Star Citizen Live: Flight, Light & Insight

10 February 202301:06:181,846 linesWatch on YouTube ↗

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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Why are you all looking at me? What else am I supposed to I had to plug the computer in. Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Star Citizen Live flight light and insight because I grew up on far too much Dr. Seuss. I'm your host Jared Huckaby and if you've never seen Star Citizen Live well don't look at me like that. before it's where we take about an hour out of the end of our week and we hang out with some of our developers. Um we we we you know they're usually very busy and trying desperately to get uh the next patch out the door and I go by their desk and I'm like, "Hey, stop doing that important stuff. Come over here and do this instead." And uh usually they say no but occasionally I like to trade on friendships and get people to say yes and that's why I joining us today are four are four people I'm very proud to
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call friends. Uh Matt, Stephen, Elwin and Chris. How you doing guys? Great. Very good. Thank you. Welcome to well welcome to the spaceship. Welcome to the UK. This is your first trip to the new studio. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How's how's your trip been so far? It's been awesome. Awesome. Loved it. Been awesome. Lovely. Yeah. It's been great. Great seeing everybody. The studio's awesome. It's amazing. Bustling. Lot of energy. Yeah, if only we could show it. We're on the show we're on the show quite often and we talk about how great the studio is and then we haven't shown a whole lot of it. Uh it's because I had to promise Chris that you know we I would wait until every little aspect of it is done and and then do a nice big kind of kind of reveal. You want you know he he's a man who wants to build experiences and stuff like that. So so it's it's it's very uh
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it it's I'm chomping at the bit that to to to to do a lot of things that I have waiting in the bit cuz it's like one of those Chris Roberts sections where he actually goes around and shows everything and then people can meme it. Oh yeah or or or he's not ready. I'm I'm to bring the I'm going to bring back the old Wingman headcam, and just like, "Hey, There you go. and and we'll put this on him, and we'll make him go through the studio." That's not a promise. It's a spoiler. No. Uh This is already going to be one of those shows. So, if you haven't figured it out, uh sometimes these shows are ones where you're going to learn a whole lot about Star Citizen, and have questions answered about various spaceships, uh the work that's being done, the patches. This isn't one of those. This isn't going to be that week. Today, we are goofing off. We are hanging out. We are getting to know some of our friends, some some folks who've been here for a very long time.
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Uh and Stephen, I just wanted a chance to hang out and catch up, because we haven't talked much in the week. Uh this is your last day here. Uh so, let's start off with uh just some introductions, because there's always There's got to be some people in there that are like, "I don't know who the heck any of these are." Uh Chris, I think you're the longest-tenured person here, so I'm going to start with you. So. Who are you, and what do you do for Star Citizen? Well, I'm Chris Smith. I'm a ship artist for Star Citizen, lead ship artist. Um I've been with the company, well, for about 10 years now, or 10 years A little bit over 10 years now, I suppose, couple days. And um yeah, I've been building all the ships since then. Have a built a lot of ships, like the 300i, Constellation, um and uh Corsair, most most recently. Um and yeah, that's what I do. We Were you
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the very first ship artist? Uh not the very first ship artist, but the first ship artist in the Austin studio. Yeah. Uh back when we uh see CGbot was the uh or essentially the first ship Right. third-party partners, anything. But in But internally, in-house, as a CIG employee, it was you and uh Olivier Olivier Yeah, well, he was actually like concept um look dev. Uh Mark Skelton was the art director, and then just me. I was the lone ship artist in the US, actually, yeah. And your first ship was the was the original 300. Correct. The original 300. Before we threw it out and did it better. I Yeah, and I redid it actually. I got halfway through that statement and I'm like, I hope to God he's the one who redid it or I'm going to I'm like a Okay, so so yeah, so so so 300 and besides the 300, besides the Corsair you
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called out other ships you've worked on. The the the you you helped with the at least the exterior of the original Constellation Phoenix. The Constellation series rather. What other ships? Well, the Scout. God. The Cartuwal? The Hornet. Yeah, actually did all Yeah, the Hornet series. I redid the Hornet, too, at one point. F7A. Hornet, Scout, yeah. So let's dig deeper. Why do Why do you have to keep redoing your work, Chris? What does this say about you as an artist? It's cuz we evolve as, you know, our techniques evolve and our pipeline and our, you know, processes. And the design needs. We just get better and better. That's why. Yeah. And then Matt, were you here before Elwin or Yep. Yeah, just a little bit before. All right. So so so Matt, who
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are you? What do you do? Matt Intrieri. I am lead ship tech art and I work with the US and UK teams. All the ships kind of flow to my little team where we do tech animation as well. Um tools, pipeline and destruction and all those good things like shields, SDF shields. Gravity. I mean, I I worry about a lot of things, optimization. And yeah, just that's about it. That's all. Getting things to work. Not much. Yeah, troubleshooting. I'm kind of the first defense before going to engineers. So people come to me with a issue, try to work it out and if I can't do it then we go bug an engineer. Now Matt may not remember this, but
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many years ago, 2018-2019, I attempted to do I attempted to launch a new subseries within ISCA TV back then that discussed roles, specifically the jobs that are within game development and what they do. And we were going to start with tech artists cuz I thought it was one of the most misunderstood and often just uh mystified positions in game development. And it's one of the few uh it's one of the few segments we ever put together that we never finished, we never aired. Uh there were some technical problems, absolutely nothing on your part. It's somebody forgot to turn the mics on when we recorded and did a whole interview with no audio. So, we wait So, wait So, Was that what happened? That was what happened.
