Star Citizen: Reverse the Verse 2.4 - DE

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:08

   hey how are you Al zart a friend over Crusader said you've been building quite a rep Chris runs through everything and edits all the scenes how he wants them to look or how the acting to work once that's done that could come from say three or four different takes but with an editor he'll use the editor's time code basically to make that create that scene and what he wants then from there that data that quad cam data and that time code gets sent out and then gets solved I'm always on the lookout for capable people who don't rattle if you're interested in picking up some extra work we should talk I'll send my details and then once that data solve it comes back to us but it comes back in pieces per takes and what we do is we take that data and merge it together to make that one scene work together remember to not beat the table

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   too much welcome everyone to reverse the verse live from Frankfurt our very first one I H today is August 26 2016 I am Brian Chambers development director of the Frankfurt office uh for those of you don't know reverse the verses C's weekly and Foundry 42's weekly uh broadcast um we do this directly after around the verse to give you a little more insight into what we showed and also give you an opportunity to talk with some of the guys and ask them questions directly um for questions feel free to submit the questions to robertsspaceindustries.com um do it in the chat area uh the one thing we ask is if you're going to post

3. 00:01:46

   questions to put the word questions in Brackets that way we can easily sort through them and uh find out exactly you know what we're going to answer for you guys um for today our first guest that you've seen with me before on ATV is Jason Cole he's our lead cinematic animator uh you'll discuss your contribution to the questgiver yeah and uh what that was and what that was all about right um so we just showed a little bit of that just before we started here um let's just jump right into it and we got to make sure we look at the camera because that's where everyone is right yeah um so my eart right our first Quest Giver how did field actually get that uh in game and have that you know in in the the live

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   stream that the Chris was showing off and having that function that's cool man surprising I think it was pretty good to see that I think and seeing the Hawker stuff too it came out like last minute so yeah but it was cool it like work the way it was supposed to which was fantastic that's cool that's cool did you have um I I know you guys have been working quite a bit on you know within animation within cinematics there's so many as I always say there's so many dependencies right uh characters need to be there it needs to be rigged you need audio you need lighting you need things modeled you need environments and so on so what were some of the bigger challenges I think you know or some of the stuff that's come in late that that is now allowing you guys to get these things done I think it's mainly just like the tools and getting the tools in uh we been converting our I would to say

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   converting our pipeline but we've been integrating more Maya stuff because in Maya we can sync up the face animation and the facial heads and rs and all that stuff so this was the first time where we really tested it to run live in like you know persistent universe so that would go out to the public or anything like that so that was really cool um but those tools are still being integrated on but they're they're like the base is working now so we just start using it and checking it and seeing with the face guys that's cool that's cool were you there at the map shoot when um when he he performed yeah actor yeah I think uh that jumps off to some of our questions somebody was actually asking who played miles do you know who it was I don't the gentleman's name no I'm so bad with actor's name he was in the video yeah we

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   we can find his name and maybe put it in the notes afterwards but um he was good though good voice he did a few other actors few characters in the game as well uh another question comes in do we know if all questgivers will be voiced do you know if all the quest that's probably more of a design but yeah I don't know I know that they are planning for 3.0 to add more questgiver stuff and more dialogue through pu so I think the more that face Pipeline and audio pipeline gets synced the more that they will add into pu yeah yeah I mean I know I've I've seen you guys' list and list and list I know so I know it's thick yeah so I know you know the amount of facial animation that's attach to these things to help kind of give more guidance to the players is fairly in depth right right and like like I was saying like the more the tools become

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   streamlined the easier it is to get the stuff in faster so the more we can add so that was like that was the first time we ever actually ran that test system or that system like that absolutely yeah it went well one of the other questions that just came in which we kind of just answered it says is Miles Zar the only cinematic Quest Giver in 3.0 I don't think it'll be I mean they're they're literally talking about scheduling a shoot to shoot more stuff specifically for 3.0 to add stuff so how much they'll add I don't know it's still very you know pre-production but I CR intends to add more but I mean as production goes we know from you know now kind of the be to you know the end of when we have it all there but as we go through the process sometimes there's a little more

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   here sometimes our attention has to go to a different area and so on so I mean I know the list is thick and I believe the assumption is right now is you would have definitely more than just miles and 3 3.0 but I know more details will come out of that in the next few weeks probably yeah absolutely I mean our our my main focus isn't really usually pu so that was the first time we ran that system so now that we have learned it we'll we'll hand that more off to the Pu guys and they'll they'll do a lot more with that stuff now it's my understanding too with you know a lot of pu and you got Tony and Austin and we have animators there as well so you guys are going to be working in conjunction with them as well right the animators there yeah a little bit Yeah I think we'll definitely be help them train them up on the tools and stuff and they need assistance we help out like we did with this last P that absolutely cool yeah um

