direct connection fails, clients will try to connect via Steam.
The non-Steam version works as usual.
UPnP rules were changed accordingly (UPnP is used in cases to prevent manual port-forwarding).
The client will show the warning message "WARNING: SERVER HAS PORT %1 CLOSED. PERFORMANCE MAY BE SEVERELY AFFECTED" if the client can&#39;t connect through direct connection.

- ZNet libraries rebuilt for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
- ZNet, Connection, and Kick logs are improved.

- Improved Type5, and Type21-24 Anti-Cheat behaviour to reduce false positives.
    A note that if you do not run a public server (i.e. a server exclusively for you and your family & friends without the worry of griefing and cheating), you can entirely circumvent any sort of frustration with false positives by disabling all AntiCheat protections in the servers .ini file.

- Split the large ConnectionDetails packet into several smaller packets with one of the ConnectionDetailsPacket.State enum values indicating which data is requested.
- Improved algorithm for the transmission of large files while playing.
- Loading screen now shows the download status of large files when connecting to a server.
- Extended checksum logs for debugging CRC differences.
- Increased kick delay for CRC differences.
- Additional logs were added.

- Fixed ObjectModData packets not being sent while the server was in the FastForward state.
- Fixed bug in world dictionary when an item in a different module but with a similar name as an vanilla item was removed.
- Fixed a new stubble Beard getting added to remote players after each appearance change, which resulted in receivePlayerZombieDescriptors errors.
- Fixed kicks after disabling VOIP.
- Fixed connecting to host after disconnection from a dedicated server.
- Fixed infinite connection attempt to non-steam server when it&#39;s not up.
- Fixed the client displaying "Disconnected" instead of "Wrong username or password".
- Fixed players being able to change their saved password for an already created account in some instances.
- Fixed Type21 black screen at connection stage when Type21 anti-cheat check is disabled.
- Fixed the character model always using media/textures/Body/Masks instead a clothing item&#39;s UnderlayMasks folder.
- Fixed black screen issues with certain mod constellations.
- Fixed the timed-action progress bar position not being updated during actions without a fixed duration.
- Fixed the animation speed of the timed-action progress bar at different framerates.


NEW

- Added a looping progress bar for timed actions that have no defined end. This is mainly a stopgap "fix" for entering cars, to visualize that there is an ongoing unfinished action until we can have visually open doors, etc.
Specifically added for the scenarios where players reported being bitten through the car door after they had entered a car and interrupted the "enter car" action before it could finish (e.g. by opening the map, etc), i.e. before the door was "closed".
This bar extends to other "infinite" actions like Walk To.


MODELS

- Added new body locations: Jacket_Bulky, JacketHat_Bulky, TorsoExtraVest, and JacketSuit.
- Assigned new body locations to existing clothing items to avoid clipping.
- Tweaked and added many clothing masks to avoid clipping through each other.
- Adjusted several clothing models and bone weighting to improve clipping.
- Removed Bowling shirt model from Bowling shirt definitions and made Bowling Shirt a texture. The model was left in the files in case mods use it.
- Improved base Body mask to help with clipping.
- Re-exported ALICE packs as some straps were missing.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on October 28, 2022, 12:51:00 AM
Recipes for a Disaster
Thu, 27 October 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/66f1403d8e5dea6c008ff079cc2271ad7424ef49.png)

Hola, zomberinos. Short-ish blog this week, but some fun info-nuggets none-the-less.


FINAL 41 PATCH
We released 41.78 to Unstable last week, and released a fix-up patch yesterday. There’ll probably be another update to it before we consider it safe for a full stable release, but there hasn’t been too much to mop up this time around – so our thanks to Blair who was the chief coder on this release.

One thing it might be nice to get in before we wrap 41 and the long wait till 42 begins, are the products of our investigations into ways to make it clearer to modders and users alike where errors in their mod setup lies – when it comes to different capitalisations in folder paths and different file orders between server and clients.

These often result in error messages that are confusing and/or unclear, making things hard to troubleshoot for modders and our support team. It’d be nice to bring about some clarity before we leave 41 for pastures new – so that’s the main thing we’re waiting on now.


WORK ON 42
Slightly technical details from the land of 42, but something that Blair has also been moving onto is working on the architecture of our recipes system – to make it more foolproof and effective for both us and modders.

We are streamlining our evolved recipes – using ‘templates’ similar to the tags we use for individual items. This will make it more straightforward and simple for both us and the modding community to add in new evolved recipes and food items.

The system ‘as is’ in Build 41 has a sizable amount of ‘clunk debt’ associated with it – that gets compounded by the number of food items we have in the game. The way we are restructuring things strips out some of the complexity, and lets us add new stuff easily – while simultaneously managing our existing recipes and foodstuffs.