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We got in there, it's like, Yeah, I thought I just embarrassed myself. it was like, "Why does Why does the sound sound so bad?" It's like, "Oh, we have his camera audio." And I'm like, Yeah, so I messed that up terribly. Oh my god. So, because one of the very few things we ever filmed and never got to air. So, tell people now, without taking up the length of an entire segment, what does a tech artist actually do? Well, it's a wide variety of things. Yeah, it's just um there's a lot lot um if you go to each department, there's a tech artist embedded in there. And so, um we just facilitate um you know, I don't know. Yeah, there's facilitate functionality. We are the link between art and tech, basically. Someone has to put the ship Hence the name, hence the name. Right. Um I do a lot of tech I do a lot of rigging right now. I do a lot of
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rigging. We do the the landing gear physics. We balance it out. I um I I spend a lot of time on player friction with the ships, so getting in and out of the ships is so important. player friction. Yeah. Really? Are we talking about the same thing? I don't know. Are we? Different kind of friction. know. Uh you know, ships exploding randomly. I worry about these things. Getting trolleys up and down ramps. I worry about these things. So, uh You're this kind of a lot to worry about. That's why That's why we wanted That's why I wanted to start with tech artists back then. It's a It's this weird kind of membrane that sits between disciplines. Sits between design and content and animation and and and just has to kind and has to kind of take everything and pass it through one another and make it gel. Yeah, there's
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Yeah, it's like Really hard thing to describe. This is why we were doing a story on it. I wish it worked. We'll come back. We'll do it again. Well, that'd be great. That'd be great. Yeah. And Elwin, Yeah. who are you and what do you do? Uh I'm Owen Bachelor and I'm the vehicle art director in the US. So, I manage the Austin ship team and the LA ship art team as well. before being the vehicle art director, you were a a vehicle artist. You made many ships. Yeah, I was actually I was So, Chris was the first one in ATX. I was the first ship artist, I believe, in LA. There were other artists working on ships, but they were on the concept side when I got there. So, it was a crazy experience. I jumped in right before, I think, the first time we showed the Constellation at CitizenCon. And so, the first ship I actually did
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any work on was the original Legacy Connie that eventually got redone as well. I think the second one was the M50 and then from then on, I think I've touched I mean, I don't know. Must be like 50 ships at this point. Bits and pieces. The last big one we just came off of, actually the whole team was on it, was the Corsair. yeah, I'm slowly going to be backing away from doing that kind of cool stuff. As you grow into your role as the US vehicle art director. Yeah. So, yeah. I'll keep I'll keep Chris will have to just keep going. Now, it was recently it was We won't talk too much about the summit that's going on right now, but it was recently revealed on on Twitter Uh think shout out to Daniel that we are building a ship team in Montreal. It's like that. All right, will you be overseeing art direction for that team as well?
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Uh we will be yes, I'll be assisting with part of that. I mean we're in closer in time zone than the UK so we'll be switching off. So I think early in the day they'll be starting off with the UK and then if they have anything that they need support with that'll come to the US. Okay. And Hosmer. What what what what what where do we go? What what what do we where do we start? I don't I don't know. Who are you Hosmer? Uh I am Steven Hosmer. I am the senior vehicle systems designer and I'm in the LA studio. I've been here about seven years. I think this is my seventh year which makes me like the youngest out of this bunch that have been here. It's like seven years that's not very long. Yeah, we've been working longer than you. Yeah. So yeah and I I work on design. I design the ships do concept briefs
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and then I work with the art team to implement them put them into the game get them flying make sure that you know the backers can actually use them and interact with them and that kind of thing. And for people who haven't watched the 60 or 70 segments and and shows we've done on vehicle stuff and the design when you say design you are not talking about design in a traditional artistic sense. Peo- people tend to assume that that means you know a pencil drawing or like an architectural sketch. You do tech design systems design. design. So uh what what what is that role with regards to Well, like it starts out with us like kind of designing what a ship would be and what we want it to be and then we work with art to figure out what's it going to look like and how that's going
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to function in our game and then once it gets out of concept we we actually work in white box and we like kind of block out everything that we want it to do and we figure out all of the interactions and all of the systems and everything that's going to like be in the in the ship at the end and then we go back to art and be like hey this is this is what we want and then they build it all out and hopefully at the end we're like yeah that's what we wanted. Hopefully. Part of part of the identifying new features that this this ship does something that never we've never done before and so that will branch off and sometimes I'll work with like an engineer on that and that kind of thing or Steven will work a lot of designing. We also identify like what new features we might need for a ship and then we'll be like we'll go to the engineer that would be in charge of that and be like hey we want this can we
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have this and they'll be like no and so So so so so so you you determine what a ship does and how it does it and and and and why this ship is good and why that ship sucks. Well yes we try to determine that at the concept phase and then refine it throughout the process. But you're the reason this other ship sucks. Sucking is not a goal. It's it's my fault yeah. Send your letter to 12322 Exposition Boulevard Los Angeles California 90064. I think the final say is in the the balance team. but more but more than more than ship sucking at what point in the conversation do you decide it punches above its weight class? That's that's
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just at the very start. We always know it's going to punch above its weight class and we just we just assume that's going to be what it is and we we just put it right at the top of the design. Have you ever made a ship that just punches at its weight class? I think maybe one. One of them. The arrow? I think it was the mantis. Just We're going to start a that's going to start a riot thread. Um I worked on that mantis. Yeah you did. Now, uh Chris and Alwin, I want to talk about I'm always curious about how people get into this industry cuz there's so many things that that that that we can do. I mean, this is all Haz can do. But for normal people, there's you know, many options in your life. What brought you to game development? Like what How did you decide I want to
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make games? And then how did you decide within games I want to make spaceships? Well, go ahead. I think mine was I kind of got lucky to be totally honest. So, I've I always wanted to get into games, but I'm from New York. So, the in the games industry in New York is very very small. Um so, at the time that I was getting close to graduating college, there weren't really that many options for me there. So, I actually started working doing uh web design work. and at a certain point, I think I got a call from one of the people that I went to college with who had graduated a year before me. And he just remembered my work. And they were looking for someone to fill in a 3D position, like a an associate 3D position. So, they gave me a call and and I basically left my
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highly paying graphic design job to go get paid literally less than half of what I was getting paid there to go and do indie game work basically at a tiny studio with I think it was like five or six people or something like that. Um Why? Because Because there's games. It's Yeah, it's what I've always wanted to do. So, um I love games. Been playing games since I could afford to buy them. And uh I basically tried to study everything that I needed to to jump into them. So. How about you, Chris? Well, I uh was sort of just uh like a fine artist. Um for a long time I came out of like a sort of an art trade school and when I grew up in Germany and then I moved to the States. And um I was just just sort of like bouncing back and
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forth and not really uh I would always knew I was going to do something artistic and I always played video games of course um but it really didn't like materialize in my head or really thought about it like seriously oh like I want to be a game artist until like a little bit later on. Suddenly I have a family and so and I was like oh I need something like stable and steady and So you picked video games but I don't know I don't I was like hey video games is right down my style you know like just sort of you know I I was I thought it would just be like an awesome awesome gig and uh went to Art Institute in Dallas and did associates there two years and went straight into the industry and worked for 3D Realms on Duke Nukem Forever. That was my first gig. Oh when's that coming out?
