Thoughts about and around Star Citizen: [ATV] Around The Verse 3.8 – DE

Murderer · Sep 22, 2016

I can admit I am a little out of my mind right now seriously, but today made me feel we will eventually BUILD!!!!

CosmicTrader · Sep 22, 2016

I liked the chicken.

Lorddarthvik · Sep 22, 2016

Sam K Macer said:
Following to last weeks ATV 3.7, this weeks episode is around and by the German team, yay! Home, sweet home ;)

This week, we go out to our Frankfurt Studio, where Brian Chambers updates us on the studio's progress and we get a complete look at the Vision Stabilization system from Ivo Herzeg himself.

01:19 - Studio Update
01:47 - David Sibbe presents current work on weapons. He explains, that the weapons layout and stats can change until start of Star Marine.
03:15 - some information of the level designers. Ben explains his development on the modular satellite system, with which the SC KI can build satellites on a quasi procedural basis. At minute 06:09, Tobias explains a similar system which is mentioned for creating buildings, dungeons and further locations on planets. While I understand this strategy of creating modular systems, I'm a little bit afraid that it could end like another boring Oblivion-like experience. On the other hand I'm convinced that CR won't let that happen.
09:24 - Community Update with Tyler Witkin
12:04 - Behind the Scenes: Vision Stabilization. Wow, German dude trying to speak english language :confused::eek: Hard to listen, even for me. But nevertheless interesting stuff to know. Especially the bird-solution is pretty stunning :) 18:33 Heresy! Mutiny! :eek::eek::eek: 19:33 gives a pretty good idea of Star Marine, including physics and ragdoll effects.

MVP: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/citizen-spotlight/5663-Fan-Music-Unbound-Voyage-Orchestral

Pretty amazing stuff this week. Worth watching it, especially the Behind the Scenes part.
Have fun!

New weapons look way more polished, I'm very happy with that!

I share your concern about the buildings making way too similar settlements! I think , well hope at least, that by the time SC is released apart from a few small planets and moons, most "big" planets will have at least one unique looking settlement by way of dressing them up differently and arranging all these building block differently enough. This whole business with "small building bloks for Fast dev" makes me hopeful that 3.0 will actually happen soon, maybe even before Christmas!

I found the visual stabilization part really interesting, although sometimes it was hard to understand the words he was saying. As a CGI artist I have to deal with stabilizing footage every day, and so it is an interesting topic for me.
The birds method was cool, but I wonder how this will affect the actual animations in the end... I liked the natural twitchy motion of the characters when viewed from the outside, and I didn't mind the head bob up-down either, but it's awesome to see the "forward-backward" motion gone when starting-stopping! That was terrible, and frankly, I can do without the up down motion.

The version they shown seems a bit overly smoothed, and thus feels laggy, but I'll have to play it to feel it for sure! Also the totally static Helmet really bothered me! It made me think like:
-they went to full real, then realized it doesn't work
-then minimal stab with realistic/immersive head and helmet motion so you get a sense of space, then realized it doesn't really work either
-so they went back to full stabilization, with a static helmet, and now it they are at the point where every single studio was 20 years ago, with a totally stable almost-fake camera! Just instead of having a floating camera, they have a fully stabilized head!
-this is the point where every developer before them has decided to dump the whole rig, add the usual fake floating camera, and add a cheap 2d mask instead of a full 3d helmet, because it makes no effing difference for the player in first person, but it improves performance and they can even add more detail to 2d with much less of an impact on performance!

Don't get me wrong, actually I'm very happy that they innovate and realy push the tech forward instead of going with same "cheats" as every CoD, BF, NMS, GTA, Quake, and whatever game you want to name before them! When I pledged I did so hoping as much for a technical revolution, as well as a good game, and I still believe that this tech part is what makes SC more important then anything currently out there!
Go CR, make our PC-s cry for their mothers again, just like you did in the 90's!

I just hope they find a nice middle ground with the stabilization and real movement, or make it adjustable in game!

I wonder if they changed how our characters actually transition in and out of movement, because currently in 2.5 it feels like I'm playing as a 95 y.o. (slooooooooow and very laggy) I couldn't tell just by looking at the footage, but maybe mvement and changin direcitons is more responsive?
This could be important because time-to-kill seemed very very low! "Realistic" in a sense maybe, and it would make for a good fast paced shooter, but with the current snails pace unresponsive movement I don't think it will be any of that. More like a camping fest cos everyone will be too afraid to move in case they get killed in 2 hits. Ofc, it is also possible the demo NPCs he shot were set to die much faster then a player would in medium armor!