Next up, we also have more ideas about further streamlining this using item tags to offload a lot of the recipe ingredient stuff to tags and templates. We’ve also got the roots in place of an Evolved Recipe name system that will notice you putting ham and pineapple on a pizza – and call it a Hawaiian Pizza. Or name a sandwich a BLT if you’ve added bacon, lettuce and tomato.

On top of this there’s a lot of wash and brush up of existing features. There’s a lot of big name gameplay stuff going into B42, but when it eventually rolls around we want to underline that there’ll be a bunch of more iterative improvements on existing PZ too.

For example, right now we’re working on making the randomized profession house stuff more cool and obvious- right now you probably aren’t aware when you’re in a carpenter’s or an electrician’s home as there aren’t enough indicators. We’ve got stuff going in to make it clearer and more thematic. Likewise we’re improving the procedural loot system to make loot and looting more interesting in of itself.

There are also new ‘zed story’ events to come across where costumed zombies will tell a story – gun store sieges, hillbilly hoedowns, kids party raves in the forests, a variety of campsites to come across etc.

Oh, and we’ll be widening the melee weapons pool a bit also. They’re not in-game yet, and no SFX for them yet either, but here’s a quick look at some of what’ll be on offer.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/1a9a43cfa8995c18cc066e04f58be0e8c643ca0c.png)

This week’s prison visit from Abby. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 11, 2022, 12:04:50 AM
Spiffo and Friends
Thu, 10 November 2022

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/d35bad515f2bfa0063bc1ebb0dc9df8c4e7631d8.png)

Hello survivors! Three things of note this week.

FINAL BUILD 41 PATCH RELEASED


This afternoon we put out 41.78 to the stable branch, and you can read its changelist here https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/5940838760377829626?snr=2_groupannouncements_detail_

Nothing seems to have exploded just yet, but there will very likely be a hot fix for anything that does crop up. We’ve had a few complaints of visual issues with some clothing that we’d thought we’d fixed for instance, that can probably get a quick look-over again before we move on.

This patch is largely quality of life changes, some MP tweaks and fixes for longstanding annoyances – so hopefully you’ll see a few things in the changelist that make you feel both cherished and warm.

Other than that hot fix, unless we return if circumstances demand it, the final devs who were tinkering in Build 41 will from this point on all be fully aboard the Build 42 train.

 
BARNYARD FRIENDS
First, let us reiterate – Build 42 is still a long way off. However RJ’s development playpen for the domestic animals that the build will feature is still ticking along quite nicely. This week he has prepared two videos for your delight but first TWO caveats.

First, our animator Martin wants it known that one of the things we’ll be working on will be the way animals turn / turn when they move.

Secondly, clearly what you’re seeing here is debug dev-stuff – especially how it looks and operates when leading an animal around on a rope. We haven’t quite landed on the best way to herd animals around yet, and will likely have to land at a halfway house between realistic, feasible and fun. Likewise, thirdly I guess, UIs clearly aren’t final yet either.

So here’s proof that you can pet the cute little animals in Build 42 of Project Zomboid.

https://youtu.be/L3dgSFaFjYk

And here’s how to coax them into a trailer so you can cart them off to slaughter them somewhere distant so their loud desperate squeals won’t attract zombies.

https://youtu.be/yvqykEOswc8


MAGICAL WOODLAND FRIEND
Yes, it’s happened. Spiffo merchandise is finally a thing. Behold! More information to come later on down the line. But for now…

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/ee5b3b484b46a3850f51e02d8f296112fa7d6fe5.png)

To register your interest in crowdfunding a Spiffo plushie visit the Makeship Store! The full campaign begins in less than a week!

To find out how you could win one of two free plushies visit this twitter post! https://twitter.com/theindiestone/status/1590724694549753856?s=20&t=BCKFG7ccHeWwhvz0zQjhPQ

This week’s table arsenal from Polaris. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. No-one is allowed to make a jar-based gag in the presence of our Spiffo plushie, please, as we had to google it and oh dear god no please no.

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on January 27, 2023, 01:19:51 AM
My Zeds is on Fire
Thu, 26 January 2023
 
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/444a340cf2531eff1d221b6a26ecc08b3b8c1372.png)

How do all. Here’s a check-in from a few different Build 42 departments, that also occurs in the lead-up to the first in-person meet-up for the wider PZ team since 2018. We’re all aflutter about it (and trying to remember everyone’s real world names instead of online handles) and hope to have lots of good B42 chat in amongst the introduction of an international team to traditional Geordie culture.
 