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It's already out though. uh It eventually did come out. I didn't realize you grew up in Germany. You army brat? Uh yes. Yeah. I was I'm born in the States in Oklahoma but I moved there when I was seven. Mom German dad American. Cool. It just never never came up. I didn't realize we had that in common. Uh Matt and Steve not less than not on the art side. Well you a bit on the tech art you know it's like this. How did you uh how did you fall into this? Um I was uh intending to go into um film post-production like to I was a big Industrial Light & Magic fanboy. Like I just love what they were doing with Star Wars and I ate up all that kind of stuff the model making and and things and then so I was studying at in San Francisco
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and I got an opportunity to have a job at for doing children's software for Lucas and I I was like oh I'll take it. So I and then I was in games and I I just stuck with that and you know so that's that's What what was the first game you worked on? Uh the Gungan Frontier uh it was a Sim like a Sim Earth thing with you know little creatures going in around the swamp. Oh yeah, I think we all know about the Gungan Frontier. Clearly one of the most popular Star Wars games ever. It really was, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so I worked on that and um uh Droid Droid Works and uh yeah, I've heard of that one. Yeah, that one won an award. I didn't I didn't I came in with Actually, I can't take credit for that. That was not me.
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That was I came in right when that was when that was being released. So but I helped test, I guess. Get your name in the credits? Probably not, no. I don't think I did. How about you, Osman? Um yeah, I guess I I went to college for programming in a specialized game dev school. And after that, I was just like, I'm I'm a terrible programmer, but I did graduate. So uh I just started looking for jobs and I was up in Seattle at the time and there were a bunch of QA jobs, which didn't require much. So I just like got into QA and I just kept working until I got to like a smaller company. And they were just like, "What do you want to do?" And I'm like, "I would like to, you know, design." And then they just let me start doing it and I just kept doing it. And I'm like, "Okay, this is cool." That
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that is an incredibly common game design story right there. You start as QA, wonderful entry point into the industry, and then as you're working QA, eventually somebody's just like you you've learned enough doing this. Yeah, well you know, we'll give you a shot. What was the company that gave you your shot? Sandlot Games. Sandlot Games. Yeah, they don't they don't exist anymore. Yeah, well. They were they made like casual games like, you know, like we didn't make Diner Dash, but we made like Diner Dash clones and then eventually got like bought by Digital Chocolate, which was the owned by Trip Hawkins and then Wait, wait, wait. There's a company called Digital Chocolate? Chocolate, It was owned by Trip Hawkins who founded Atari, I think. 3DO. A 3DO? I don't remember. 3DO. Yeah. And then I don't I don't know what happened after that. I I left. But
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it's right that we hire a lot of people from QA, and I think even I was talking to a bunch of the guys in this studio, and there's they all started in QA. Oh, yeah. Uh it's most common entry point in all of video games, you know, all the way up to senior producers, lead producers, like Ricky Jutley got his start in in in QA. It's EKD got his got his start there. You know, Tyler Wicken, our director of community, got his start in QA. It's it's it's a very popular uh entry point into the industry because it is a it is a like I said like you said it requires very little ex- you know, prior experience. You It it it values deductive reasoning and being able to keep your thoughts straight, uh rec- recognizing why this does this versus something else, and you can learn almost every other discipline cuz ev-
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everything video games requires a QA at some point. So so you can move around between disciplines and learn a little bit of graphics and a little bit of design and a little bit of tech art and so as until you find a place that interests you and then you then learn more, and it's a great place to uh uh to go from there. Yeah. This is a This is a recruiting video, by the way. Uh shout out to Lucas Genburn, our talent acquisition team. I did it, Lucas. I did it. Chris and Oh, and I want I want As far as coming to CAG, you have a bit of a shared origin story here. Chris, you were one of the judges on the only reality TV show that we've we've done here at CAG. Uh The Next Great Starship. Before talk I know what it is, and but I want to hear what your description is. What is The Next Great What what was The Next
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Great Starship? Well, I mean it was like a It was a recruiting tool. There you go. I mean, yeah, essentially it was a game show of some sort where we had contestants built out, you know, initially it was a weapon and then they moved on, you know, people got eliminated and then, you know, other people moved on. And we had like a judge panel. I was part of it along with Chris and Mark um Skelton, Chris Roberts, Mark Skelton, Shawn Tracy, myself and Chris Olivia. And Sandy was the host. Um And yeah, it was a it was a great time, great show. We're flying a little bit by the seat of our pants back then still. Um Back then?
