Development update - May 31, 2023
Added 2023-05-31 21:42:34 +0000 UTCToday's video will mostly showcase the current state of AI - quite unfinished. Shown AI was made long before Level Editor was made, I've already spotted multiple bugs that should be fixed. But at least final footage is 1 GB+ in size. Would have recorded it on a better PC but I think I won't be able to use it for a while.
Monthly work was put into fixes, improvements and re-addition of antigravity fields. They are no longer a pushers masked with an invisible doors and a decoration - they are a separate entity that can be both damaged and destroyed now (as long as map needs that). Damage causes them to malfunction for some time.
Also, did some Patreon API tests - I think I will be able to automate e-mail to amount of Patreon support connection when it will be needed.
Gameplay
- Fixed a bug that was causing debris particles to spawn only on a small area of broken entity parts;
- Fixed a bug that was causing hand holders to be assigned to left side instead of top side after movable started moving;
- Detached antigravity entities can play impact sounds now;
- Added a support for shadowmap-affected in-game texts (used by Antigravity);
- Fixed a crash caused by projectiles attempting to guess in-world text's transparency mask;
- Fixed a bug that was causing players to stay in push areas of antigravity whenever they leave them;
- Fixed a bug that was causing players to perform step-up logic on top of antigravity field affection areas;
- Fixed a bug that was causing swords and explosions to hit antigravity fields whenever they are hitting affection area;
- Fixed a bug that was causing guns to be pushed out of from antigravity affection areas whenever dropped (normally such logic exists to prevent guns from phasing through any kinds of walls and entities);
- Fixed a bug that was causing hand holders to stay unreachable near antigravity affection areas;
- Fixed a bug that was causing players to phase through one of antigravity types;
- Design update for antigravity, 3 kinds;
- Fixed a bug that was causing red antigravity to not react to grenades;
- Fixed optimization issue causing projectiles to not have extra trail steps when crossing antigravity affection areas (trail would turn into line that goes from gun towards the last position of a bullet, effectively shifting weirdly);
- Fixed impact prevention bug that was breaking players whenever they go left/right continuously on them;
- Added projectile pushing for antigravities;
- Fixed crash related to level restart whenever player swims in a water and drops grenades;
- Fixed a bug that was causing antigravity to speed up sword attacks;
- Fixed trail system bug causing position of a last step to be never incremented by its' velocity;
- Added horizontal lines for antigravity fields via trail system;
- Fixed a bug that was causing trails to have inconsistent thickness on rotated antigravity fields;
- Limited "noping out" boost low activation limit so it won't be activated accidentally when player simply looks near itself while going up/down on the red antigravity;
- Fixed a crash whenever projectiles goes through barrel and tries to hit barrel parts that happened to be already destroyed;
- Added mass cap support for antigravity fields;
- Added cooldown duration option for antigravity fields;
- Fixed bug causing player's head to stuck physically for few seconds (but not visually) whenever player tries to walk under low wall;
- Added freezing support for antigravity fields;
- Added support for dynamic range/strength changes of antigravity fields via level scripting. Fixed overlapped object collection mismatches whenever this happens;
- Implemented antigravity stunning with blinking whenever damage is taken;
- Added impact prevention antigravity logic;
- Standardized entity attachment behavior;
- Fixed a frustum check formula for offscreen object detection;
- Made it so deeper and infinite liquid areas are affected proportionally less by blood colors;
- Delayed sword damage boost activation slightly so it is not granted whenever player cancels it before sound has been really heard;
- Made a front side of a lava brighter;
- Added a loop sound channel release whenever door stops;
- Added a randomization to rain/snow particles spawn offset for case when zoom decreases (previously they would wall in a line because of that);
- Fixed an issue causing rain/snow particles to spawn without proper camera frustum formulas being taken into account;
- Fixed an issue causing background rain particles to not spawn splashes outside of 2D camera view projection (previously it was done for all particles due to optimization, but these background particles can still be seen);
- Fixed a bug causing jetpack trail to not vanish underwater and sometimes in walls;
- Added support for gun rotation whenever game tries to move gun close to player who dropped it while preventing it phasing through thin walls (should handle cases when sniper rifle is being dropped by player who is in a low-ceiling room;
- Fixed an issue causing rain drops to keep horizontal velocity after they've reached bottom of a screen yet previously were pushed with explosion;
- Fixed an issues causing rain particles to not spawn in proper places;
- Fixed an issue causing barrel to collide with red antigravity solely during low framerate;
- Made antigravity trails to be not spawned offscreen (optimization);
- Fixed an issue causing movable walls to be not able to start moving during level start;
- Fixed an issue causing logical size of movable walls to slightly change while they were moving;
- Made new robot skin (just visuals so far);
- Added gun collision disabling for unarmed Hound Walker-CS (guns aren't visible in this case);
- Fixed an issue causing loud friction sound whenever one of new weapons is used (M).