Let’s pop into a few different areas, then – with the caveat that for a fuller B42 overview our last dev blog is probably a better destination.


FIRE
Work continues on the fire rewrite branch with the intention being to bring it up to a state in which it can safely enter our internal test build.

It recently came to mind that a lot of the ‘fire dev’ chat in blogs took place in the distant past, before we had to reshuffle and our current MP team became what it is today – thereby forcing flames into the sidelines for an elongated spell.
 

As such the guys have made a vid for us today that spells out some of the foundations of what is being done here, in terms of how fire spread, size and duration is governed – and indeed the sort of stats that lie beneath the hood that we can balance with, and that the community can mod with.

That’s the first half of the video: done with our old fire effects (which are too transparent and also on fast forward) so please take this aspect as instructional/iterative rather than a fait accompli.
 
The second part of the video then moves on to show our experimentation with fire visuals, working alongside our VFX artist friend Brian, as we work out different ways to make in-game flame effects better match our particularly coloured iso-world.
 
https://youtu.be/r8k0GLSAl4Y


MP TEAM
As regular readers will know, alongside tidying up smaller multiplayer irritations as they go, our MP team are currently transferring player inventory actions over away from the client and onto the server. They have another three or four weeks set aside for the first stage of this: at which point we will the player’s inventory loaded from the database on the server, and the server always having an up-to-date player inventory – hopefully all working in sync with the progress bars, item move times and expected results you get currently.

At this point the second major part of the code work will be getting underway: having all the item manipulation occurring on the server side, and ensuring that the server no longer trusts clients (those sneaky clients!) so that stuff like item adding cheats are rendered defunct.

After this, clearly, there’ll be a heap of testing and such – but we thought the more technically-minded amongst us would appreciate a catch-up on where the guys are with it.


  FISHING
This past week Aiteron has been working with the testers who’ve been reporting back on bugs and gameplay in the latest version of our revamped fishing – and has been largely working on an improved/experimental control system for a more chilled out and less button-holdy-tappy experience.

He has also been working with our aforementioned VFX specialist friend Brian, who has been supplying us with various splashes, bubbles and signs of water movement that will indicate the presence of fish, and also be a suggestion of the size of what lurks beneath. On top of bug fixes, changed recipes and improved items for the system he’s also been firming up on exactly what sorts of fish we’ll be adding to the game, and whether they’d be found in rivers or lakes (and definitely not swimming pools).
 

There’s gonna be lot of bass: largemouth, smallmouth, white, spotted and striped. And let’s not even get started on the crappies…

CRAFTING
After an awful lot of code-side tinkering, a super WIP version of our crafting improvement has surfaced into something that’s viewable in a vid. Please note this is the visible tip of the iceberg, and clearly what’s on show isn’t final: you do not saw logs in a furnace, and this isn’t how you make a hammer.
 
https://youtu.be/J-RzQP2t5MU


So what’s on show here?

Various objects can now be entirely created using the game’s scripting language that’s been made similar to the way items and vehicles etc. are defined.

This covers various currently planned objects that can function as a craft station: stuff like blacksmith furnace, tailoring bench, fletchery, brewing stands, kilns etc. And, unlike the way it is now, these can also be objects consisting of multiple tiles/sprites with various rotations etc.

At a craft station the player is able to use their normal recipes (which may provide a bonus for doing the recipe at a craftstation) but it’s here that they can use their blueprints – and which ones are available will be defined by the associated object script.

Blueprints (working title) are similar to recipes in that they can take inputs, and produce outputs. However they are distinct from your usual recipes in the following ways:
 
•   They have different duration modes – in real world seconds, game minutes or can run passively in the background for long periods.
•   They may not require the player to be present. For example, a melting process may run on the craftstation while you run off to do other things.
•   As well as items, they can take the input (and produce) Fluids and different in-game ‘energies’ – Electric, Heat, Kinetic or Steam.
•   When active a Blueprint in progress can store its inputs/outputs, and may have storage capacity for them. For example, a blueprint that needs water as an input may well have an internal storage buffer for water. We’ll probably show this in a development vid next time.


Blueprints are processed much like recipes where the inputs by default are consumed to create the outputs. However the default behaviour can be complemented or overridden by custom lua code for certain blueprint events like OnStart, OnUpdate, OnFinish, OnCancel. This is similar to normal recipe events such as OnCreate.
 
Using this custom lua code interesting things can be done – like for example a blueprint for a Meat Drying Rack which has several input slots for meat. The blueprint can be set to run passively, so it wont require a player to manually start it up.
 