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Yeah. What? Relatively. And but yeah, besides that we got this fabulous guy from it. He was a contestant on there. And um unfortunately he didn't make it all the way through the competition. He had to bail out for personal back then. Um But yeah, we ended up we loved his stuff and uh besides him we actually hired several other people from that. Um So yeah, it was it was cool, great experience. Yeah, we when when I used to do the tours of the LA office and they'd bring people by your desk, I would like to say it was Elwin didn't win the next Great Star Search but he kind of won the next Great Star Search. It's like you may not have gotten the you know, the limited prize at the end of the thing but I mean you're here now as US vehicle art director. I lost I lost the competition I lost the competition but I won the
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career. He played the long game. Yeah, a lot along with a the the name is escaping me right now but there were like two or three other folks. Yeah, we've had several people who we brought in through that. Yeah, but yeah, you do make a good point. It's like it's it was it was a secret recruiting tool to find talent and stuff like that. It's a it's a it's you know, it's I said that it's what happens with ISC, it's what happens with SCL. It's like we we send out clips to to different reporting companies that the the talent acquisition people are like, "Hey, have you done something with with Tool Team?" Like, "Yes, I have actually and here's the tools team. They send it out to tools team people that they're looking to recruit and stuff like that. But it was also it was great to get the fans engaged and to and then our process early on and sort of I mean we're you know, people were already excited about our you know, the game and the the the vision the vision and and everything,
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once we did that, we got them involved and everything that kind of like gave it another boost, I think. Yeah. Uh Frogboy Rat in Twitch chat says, "Please announce a ship." Boy, are you watching the wrong show. Have we ever announced a ship on SCL? Is that what we We've never We've never Uh there's there's a salvage ship coming in 3.18 called the Vulture. Vulture, I worked on it. You worked on it? Announceable ship. with the Uh so yeah, um you weren't you weren't part of the So so that's how Elwyn joined CIG. Chris backtrack, you said you've been here for 10 years. That is pretty much the sum total of of time the company's existed. It's it's How did you get it How did you get involved with this? Well, I worked with a
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in Austin with a previous company it's called Lightbox and right before CIG started up or Eric Peterson started up the Austin studio. Right before that our company shut down um and so basically Eric just you know, came over to us and and purged a bunch of us from there. You know, Mark Skelton came from there, Chris Olivia um Brian Brewer Tom Sawyer, he's still with us. Um So yeah, a bunch of us actually came over there from Damn, Dr. Tom Sawyer forever, yeah. He's still in Austin. yeah, that's how that happened. So we all got hired. They needed a ship. I was already a hard surface artist for that game and then so it just it's like, "Hey, you know, you want to
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work on spaceships where you are and like and then not too long before that I saw that the trailer to start citizen trailer Chris Roberts and everything and we were kind of working on at at the other company we're starting working on some like space game but I was like I wasn't like too excited about it then it wasn't that great but when I saw that trailer I was like it's like that looks exciting it's like I kind of want to work on that and then I popped that was like hell yeah How did you come aboard Matt? I was contacted by CIG and so I just kind of came in so I don't know I don't know what I was doing at that exact moment I think I was actually looking for work and it just they reached out and I came in Did you work on big gun games?
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Talk to Chris yeah you know they were they were pretty successful but you know we didn't do very many sequels to that but yeah and then it was good to meet Chris and and talked about the vision and everything and it was very exciting very exciting back then it was a little the vision was a little smaller it was before we hit that that achieve that milestone in fundraising where we kind of like opened it up a little more but it was still a a kind of a daunting proposition cuz I was actually the only tech artist at the time so I was doing tools for I was thinking a lot about you know ships but there was characters and we got we hired another tech artist to work on characters so I kind of went I I I kind of went towards my love which is
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more like the ships and Chris was the first ship artist in Austin well in the first ship artist in LA you the first tech artist in LA Hosmer you showed up on a tour and never went home What was your How did you get How did you come to be on CIG? I am what was it I worked on a game called Murdered: Soul Suspect and then afterwards that company kind of shut down. So I was just like not in working for a while looking for a job and then my friend who I played D&D with at the time like showed me oh I've got this ship in this game. It's like a constellation and we can like you can get on it and I can fly it and you can like do one of the turrets. I'm like that sounds really cool and then I looked up the company and I'm like I there was a job posting so I I applied and I I got interviewed and I came over
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here. Well, that's about all we have time for. I mean at this point at this Yeah, I know cuz I told you it was going to go by fast. This show is going to be a little shorter than normal. You guys are here on a summit. You guys are here for for a big ship and vehicle summit and stuff and I've promised to get you back in time for your last for your last you know bits before you have to go. But before I let you go is there anything more you want to say, share with the community? Something that'll get me in trouble? I don't know. Whatever you feel like. I don't know what I'm allowed to say. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it'll get you in trouble? Like I'm going to get you in trouble? I'm working on the whole sea. Okay, you're working on the whole sea. whole sea Yeah. Just uh Yeah, I mean it's been really cool. It's
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a combination of a lot of tech building up over time. It's like a level that moves like an accordion and I'm working on this walkway. It's got these rings and undulates and trying to make it an experience so when you stand inside it it just transforms around you working with the audio team trying to hook up audio on the rings so you're when you're in there it's it's it's going to be really cool. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. How about you Owen? Anything you can talk about? Well, I can say that we are finally have the Santoki Island production. Okay. So that's previously announced but beyond that the ship teams in the UK and the US are working on some really cool ships, which I can't really say much about, but cool ship. There's There's There's more than one
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ship. Yeah, really cool. There's more than one. So, we're doing some really cool new Yeah, we're doing some really cool new things we haven't done before. So, that's going to be exciting. I can't say what I'm What a terrible Yeah, sorry. How about you, Hasmer? What are you doing? I We just finished the Santo Kai white box, and I think we're moving on to the X1 one after that. Yeah. So, hopefully that comes out this year. Hopefully Hopefully I don't know. Maybe it's it's it's up in the air. We'll see. These opinions of Steven Hasmer do not represent those of Cloud Imperium Games, Roberts Space Industries, or I don't know I don't know when You got to get a producer in here to actually figure out when things are coming out. We're not actually supposed to mention the Yeah, so the X1. There we go. All right. Steven, Matt, Elwin, Chris, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.
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Get out. Uh we're going to play a video real quick, and when we come back, we'll have uh members from the Light Summit uh on the show. Stay tuned. Do you hunger for the challenge? Pitted against nature, you will need discipline, determination, and the courage to never give up. Looks like you need a beer mate. Cosmonaut is the premier online magazine
00:30:45
for Star Citizen, packed full of ship reviews, outfitting guides, upcoming events, org interviews, current affairs, history, and more. Cosmonaut is your comprehensive guide to all aspects of life among the stars. Our talented team of writers, editors, designers, photographers, and artists are all passionate pilots and aim to bring you stellar images, incisive articles, and incredible design. Season 1 of Cosmonaut is available for download now. Head to www.cosmonautmagazine.com to get all 12 issues completely free. Oh, and now you're trapped over there.
