Around the Verse: Episode 2.24

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:15

   [Music] This week, martial arts enter Star Citizen. We sit down with global head of production Aaron Roberts to discuss all things Foundry 42. and we explore the origins of our 3D printed retaliator with Mr. Combustible in the wonderful world of Star Citizen. Also, what happened to my art sneak peek? All this and more in this week's Around the Verse. [Applause] That was a hell of a flip. That was a

2. 00:01:23

   hell of a flip and it exploded. That's as such things do apparently. Mhm. Hello everyone. It's time for another episode of Around the Verse for your weekly dose of Star Citizens updates from Cloud Imperium Games headquarters in Los Angeles. I'm Sandy Gardner. I'm Ben Lesnic. And Ben, what can we do in Star Citizen today? Well, it's not all back flips and explosions, although there are a fair number of explosions. Um, we've got Arena Commander, which is our single seat dog fighting uh battle system. We've got uh Area 18 or Arc Corp, which is our uh sample planetary environment where you can walk around and look at different shops and interact with players. And then uh the real meat of the game right now is in Crusader, which we also call our mini persistent universe. Um that lets you fly uh over 30 of our different ships, some of them

3. 00:02:12

   with multiple crewmen at once. You can fly missions, you can land and engage in FPS combat, you can explore uh distant regions of space and uh see how Star Citizen is really coming together. That is quite a lot going on. And what is the team currently working on today? Well, the team has just locked down Star Citizen Alpha 2.3, which introduces the flyable Jean Scout and the Hangar Ready Starfare, as well as some other uh systems, bug fixes, balance changes, and uh we put that out to the PTU, our public test environment at the end of last week. And we are getting ready for the live release, which should be hopefully very, very soon. And once that happens, the team will move on to Star Citizen Alpha 2.4, which will include some uh new surprises. 2.3 to the PTU kept us very very busy last Friday with

4. 00:03:01

   the addition of the Jean Scout flyable. Have you had a chance? I have not had a chance to fly the John Scout yet, but I did get to look around the uh Starf Farer. Starf Farer is also hanger ready and it is a huge ship. It is a lot bigger than we ever intended. Um, back at the very very start of this thing when it was just a couple of us in a room uh coming up with ideas, the intent for the Starfare was that it was essentially going to be uh the diligent fuel transport from Wing Commander, you know, like the a truck cab with a big tank in back of it. But uh we sent it to Foundry 42 and they uh they made a much larger ship. Yes. And um check out this special video that we made. So this one uh you can actually go prone in in this one and you can go to the maintenance room just like

5. 00:03:49

   this if you're not really okay. Yeah. So you're forced to be coached in this space. But there we are. Okay. This is a two maintenance corridor. So you have all sorts of access to components down here. So, where these big boxes are on the wall, these will be replaced with the actual ship components when they come online. So, this is where you'll be going to repair damaged components. This has been a popular question. We'd like to mention that everyone who has purchased a Starfare Gemini in the past will get a standard Starfare to look around in their hanger uh as a loaner ship. And one thing that may have been missed in all the hype was a very cool behindthescenes look at Andy Circus. and he's going to be playing a VanDuel

6. 00:04:36

   leader in Squadron 42, our uh cinematic uh singleplayer adventure. And it was just really exciting for the team to be able to work with someone whose name is essentially synonymous with motion capture. Um but here, take take a look at a sample He and Patrice speaking in another language is pretty cool. Yes. And as Chris mentions in that interview, we're going to be getting uh the work we did on the VanDuel language out to the public so everybody can learn uh to speak Van Duel. The Vandal Light Fighter Blade also went on sale this weekend. The blade is the Van Clan's dedicated light fighter, the

7. 00:05:25

   equivalent of the Souy or Dark from Ben. You're trying to get me to say when Commander ships again. uh sets me up every time and I just read straight off the thing. Yes, I I was guilty as charged. But uh the blade is pretty cool. It is the uh the Vandal Clans dedicated light fighter. Uh but you know, one of the things we get over and over from people is how can we have more Vandal ships to fly? How can we have more Vandal ships to fly? And you know, we wanted to come out with a ship that didn't make it too easy to get them, but uh gave everybody the opportunity since they've always been uh number limited in the past. So, if you are looking for a VanDuel ship, this is your opportunity. And it was developed by Foundry 42, actually for Squadron 42, I'd say. Yes. Um, in fact, all of the VanDuel ships, uh, from the smallest Blade to the largest kingship were put together by Foundry 42. And, uh, they're pretty