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   what would you in working with the team that we currently have over there I mean how's that going I ask you because it's you know it's a fairly new team that we've built up here in in Germany yeah there's some guys you've worked with in the past and other guys who haven't you know but how's how's that working out so far as the team it's good like I think I think our team team here in frankfurt's really strong um UK has a pretty good team and then Austin's really good as well they actually had more stuff to go into the Pu we we actually saw like there was like actually subsumption where like people were walking around in that space in like the market and stuff that we seeing in earlier builds and then for some reason on the last build didn't go through cuz it was actually pretty awesome there was guys you know walking up to the bar and then sitting at the bar drinking and walking away so I mean and that's that's a fair point to

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    say that you know there's a good amount of stuff that that we're doing you know what we showed at the live event isn't everything we have right it's it's what came together and worked in a way that we thought was representative of where it should be we have a good amount of stuff that's also from all the different Studios um that that's got great progress and things are just about there but you know we want to make sure that they're fully there before we're we're presenting them out yeah outwards um let's see what other um how long did it take you guys from the moment you got the actor into the studio until you were done with the final version of the journal video and

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    how much improvement do you see the pipeline seeing that the time 3.0 is just over the horizon so how much what time would you say I know we kind of talked about the process in the video where we said oh we shot and then we do this and this but like duration of time what would you say that took uh it didn't take very long I mean we shot we shot the questgiver stuff at the end of the the last pu shoot yeah you know or the last shoot right and then so we literally had three weeks to put everything together for eart and the Hawkers and um and mecan too actually the guy yeah the other guy that W Flags you or whatever abely so that was within 3 weeks and then on top of that we were Tes Tes in the system we haven't run that system so we're using an OP track system that was getting solved in house

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    and then we were sinking all the faces which we've done before but we did it old school manually this time it was the first time we actually used the tools so it's there there's a lot of other things that we we ran into a lot of issues actually within those three weeks cuz um we're updating our facial like real time runtime logic right for the faces yeah yeah yeah so we're going to add use more like um a facial board so we can turn on like have more control over look I and oh cool turning that on and off and all that stuff but for E for eart we actually had to revert to the older system because um all the NPC heads haven't been completely updated to the new one only three of them so it'd be hard to gauge the actual time then but but I would say like if you had to do it today and what you know and what you've learn and now

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    that the pipeline's in place yeah I I would I don't think it would take us long it car it was pretty straightforward I mean I don't know he had maybe less than a minute of time I I would say maybe like two weeks at the most okay like start to finish if if we had somebody specifically on solving and then an animator right off it and all the tools were working proper then like and that's and that's being very generous absolutely and and usually in the estimates too that that you know we give out on the production and and even you know we ask the other leads to we also you know we have to understand that um we need to put a little bit more time into those estimates as well just to foree if there's any issues that have come up right so if we say you know two weeks that we may go oh well we think

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    it'll take us seven days but you need to allow for that time just in case something comes up um or actually other tasks come in that may take some priority or so on yeah it's weird too because there's some SC that you think will take like you know two or two weeks and they only take like two or three days and then vice versa you think something be easy somebody has just asked um how many chicken burgers can Brian Chambers Eat um I guarantee you I can probably eat more than anyone um what's the size of the chicken I don't know and I really haven't been yeah whatever and is that with toppings and um we saw a questgiver example will the quest content each time be procedural random generated or will each miles eart be more scripted and always

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    give the same Mission so on and so on and so on I don't know that's something I have no idea I would think that they would they would stack the quest right on eart but you might get within those Stacks like you might get a a random more quests right so say if they shoot 50 quests you might get I don't know if they're going to do it based on your level or if they're just going to be random within that like I have no idea and that might have been a you know my fault for pulling that question but for Jas I mean it's in in the animation and and there it's kind of here's the stuff that needs to animate here's the scenes that need to be put together right as far as um the different types of missions how random they are which ones will be procedural versus scripted versus a mix between the two that's probably that's more than kind of a

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    design Focus or design driven question um miles seem to have evasive IV movement was this an acting thing or Tech issue I no that's that's acting uh that's him trying to be sketchy right yeah look over his shoulder and yeah I wish we had more time to make it look better we just didn't have enough time but um the thing is is that like eventually like the look I right now we can only turn it on and off but we can't like blend it So eventually like he'll be able to look at you and then when he doesn't want to look at you he'll look away and look that way yeah so when when you're sitting there he's he's generally looking at you but he's not actually making like eye contact player yeah so but when he when he Flags you over when