Level Editor
- Added entity rotation support;
- Fixed bug causing rotation to be inverted by specified side if entity does not have flip support;
- Added live update support for entity rotation;
- Added entity bounding box recalculation during rotation;
- Added automatic entity sub-type detection so level designers can use drop-down list to change antigravity or any other entity sub-type rather than enter IDs;
- Fixed bug causing antigravity trails to stay mid-air when antigravity is being removed in Level Editor;
- Made trigger groups look less like walls;
- Fixed bounds loss on entity recreation;
- Fixed issue causing entities to explode on recreation in preview;
- Made it so Level Editor won't add shadow properties to compiled map which were previously used (and are still saved) by same object while it had different sub-type. For example antigravity has range property which will not be added to a complied version of a map as a result of that. Similar happens to walls that become regions etc. It is done for map size optimization;
- Fixed issue causing fake warnings on first map load due to lack of parameters panel properties scan cache;
- Fixed false error message whenever code snippet object was edited;
- Added strength/range settings for antigravity entities;
- Added blueprint wireframe view redraw whenever objects are moved in structure list (needed to update groups);
- Added support for regions that react to movables that stop at their position (as long as sizes are same);
- Fixed a bug that was causing static lights to not spawn too far from background walls;
- Fixed a bug that was causing night sky color to override bright static lights where background walls were missing;
- Fixed crash whenever water class is being removed during preview and rain;
- Fixed issue preventing preview version recreation of objects if they were never created before preview mode was entered.
Interfaces
- Fixed vertical scroll in full-screen code editor whenever user tries to scroll via caret dragging.
Multiplayer
- Added sync logic for antigravity entities;
- Added kick sync for red antigravity;
- Implemented speculative red antigravity kick reactions;
- Added antigravity joint synchronization;
- Fixed issue causing movables and liquids to lose sync visibility way too early, especially if they have extended depth;
- Fixed default respawn module issue causing player to never respawn whenever it dies from falling into the void;
- Fixed bug causing all visible movables to briefly disappear for a sync frame after replay started/stopped or if player respawns (cache was assigned to ragdoll, but player's ragdoll changes instantly in these cases);
- Added sync for liquid depth and infinite extension to left/right;
- Increased HUD bars as well as health bar accuracy so it is no longer rounded;
- Fixed bug causing characters to play death sounds at zero coordinates when they have broken heads in 1 hit;
- Fixed bug causing doors to not have loop sounds if they happen to play it for the first time before sound was loaded (built-in sounds are loaded with delays for now).
Sounds
- Made 2 sound effects for antigravities;
- Made new match connection sound effect, removed previous one.