8. 00:06:16

   cool. Our designers are currently answering your questions on the Blade. The first Q&A went up yesterday, and an additional post will hit the comm link tomorrow. So, if you have any last minute questions, uh, post them now to the forums and we will consider them. Yay. And Star Traders is heading into its final days of crowdfunding. If you're interested in a fun board game or supporting some Star Citizen veterans, take a look. And a special thank you to David and Ryan for my doppelganger. It's a cardboard stand up. No. Anytime I need a stand in, I can just put that there. Well, you're a better actress. Why, thank you. No, David and Ryan have been doing a really great job with this Kickstarter. We, uh, you know, crossing our fingers and hope it makes it. We'll all be watching. Um, I got to sit down with

9. 00:07:04

   David for an after hours interview earlier this week. Check it out. Stand up. Yeah, a scan that you're supposed to stand. She might knock down a light if she stands up. But by the way, thank you all very much for this uh gift. This has been very popular in the office. I want to see a series of of pictures. Tickets for Citizen Con went on sale this Friday and they're all gone. We're not saying that so that we can be a tease, but rather we will have a live stream so that everybody can join in. Yeah. If you missed out, you will still get chance to experience everything and we can't wait to hang out with everyone in person. is it's always the best day of the year for us.

10. 00:07:51

    It is. It's always a fun event. We also put printed star maps up for sale. And I think as of writing this, they may all be gone, too, but hopefully not. Otherwise, that becomes a big tease. Grab them while they're hot. But if you really need your Stars to the merchandise fix, uh customized dog tags are still available. Finally, we'd like to welcome Tyler Wicken to the community team. Um many of you may know him from his work as a senior QA tester in Austin. He's going to be uh our next community manager. Uh and you can expect to see him out there on the forums. Yay. And he's coming here next week to hang out with us and go over stuff. Yep. We'll have him on the show and uh we will, you know, warn him what he's up against. So, be nice. Now, let's check in with our individual studios to find out what they're up to in news from around the

11. 00:08:40

    verse. Everyone, welcome back to sunny Los Angeles. I'm Darren Borlick, production coordinator of Cloud Imperium Games Los Angeles. And we've got one of our new members with us today. I'm Justin. Got Justin Wentz, which you're part of the which team? I'm part of the concept team in concept artists. There we go. Uh so for this week with the tech design team, they're working on the Shian Scout, making it flight ready. So you guys saw it in the hanger recently. So the next step behind or after that is making sure you guys can get it and fly in it. So that's an exciting step what we're looking forward to. And with Justin, he's got two exciting pieces that he's working on as a concept artist. What do you got? Uh well, I'm working on the big cargo ship Caterpillar at the moment. Figuring

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    out the crew quarters. So I'm working on a couple pieces for that that large room at the moment. Uh so concepting of the Caterpillar. And how big is that thing going to be? Um I don't remember the the unit size. It's It's really big. And the crew quarters is basically where people are going to be staying in. Correct. Yep. Yeah. We got some some nice bunk beds in there, kitchen area, bathroom, eating area, all that. Nice. So, as you can see, it is gradually expanding. We're accommodating a lot of the player universe type stuff. Uh, so once again, that's all we got for Los Angeles. I'm Dan Borlick. Thanks, guys. Hey guys, Jake Ross here, producer of uh Austin Studio. and I'm here with you this week to talk a little bit about uh what we got going on here. Uh so first off want to talk about hanger storage uh

