We’re hoping to have a new test version out this week (April 19-23).
In the meantime, here is a preview of some recent additions and a information about other areas that may interest you.
Eye Bias
A percentage value that causes the camera to be offset towards one eye.
This is the limited to the right eye at this time, as it is not yet possible to choose your preferred handedness.
It is especially handy to help you get a better feel for the firearm while point shooting.
Updated Rail Attachment System
Rail based attachments can now use multiple rails as parents, have their mount points modified dynamically and only need those mount points to be on a rail for the attachment location to be considered ‘valid’.
This lets you do things like mount the MK4 on the EBR across its ejection port:
Optical Sights Fitted to Screen
All the optical sights have had a ‘sight radius’ variable defined for months, but I have only now got around to implementing the rest of the feature. That is, making the optical sights fit the screen based on their sight radius.
We first tried changing the FOV to fit the screen.
It worked, but the FOV change also affected the area around the scope and didn’t feel quite right.
John suggested modifying the camera position instead, so we gave that a whirl and liked it.
He also created a basic blur post process material and this is the result:
The modified camera position is based on a fixed value from the cameras origin to the rear of the firearm.
In this way, an optics position on the rail is important and allows the player to decide if they want more situational awareness or a larger sight picture.
Virtual Reality
I’ve developed a pretty decent method for handling VR in a side project. It supports both rotation and position data with far less issues then the original method used in Ground Branch. Though GB is well overdue for an update in this area, it will have to wait a little while longer while we focus on bugs and stability.
Bugs & Stability
The transition from Unreal Engine 4.9.2 to 4.11.1 went rather well, with a few exceptions.
Week one was spent bug hunting, both in our code in the engine itself, to get the editor up and running properly.
Week two was spent making sure we were at the same point we were at using 4.9.2 (relatively).
We still have some update related issues to fix (map crash related to hierarchical LOD, some UMG shenanigans etc), but in other areas, such as those described above, we are ahead.
Stability is next on the list.
Bots help in this area – I can setup a server, spawn a bunch of bots and up the game speed to 10x normal.
Its looks like a Benny Hill skit, only more violent.
The best information tends to come from you guys – the players.
So please, keep being awesome in this area.
Keep playing.
Keep pestering me.
To help with your efforts in this area, I’ve added additional info about the game version, player position etc to the bug reports, as well as taking a screenshot.
You can optionally specific your name, but other then that, no personal information is required or included in the report.
Broke another #$^&#%$ chair
In related news, I broke another #$^&#%$ chair.
I tend to lean back way too much at times, and this caused the damn thing to snap at the small shaft welded to the base plate. I’m a solid guy (110kg/240lbs), but its kinda ridiculous how poorly some of these chair are made.
Any advice on a reasonably priced – and solidly built – chair would be welcome.
If not for my sake, then for the sake of my 4 year old, who is horrified I’m going to break her chair.
That’s it.
Kris