Comments
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Nuke10
2025-05-23 20:03:45 +0000 UTCLOOKS SO FUN
Nuke10
2025-05-23 20:03:30 +0000 UTCSo far this could be done with level scripting and I will make sure there are ways to intercept damage in order to implement all that. Basically level designers could both alter how damage affects real health and decrease the number in extra bar for armor. I think original gameplay would not include armor, just single red bar. But it might be very possible to implement.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-27 18:58:55 +0000 UTCAI having different vision types (and presumably behaviors) is super cool. This is somewhat of a random question and it may have been answered previously, but could we see shielding/armor as additional values for players and ai? It'd be quite something for players and ai to (at the map maker's discretion) have health, armor, and shield values that all interact with different damage types separately. Looks great as usual, stay safe as always
tehswordninja
2023-06-21 05:41:04 +0000 UTCDid tests and posted screenshots here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/84768490 Seems like it is just recording.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-18 20:36:15 +0000 UTCSo far I have not seen framerate drops when OBS (recording software that I use) recording is not running. Will note to double check it if some kind of AI-projectile interaction is happening that could have caused this but I doubt there is. I think this is really due to me recording the footage on a quite outdated notebook. There is usually a connection between how much screen is being updated and framerate drops in all of my recorded footage. I'm pretty sure any better PC would be able to run game while recording just fine though. I do profile any situation where FPS does drop, likely will always be doing any micro-optimizations that can still be done even after release. It is something that would bother me a lot too, I can usually notice any lags or single-frame visual errors.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-18 20:03:59 +0000 UTCIt seems that the FPS appears to fluctuate significantly during combat. Will this issue be resolved upon the game's release?
man boger
2023-06-18 16:55:08 +0000 UTCSo far there is only a PB2-like custom decoration support. It will be possible to add old decorations though there probably won't be animations for them since any animated decorations now should be a spritesheet rather than vector. There is vector decoration support but still no animations can be extracted from them as any vectors are rasterized for performance. Also there is no PB2's pushers - only the regions that would need pusher logic applied to them so far. Currently it is done by making region and assigning trigger that changes velocity - could be automated in some way by using some PB2 compatibility modules I guess. Such stuff isn't ready yet though.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-03 12:41:21 +0000 UTCOutstanding work. Love all these changes. The gravitators being its own entity is pretty cool. I just wonder though would those decors still exist? Some old maps might not be updated to include the new logics. Also, I'm loving the AI so far. They may be unfinished but they have come a long way compared to what we have now. Just amazing. Keep it up!
AnarchE
2023-06-02 06:14:01 +0000 UTCExactly.
Patty
2023-06-01 22:05:36 +0000 UTCMakes sense ^ Maybe even some kind of AI reaction time scaling depending difficulty. Or if map designer chooses to - maybe just hitpoints scaling. Would depend on a map designer's preference I guess.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-01 20:55:16 +0000 UTCPersonally, I think it's best to allow the creator of the map to decide how they want the common and uncommon ai to behave in gameplay. As for how they behave in the campaign thats all up to what you want from them. My personal suggestion mentioned in the first message would be to give common enemies FOV Vision and restrict some of their movements maybe even limit how fast they do certain tasks while more complex ai can have screen vision and better overall movement and faster reaction time. Besides if you plan on adding back difficulties I don't see the harm in doing both? Balance levels depend on difficulty. Higher difficulty increases AI ability etc. More spawns better weapon combos basically. This way people who prefer simple AI could choose the easy difficulty while others who seek a challenge can choose higher difficulties. Essentially allowing people to experience the campaign the way they want.