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    along with shopping which is uh coming out here in the near near future. We want to uh give you guys the ability to actually go into shops and purchase things and things like that. So but uh with purchasing things the next part of that is obviously where do you put the things that you purchase? So we're uh now kind of getting into the the design phases of uh what we're call what we're calling uh remote storage uh which is basically where things that uh the spaces that you can kind of have to store your things remotely. Um it's pretty self-explanatory. So part of that is also uh in the hanger. So we want to create spaces in the hanger where you guys can once you buy things like they you can have them delivered to you to a space in your hanger that you can then access. So, um, we're kind of in the initial design phases of that, um, so that we can kind of close that shopping

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    loop of buying and storing and then eventually selling back and buying sell storing all that stuff. So, um, so yeah, we're we're we got Rob Reiner, our lead designer here in Austin, looking at that. So, look forward to seeing that coming online here in the near future. Uh, we've also got, uh, speaking of the hangers, we're uh, port modification. Uh, what's that, you may ask? It's uh a system developed here by Jeff Zoo uh gameplay programmer here in Austin's that um allows you to basically customize your hanger. Uh we're finally at the point now where we're kind of uh we've we've completely revamped the way the hangers are set up. You know, they were the first things that we released to you guys. So, it's pretty uh they're pretty old. They're pretty legacy. So, we've revamped the way they're set up. We are now working out with what we call a port modification where uh as a player

15. 00:11:54

    you can walk around with your Mummy glass and actually uh you know if you find a port in your hanger, let's say like a little pedestal, you can like click that port in your Mummy Glass and uh actually be able to to switch out flare items. Um you know, we can move storage around. We'll be able to to actually in-game choose which ships go in which bays. So you no longer have to do that stuff through the website. You will actually be able to do that in game. So, uh, we're happy to finally have that, uh, coming online. Uh, now we just need to, uh, pretty it up with UI and, uh, that'll be in your hands pretty soon. So, that's pretty cool. Uh, last thing I'll mention is platform, uh, persistence, uh, conversations that are going on right now. So, uh, Jason Elely, lead server engineer here in Austin. Uh, been having conversations with Turbulent to talk about, um, persistence and some

16. 00:12:43

    of the things that we do on the platform side, uh, like freefly weekends and, uh, things like that, um, that we want to take into consideration when we're developing persistence backend. So, uh, we want to make sure that, uh, we're planning things in a way where we don't have to put things like freefly weekend on a hiatus because the backend work hasn't caught up or anything like that. So, uh, we're trying to plan that out, uh, intelligently. So, we're not, um, interrupting things that marketing and the community team want to do with you guys. So, um, those conversations are ongoing on a weekly basis and, um, we'll be supporting a lot of that stuff here in the back end, uh, you know, as as in the near future as it comes online. So, that's all I got for you with this week, guys. Hello, Tom here. I'm uh just on my own

17. 00:13:35

    this week. It's uh it's kind of busy at the moment. There's lots going on. Um personally sort of recruiting for a couple of new producer positions here and um yeah, so there there's plenty of teams here at the moment still looking to hire. Uh there's um there's lots going on with the vertical slice review of Squad 42 coming up tomorrow. So we're putting builds into QA and really sort of hammering out all the blockers we've got on that um to get this build nice and uh stable and and ready to review with Chris. Um then there's lots of work going on the the ship front as always. The ship team are always busy. They're working on some of the big ships like I Bengal. They're moving on to the Vanul fleet. um well further iterations on the Vandor fleet um which are put on hold uh

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    to focus on these and um there's some ships you'll be getting your hands on in SC live in the not too distant future too. So seeing the star fair is looking really really cool. Um hope you guys en enjoy getting your hands on that when that goes out for flight ready. Um and yeah and there sort of the game code side and FPS code side. There's lots of features still being worked on and and with the UI team importantly. So, uh there's player health system, there's the scanning and radar feature, there's vault and mantling. I do some prototyping with sniper rifles and shotguns. Uh so, lots of cool stuff, all kinds of stuff going on. And um I apologize if it's a little bit repetitive from uh previous weeks, but obviously these features take a little longer than just a week to complete. So