00:32:08
Now you can't Now you can't go. All right. No, they can they Not in this shot. They he's probably see you in the other shot. So, yeah. So, Chris and Matt decided to hang out anyway. So, you you're going to have to get you back to your your thing in a bit. Uh joining us on the show No, before we do that Uh remember I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the cool crap that's here in the thing. I want to point out these two lovely creations right here. Do we have my Do we have my zoom in? Camera? Look at this guy. This is a gorgeous uh uh pirate Gladius made by Star Citizen Polokus. Uh here's a pirate Gladius. Look look look how slick that is. Um these are not one of the JRDF models like these other ones are. These are These were These were handmade by
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Polokus. And then here is a uh I think one of the executive edition that the civilian F8 Lightnings. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, he got better with the stands as he went on. So yeah, Polokus, a Star Citizen named Polokus, uh some great work. Thank you so much. Uh all right. Just I was really afraid I was going to knock them over and Yeah. Joining us on the show now are members from the Frankfurt and Montreal uh lighting teams. We got Chris, we got Lars, and we got Alice. How you doing? Good. Awesome. Thanks. How are you doing? Uh I'm I'm getting through. I'm getting through. Uh uh Chris, you are the senior lead light What what what Who are you and what do
00:33:44
you do? I I am now I'm Chris Campbell. I'm now the assistant art director for lighting for Star Citizen. Everybody getting promoted. Love to see it. So you're new to the assistant art director for lighting. Yep. And what does the assistant art director for lighting do now? Well, I mean, you know Ian, you've met him before. He's He's a He's a busy guy. He's got a lot He's a big team now. So uh he basically needed some some underlings to kind of help take certain parts of the art pipeline uh and feed that direction through to the the lower teams as well. So I take the direction from Ian. I put a kind of a a lighting spin on it. I think more about the lighting side of it. He's more, you know, bigger picture stuff. And then I I provide that feedback to the team and we try and make the best
00:34:33
looking lighting that we can for each location that we're working on. Well, and you're you're over here from the team in Frankfurt. Yeah, I'm normally based in Frankfurt. Yeah. Alice, you're here from Montreal. Tell us who you are and what you do. Uh well, my name is Alice Pepin des Jardins and I'm from the Montreal team on lighting with Lars and I'm a junior lighting artist. I've been at the company for a little bit less than a year. Yeah. How you liking it so far? I love it here. Did you have any idea you'd be doing this today? Not at all. I mean you said your whole name. I was I was really going to try to avoid it. I was I was I was like I switched the first names just so I didn't have to try to do the last name because I'm stupid American. You can't pronounce anything. Uh so what is it that you do? Well, I'm a junior lighting artist. So
00:35:20
basically when we get like a new mandate or a new location, I get information from Ian and also from Lars and Chris and then we start together maybe with one of the other lighting artists working on the various locations to kind of bring them to life with the the concepts and kind of the direction that we got. Okay. And Lars? Yeah, Lars Hofrichter. So I recently also after Chris became a assistant art director, I now I'm a lead lighting artist at Turbulent with Alice. And yeah, before that I think that happened like in December. So pretty recent recently becoming a lead. Yeah. We're all still figuring it out.
00:36:08
Yeah. It's part of part of the normal you know you know growth process. You know it's it's it's I think there's this assumption that you know the minute we announce something it's like it's done and in place and and whatnot and that cuz that might be how other companies sometimes do it. Folks who have followed the project long enough know that we basically share everything with you about five minutes after it's decided. We bring you along for the ride. So when you hear that you know we're we're we're we're building a ship team in in Montreal or you know expanding out of lighting team like this is some relatively new you know very fresh and very raw stuff. So so so yeah. So what have what have you if anything have you worked on so far? You mean like since we're in Manchester
00:36:56
I mean yeah. Since joining the team at CIG. So I mean I was the first lighting artist at Turbulent when like that two years ago. And yeah in the beginning I was basically responsible for every every lighting or for every mandate that that Montreal was working on. So I did work on all the hospitals. I worked on the so much the derelict claimer the the settlement yeah. The Daymar settlement also recently worked on the race tracks the new ones. Yeah and right now working on the Lorville skyline the the re-remake of the Lorville skyline. The Lorville skyline who was just
00:37:46
announced through the roadmap round up on Wednesday is now being moved into the quarter one 2023 patch the the the what we're calling 3.19. And stuff. So yeah so you know everyone was like oh he said it's moving faster and I'm like I'm like just wait and like here it is uh let's hope it actually pans out or I'm going to look like a jerk. And what have you worked on Alice? Well a lot of the same stuff I've worked also I'm working on the Lorville skyline right now the new one and I've also worked also on the recent race tracks uh, that we been working on and we've announced and Uh, before that, a lot of stuff I've worked on is not out, so uh, since I haven't been here as long as these guys. Uh, so
00:38:33
So, a little behind the scenes how this works. We had a second guest in for the second half of the show and unfortunately they were tied up with other stuff and and ended up dropping out at the last minute and about less than 10 minutes later, I get a message from you guys, "Hey, we're here visiting. We just want to see the spaceship." And I kind of was like, "You want to see the spaceship?" Yeah, I'm going to put you on the show. So, when I when I just So, we're basically your sloppy seconds. Don't laugh and encourage them. I don't need that from you. Uh, so That threw me. Uh, so Chris, uh, all in all besides the adorable skyline, what what what are your what what are your folks working on these days? Um, I mean it's a lot of obviously it's a lot
00:39:20
of unreleased stuff. We're we're working towards the pirate system and uh, there's a lot of things that we want to do in the pirate system, a lot of really big new location archetypes, uh, like the colonialism outposts, space stations, UGFs, that kind of stuff. So, um, we're just kind of in various stages of production with those, just trying to stay in step with the rest of the environment teams. They're pushing ahead faster than we can keep up with, so we're just trying to hang in there, yeah. You're hiring? Um, I don't know actually. I I don't I think we are we're just we've got a new starter actually in two weeks, so I think that that's going to put us in a good spot for the rest of the year. Yeah, but they haven't started yet. started yet. There's still time. So, so so so yeah, I want you to look at this camera here and and and tell this
00:40:08
person what they need to know before they show up. Send me your ArtStation page. Wait, he's already I thought they've already got the job. What do they What do you need the ArtStation now? mean the the new starter? starter, yeah. Oh, what does he need to know? Um, I hope you like uh bratwurst. So, they're starting in Frankfurt. They Yeah, they're starting with me in Frankfurt. Yeah. All right. Uh well, yeah. At this point, I really do have to let you guys go and whatnot and get you back to the show. You guys were supposed to walk out the other time. You can still see You might see entry area back there. It's like I have promised your directors that I will have you back. Um so, yeah. At this point, I've still got like 20 15 20 minutes of the show. So, I'm having an idea. I'm going to try something. Um
00:40:56
Chris, Lars, uh Alice, thank you so much for letting me turn what was supposed to just be a quick tour of the ship into drafting you into the show. you're free to go. You're free to go. Uh we don't have a transition for this. I'm I'm I'm playing it by ears. I'm going to try something. Uh so, yeah. So, you had Go go ahead. You guys can take off. You guys Hey, stay with me. Thank you. So, they're going to walk in front of the camera here. Oh, yeah. Don't watch your bike. Yep, there you go. We're off the We're off We're off the path. Uh Tom, are you there? Can you uh adjust uh the cameras uh to the guest cameras and point them at What did we learn? And I'm going to grab something. Hold on. Stay with me. Look We're going to see if this works. If this doesn't work, this is why you don't pull a audible in the middle of the show.
