Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Javelin: The UEE's Destroyer

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:16

   hello and welcome to around the verse our weekly look at the development of Star Citizen I'm Sandy Gardner and joining me today is farest stepan welcome back to the show hey it's great to be here Sandy there's so much happening at Star Citizen it's good to be here sharing it all with the community I've heard there's something new going on with the referral program is that true yes it is true for those that haven't heard the referral program rewards anyone who gets a friend to download Star Citizen using their unique referral code soon we'll be adding new levels to the reward lad and if you already have the points for the new levels uh will you still get the new rewards yes you will as they'll be given retroactively but what I'm excited about is the new referral competition that we're going to launch at the same time as the updated referral program I don't

2. 00:01:03

   want to spoil the official announcement but all I can say is pink dragonfly W that is pretty sweet uh I love the dragonfly and also love pink not a lot of ships can operate both Planet Side and in space and with a holiday this weekend we're actually holding a sale that includes the dragonfly and three other mini ships the Merlin Archimedes and Argo and we're having a free flly this weekend so if you've been thinking about playing Star Citizen you can try out the Super Hornet for free both offers start tomorrow and end on Tuesday we also have an exciting bit of news to share tomorrow this 3.0 production schedule will be released there will be some great new features that Chris will go over in the newsletter we have a great piece coming up in today's show we're taking a look at the agis Javelin in a brand new ship shape that's right but first let's go to the UK for their

3. 00:01:52

   Studio update hi everyone I'm Aon Roberts and welcome back once again for the UK Studios update I'm actually visiting our La studio today so these surroundings may be familiar to many of you anyway back to our update on what we've been up to over in the UK as always things are really busy there and we're in the middle of a large number of Sprints for both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen so let's start with the technical Sprints from the programming Department the player interaction Sprint is proceeding at full speed we now have subobjects highlighting so now rather than outlining a whole mesh we can choose individual Parts this is especially useful in cockpits when you want to interact with individual buttons and switches a new placement system has also come online so you can choose where and with what orientation you set down [Music]

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   objects if the position you want to place an object is out of range we now automatically go into a frow state finally we've been spending time making sure the new interaction system works seamlessly with the multifunction displays the player status system has also been worked on we are adding different active states such as jumping or vating and mantling to the player finds it harder or even impossible depending on how fatigued they are we have added in the mass of the of the of the suits and weapons to influence the player stamina as well as creating a breathing State component to bring together the player status with the procedural breathing animation and sound we are now starting work on new gameplay elements like soup punctures oxygen recharging and depressurization we've also invested time in the conversation system Tech

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   creating a tool to help simplify setting up complicated conversations when you got multiple actors all part of the same scene moving on to our UI team the frontend skeleton framework for kios shopping has started this includes properly setting up all our UI components such as lists grids buttons text fields and other various assets once this is done the engineers will bring it to Life by hook looking these components up to the game data and getting it presented diagetic in the game World we're also working in conjunction with the player interaction system to unify the way the players will interact with in-game UI screens across the board in order to achieve consistency in our user experience this means the same underlying system to interact with an MFD in a ship seat will be applied to all- in-game terminals wall mounted displays and kiosks making interaction

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   with in-game displays feel much less clunky and constrictive in anticipation of the graphics team work on the new render to texture Tech the UI team has done a round of testing using our current helmet Interiors to see how well the UI could look rendered onto a glass surface on the interior as opposed to our current solution the new rtt tech will eventually allow the UI to render properly in the rendering pipeline making it feel much more integrated with the game world than if it than it is currently what we're mainly checking for at this point is how well a text will read at various sizes as well as any post-processing knock on that might potentially negatively impact the legibility of the UI such as motion blur or chromatic aberration another thing we're watching out for is what kind of impact the new incoming Dynamic field of view system