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    there might be some repetition, but um I'll update you with any new work that's started and um anything that you might think would be cool um such as uh there's landing in the back of capital ships being worked on at the moment. So uh yeah, we've taken some more implementation passes on uh automatic and manual. Now looking at how to get a ship in the back of an address. So that's pretty fun. Um hope you enjoyed that. I'm kind of out of time now, so I'll say see you guys in the verse. Bye for now. Hey everyone, Brian Chambers from the Frankfurt office. Um, solo again this week. Everyone's been busy. It's a good thing. Don't want to pull them away if I don't have to. Um, for cinematics team, cinematics team has

20. 00:16:03

    been busy on all fronts. Uh, blocking out cameras, blocking out characters, uh, pushing on tech. Um, hard thing with cinematics is if I mention anything specifically they're doing, I potentially give something away, which I should not do, which I know you probably want, but um, it's best to save it all till once you actually get it in your hands. Um, as far as the weapons uh, go to weapons guys we have here. Um, made some improvements on existing weapons. Uh did some testing in game with some new weapons that they're playing with right now. Um did some updates to the pipeline, make things a little bit more efficient, pump out things a little bit quicker. Um finalized two concepts that

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    have been going on for a while and started on another concept. Um so good progress going there. on the engine side. Um, not a lot of detail, but just to run over the stuff that they've been uh touching on. Um, continued work on the cinematics tools, which is great for Hannis and his guys because they put things together a lot more efficient. Um the tool work's actually fairly important because it's it's going to enable the guys to do things um you know tasks that would take a tremendous amount of time of putting all these pieces together. We can automate some of those things and you know we can pull ships together in certain states with tons of animation and push and pull those in place. So it's good energy to be spent on those tools so we can push

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    out the cinematics at a higher quality. um continued on the procedural planet tech. Um that's going fairly uh good. It's making great progress. Um working a lot with the art team and understanding how everything's going to go together to work best for the procedural stuff. Um pushing on bug fixing as they always do. um some of the build cache system, patching system, um and crash handler improvements, which are good for us to get all that data and be able to sort it and and read it as best possible so then we can get it out to people to fix as quickly as possible. Um AI uh improvements on uh characters moving along predefined paths. Um code

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    for that was completed uh submitted and then the documentation was also done for that. Uh sabotaged equipment again completed submitted and documented. Um general AI balancing. So we're looking at the AI that's in there because it's starting to grow and get more and more and more. We're able to start kind of start balancing it a bit. Um so those behaviors make more sense in combination with the other ones. um some weapon accuracy for NPCs. They did a first pass on refinements for those. Um and also pushing on subsumption that you've heard Francesco and and other guys talk about in the past. Uh level design, we had Andreas, uh he's working on um big landing zone

24. 00:19:27

    and reworking that and and getting that more dialed in. Um, Clement, uh, he's worked is working on a large base for PU. Um, and that's coming together really cool. Um, still early on, but it's great to see the progress that's going there on system design. Um, we had Chris working on with Franchesco and the guys on AI behaviors. Um, he's prototyping stuff, implementing stuff. Once the AI bits get done in the code, then he can start playing with them, see how they work in, you know, back and forth together. That's when Franchesco and the rest of the AI guys can start tuning and playing with those to get them where they need to be. Um, we had Greg, which is the newest guy for the system design team,

25. 00:20:16

    uh, working on subumption, um, and interactors, um, brainstorming on radar and kind of what all that means around there. and he was doing some work on a Squadron 42 big fight. Um, which I can't tell you about. Um, and Dan, Dan was away for a couple days on vacation, but when he came back, he was working on uh reputation. Um, guess they call it a reputation 2.0, pushing it more. And he was also working with Greg on the radar brainstorming. Um, I think that is it for the team. Um, on effects, they're continuing to push on effects. I didn't get a lot of visibility into that so far this week,

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    but um, sometimes with that, no news is good news. Um, just pushing and getting done what we need. So, besides that, a lot of meetings, but making great progress across the board. Um, again, thanks to all the backers for all their support, all the words. Uh we had some backers in this week which was cool. A whole group of 10 guys came in and hung out with the team. Uh which is fun. Um it's always good to see the support. It's great for the team because we get pumped up seeing how excited everybody is. So thanks again and see you next week. Next up, Jared sat down with our global head of production, Aaron Roberts, to chat all things Foundry 42 in this week's ATV interview. Check it out. Thanks, guys. On this week's ATV