The OnUpdate event then triggers a lua function which checks if the Meat Drying Rack is situated in a exterior space, and if so we can then go into our usual PZ super-nerdery level of depth by calculating the amount to dry a meat item based on temperature and the cloud intensity / sunlight at that time. So when a meat item is dropped in one of the UI slots it starts passively drying the meat.
 
Another feature of blueprints is that their UI can be scripted. The video shows a few simple (bizarre) test examples of different UI layouts. However they can potentially be scripted to have any desired appearance – using any of the game’s existing UI elements, or indeed modded ones.
 
As mentioned heavily above: the video is very early WIP, especially where the UI is concerned, and there are still some parts not yet functional. In a future update we can show a more functional UI, and run through some more interesting case examples.

LES ANIMAUX
Finally, over to RJ in the animal zone.

“I’ve been diving more and more into a farm animal’s designation zones – which are paddocks you outline for your animals to occupy (as long as they don’t get loose) and where the game will allow you to do all your various primary animal-rearing tasks. For most of this week I’ve been refactoring and simplifying my animal behaviour and meta code, but there’s a few interesting things to mention.”
 
“Cows and sheep can now recognize a roof area and stay under it during heavy rain, I’ve been trying to get sheep to move in more of a flock most of the time, and baby animals will follow their mother more correctly. You can also now drop food directly on ground for them to eat, or in the feeding trough container – where it won’t spoil quite so quickly.”
 
Also, among many other things (haircare, first aid, dropping bags, new emergency broadcast system noises) the Sound Team have also started making animal noises.
 
Behold, the cows now have hoofsteps.
 
https://youtu.be/zNhVX14L2Lo


This week’s tarmac follow party from Darth. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Experienced gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here.
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on May 12, 2023, 12:17:11 AM
The Skillful HuntZman
Thu, 11 May 2023

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//4460946/3f2c6fb51b109260125ae22336ded8b14c2083a9.jpg)

Hello all!

This week we’ll be checking in with three of the main four pillars of Build 42 – work on the fourth, the server-side player inventories and general MP improvement, has been fairly ‘business as usual’ the past month or so and there’s not much to talk about that’d be juicy for enough for public consumption
.

Steady your loins, then, as first of all we jump into…

ANIMALS AND MIGRATION
RJ has been taking a holiday (American translation: vacation) from his work on domestic animals and husbandry, and has taken to the woodland and forests of the Knox Event.

Wild animals will be important to B42 for both reasons of ambiance and necessity – it will make your experience feel no end more engaging to see deer skittering through the treeline, but also will make hunting a viable survival technique – and one required for some of our advanced crafting recipes when society is long-gone.

https://youtu.be/a3gE3T-nTaY


What RJ has been working on, in particular, this week is the movement of animals over the map – their migration if you will. So if you could all also have a looksee at the following video too, then we can run into it in some more depth afterwards.

Also clearly: USUAL WIP CAVEATS APPLY. Things can and will change through development and testing.

https://youtu.be/dnAFN7gtQPg


So what are we seeing here?

Well basically throughout the day our deer will follow paths that our designers (and modders) can map out in our WorldEd tool – and in the vid you can see a virtual animal following a path.

Right now, one virtual animal is a group of animals that’s been defined in a lua file. Our current group, for example, consists of one buck, several doe and some fawns. Though clearly once they are fully implemented the variation will be greater, and also dependent on stuff like the time of year.

Once players get close to this coded ‘virtual animal’ these deer will then spawn into the world as real animals – and once you retreat away they’ll revert to their virtual status so the game can take over their movement and activities once more. If the group has become separated meanwhile, they’ll team back up again when their paths next cross.

In their virtual form the animals will move over the map, doing potential set activities at set different places. They are timetabled to have several ‘sleeping’ and ‘eating’ periods – currently sleeping for a period of half an hour at some point between 12pm and 4pm, eating at some point between 5am and 7am, and eating again for an hour at some point before 4pm and 6pm.

(Clearly, all this is easily changed at the dev-end – and can also be adjusted for whatever different animals we choose to add in future) 

To aid players who want to be hunters, deer will leave evidence and tracks of where they’ve been and what they’re doing. So there’ll be footprints (with a direction suggested), poop, and broken twigs and undergrowth – while flattened plants will indicate a sleeping spot, and grazed areas an eating spot.

The way in which we represent these visibly in-game is currently being worked out, but for now (and perhaps later on too) we will be providing for it in a dual use for eris’ super foraging mode that was introduced in B41.

A goal for the player, then, might be to follow tracks and work out the deer’s possible sleep or eating spot, mark them on their map, and then wait near those spots at the correct hours and hope that animals will stop by.