7. 00:05:12

   might have on the UI the new Dynamic field of view system will allow such things like the hood and 3D helmet interior to remain roughly the same size on screen when setting a lower or higher field of view the audio team has been involved in all gameplay features like the buccaneer surface Outpost Squadron level development and the active status system work has continued on the audio propagation system to make audio respect walls doors and paths our current system just has audio triggers playing from their point of origin and either being occluded or unoccluded but always playing from their Source position the new propagation system will mean that a sound playing inside the room will appear to anyone listening from outside the room to emit from the door a window or any other opening this extends to other rooms so a sound playing for rooms away will navigate the doorway and the

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   area in between in order to reach the listener also the first and second pass of the mix management system has been completed this is a virtual mixing console that can be applied to certain areas or rooms it allows the creation of mixed snapshots that can apply volume filter or effect settings on any parts of the audio mix with Fades and data Forge that can be tweaked in real time setting up and organizing these areas and mixed snapshots will allow for easy adjustment of the audio mix finally a lot of progress has been made on the wordup dialogue tool to manage the huge amount of spoken lines in the Pu in the Pu and s42 Charlie points last bastards took Charlie the concept team has been working on finishing off the Gemini ballistic shotgun and a new

9. 00:06:49

   ship weapon manufacturer known as preacher in terms of the environments and structures work has been continued on the truck stop Interiors satellite Interiors microt new Babbage and dressing for the modular habitation modules the environment team has been refining the surface Outpost with technical engineering and habitation spaces coming together with their preliminarily dressing passes the exteriors are now mostly complete we are also looking into lighting variations for the procedure system to add more complex setups for the lighting States the gray box for the truck stop space station is continuing and now all the building set pieces have been established and we are now in the detail phase on the satellite Sprint the communication archetype is close to being white box complete which mean the modules and classifications that were

10. 00:07:37

    specified by Design have been visually explored our ship team has been continuing work on the hul SE and reclaimer as well as including the new light controller work e

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    we have a big update from the VFX team this week on the ship VFX side the Drake Buccaneer is now in 2.6.3 and it's flight ready also more work has gone into the RSI con Aila during this flight ready pass the m perspector has had the Frost's first pass and damage R&D blocked the new GPU driven engine Trails have have also had completed their initial implementation passs and work is continuing on this on the weapon VFX side we've improved our style guide bringing a new system that helps us to define the visual style of a weapon based on manufacturer and energy type the kwe Gallant energy rifle rework has in its first pass along with the APR Scourge rail gun

12. 00:10:02

    and KS devastated plasma shotgun we've also rolled out our layered impact Library previously our impacts were per weapon and per surface type but the new setup allows us to layer up individual Elements which give us more flexibility and less maintenance the animation team has been working hard on a lot of technical aspect groundwork and previs this past month work includes improving the functionality of the shouldered weapon state to get the rail gun ready and playable for 3.0 as well as polishing the functionality of the prone Set uh making it ready for code to work their magic on fixing any edge cases breathing and stamina work has continued to be polished to create a solid look and feel for for a player breathing across multiple States um you know such as

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    normal tired and hyperventilating the no weapon jumps are getting a pass to bring the animations more in line with the Moab rather than the techn first pass portation we gave them and there has been a lot of continued iteration of improvement of weapon reloads across the Devastator shotgun Gallant arrowead rail gun and the new pistol meanwhile the Derby Studio has continued with facial animation for squadron 42 cinematics and Star Citizen they attended a facial shoot down in London for 3.0 and members of the team took a trip out to a the LA studio for some exciting facial animation R&D meetings this should really help us speed up production of the huge dialogue needs for both Squadron and the Pu well anyway thank you again that's it from that's it this month from Foundry 42 UK I hope you all had a good glimpse into all the areas we're focusing on in the

14. 00:11:38

    studios here as always I really want to thank all the backers for giving us the opportunity to make this amazing game and of course our subscribers who through their continued support allow us to get all these updates out to the community take care and I'll see you in the verse that brings us to our next segment when designing a new spacecraft it's important to look at other ships from the same manufacturer yeah there's a lot to be learned from the past development applying these lessons to the new designs uh for new spacecrafts can help speed up the development process significantly which is also which is exactly what the ship artist on the javelin on the agis javelin did so take a look

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    oh [Applause]

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    he n the the javelin was was really kind of a