27. 00:22:04

    interview, we're sitting down with Foundry 42 studio director and global head of production, Mr. Aaron Roberts. Aaron, how you doing, man? It's good to see you again. Good. So, thanks for taking the time to be on the show here. Uh, you're only in town for this week. Uh, and you've been very busy. you've been in meetings with Ricky and and and Tony and and discussing all manner of Yeah, we have we have Todd in town as well just doing a bunch of design stuff on the persistent universe side of things. Very cool. So, um working on working on on everything like that and um but yeah, it's been great being here and um and seeing the the new office take shape. It's fantastic. It It's getting there. I I think we're we're not quite in final art yet. I think we're past gray box, but we're getting there. We'll be flight ready here real soon. Um, so I wanted to talk to you about Foundry 42. Uh, since you

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    guys came on board, we've gained hundreds of thousands of new citizens and we don't always get to showcase the work that you guys do because our community department is located here in LA. So, I wanted to take the time to to really let people know what Foundry 42 is, uh, what they contribute to Star Citizen, and then maybe at the end of this take a peek forward. So, why don't just let's start at the very beginning. What were you doing before Foundry 42? So, I was working for before I joined um um the great team here. Um I was working for 10 years on the Lego games. Um and we were working on you know all the games such as Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones. That's kind of what I was doing and and that was I came back to the UK from the US about 10 years before and that's how I started working with um

29. 00:23:41

    Travelers Tales and um having a great time there um doing stuff with them. I remember like the very first time we met, Ben gave me crap because we were I was in a room with you and Chris and he was like I'm like Chris Roberts. Yeah, Chris Roberts is a cool one. And then I found out you made the Lego games and I made a beline to you to talk to you about the Lego games. I don't I don't expect you to remember that. And Ben's like, "Do you like the Lego games?" I love the Lego games. So that was like it was like my wink well not quite my wink commander for Ben, but nothing's like his wink commander for Ben. Um now before that, even going back, you've worked with Chris on many games. um the uh privateeer series specifically. Yeah. No, I started I started working with well way way way back and um who's you know originally was he used to make games on the BBC Micro and the guys in the UK will know what we're talking about there and before he went to the US and then he made um games a game called

30. 00:24:28

    Times of Law for the Commodore and um um I I helped out a little bit not much. The game I really did most of my uh I guess real sort of work on was wing the original Wing Commander uh where I I did a lot of scripting for the AI um and and a bunch of testing work back when Origin was a very small company and we were just getting things going. Um and then after that then yeah from Wing Commander I then worked on Privateeer um and um and and and finished that up uh later on and and then it was um Strike Commander I believe after that I worked on uh and then after Strike Commander I then uh I believe Electronic Arts bought Origin and I then transferred back to UK for a I've been back and forth in the UK and US a few times and I that's where I basically produced and directed prior to to the darkening um and then went back

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    to America when when um Chris started um um digital anvil and I joined him to do that and that's worked on Starancer and stuff like that for actually a few of the guys who work with me now uh in the UK office on Star Citizen. All right. So you were working on the Lego games and it's time Chris decides or you decide tell me how this how did it come about? We want to create a UK studio. So it was, let me think about it now. It must have been 2013. It would have been August because it was just after Gamescom and Chris had just come back from Gamescom when I think they first showed the hanger. So it was probably about um uh it was just about 12 months less just in less than 12 months in I guess starting and so Chris came back through to the UK and came through to

32. 00:26:02

    visit me and basically we just started getting talking and um uh and we just talking about it all showing the stuff and thought nothing about had a nice weekend um you know doing stuff together and things like that and then I was actually driving to the airport and just as we're pulling to the airport um Chris literally I'm stop off I drop him off we're at the layby and of course you're not allowed to wait And Chris just opens the door and just says to me, "Oh, you know, why don't you come and join us?" And I'm just saying, "You can't you could have had this conversation two days earlier when we actually had lots of time." And he just said that. He said, "Well, you know, have a think about it and then we'll talk when I get back to the States." And so it was kind of one of these funny moments where I was going, "Okay." And then we just start we got the conversation going and then it all came from there. And the more I thought about it, um um you know, I mean, I really enjoyed working on Lego