We’re also working out on ways for a Tracking skill to be integrated into this, though seeing as the design is still under discussion we’ll probably talk about that at a later date. Something else that we’re aware should be factored in is human smell and wind direction potentially spooking animals, as it would in real life, but we plan to add that layer in a bit further down the line.

RJ would also like to give out a call of Special Thanks to Inrictus for the time he’s spent teaching him how to be a proper huntsman!

Finally, here’s another quick video of a survivor setting up camp with our new tents and whatnot (no deer this time) to give a little flavour of what the surrounding gameplay will feel like too.

https://youtu.be/kEey9g7khio


ENGINE UPGRADE
Operation Optimization is going very well, easily obtaining several hundred FPS on our dev hardware when zoomed out.

However at the moment we still need to look into optimizations for how our current fog and puddles work – both of these are intensive graphical operations that need updating frame by frame. Thus, at the moment, they invalidate our cached chunks and diminish some of the gains from the optimizations.

As such at a later date – either before a first public release, or very possibly in a follow up build to it – we in particular plan to revisit these systems to optimize them for our new rendering system. Particularly the fog system, in fact, since having a depth map will now provide opportunities to make our visual effects look much better since we will have a solid representation of surfaces and depth to allow us to much improve how it interacts with objects in the scene.


CRAFTING UPDATE
Now the crafting systems are all in place, we’re starting to fill out the tech tree of recipes and wanted to show what’s currently being implemented.

As a reminder to those who perhaps aren’t as interested in the long term crafting and survival systems we are implementing, these will be completely optional as to whether you want to engage with it.

If you’re more interested in evading zombie hordes in the centre of towns and cities then you’ll still be able to do that.

However, to address our game’s weaker late game, provide many roleplay opportunities, and provide depth of gameplay outside interactions with zombies – we’re going all out on making the crafting possibilities as exhaustive as possible. Likewise, we are building new and more powerful crafting systems that modders will really be able to get their teeth into.

Remember, our benchmark is that a group of players should be able to build a functioning village even if spawning on a wilderness map with no signs of civilization. We want to make sure every aspect of crafting is covered to give multiplayer communities the opportunity to build and thrive, and provide modders with the tools required to make cool as hell expansive tech mods as seen on Minecraft, allowing Zomboid to become a more diverse survival, crafting and automation game modding platform in future.

An example of this would be working with clay. Clay can be dug up near rivers, and will be used to make bricks, tiles, roofing, pottery, and a whole host of other items and tiles to place in the world.

Those living on a barren map wanting to build a secure home will be overjoyed to be able to use bricks and tiles to make a proper dwelling that’s sturdy enough to stop zombies from breaking in. Likewise even on a smaller-scale basis, this craft will prove vital when survivors don’t have access to modern cutlery or liquid storage.

So here’s a quick video (very WIP still, we have a lot of balance, UI and polish to apply yet) that will show off some of the crafting systems when working with clay.

https://youtu.be/Aa6pgRZ-CSI


In future Thursdoids we’ll try to demo different diverse parts of the tech tree and their related professions as they implemented, as well as UI and quality of life improvements as we make them


SOME WELCOMES
The Indie Stone would like to extend an excited hello to two new fine folks this week – Egor who will be joining the MP team as they move ahead with their upgrades, and community fan favourite DaddyDirkieDirk.

Dirk has joined our art team to pump out ever more delectable tiles to give our map more life, and its deepest parts some more intriguing objects to perceive in the darkness – and if you are interested in his fantastic work as a modder then we ran a Mod Spotlight on him only last week.

Thanks all!

A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games industry gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here.


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on July 30, 2023, 11:08:26 PM
BagZ of fun
Thu, 27 July 2023

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/d67f157909f5147584da2672e4814ac4e51c6e7e.jpg)

Let’s have a dig into what’s happening in everyone’s favourite apocalypse. (Although other apocalypses are available.

First off a quick check-in with three of the four main pillars of Build 42 – the pillars in question being crafting system revamp, MP improvement, the depth/performance/lighting tech upgrade, and finally animals – which will have to wait till next time as RJ is only very recently back from his summer hols.

Turbo has been finalizing his machine and crafting station systems for a check-in next week, after we decided on some ways to maximise their utility for both our own devs and modders and give them as broad and solid a foundation as we can. The results are exciting and the design process for machines and the numerous crafting stations continues to expand these systems over the new tech tree and across existing devices over the entire PZ map. (Stuff like gas stations, wells, water pumps etc will also eventually be tied to the new system – but maybe not in the initial release.)