17. 00:15:50

    byproduct of we needed another another capital ship supplied to the uee uh in the game um we already had the Idis um we knew it was going to be agis manufactured so I kind of wanted to extend the style and aesthetic of the the hydis into the javelin um not only for the interior stuff but also the exteriors so from a production point of view the the the javelin we had the wealth of experience that we we'd learned from from developing the Idis um and really kind of we could almost kind of so we say hit the ground running um so there was aot of similarities in the aesthetic and and the general kind of design between the Idris and the javelin it's really about kind of taking that aesthetic and those spaces and recycling you kind of hear me

18. 00:16:38

    on about the 60/40 split recycling about 60% of the Idis and then putting the 40% spin on on the javelin for the Interiors the exterior production wise is really a case of take what works on the H shaders and the and and and the textures and whatnot the model is always going to be unique there's there's kind of nothing you can do about that um but if I put the idress next to the javelin like I say the the key result that I'm after is that they both look from the same Fleet they're both from the same manufacturer uh and and really the the production cycle of the hris is pretty much the production cycle of the javelin um they they both go kind of hand in hand when when we started the javelin it is the first thing you have to do is the floor plan we have to go through all the stuff that we need so you got the gravity Drive the

19. 00:17:25

    reactors mes hle Barracks um you have to kind of think about these things from the ground up when you when you're planning the interior layout of the ship and what I'm really pleased about with the javelin is we we managed to get three concise decks um kind of planned out so if you look at the ship from the side the lower decks are engineering and so and is kind of very hot and and sweaty and a a workman's kind of place right and then you hit the mid deck which is habitation uh and that's again it's no mistake you kind of first class on a boing is up front there's no engine noise and stuff the the middle of the javelin theoretically would be the quietest area of of the ship um so that's all kind of laid out correctly

20. 00:18:11

    and then you go to the top deck which is the technical area so You' probably heard me talk about like the arch types before um which is technical engineering uh habitation and medical um if you look at any any kind of section of the javelin from any angle you can see clear concise um uh breakouts of of those of those archetypes they've all got their place like an architect designed it properly right um and that's what you get from the javelin which I'm I'm really pleased about because it then it means that you get this clear concise cut between habitation between engineering and between technical um whereas you know some of the other ships they kind of have fallen a bit where you'll go from a technical area into a habitation and back into a technical area that doesn't happen on on on the javelin it's it's extremely like per deck if one section of ship gets damaged

21. 00:19:00

    or goes down it's very much like um a huge cruise liner so if if that hle gets hit it will shut itself down so we've got these huge bulkheads with massive doors um that kind of will will just go okay you're out now shut down and then it's up for the engineer to start rerooting power the I just has this huge hanger that kind of runs through the center of the ship the the javelin doesn't um it has like a very kind of small almost like a a utility hanger um for a drop ship it is cool though the hanger the the best thing about the hanger is the floor Dan ingeniously designed it it pretty much kind of becomes the door essentially you have to land on a platform and then that platform lowers in but that platform when it's up is actually the doors quite cleverly and when you're actually inside the hanger and you see everything kind of moving up from traffic control it's pretty awesome so the main differences

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    between the Idis and and the javelin is we've obviously got the hanger space uh difference it doesn't really kind of carry as many craft it's got It's not got a same utility vehicle but it has got an awful lot of Weaponry the whole ship's pretty much kind of cak in turrets um and we've done this really cool thing uh on on the back of the ship where the remote turrets that are actually on a track system at the moment when you're flying towards a ship you kind of don't know if a turret's in operation or not um unless it kind of goes down inside the hole or something like that and and not a lot of our remote turrets do that and but what we done is we put the whole turret on a track system so when they're not manned they rotate back and go to the back of the ship between the thrusters so they're in the most shielded area when they're not being used um but that way as a player when you're approaching