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    he goes like hey come over here have a seat like that's look I K on he he is looking anding at you and talking to you and that's not only the eyes but a portion of the upper body Blended through exactly so we're trying to get more control over that so we can really dial that in you know that's cool uh is there anything else you wanted to add based off of the that piece or is it pretty much straightforward and it is what it is it is what it is is I mean you know uh it was a good first pass it's definitely going to get better though we it it will get better I mean I've seen the the the facial loone grow Leaps and Bounds you know if you look at the stuff that that we've put out 68 months ago versus to where it is now it's It's Kind of Night and Day yeah right I I mean like as far as I'm concerned like what we what we put out

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    within 3 weeks I mean we didn't really spend any time polishing it so I we could add way more to the face way more to the acting you know you know Blends from getting up in and out and when he's talking to you but that just it takes time that's cool and well awesome yeah well I want to thank you for coming hanging out coming live with us for the first time from Frankfurt so thanks for coming taking some questions um we will take a short break we'll see another video uh based off of who's going to come back with us so we'll throw it to the video and we'll see you in a few cool thanks guys in Gamescom we can see several examples

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    of the navigation mesh so this is an example of an actual setup uh where we can see there are two main uh areas like a landing pad with some navigation area and a constellation so what we actually created is just a setup in which this character is just moving across three spots on the area and there is another character inside here that will do something very similar it will move inside three different uh block points or locations in this area one here one this remote computer and one here and we'll play some animations so now that we will jump in game so this is a a simple setup I created uh before with the help of some of the designers uh in which a spaceship in our case the constellation we set up before uh is spinning on top of a landing pad now we

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    are inside we can see an NPC moving across the uh two different locations so this is the first one it plays just an animation he arrives to the spot he plays an animation and he goes to the uh computer board and he start to just interact with it awesome welcome back our next guest as you just saw in that video is Franchesco Ruchi our lead AI programmer um he'll discuss more on the nav mesh and what you saw there in AI in general so thanks for hanging out hi guys yeah it's my pleasure we we've done a ATV and all that stuff before so you're used to a camera in front of your face yeah it's all right I feel like enough comfortable that's cool no the nav Mish was cool you know it was um as far as kind of giving out information I think one of the more

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    technical right we try to be you know as much technical as we can I think maybe I wish we would had more time to explain like what was kind of the new there new part there like for people that are not so much familiar because well no we're we're here now so that's give us some opportunity so I mean I was going to kick it off and say you know the um the nav me with the nav mesh work that you showed off and knowing that there's this huge elaborate AI road map assumption and all that how really does nav mesh then play into that because I know it's an incredibly important part yes so it just be important for you for me interesting to hear you explain that to I think basically the one really critical part is that not mesh like very basic functionality on the eye right it's just like one guy Mo from one place to another it seems pretty trivial

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    because at the end of the days um a very well-known problem and and very well solved problem on AI right but but what we do is the different parts like you know having like systems that move uh in different ways one know in relation of the other and also being you know I think the critical part is also like being able to navigate from different parts of the universe and this is what I think is really unique even just between different meshes because it's not so trivial to allow a character to move part no to another part that he doesn't know right I I have probably wasted months and months of my career working on things just like that in the past and it's something that we've been able to achieve in a in a fairly short amount of time yeah we had like I think I think we were very happy of how the progress was

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    in few weeks and then we were like oh you know what like let's try to you know put more stuff in and I think I would have you know I wish we had more time also to put it in the games come them uh but you know I think like this is something people anyway will see in the next update so always that we Tred we want to show as much as possible to absolutely uh with AI and with st citizen Squad 42 um we keep hearing the word subsumption so one of the questions that's come in from one of the viewers is um what can you give a quick explanation of what subsumption actually means okay so subsumption is a is um let's say a collection of systems so we we call subsumption what it is like both the behavior your description of characters the mission system the

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    definition of how we set up things in the world in the universe so like subsumption is really the overall systems that colle connects to the game code and the actual engineered so it's got everything D it's got all the AI careers it's got the behaviors so basic we start from the behaviors so each character is basically can have what we call activities and sub activities so an activity is something we can associate with a job or you know the current job the guy is is doing so I don't know if you are like a a cleaning guy in a in a spaceship this is your activities like cleaning guy you know and that is made by different sub activity that are actually your actions so it could be cleaning the floor you know cleaning the kitchen the mass hole you know going around and makeing sure there are no

