Mocap is Expensive

17 January, 2024 

Happy Thursday, everyone! It’s been a cold week around these parts, but the development of afflicted feels hotter than ever. With some renewed focus on the essential task list, the team has been meshing together to knock out as many items as possible - while still trying to be efficient. We’re churning and burning as I like to say, so let’s not dilly-dally and get into the weeds of what went on this past week.

Upholding the Community

As it is for many indie games, our Discord is the heart of what makes the afflicted community so special (and cheesy). Since it’s a place for any and all who enjoy the sight of our memes and various tomfoolery as we push towards a demo and full release, we want to ensure it’s always a safe and enjoyable place. To make sure that’s always the case, I’d like to extend a formal welcome to our newest mod (via his Discord name): Archdiocheese_Denny. In the community, Denny has never failed to support afflicted and its community, going so far as to become the largest donor during our initial IndieGoGo campaign! With his experience within the community, we here at 3rd Shift are all sure that he’ll do his best to make sure the afflicted community at large remains a place for everyone.

Of course, I’d be remiss to gloss over the admins and mods who have gotten us to this point. While several have been with afflicted since the beginning, and have been critical in maintaining the community up to this point, I also want to bring special light to Big Cheesy-Nugget. Hand-picked out of the community by the 3rd Shift team, Nugget has done his best to ensure the stability of the our humble Discord. For your service, I salute you!

How Goes the War?

Time for everyone’s favorite section! Let’s check in with the team and see what everybody’s been up to over the last week:

• Ryan

  • Game Stuff

    • Reverted all testing animation work, delivered document that the team procured to an animation studios (good work boys).

    • Fixed Zombie T-Pose bug (i made a woopsie uwu).

    • Readjusted the timing between the loading scene / extraction drop-off cinematic. It was too resource intensive having the loading cinematic play while the gameplay scene was loading.

    • Got started on NavmeshSurface baking for randomly generated levels. This is server-side and occurs after the level generation process has concluded. This surface is what is used by AI to navigate around the map.

    • Created NpcData definitions for Titans and Swarmers + expanded the entity database to accommodate these.

    • Expanded NpcSpawnPoint to automatically load the EntityDatabase. This will automatically populate a table with the latest NPCs in the EntityDatabase for the creative side to configure for spawn points.

    • Got NPCs to spawn and work on our randomly generated maps.

  • Company Bullshit

    • Reached out to 10 more studios to get quotes for character animation services.

    • Scheduled 3 calls with animation studios to discuss requirements and get quotes.

    • Worked with Bruce to get him set up in Unity and familiarized him with the project (you’ll read why in a bit).

  • Optimization

    • Reduced game build time from 15 minutes to 53 seconds

    • Reduced NavMesh baking time from 1 minute to 3 seconds on THE_DESERT map

  • Bug Fixes

    • Fixed NPC Spawner not obeying max NPC count -> endless spawning of NPCs -> crashes server

    • Fixed issue causing Matchmaking to be allocating 2 servers per matchmaking request.

    • Fixed AgentStatEffectProcessor causing errors on the server.

• Bryan

  • Completed

    • Sent off a document filled with the custom zombie model concepts that we’ve all been dreaming of. To be commissioned by our resident 3D artist. Guy is a straight up ninja.

  • Developed a design template for our main menu scene. It’s basically just a blank bunker room, but it’s presented from the proper perspective and camera angle. Should make interior design a touch easier.

  • In-Progress

    • Constructed a list of changes to be applied to the current inventory UI/inventory Interaction system (To be executed w/ Ryan).

  • Brainstorming POIs for the maps that are equal parts lore/theme accurate, and mind-bogglingly epic (To be executed w/ Ryan and Cole).

  • Developing a gameplay concept that utilizes the spray-paint/decal system native to Unity. I don’t want to spoil it just yet, but you may see some teasers down the line on Instagram.

• Bruce

  • Started getting set up on the project in Unity! Bruce has taken on the daunting task of creating a set of animations for Terry to use. His willingness to learn and take a stab at the animations will help keep us as in-house as possible. Send him your good vibes!

• Cole

  • Updated all status effect icons so that we can dynamically update colors as needed in the project.

  • Finished out a proof of concept for the melee system. I can smack zombies and it does damage, so I’m gonna let that one rest for a week or so.

  • Continued adding details and refinements to THE_CITY Points of Interest and locales. Working with Bryan to develop new POIs that fit in with the lore and story direction.

  • Running from the aforemention T-Posing zombies. I really wish I would have screencapped them, they were truly horrifying.

Busy is the state of the team lately, to nobody’s surprise. We’re keeping pace with our intense work so far this January, so as long as we can keep feeding Ryan cold brew we’re looking to be testing-ready soon! Just gotta nail down these animations and start cleaning up some of the functionality (and finish the maps…).

More Memes?

Listen, we know why you’re here. It’s the memes. I get it, I really do. And for that I have only this to say: I think you’ll be pleased. Rumor around the proverbial office is that there may be a new meme sherrif in town, getting ready to dole out some sweet sweet Terry memes on an all-new Instagram page. Just a rumor, of course, but it pays to be in the know. Details forthcoming!

In Closing

It was truly a blessing to see the community come together on Discord last night after an…unsavory…set of pings in 7 different channels. Brings my little Community Manager heart so much joy to see the folks who have gathered around this funny little game we’re making come together and have a chuckle at the expense of a Discord user with a hacked account. Enable 2FA, kids.

May the Cheese guide you,  

Squid