Patty
2023-06-01 20:44:02 +0000 UTC> I did consider writing about giving AI squad mates orders but was not sure if it matched your vision or would fit at all. After more consideration, I think it could work. Assault this spot move here go into stealth mode use gadgets maybe not as complex as I just said but I think it's important that AI teammates can keep up with the player like the enemy but not be overwhelmingly stronger unless set that way. In the end - there can be plenty of custom maps using that, so that is always a good thing to have. > So instead of making a hivemind just give them the ability to perform cooperative actions over solo actions should certain conditions be met. Guess the only problem then is establishing what conditions and making sure they don't break other actions. It does feel like this is the only way. I wonder if extra abilities of this kind should be added later on after release to meet even more needs. Also feels fairly easy to break something by updating AI, even if there will be some kind of AI version control. > Androids and robots are not human why not give them some unique behavior within the campaign? faster reaction time less afraid to fight the player as they don't value life etc etc. Could make sense. > Maybe consider adding an option for the level editor to tell the AI what weapons they are allowed to swap between. Like, create a custom cycle for their weapons? Might be a little too complex and unneeded but I feel like I should mention it. Could be easy to add. > Haha, would love to see how they play with the other weapons. Glad to see the AI showcase you made helped you out. Im quite fond of AI in video games ( Cant remember if I told you this already ) and they usually are my biggest worry in games that have single-player and cooperative game modes. Glad to see that you plan on making sure the AI does its share of the work! I do also feel like the simplest AIs can be sometimes more fun to play against in story games. It really does make a lot of sense to keep strong AI to bosses and something really simple for common enemies. Perhaps they should not even follow player through whole map like they do now - just camp their spots and dodge projectiles.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-01 13:48:45 +0000 UTCJust some final things I wanted to add because of your response hope it's not too much trouble! > They will likely just follow the player. It will be possible to implement AI orders - they can navigate to any walkable surface really. Walking, jumping, self-boost, wall-jumping, swimming - they can do all that. They still can't handle elevators, switches, anti-gravity fields and doors though. I did consider writing about giving AI squad mates orders but was not sure if it matched your vision or would fit at all. After more consideration, I think it could work. Assault this spot move here go into stealth mode use gadgets maybe not as complex as I just said but I think it's important that AI teammates can keep up with the player like the enemy but not be overwhelmingly stronger unless set that way. > Makes sense. I've had a version of AI during really early version of the game that was able to perform such hive mind tricks but it wasn't a real-time solution, in addition to that it heavily affected the whole game performance even when there were no AI characters. Best bet would be to figure out such tricks and implement them as close as possible. Yeah, could definitely be an issue in terms of performance. Maybe something not so complex? Such as if certain conditions are met AI will do cooperative action to achieve its current goal? Like boosting each other. So instead of making a hivemind just give them the ability to perform cooperative actions over solo actions should certain conditions be met. Guess the only problem then is establishing what conditions and making sure they don't break other actions. > That will be added. I think current AIs are quite slow at jumps because they are waiting for sword activation animation to play through, assuming this is some kind of reloading they should wait for. Current version of AI has zero reaction delay, which isn't a very human thing - only reason why they can be currently worse than real player is because they are doing something terribly wrong. Glad to hear this. I was gonna mention the sword jump delay but glad to see you already are working on it. Small idea. Androids and robots are not human why not give them some unique behavior within the campaign? faster reaction time less afraid to fight the player as they don't value life etc etc. > They really do. They do calculate how fast it would be to eliminate the enemy with each of weapons they have, while prioritizing the current weapon (simply because weapon switching is a delay they account for). Similarly they are taking weapon reloads and ammo left into account. Glad to see the AI doing some of the work for you by learning the weapons themselves haha. Maybe consider adding an option for the level editor to tell the AI what weapons they are allowed to swap between. Like, create a custom cycle for their weapons? Might be a little too complex and unneeded but I feel like I should mention it. > This is kind of a surprizing thing actually - whenever I make a new weapon they already know how to use it better than I am. They do automatically use BNG and plasmagun for same. Haha, would love to see how they play with the other weapons. Glad to see the AI showcase you made helped you out. Im quite fond of AI in video games ( Cant remember if I told you this already ) and they usually are my biggest worry in games that have single-player and cooperative game modes. Glad to see that you plan on making sure the AI does its share of the work!