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    boxes around and stuff like this and then the character will literate through different sub activities U but then there is also the mission system that is the one that actually will say well you player needs to do this Mission and to do this Mission you need to have these specific characters doing these specific things or you know and then we have like the scheduler that is what actually allows you to say well now it's morning you should just work but somebody else is actually sleeping because he has a and there's there's a whole priority system that sits on top of it yeah that's cool hopefully that give a little little more detail we have like a lot of things here like we could go like for hours uh um another question that's in which was interesting in the nav mesh video I noticed that the nav mesh was also on the top exterior of the ship yeah eventually will NPCs be able to

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    climb on a ship for repairs Etc or why was it there yeah it was for that reason so basically it's up like it's up to the designer somehow if they want to have it external or not or all internal but in general I think like this is what I set up with the other designers here as an example because it's really important that the ey is able to move anywhere where the player can so like the spaceships there they have some exit that they allow you to go on top so this what also the ey should be able to do but for repairing or imagine like there is a mission in which they need to jump off and go in a somewhere else and this is the only exit they should be able to do it they mags they should be able to you know still be attached to the to the spaceship and move around so this is why it's there to give this knowledge to the eye in the future um let's see will AI on landing

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    pads evade Landing spacecraft so I guess the question is like landed if the eye can so B I think this the idea is like whenever the eye will be the same as players right so like uh to to access a landing pad you need to request a landing pad once it's assigned to you you will use it then the spaceship will go kind of in the hanger and then it will be moved away from the guys that work there so basically AI will be able to land only on assigned uh pads that are free for them and you know if they for some reason they cannot do it anymore they would be notified and then it's like well that is not available for you anymore so it's the same knowledge as as same communication system as way as the players yeah right basically the key is always on the

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    behavior so we always have our Behavior Centric because you know if the brain of the eye is correct it does exactly the same as a player would do specific rules yeah um here's one I'm not sure if you would know but I know you've done some tests about how many NPCs are planned to be inside of a station walking around 10 to 20 or more like 50 Etc so our goal is to have as much as we you can right of course so I think that is well yeah I would say not even that though I would say as much makes sense as much makes sense if I can fit 200 in a small area I don't want to right course of course but I like big square like in of the landing areas that are pretty big and you want to have maybe hundreds so yeah right so the idea is like actually to use a kind of L system for the ey as well so we can

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    have like the one you want to interact with are more complex and they cost more but the one that are far away you know they are cheaper yeah of course the reality is that the eye itself is very cheap because the way we are developing subsumption is like almost based on templates and then or we go run time data so like each AI is actually a subset in memory of stuff that they they execute and also the amount of task the sub task that they execute at the set given time is really minimal so like we can actually run a lot of AI but then we have you know other dependency like animations so what we need to yeah I don't think AI is any you know really intensive if you will have you guys well let me phas it a different way have you run any tests so far that you were unable to populate an area to the level that you thought should be so I yeah a bit I think we try to be smart and we

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    try to keep so what we trying to do right now for example in the games come demo we Tred to keep enable only the ey that are around players so like and this was around like I think 30 around 30 40 eyes was kind of the limit right now based on the animations an character all the really the character and that's also without a lot of optimizations that you know and so on so okay that's cool it's encouraging the first steps uh here's another interesting one which I don't know what the answer exactly would be but somebody asks how do nav meshes work when it comes to zerog okay Zerg will use so it's not n mesh at that point so like because at that point you don't want to be Nesh is B representation of surface so it could be like if you want to use Mac boots at that point you could

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    still use another mesh style where you generate like on the different kind of gravity section right uh but on Zerg I think our plan is basically to have this kind of hierarchical Pathfinder so you can say uh I need to fly this other station right so my first step is navigating on a Surface towards a um a spaceship then entering into the spaceship then fly to this other you know place this other planet then land on this other planet and then go drop off and walk and if in the middle there is I don't know zero g environment then what you will the I will do is well it will exit maybe the the let's say spaceship or let's say like you know generator gets destroyed and then they're in zero g at that point they will have navigate the environment as kind of you know a

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    backpack did that did that because you know we briefly mention the complexity of going from like a a solid ground plane nav mesh to then here's a ship and it's coming in at whatever angle then I started thinking of evva if if I'm in that ship and then I've busted out and then I'm going to another ship but has slept it you know completely different orientation even upside down of course right the complexities there that is big challenge for the future because I think as you said like the main critical part is really the orientation of the different areas of course and we need to understand like what a player would do I mean of course spaceship usually have some entry section so you can always use that as say well I need to EV kill the entry section and then I will you know be in this other environment because also like there all this transition from one local