00:41:44
Hold on. This is either going to be good or it's going to get me in trouble. Is this all right? Can you Can you hit this with the camera? Okay. Oh, I need markers. Hold on. I need markers for this. All right. What colors do I have? I got black and I got green. I just got to You see me? Am I in there? Hi, everybody. Uh give me just another minute. That's Tom. You've
00:42:33
heard me talk about Tom. That was Tom walking by. He's going to walk by one more time. All right. Switch the camera. He's got to get back to the desk. All right. Oh, man. No, I'll do this like this. Like this. Here we go. Hi. And then if you can, move the monitor to where I can see it. I'm Jared. And this is a new segment that I've decided to just pull out of my head. Uh Disco Discusses? Disco Details? I don't know. If it doesn't work, we never do it again. It won't need a name. So, you let me know in the comments what we should call it. I like alliterations, so discuss something. I would like to talk about something,
00:43:20
uh explain something, uh go into detail on something that's a bit misunderstood sometimes. Uh and that's called Let's use Let's use black. That's called the build system. And yeah. That That's my handwriting. That's my handwriting. So, the build system is how is how we make patches. It's where every patch come comes from. Uh and every patch, every build, comes from uh a place that we call Game Dev. Now, Game Dev works on There's a couple different layers. There's a couple different persistent environments uh to development. So, we're going to draw some lines here. Let's do this and this
00:44:10
and this. So, we're going to call this one game dev. We're going to call this one staging. We're going to call this one release. We're going to call this one live. Now, these are four persistent environments. These These always exist. And 90-somewhat percent of all of our developers are usually do their work is usually floating around this area or that. Go ahead. Go ahead and cross. Hi, Tom. So, game dev Oh, don't mind that. Go across. Game dev is where everything exists. Game dev is where code and asset come together. Uh it's it's like the earth beneath your feet. Everything
00:44:59
grows from it and everything goes back to it when it's done. Uh staging is a is a is a is a place where assets are developed. That's That's like one layer removed. Uh it's a place where if you're building 3D art for ships or you're building an set of armor or you're building an outpost or space station or whatever, you're probably working in staging. Uh this is because game dev can be quite volatile. Game dev is where everybody's code and everybody's and everybody's uh assets are all colliding and being checked in and checked out. So, you don't want to work in game dev if you don't absolutely have to. So, staging is this kind of level where the artists can kind of do their thing and maintain some stability.
00:45:46
Release is where stuff goes. It kind of elevates. It's another gate. If staging is more stable than game dev, then release is one more stable than staging. Uh it's where we start to put things that are getting ready to go out into release. This is a bit simplified. Uh there's also like main, there's some other things. We're not going to go into every single one in case uh there's a devops person watching. They're like, "He's murdering this." and whatever. I'm simplifying it a little bit. Uh and then live. Live is an environment that's basically like an internal mirror of whatever's on the live servers right now. Uh so we can mess around with something that is just like what you have live but without actually being in the server that you're in. So like that's where hotfixes and stuff generally come from. Now,
00:46:34
if all the assets, most of the assets in the game are being developed in staging, the question is begged, where do all the Where's all the code? Where do all the Where Where do all the features get developed? So features This is all going to make sense why I'm doing this at the end. I hope. are developed in what are called feature streams. So we're going to do a couple different feature streams here. And they all branch off of game dev at some point. So let's say this one is cargo c a And flight. These are just three that are that I'm
00:47:22
picking up coming to mind right now. There are dozens, dozens and dozens of feature streams. Uh Squadron 42 is essentially a just an an enormous feature stream. But everything from uh persistent entity streaming to server meshing, all these things, they're all feature streams. And this is where they work. let's see what colors. I'm going to use green and blue for this. Now what happens through the course of development is that while they're working in these other environments, occasionally they check things in. So the So cargo will be like, "That thing works. We really like that, so we'll check that in up to game dev. Can we zoom in on the other you do the same one? Is that going to work? Okay. So, that is zoom in. Uh and then flight will check something in. And say salvage will check something in.
00:48:11
And these things will go to game dev. But, they will also pull things down. Like say salvage had something was working on something developed something and then in a meeting the cargo guys heard about it and said, oh, we really want that. So, they will pull down as well. And that'll pull down from there. And that'll pull down from there. These just just just random. They happen at different times in different places uh based on how we think a thing is working, whether we think it's worth checking in, whether we like it. It all goes back and forth. So, so they're separate but still in communication. There's the it's it's not like a big open floodgate. It's little tiny Yeah, I just take this I want to take this file and not take this file. It's what we call check-ins
00:48:59
and stuff. So, everybody's sending things back and forth. As you might imagine if you can extrapolate this down to about 40, 50, 60 different streams, game dev can be pretty crazy. Game dev has got all this stuff checking in. It gets even worse or better if you like game development. Like I mean staging content is also doing the same thing. Staging content is checking things in periodically. And sending things down to game dev. And then occasionally like if you're building a salvage ship, you're like, well, I want to know what how the salvage is going if I in case I need to like change the art and stuff like this. So, they also pull things up. Whoop. I am not an artist.