Patty
2023-06-01 13:27:26 +0000 UTC> I'll first start with the Gravity platforms. > I love the bullet curving and the ability to destroy them. I have to ask will it be possible to not only disable the damage to the platforms and are you considering adding more unique platforms? I do feel like there is a place for a platform that slows-down objects and makes them move slowly towards/away from antigravity field. Probably can'y think of any else for now, but then not sure if I'll find use for this kind of antigravity-field within campaign and even custom maps. > As for the AI overall really satisfied with what is shown. > First of all their movement is already pretty good! So far it looks like they will be very organic and capable of keeping up with the player. > I'm curious what AI working with the player would look like? Considering the AI abilities so far I'm quite curious to see how well AI that is working with the players would play in gameplay. They will likely just follow the player. It will be possible to implement AI orders - they can navigate to any walkable surface really. Walking, jumping, self-boost, wall-jumping, swimming - they can do all that. They still can't handle elevators, switches, anti-gravity fields and doors though. > Can't tell if the teammate boosting shown at 2:59 is intentional or not and honestly would be pretty cool to see it implemented intentionally if it was an accident. Accident. Would be cool but I have low hopes since performing a jump/self-boost from a small surface usually also means there is not enough space to gain enough horizontal speed. > This is just my preference but I would love to see the AI play more as a hivemind similar to what the Screen box vision AI did. > Every AI is a "limb" to the full body which could be 5 AI in total. Each one doing their best to reach the same objective. Just an idea I wanted to throw out there Makes sense. I've had a version of AI during really early version of the game that was able to perform such hive mind tricks but it wasn't a real-time solution, in addition to that it heavily affected the whole game performance even when there were no AI characters. Best bet would be to figure out such tricks and implement them as close as possible. > Another idea I would throw out is AI with higher difficulties perform their movement abilities way faster with less error and react to players' decision-making quicker. That will be added. I think current AIs are quite slow at jumps because they are waiting for sword activation animation to play through, assuming this is some kind of reloading they should wait for. Current version of AI has zero reaction delay, which isn't a very human thing - only reason why they can be currently worse than real player is because they are doing something terribly wrong. > I would also love to see the AI gunplay expanded. Have them use their weapons as effectively as possible. You seem to already be doing this so I hope you continue to expand on this! They really do. They do calculate how fast it would be to eliminate the enemy with each of weapons they have, while prioritizing the current weapon (simply because weapon switching is a delay they account for). Similarly they are taking weapon reloads and ammo left into account. > I also want to mention how much I love the different AI vision types. > I can already see more difficult boss-type AI having screen vision and generic weaker enemies LOS vision. This was kind of a whole idea for this map ^^ But yes, that could be cool. > Glad to see AI healing make a return but I feel like it could be a lot more effective if they had some sort of weapon similar to the defib but for range. 1 bullet then needs a reload but brings people back? There is gun like this (also one more gun like this was added in PB2 fanart update). I actually don't remember whether I've implemented logic for them shooting their teammates with it or not. > Would love to see some sort of AI Medic playstyle but not too sure if this even matters for the most part. Maybe just add some form of visual effect while using the defib to show that AI is currently healing? Hmm. There is no visual effect for that in plans but having particles with custom images could be cool. Technically players are healing on their own via regeneration modules - defibrillators only add an extra 10 hitpoints while player is dying. They play sound too. > Will it be possible to disable specific AI features within the editor? > Like for example if I want CS to not be able to wall climb like in the video but still be able to use projectile prediction. Yes, will be adding AI difficulty/skill/ability tweaks after a fully-functional AI is done. > While on the topic of Projectile prediction does this feature include AI's ability to toss grenades over walls or use the red grenade launcher on the players even when they don't have a line of sight? Yes, this is exactly what they are trying to do occasionally. Grenade launcher might be fired inaccurately but they only firing it because they had some trajectory in their mind. I think they predict around 4 seconds of potential grenade trajectory