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    grid the global uh you know Creed and Zone and then entering into another one and this is what we are basically what we will have to deal with the future that's cool um another question can AI interact with more than one player at the same time MH that is just based on the behavior so like basically the eye perceives everything around like it perceives one two three four players okay what the behav wants to do is what you know will drive so imagine I have two player I want to speak a bit with you a bit with the other guy what my perception what my knowledge of you guys is always active Okay then I can say like oh now I'm talking to Brian and then I will use you as a Target and basically using you as a Target just means on the behavior side storing you inside specific variable that I reference and then when I want to interact with the

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    other character I will just do the other one so like there are different query mechanics to interact with the player so you can say like give me the enemy that is closest or you know we will have things like give me the enemy where the the most dangerous weapon and then you can select these type of things but in the meantime your perception is always active you get more targets you get more friend T you know friendly guys or enemy guys and then you can decide what to do with those so that's cool this one's fairly straight forward but a few questions have come in about um will or how will AI react to sudden changes in the environment like depressurization and stuff like that so basically the the idea is like it's always Bas on the behavior so we Bas a lot on the behavior course so like let's say I'm in a normal environment I'm trying to do something then the ambient

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    gets the pressure ized so at that point I will receive an information from the environment in which I am and say look like the environment gets the pressurized so in that case we can create specific reactions uh to that specific event that is critical like it's not just like a light that goes on well I would assume something like that you know depressurization it changed completely what I'm trying to do highest priority highest priority right so it's like if I am cleaning up and then I cannot just stand there anymore well you know what I will Panic you know probably oh well that comes to the that comes to the fight or flight right it gets to that point of okay what is the base root of who I am and am I fighting am I running am I and the thing is like each character could actually have different reactions so like you know civilian characters will not react in the same way as guy if you are in combat you're

36. 00:28:44

    not reacting the same way like similar to how we did with um uh you know friendly characters that dies next to you right if you are just a guy working normally is he a friendly dead person then you'll freak out because you're not expecting that if I'm in that combat scenario with a player well I expect that my friends can could die and I wanton react in the same way ab and the same with environmental changes it will be very similar things there will be critical changes less critical changes and it depends on you know how important is my activity and what I'm doing if I'm asking maybe you know if I'm requesting our enforcement well I would still try to ask reinforcement somehow right so I would try to you know Panic a bit and then still try to Eva you know if I'm in zero g at that point try to press a

37. 00:29:32

    button to cor for or you know try to reach a radio or I know something like that that's cool I mean one of the things that that that I think is really cool one of the many things is when I look over the amount of careers and just knowing that those careers that the players can ultimately pick and this is the the kind of long-term schedule the AI needs to be able to function in all of those as well and the complexity that's in between there and it really does turn you know somebody in one certain suit they may be an have an aggressive career versus somebody else that has a very passive so one guy's going to fight one guy's going to run yet they look similar right they look the same and then a lot it depends on animations voices so basically I think the good thing of this project is we will add constantly content right and

38. 00:30:20

    this will be not only animations or voices but it also would be content on the behavior side absolutely more we release stuff and more complex the ey would be yep and it's just very very cool like for our project but well absolutely man absolutely well I know you and your small team and it's growing are incredibly busy so I appreciate you taking the time my pleasure it's really my pleasure so yeah no it's good to to just dig into more detail I mean AI is something that is constant and we seem to always get questions about it it's it's one of those important things that is really going to make things be alive in the tot I think the I really like for me what I like about the I that the I is kind of the game let's say because the way you play with the game and the game plays with you so it's this

39. 00:31:09

    kind of you know nice interactive part of so the pressure is on for you I know but we like that awesome so wrapping up for the week um couple of really small community updates uh the terrain uh ship anle terapin is currently still on Cale at robertsspaceindustries.com so if you go to the website you'll see it there also shortly I think either later today or maybe tomorrow morning depending on what time zone you're in uh we will have part two of the Q&A uh for the ter pin up there so it'll give you guys some more detail on that um Gamescom I want to thank everybody that came out to Gamescom I think all of us as a an entire company it was uh meeting everybody there um uh just this support

40. 00:32:00

    and the kind of the the the love and the attention that we're getting from everybody is great it's really an awesome feeling when you're able to share your current progress with people and and getting the positive feedback that we have been so um want to thank everybody for watching our very first live show here out of Frankfurt um if it wasn't for you it's you guys that enables us to create this additional content and get this out to you um uh we're able to discuss more and go into greater detail and give you more of an insight into kind of what we're building and our progress so um awesome so thank you very much really it's great to be here and you know hope to see you in the verse absolutely thanks again till next time we see you in the verse