This new format with CR and Sandy is still strange to me. It just smells a bit too formal.
With RTV literally turned into a strict formal Q&A with pre-selevted quiestions for devs, it feels like the there's little to no personal touch left. It feels very "big corporations trying to be the cool kid", instead of real ppl who happen to be the devs on SC being cool!
I know, I know, they are a bigger project now and they had to up their game from the amature "kid in the basement" to a more pro level. I get it. I just don't like it.
I still don't seem to like Sandy, even after watching her do these shows for years... Somethings so forced and "Hollywood" about her reading those lines, with the "death's skull fake grin" she has, especially since she started doing the new format with Chris.
But eh, who cares, it's the content update that matters! And the BEER! That's why I keep watching!

Add More BEER to ATV!

+ Rip all those bottles of fine alcoholin the visual stab demo!

Havrek · Sep 23, 2016

I was a bit disappointed that the satellites did not include a drive-through liquor store or hot-tub module.

Seriously, though it's insane the amount of detail they are putting into this game. I never realized correcting the head-bob was such a tough issue to fix.....correction i never realized fixing the head-bob in a REALISTICALLY manner was such a tough issue to fix

Black Sunder · Sep 23, 2016

Chris and the team continue to amaze me.

Han Burgundy · Sep 23, 2016

I thought the information was both in depth technically and presented in a widely palatable way. I really enjoy that they are showing more visual examples as well as iterations that didn't quite work out. The fact that each studio only has to do one show a month really shows when they have time to prep some cool stuff for us. I believe this video is the one to finally get me to subscribe. Good on ya, CIG.

Beerjerker · Sep 23, 2016

Good episode but I have some gripes. Disclaimer: alpha, butthurt, still optimistic, blah, blah, blah...
The shooting seems way too floaty and fake for my tastes at this point. The only relationship the player has to the ground they are walking on is seeing their shadow. Making it this smooth makes it seem less visceral and more cartoon-ish. I understand what they were going for, but I think they have over-stabilized by far too much. Now they will have to add things to make it seem less smooth and more chaotic or it will be a very relaxing and peaceful shooting game.

The weapon animations are hopefully still a work in progress. The weapons are appearing very firmly glued to the camera (not to mention the helmet, which is more of a window border on an internet browser). Minding that the weapon fires instead of the camera is a good first step, but the weapons still seem to have very little recoil and are so rigidly in line with player camera that it appears to have very little effect. Hopefully, someone working on the shooting mechanics of the game will go to a range and fire some shotguns to realize why their in-game shotgun is just, to say the least, wrong.

This visual stabilization is a problem solved by other games ages ago. The bird head analogy is nice and all, but I do hope they are not lingering on this relatively minor detail in how shooter games function. All my sympathies to the sufferers of video game motion sickness, but dulling a game to their comfort level will just end up with a dull game.

Printimus · Sep 23, 2016

Chicken Gyros!

Lorddarthvik · Sep 23, 2016

Sam K Macer said:
I totally agree.

I mentioned it somewhere else in the past: everybody seems to be in love with Sandi. While I also think that she is a very beautiful woman, I definitely don't want her as my boss! There is something that scares me behind the mask. This is a beast, trust me. And she is VERY professionell. If someone could crash the whole project, then there she is.

But back to topic. Thanks to you all for your thoughts on this ATV. I also was excited about what they are doing with the "head camera" and the chicken thing :D But, under the line, there are points in which @Lorddarthvik totally nailed it: Isn't it now totally back to the roots? Didn't we have that in the 90s already? But, on the other hand: has this to be bad? I don't know.

about your thoughts in the spolier, Yep, exactly my thoughts as well, apart from the first part, but to each his/her own! :)

Thanks! I don't think it's a bad thing that they went with what works and has been proven to be the way to go for many years. I just liked the different approach they had at first, I hardly get motion sick so it wasn't a problem for me, but I understand that it was really bad for a lot of people.
We'll just have to wait and see how it plays!