00:49:47
So, basically all these things Remember, extrapolate this down to like 40, 50, 50, whatever. They're all combining into this gigantic gumbo that we call game dev. It's where the worst of the worst bugs, the kinds of things we never show or we did show once if you remember the Halloween special in 2019, the the easy have before, the things we've seen. The worst kind of bugs in existence exist here where everything just collides. It's where most of our QA works and why QA are heroes and why we'll always tell their story every single time I can because QA, the real heroes. it we work on a quarterly release schedule. So, as we approach time to release a patch, we have to do a phase. Let's use red.
00:50:37
We have to do a phase on game dev called stabilization. I'll just write stab because that's what we want to do to ourselves during this. Now, stabilization is basically where we take all of this stuff that's colliding in game dev and try to stabilize it as much as possible. We also do a thing called exclude. That's where some of the things that have been checked in are not anywhere near done. They they they they they they they they they they not supposed to be in the next patch or even the patch after. That's where the staggered development comes from. Like you're you're working on a thing, you know that thing's not going to be in there for another patch or two, but you still got to do check-ins cuz everybody else is looking for your stuff and stuff like this. So, the exclusion process is how it's like, "Okay, that stuff's not
00:51:24
supposed to be ready till the next quarter, so we start excluding that." Stabilizes the stuff that's supposed to be there, try to make sure that that works, uh and then yeah, it's basically this giant crazy period where when you're when you're hearing when you're wondering when we're going to branch and you're wondering when we're going to go to evocati and stuff like that, it's usually because we are in the state the this phase right here. When we get that to a point where it's like yeah, all right. You know, nothing's perfect. It's not perfect yet, but we feel like we've figured out our exclusions and we got the things in uh that we expect to be in. We create a We create a branch. And we're going to do that up there. And I'm going to go I'm going to tell the
00:52:12
story of last year here. So, we'll we'll do three 17 X. So, we create a branch called 317X. And 317X now becomes this pipe. It it's it's taking the content that's being checked into game dev. It's bringing it back up into staging cuz some of this stuff has never been in staging. And you work on it a bit in staging and and make sure it kind of works, it kind of fits, and the most egregious bugs are gone. Then it moves up to release. These are gates. So, it's just another place to work on it so that if somebody makes a check-in that borks everything, you've got layers of defense. You know, that that check-in will only mess up game dev. It won't mess up staging. Or if it does get to through game dev and goes to staging, it
00:52:59
won't mess up release. Or if it does mess up game dev and staging and release, it won't mess up live. They're all gates trying to protect you trying to protect the developers so that they don't they have a stable or somewhat stable work environment. You're with me so far? I can't see chat. Like I said, we didn't put this together. So, I hope everybody's with me so far. So, from this we make a patch. 17 0. Is that readable? Is that legible in the in the zoom in? More or less, more or less. All right. So, 3170. And that's and that's even that's eventually what goes to to Evacati, to PTU, to then eventually to live. what happens often
00:53:48
is you'll have point patches. We did a 3. 17.1 and then 3.17.2 and we won't go up any higher than that cuz I think that's as high as my zoom in goes. Is that as high as my zoom in goes? Yeah, I can't really go any higher than that, can I? Um all right. That gets That That's enough to tell the story anyway. the common perception is that a point patch is somehow a lesser patch. It is It It It won't have as much uh information or won't have as much code or won't have as much content as the primary point zero patch. Technically, procedurally, mechanically, there's no reason for that whatsoever.
00:54:35
That is a planning and an execution thing. We intend for four patches to go out of a year when, you know, the realities of game dev allow for it and we have designated that each one of those quarterly patches will be a point zero. We had We throw as much stuff into that one as possible. Uh if I remember correctly, last year in 3.17.1, uh that was right before Fleet Week, I think. So, it had the It had the It had the convention halls and it had the Scorpius uh and stuff like that. I could be wrong. Gosh, it was a year ago if I'm wrong. Roast me in effigy on the uh in the comments. Now, what would normally happen at this point is after you've put the patch out, your primary patch out, and you've you've put you've used we you've utilized the point patches to, you know,
00:55:23
bug fix and add little things here, eventually you come back. You come back. Now, while this has been going on, while this is going on, remember, each one of these layers is just a layer of safety and security, so our developers uh can work. Because while that's been going on, these guys have still been checking in. These guys have all been checking stuff in. All been checking stuff in the whole time because the work doesn't stop. That's staggered development. These guys are up here, these guys are still checking in, and they're all adding stuff to game dev while you're up here while other people are up here working in a relatively safe environment trying to get the patch out. So, it means that before
00:56:11
we go to the next patch, the next quarterly patch, which would be 3.18x, we're going to need another stab. Another another stabilization and Yeah, my handwriting's a plague on that. That's not That's not even letters. Look at it. Can you zoom in on that? Those are not even letters, but pretend that says stab. That's the normal process. That's how that happens every quarter. This is how most of this works. Again, there are a couple weird exceptions here and there. Like I said, there's another line called main that I'm leaving out stuff like this. But for the most part, this is a fundamental explanation of the build system. Some features are bigger than others.
00:57:00
Some features are more complicated than others, uh and depending on what you're trying to pull in and what you're trying to accomplish, what you're trying to pull in and what you're trying to pull out, this phase, this stabilization phase, can take longer. Can take longer. Can be more involved. You might remember from the letter from the chairman last year in May, uh we were going to put all we were going to put uh uh uh uh uh uh uh the biggest feature stream that we've had in a long time. Is that too low? We'll find out. PES. Is that seen? okay? So, yeah, you you of see PES. Oops, this way. PES down there. So, PES was going, PES was going, and we wanted to get PES in to game dev as soon as possible. Because as long as it's down there, nobody else is working
00:57:47
on stuff. So, it was important last year to get PES into game dev as soon as possible. And eventually they're like, "Yeah, we're ready. We can put PES in game dev." Now, if all of these other things make for one heck of a gumbo, you've heard us talk about this if you've been watching the programs and hearing us talk, PES really destabilizes the gumbo. So, this stabilization period isn't going to be a short one. It's going to be a very, very long and involved one. Now, knowing that, because we've been doing this for a while, last year, what was decided to do is we would take the normal content instead of not having a patch for months and months and months, that was the idea anyway.