Next up: tech upgrade. Lots of stuff going on in codeland for this – but the topline additions have been improvements to the new visibility polygon, and continued work on the tile depth addition that will remove annoying character/wall clipping and ultimately make proper addition of lying and sitting down in all four directions feasible for mainline addition. (As well as the rendering optimizations it will entail obv.)

Alongside this the continued whackamole of things broken by the foundational changes made by the engine upgrades – stuff like (to grab a few random examples) doors not shaking when thumped, muzzleflash not showing, railings not being cutaway properly, rendering of zeds on hidden floors not working and many/varied other important stuff.

Finally, we now have four coders and two MP-devoted testers beavering away on our multiplayer – two coders devoted to the ongoing mission to bring all player inventory operations server-side, and another two knuckling down on general MP bugs and required polish. Over the past two weeks the guys have also been hooking up ‘new for 42’ systems, like the revamped fishing, to the netcode – and looking ahead to properly wiring up the animals too.

SOUNDSCAPE IMPROVEMENTS
Last week our Formosa UK’s primary PZ-dedicated chaps, Michael and Matteo, took the opportunity to do a full new mixing session for the game while they were both on the same island – said island being Great Britain.

A proportion of this was done with MP in mind, and especially gunshots, but seeing as multiplayer is currently broken/WIP in our dev build they instead hooked up an in-game barbecue to a long sequence of gunshots and worked around it like that. (Enterprising chaps, these two.)

We’re still waiting on some improved occlusion settings for indoor/outdoor, and the like, and some tweaks to player related sounds – but otherwise the following has been tweaked and added.

https://youtu.be/dJ9E8EMp0mo


Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/3642900408842962014
Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on August 18, 2023, 12:12:45 AM
The Connection Is Made
Thu, 17 August 2023

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/b000af9b92dc41033559acd4850509f5feb91be3.png)

Hey everyone. Jumping straight in with an update on the new and improved crafting system this time around if that’s okay with y’all.

As we’ve talked about in previous Thursdoids, a large part of the crafting overhaul revolves around creating a unified, powerful and expansive system for machines, crafting stations and appliances. This covers all the different things you find around the world, and those crafted by yourself and your friends.

A primary piece of this puzzle has been in the creation of dev systems and methodology that allow for the hugely swifter implementation of far more varied/interesting crafting and devices – which in turn is a big thing for modders, and for the nu-medieval post apocalyptic society gameplay we will now cater for.

This has also been built, however, with a framework that will allow for a wide variety of other gameplay aspects – some of which will be a part of the initial 42 release, while others will be drip-fed into future 42 builds, and more still in the mainline builds beyond that. (The underlying systems will be available for modders from the word go, however.)

One of the advantages that the crafting revamp brings with it is the opportunity to provide engineering and electronics gameplay with a ton more depth. This system revolves around the concept of components.

An example of this would be a ‘power input’ component, which provides electrical power to a machine from an external wire. Another would be a crafting component, which would undertake a crafting recipe that can make use of any liquid or item within a machine’s resource component, that can store items, liquid or power. Importantly, every component also has an associated UI that’s been designed for player interaction.

This will mean as our library (and the community’s library) of components grows, we can quickly put them together to create all sorts of in-game machines and appliances. It’s also relatively easy to slap a UI skin on to each component (perhaps something already existing from the game, perhaps something new) to make them appear in the most appropriate way.

Components will also be moddable, so modders will be able to add new components that could then be used as parts of a machine’s in-game functionality and UI.

The end goal is to open this up to the player in-game, having these components as items obtainable through disassembly.

A burglar alarm for example will be comprised of a speaker component, as well as a battery input component and a motion sensor component. A player could feasibly go around collecting the components, removing the motion sensors and installing them around their base, wiring each of them up to lights to act as an early warning system.

Meanwhile the speaker component of the burglar alarm could be similarly wired up to a switch to allow people in the base to create a distraction sound to lure zombies away or into a trap.

These are just two potential gameplay moments plucked from the air, but good examples of a believable utility of scavenging components from real world items.

Putting aside all the new professions and skills coming to B42, this will finally provide engineering and electronic skills with a lot of cool utility – and make anyone with these skills a valuable asset to any survivor group.

This system will also be the bedrock for the crafting tree, providing functionality for the various profession workbenches, crafting stations and more primitive machines. For example, for the more medieval constructions, one form of power input available is rotational energy, allowing for mills and other contraptions to power machines and stations.

Ultimately our hope would be any machine or appliance on the map would simply be a combination of these components. Someone skilled enough would be able to remove them and put them together in any way they made sense: each component will have simple item, power, liquid or logic inputs and outputs.