23. 00:20:36

    one of these things you know if it's uh if it's got his turrets up in defense or not these huge things have gone way past just being a very pretty asset in space they're they're they're completely functional uh and they're also kind of extremely kind of fun to run around and have have a shootout so my background is FPS multiplayer maps I run round ships looking at kind of gameplay um and how you can make interesting gun play and all that kind of stuff and and making sure the level's balanced on the ship production side of things we got to keep quite a few people happy so obviously there's the backers who who you know they without them none of this would happen so we have to kind of take their feed back on board we done the Big Guns trailer back in November I think it was it was for yeah forzen con um um or

24. 00:21:26

    around about that time the ship has gone through a couple of design changes on the exterior since it first went out simply because in the UK we have a habit of making things bigger um which has a domino effect to everything is is certainly the case uh on this there was a specific shot in that video that i' done and um sorry Toby done that one actually and um it showed the it showed the bridge and of course there's a crossbar across the bridge and and it kind of was blocking the captain's view If he if he would have to get to a certain point in the bridge to kind of see so we saw that we saw the feedback on the forums and and we've gone back and and remedied that and we taken that as an opportunity then to actually kind of generally just make the ship's Bridge kind of feel a lot more kind of tangible a lot better um and we've also got the cut scenes going in now um for that stuff for squadron so with hanis and

25. 00:22:15

    myself we're looking at it and how we can flood as much kind of natural light into these areas so there's some very kind of cool windows that are turning up um and and the javelin is actually kind of far more so than than the Idis as as far more exterior views throughout the whole ship I've actually put a quite a significant amount of man hours uh into it not myself but we focus has shifted onto it cuz we're at the point now where I I pretty much kind of want to support design for the Squadron 42 side of things and for us to be able to do that the ship needs to be at a certain kind of Point okay cu the the javelin plays an integral role um for a uh a part of Squadron which I can't talk go out but yeah it's it's pretty cool we have to work with the writers on a daily basis

26. 00:23:04

    uh it's never as black and white as the writers will you know kind of write something we make it it's it's very much a kind of a 50/50 thing there's a lot of backwards and forwards so you know we may end up kind of blocking out a new area and then that that may kind of feed back into the the script somehow and into into you know the writers doing something far more creative than what what I would originally have kind of thought about but it also works the other way so the writers you know they'll come up with ideas that feed our our inspiration this is where it gets really kind of complicated so from from an art production side of things we we hand the ship off to Tech Design Tech design are then going to go and do their pass with obviously the balancing of the weapons the balancing of the thrusters the maneuverable thrusters but then also with with this as as I mentioned it

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    plays an integral role in Squadron so the design team on on Squadron uh are also kind of expecting a certain version of it um which we need to which we need to produce as well off the back of the Pu version that that just put together it's just this kind of thing about kind of make making a game or making making an IP or or anything along that lines in this industry is just just it's a very human thing um that takes a lot of people from a lot of different disciplines to kind of get on and work together and that's just a real kind of small part of that it's challenging but it's but it's it's massively use them it's great that the ship artists were able to take what they learned from the Idris and apply it to the javelin very cool and while still giving the

28. 00:24:39

    javelin its own identity and that's all for this episode of ATV join us tomorrow at noon Pacific for Star Citizen happy hour Jared hucke and special guests Eric Kiren Davis Vincent Sinatra and Community broadcaster DJ Knight will live play Star Citizen and answer all of your questions with a focus on track ir and 4K extra wide screens uh and you can catch all of that on Twitch but before we sign off I want to thank all of the backers out there for supporting star citizens development your contributions allow us to build the best damn space Sim ever that's right and we're also very grateful to all of our subscribers who make this show possible every week and just a reminder tomorrow subscribers will get two cool pieces of flare as part of their rewards also the team is

29. 00:25:27

    working on the hard copy of jump Point volume 3 which includes every issue released in the third year of jump Point very cool and if you're interested in learning more about our subscriber program check out the link in the description for more info uh anyone who is an active subscriber before April 17th will also receive an additional piece of flare a big Benny's vending machine so join before Monday to get that special reward thanks for watching and we will see you around the verse thank you for watching so if you want to

30. 00:26:25

    keep up with the latest and greatest and Star Citizen Squadron 42 development please follow us on our social media channels see you soon