00:58:36
This is back in like April, back in April here at uh or April April or May for 3.17.1. Uh instead of going, you know, waiting until 3.18 to do another quarterly patch, we decided we we exercised a another way of developing patches or another way of putting content in the patches. If this is all the highways, we said we could take the surface streets. It's not a perfect analogy, but basically we went to all of these different feature streams and said, "We don't have to go back and we don't have to go through this to do another quarterly patch if we branch if we continue to work in the 3.17 branch." So, we went through and we took all kinds of stuff. We took, uh,
00:59:27
derelict reclaimers, uh, derelict outposts, uh, the snake pit, uh, planetary nav mesh, um, the the eight new rest station spaceships, the uh, space stations, the GrimHEX hospital, the the the new hangers. We took all of this stuff that was supposed to be in the quarter two patch, and we just said, instead of going instead of taking we took oh I'm sorry, I'm using blue. We said, take surface streets, and take these individual things and bring them into and bring them right into 3.17.2, 3.17.2, 3.17.2. We just rerouted the data. We rerouted the content and said, we're going to come up through the pathway that we've already made, instead of going back through and making the new pathway,
01:00:16
PES was going to make this stabilize thing really difficult, and we were right. It did. Uh, if you're not aware, we're still, you know, we've complete that station, that part, but, 3.18 is still like, you know, we're hoping for for open PTU to all like any day now. That's not saying it's today. It's like we're hoping for any day. It's like we're waiting for the word to come out. So, this has been a heck of a journey, like we knew it would be. But, we were hoping it would be shorter, but so, to prepare for that, we brought all the stuff up. All of that stuff we talked about. The it's planetary nav mesh, the the the AI in all the different outposts, the new outposts themselves, the new derelict reclaimers, all those new missions, the hospital, the all that stuff. That was a quarterly patch worth of stuff. But, it was put into 3.17.2.
01:01:07
That was the quarterly patch. So, what I'm trying to illustrate here, and what I'm wanting to illustrate here, is that the virtue of a point patch is a technical thing. It is a indication of the path that the information and the data and the code and the assets took to get to where it's going. It is not an automatic determinant of the quality or quantity of work involved. And the reason I bring that up, two reasons rather. One, I really respect the quality and quantity of the the work that the people that I do that I work with do, and it pains me when I see people treating 3.17.2 like it was a patch that didn't count. That's me personally. I'm speaking only as myself here like like they did a lot of really good work in that, and I see stuff where it's like it just gets dismissed cuz it's got a point
01:01:54
two patch. That's me personally. But the more effective reason is because if you read the roadmap roundup that came out on Wednesday, uh written by the wonderful uh Jake Bradley of the community team, this is what we're doing again this year. Basically, because of PES, we had PES last year, but now we've got another guy down here called server meshing. And it's going to lead to all it's going to lead to all the same stuff, plus in all this time we've been branched in 3.18, this regular gumbo has gotten very it's it's built up. It's built up, and it's going to take us a lot it's going to take us a while to get through it, and instead of trying to do it at one time, we're going to utilize the
01:02:41
alternate path, the path we've already built with 3.18, and we're going to continue building into 3.18 while teams tackle this underneath. So, what this allows us to do is it allows us to continue to deliver you the quarterly patch that you want and that we want and everything, while teams work to stable while other teams work to stabilize this underneath. It's basically it's working smarter, not harder. And yeah, I just I saw some of the comments and stuff about dismissing the the 3.18 one or 3.18.2 or whatever it's going to be uh stuff like this and you know, they're putting Louisville, they're putting the new Louisville in there, stuff like that. So, and they're still determining what's going to go in. We have to determine what can go. Now, that's the big that's the big ticket. Not everything can take this route.
01:03:30
Some things require too many other dependencies. Salvage and cargo required PES. So, we could not take them and do this route earlier. So, there some things require the dependencies and some things will have to wait for that next branch. But, there's lots of things that folks are working on that don't have to wait. New mining stuff and stuff like that. So, there's lots of there's lots more stuff that we can put in there. So, basically, I just thought I didn't know if this had ever been explained before. I couldn't remember. I've been here for eight years. And if we had explained before, it's probably changed or evolved in the years. So, yeah. This is a little bit about the build system. Uh how it works and why the point patch mentality is an effect, but not a cause. We It is generally used to
01:04:19
mean small content, small small code, small deliverables, but it is not exclusively required to be so. It wasn't for 3.17.2 and we don't intend it to be for the next quarterly patch. Now, again, we got still got to figure out what can actually do this stuff and that's what everybody's working tirelessly on. Jake Ross and Guillaume and and all this folks, they're working on that stuff now and you can keep an eye out on the public road map and the road map round up. They're going to tell you, you know, what makes that trip and stuff like that. I can't tell you that. This is all about process. Yeah, so thank you for indulging me in the first and probably the last disco discusses about the build system. I hope it was informative. I hope I didn't anger anybody
01:05:08
internally. And if if all goes well, I'll see you next week. Next week, speaking of server meshing, ISC is dedicated entirely to the server meshing summit that was going on here last month. We've got Benoit and Roger Godfrey and and Chris Bolty and stuff. They're going to talk all about the new plans for server meshing that are being developed through the through the through the summit that was going on here. And it's going to be a multi-part thing. It's one part first part's next week and then we'll check in throughout the quarter on the that's how the the summit went. So, yeah. So, for Star Citizen Live, I'm Jared Huckaby. And thanks for humoring me. Bye.

Transcript from YouTube’s automatic captions — punctuation and Star Citizen jargon are approximate. The video itself is hosted by CIG on the official channel.