Taking it a step further, it would also give us the option of making functional machines within the various industrial areas of the map – providing functional machines that could feasibly be utilized (perhaps even looted and taken back to base) and potentially making factory locations extremely high value targets for looting.

This will also, ultimately, add far more interesting gameplay to base construction and generator usage. We would have pipes and wires to facilitate the wiring and plumbing of machines and home systems together – rather than fudging water collector positions to make operable sinks, or just placing a generator next to a building and instantly powering it.

How far could this be pushed?

Well, in testing the system’s flexibility, Turbo grabbed some existing sprites from around the map to make sure the system was working okay for both our needs, and those of the modding community.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS VIDEO IS FROM A DEVELOPMENT TESTBED.

There’s no guarantee any of this will make it into B42, and likewise they are all built from random tiles that Turbs has nicked from our industrial sprite collection. This is all a part of testing the speed and simplicity of creating new machines – and from that underline how powerful the new system is.

Everything seen in this vid was put together with minimal specific code – and largely relied on existing components put together within the machines in the PZ script files along with new items and recipes.

https://youtu.be/RA6gewj2PDU


We’ve got enough on our plate, so we likely won’t have a full suite of replaced ‘existing machines and appliances’ by the time 42 unstable rolls around but we believe that these new foundations for PZ’s crafting system will provide great opportunities both for our existing gameplay, and the gameplay we have planned for the years ahead.

This has certainly been the part of 42 that’s taken the longest to come together (not helped by dev illness and hospitalization in early development stages) but it’s also the stuff that we absolutely needed to nail to provide the huge boost in player and community creativity that we know it can provide. We’re at that point now, we feel, and look forward to showing off more applications in the near future.


HELLO PATRICK

A big Spiffo welcome to Patrick, an actual real American on the main dev team. Patrick is a software engineer who has been away working in academia on educational games for a fair while – but has his roots in more conventional gaming and has had his claws in various Tomb Raiders, Tony Hawk games, Ratchets, and Clanks over the years.

His primary mission is the implementation of ragdolls into the game – although initial work and experimentation is still very much exploratory.

We haven’t had an actual real American who remembers 1993 on the dev team for a while, so it also means he gets to answer a lot of questions about parking lots, drivethroughs and various other Americana. He is coping with this admirably.


FOLLOW THAT DEER

A quick check-in with our (still WIP) animal tracking system. This could probably look a little better in terms of visual variation when it comes to animal tracks and direction, but is shaping up to be pretty fun.

https://youtu.be/abaZnFtOM1Q


HOLSTERS AND WEBBING

In B42 not only will holsters be visible, but a new shoulder holster item has been added. Additionally we now have military webbing, which can be worn instead of a shoulder holster, and also occupies the spaces that fanny packs would occupy.

This webbing provides two additional hotbar slots, which we currently have set up for walkie talkies and knives, and also provide superior container option to fanny packs. Not only can these items be found as appropriate container loot, but also can be seen on both existing, and new, zombie outfit types.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/fdf1900da5b4d9395e668b8a1802c82c5209ceb2.png)

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/def8b69e920da927321c419761abc9acd9d0d2e3.png)

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/e24a54fb17e228030af65a08606f9bf972a5efe1.png)

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/6bb1b52f22a95171ad50676f546da8191e95c320.png)


CHARITY SPIFF – PLZ BUY
Just over a week left if you want to buy yourself a Steadfast Spiffo, and say ‘fuck cancer’ simultaneously.

A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games industry gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here.


Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on September 22, 2023, 12:11:22 AM
Sky High
Thu, 21 September 2023

So… hmm, where were we?

Okay so, recent weeks have seen two mega-merges into our trunk internal testing build.


The first was latest from our MP team, to top up the central development branch with their latest from their ongoing server work to flag up any unexpected issues and to get a few gameplay systems back online in MP.

The second was the guts of the long-awaited crafting revamp from Turbo, which means that the functionality for all our primary crafting stations is now in – and it’s a matter of banging heads together and integrating everything we’ve had stacked up for it.

To this end we’re pleased to announce that we’ve hired yet another stalwart individual from the modding community to aid us in this quest.

We were thinking about the different modders who could give our crafting team a little extra grunt, we have so many amazing ones after all, but the offerings of Soul Filcher stood out as being produce of exactly the sort of brain we needed.

We’re really happy to have Soul officially on the team, and while his initial introductory task has been some tidy-up work and minor improvements on our many and varied different traits he should be diving into the new crafting stations with the others in the weeks ahead.


SKY HIGH
The engine upgrade is now in a phase of finding all the edge case issues where something doesn’t render correctly due to the new caching rendering method.

Alongside this, very excitingly, the map team are working on larger buildings and basements to be slotted into the game map.