Also, Top of the line Upgrade for the M50 racer, the Chicken Gyro CONFIRMED! :D

Bruttle · Sep 23, 2016

Sam K Macer said:
Read it in her eyes:

"Yeah yeah, bozo, stupid nerd"

One week no sex for him - at least. :D

You know, she could just be dealing with a serious problem. My wife has it, my daughter has it, several people I work with have it. They're not upset, they're just dealing with bitchy resting face...

Honestly though, she looks like she is 100% less interested in the topic than he is.

Beerjerker · Sep 23, 2016

Bruttle said:
You know, she could just be dealing with a serious problem. My wife has it, my daughter has it, several people I work with have it. They're not upset, they're just dealing with bitchy resting face...

Honestly though, she looks like she is 100% less interested in the topic than he is.

Over-lol!
My resting face is somewhere between very serious and outright menacing. :mad:

But I really do enjoy being nice and making jokes. :D Probably doesn't help that I wear my beard like some viking barbarian. I appreciate when people tell me to smile. I have seen people's pictures of me when I'm not reminded to smile, and I wouldn't want to run into that guy in a dark alley... :eek:

Cherokeedog · Sep 23, 2016

Now, goin' back to the original subject ('cause - no spoiler - that woman scares the crap outta' me), my momma taught me never to say anything 'less it's good, so I ain't got nothin' to say about those nice men playin' with the guns and buildings. Just that...(well, sorry, can't fully restrain myself)...they remind me of myself, when a client on who's project I was supposed to work comes unexpectedly, and I'm caught with my pants all the way down to my ankles. I do the exact same thing: paint a chicken pink and explain how it's goin' to taste like a turkey.

Regarding the vision stabilization issue however, I got to say I'm mighty glad I ain't gonna feel any more like my lever keeps hittin' my chin every time I walk through a room. It's been quite hard to match the constant dangling of my own head with my character's. I regularly suffer from motion sickness, but...that ain't because of the game.

Also, even though as a personal preference I like walkin' on beaten paths (what can I say...I'm lazy), I like that they're tryin' to do some innovation, and that's the way innovation works: you gotta start from scratch and the spark comes only after a long road of trial and error. Problem is...by startin' from scratch, you'll end up spendin' a fuck ton of time learning exactly why the beaten paths have become beaten.

Anyway, it's all work in progress and I like where they're headin'. I also like the fact they can discern when a path is wrong, no matter how deep in the woods they've gone ahead on it, and admit it publicly.

Snakey · Sep 23, 2016

Here's mine

Bruttle · Sep 23, 2016

Cherokeedog said:
I like that they're tryin' to do some innovation, and that's the way innovation works: you gotta start from scratch and the spark comes only after a long road of trial and error. Problem is...by startin' from scratch, you'll end up spendin' a fuck ton of time learning exactly why the beaten paths have become beaten.

I spent quite a bit of time on construction sites growing up so this definitely hits a note for me. Time and time again I have seen engineers and architects think they are going to change the industry. They think they can figure out a better way to do things and set out to do just that. Years later (grossly over budget and over deadline), they finally find out the hard way why there is an "industry standard" to begin with.

I think there is a fine line between uneducated and innovative. If you are trying to change the industry simply because you think you can, that is uneducated. The person that tries this doesn't have the proper respect for the trial and error that others have gone through to generate the very industry standard they are trying to change. There is also no small amount of arrogance as well. Since, for the most part, they are telling the rest of that industry "I am smarter than all of you and I can find a better way".

True innovation though is choosing a new path. This often requires deviation from the industry standard methods because the destination is completely different. It is like a train. You can follow the same train tracks to the same destination. If you are going someplace new, you likely can't get there with the same route that others have already established. Sometimes, you are simply adding to the existing route because it is just further down the line. Other times though, you have to blaze a whole new route because it is in a whole new direction.

I hope that their deviation from Cryengine is because it is a whole new direction. At the moment, it looks like it is. They took the proper steps and hired the right people (hopefully) to get the job done. However, it will take a much longer time to complete. I just hope that they are doing all this because they need to, and not just because they can. Like I said though, at the moment, it looks like it is. Only time and the finished product will tell.

Printimus · Sep 23, 2016

HOLY CRAP, but that MVP though.... just started listening to some of his music on youtube.... it gives me the chills when you discover something AMAZING in a lonnnng time. Definitely a thumbs up to this guy for his phenomenal work and creativity.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFq5kTvutGdj8GWJstX06rG6QgBa4Fz5R

Thoughts about and around Star Citizen: [ATV] Around The Verse 3.8 – DE

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