and can calculate where thrown grenade will explode. > Screen vision would simply fire at players' position if it would reach them while FOV vision would fire at the last known location or the player directly. Both visions are actually capable of "trace shots". It is something AI do (by default) when they have no idea where playere is, but still have spreading probability map. They basically will shoot at those potential positions and clear them from probability map. Some AI that has control of the map will shoot only towards building where player is hiding, but if player could have escaped that building - AI player would try to walk to/shoot at not only that but the area behind him too. > The last thing I wanna mention is how I love the AI ability to counter the player's actions shown at 8:06 I hope you expand upon this with more weapons or abilities as I would love to see this commonly done during gameplay. > I love it when AI counters the player's decisions and it forces the player to adapt to the situation. This is kind of a surprizing thing actually - whenever I make a new weapon they already know how to use it better than I am. They do automatically use BNG and plasmagun for same. > As I mentioned in the beginning I'm quite satisfied with the AI's current abilities. Already a big improvement to AI compared to PB2 > Would love to see another showcase in the distant future maybe near release to see how far AI has come since this video! > Keep up the great work loved what was shown today! Can't wait to see what you do next month! Thank you! Will likely update on stuff I'm working on meanwhile, I've noted a plenty of AI issues for my to-do list when was making this video.
UnrealCrash
2023-06-01 12:30:40 +0000 UTCHey Eric! Quite surprised to see you make an AI showcase so soon after asking but I'm quite glad with what was shown! I'll first start with the Gravity platforms. I love the bullet curving and the ability to destroy them. I have to ask will it be possible to not only disable the damage to the platforms and are you considering adding more unique platforms? As for the AI overall really satisfied with what is shown. First of all their movement is already pretty good! So far it looks like they will be very organic and capable of keeping up with the player. I'm curious what AI working with the player would look like? Considering the AI abilities so far I'm quite curious to see how well AI that is working with the players would play in gameplay. Can't tell if the teammate boosting shown at 2:59 is intentional or not and honestly would be pretty cool to see it implemented intentionally if it was an accident. This is just my preference but I would love to see the AI play more as a hivemind similar to what the Screen box vision AI did. Every AI is a "limb" to the full body which could be 5 AI in total. Each one doing their best to reach the same objective. Just an idea I wanted to throw out there Another idea I would throw out is AI with higher difficulties perform their movement abilities way faster with less error and react to players' decision-making quicker. I would also love to see the AI gunplay expanded. Have them use their weapons as effectively as possible. You seem to already be doing this so I hope you continue to expand on this! I also want to mention how much I love the different AI vision types. I can already see more difficult boss-type AI having screen vision and generic weaker enemies LOS vision. Glad to see AI healing make a return but I feel like it could be a lot more effective if they had some sort of weapon similar to the defib but for range. 1 bullet then needs a reload but brings people back? Would love to see some sort of AI Medic playstyle but not too sure if this even matters for the most part. Maybe just add some form of visual effect while using the defib to show that AI is currently healing? Will it be possible to disable specific AI features within the editor? Like for example if I want CS to not be able to wall climb like in the video but still be able to use projectile prediction. While on the topic of Projectile prediction does this feature include AI's ability to toss grenades over walls or use the red grenade launcher on the players even when they don't have a line of sight? Screen vision would simply fire at players' position if it would reach them while FOV vision would fire at the last known location or the player directly. The last thing I wanna mention is how I love the AI ability to counter the player's actions shown at 8:06 I hope you expand upon this with more weapons or abilities as I would love to see this commonly done during gameplay. I love it when AI counters the player's decisions and it forces the player to adapt to the situation. As I mentioned in the beginning I'm quite satisfied with the AI's current abilities. Already a big improvement to AI compared to PB2 Would love to see another showcase in the distant future maybe near release to see how far AI has come since this video! Keep up the great work loved what was shown today! Can't wait to see what you do next month!
Patty
2023-06-01 08:03:41 +0000 UTC