EP tested out the first building to use the increased floor limits, a literal 32 floor skyscraper which looks super impressive to see in-game. This, as yet unnamed, skyscraper also allowed us to get a fun new animation into the mix as well…

PLEASE NOTE: Impact with pavement is WIP. There’ll be far more crunchy SFX, far less blending issues with the character standing back up, and also more blood obviously. Screaming too.

https://youtu.be/1oQzDorSQ_g


Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/3726222076182924753

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on November 25, 2023, 12:04:06 AM
One Door OpenZ
Thu, November 23, 2023

Yip yip, hello. Let’s dive in.

SWING BOTH WAYS
Another exciting addition to the build 42 tech upgrade branch has just dropped.

The tech upgrade branch is what contains our optimizations, improved view cone, basement/skyscraper technology and now… an immersive improvement that we’ve wanted for a long time, that could potentially lead to many cool additional gameplay opportunities that weren’t possible before.

https://youtu.be/Ev2genBbzb4

Read on: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/108600/view/3874846483723616146

Title: Re: Project Zomboid
Post by: Asid on March 01, 2024, 12:45:41 PM
Leapdoid
Thu, 29 February 2024

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/a58ac8f6b03f02876a287fa86bc2da61425961fb.png)

Hey all, a good mix of things this ‘doid.

Fun gameplay stuff, and a chunk of info we wanted to flag for modder-awareness and the more tech-minded amongst you. (Feel free to skip that bit to get to the more enticing gun stuff from Fenris that’s become its first application.)

Onwards, then.

HUNKER INNA BUNKER
Permanent underground structures are being added to the internal build’s map for testing.

As discussed before some basement locations will be randomised to add surprise flavour to your looting, but there’ll be plenty of ever-present locations that will likely be survivor favourites for taking over and making your own.

Here’s a fun example, which also very clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of B42’s tech upgrade that governs the realistic spread of light. It really is very dark down there, and with that very claustrophobic and scary…

https://youtu.be/m3Tzna-nAM8


Another aspect of the underground structures is sound, and now we’ve got more and more of these in the test build our sound team will be working to cut out wildlife sounds, add muffle, echo, drips and such. Likewise, meanwhile, another focus is adjusting the noise of ‘street level’ activity when you climb higher in buildings.

It’s also worth mentioning that in 42, or at least certainly its unstable release, you will not be able to tunnel or break down the external walls of underground structures. This is something it would be healthy for the engine to be able to do (although we’d never have Minecraft-style insta-tunnels in vanilla, clearly) but is probably a can of worms best opened later down the line.


CRAFTING
In amongst the feverish connecting of code wires from others on the crafting team, Turbo has been working on the new interface that will allow for hand-crafting items on in-game surfaces.

We’ve got something ready to go into the internal build, but in its current WIP form still needs some polish – and probably isn’t quite ready to show off before its rough edges have been smoothed out.

In essence though, this work has been to cater for crafting items that aren’t as straightforward as ripping clothing to make bandages or opening a can of beans (which will always be feasible just in your hands) but don’t necessarily need a specialized workstation either.

Activities like preparing a sandwich or making a nailed baseball bat logically require a handy surface to perform the work. The way it’s being implemented – any logical surface will do (tables, counters etc) but this sort of crafting will no longer be possible while standing in the middle of the street with zombies approaching.

In terms of changes in player habits and behaviour going from 41 to 42, this will probably be the one that’s felt most keenly. There’s a lot of muscle memory we’ll be scrubbing out here, after all. However we are doing our utmost to keep it logical, and to keep it real.

The current challenge has been to devise an interface that accomplishes all the tasks necessary: providing a handy way of browsing or looking up the recipes, allowing for crafting of multiple objects, allowing the use of tools to modify the quality or success chances of the crafting, and giving access to all the functionality provided in the crafting update.

We’re not there yet on this surface level, but functionally on the code level it’s all there and working and ready to be integrated into the game. Next steps will be to make the UI as clean and convenient as can be, improving and iterating as we go, as it’s such a core aspect of 42.

(Just to reiterate, however, simple crafts like ripping bandages and so on will still be craftable in the way they are in 41: right clicking the item and clicking the relevant right click menu option. This is still the most immediate and convenient way for a player to do these split second crafts in the midst of action.)

Meanwhile, of course, the results of all this new crafting continue to get pumped through from the art department, prepped and laid into the code. Here’s a few that popped through recently.

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//4460946/86f28210b60e595eb77a497c6d0c09220e75b75d.jpg)

Read on.... (https://steamcommunity.com/games/108600/announcements/detail/4160834030781827187)