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    games and and I didn't think I would leave doing um doing that, but this was just such an opportunity to go and do something um special uh in a way it's not been done before as a challenge, you know, in terms of doing of doing of doing it in this way. And I just kind of felt like I had like, you know, getting on a bit bit long in the tooth now. And I felt like there's one last big challenge in me and this is a challenge. And I love challenges and I like I kind of do enjoy the stress and of making sort of stuff work and I've built a few companies up and I do kind of get the kick out of doing that cuz I built up my studio in Lego and the Lego games up as well from literally those seven of us and then we grew it to like 200 odd and I just kind of enjoyed that trying to get the team together working on stuff like that and so um and it was just going to get work with Chris again as well. I always enjoyed working with Chris because um although he's a very

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    hard taskmaster in terms of what he's demanding of what he wants to see but that's why he makes that level of game he does because he's not just trying to you know hit a certain level he's going he's not he's shooting for the moon he's shooting for the stars right that's Star Citizen and so and I like that because it pushes people to do work harder and better and if you you know and and if you just try and hit 50% of what he wants then you've got this incredible um you know level of detail and and imagination and the games you're making and so and I quite enjoy that and we work well together because um um you know I'm I'm I'm very you know obviously I've done a bunch of direction design myself and stuff but I'm actually you know quite folding quite easily into much more on the sort of the production and procedure side of stuff of making sure when we have all these issues is then you know my job is to go and make sure right we have the right structures

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    in place build the stuff go around and make sure we're coordinating properly between the studios make sure we've got the right teams and that kind of stuff and that's what I spend a lot of my time doing and then every now and Then I get to just sit down and do some design which I got to do today in the last few days and stuff like that which I really enjoy as well. But a lot of it just at the moment is that there quite a lot of travel going around and making sure the organization supports the needs of of of the game. Gotcha. Now I'm a person I have three brothers. Mhm. Um it would give me pause if if I if I ever decide if one of my brothers asked me to come and work for them because I've worked with my brothers before. Um so Chris has asked you to start a UK studio. Yep. Um, did the brother thing come into how does the brother thing work? Um, it so when we were younger, uh, we fought like cats and dogs, like really, you know, you couldn't our parents

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    couldn't leave us in the house together. It was that bad. I mean, u, but you know, but it was funny when I think I more probably from my side, but when we hit when we hit about uh when I hit about 16 17, then our relationship changed completely and we actually gotten really well. And so that sides really good. um you know we you know we can have we still argue but you know it's a it's a you know an adult argument about you know you know sometimes it gets a bit passionate and of course it always does and when I think something's not right and so forth and the great thing is we listen to each other and so forth and at the end of the day Chris is a CEO so he makes the final decision but I'm quite happy to let you know have my opinion known as well so but but uh but that relation that works pretty well actually um you know and that kind of stuff um you know whereas when when I was a bit younger and Chris Chris was always two years older than So, who's always the older brother, so it's kind

37. 00:29:58

    of like always a bit difficult. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. So, you're you're creating a company, um, Foundry 42. Yep. Why not Cloud Imperium Games UK? So, um, because we wanted to, um, because So, the reason why Chris bought us um, B places, but, you know, asked to come on board in the first place was um, uh, to um, concentrate on Squadron 42. And so we kind of wanted a name which was to do with 42 and so for things and so we just like the idea of foundry because you're building something and things like that. We called it Foundry 42. It was the UK entity um and stuff and also there's there's um you know there is already a um a a cloud Imperium um games um UK as well which is a different part of the company and so forth. So we're the development arm um

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    and then basically which and then the development arm basically you don't want to get into too much detail. It goes it you know basically is owned by the publishing arm and so forth. is just all um you know stuff I it's very convoluted that's all that so so the development side is called Foundry 42 and Foundry 42 is not just the UK office now it's also the German office as well um is part of the same company um so the whole European development arm is basically Foundry 42 and there's now um I think about 220 210 220 of us now um in the two offices so it's quite a big big chunk so you've agreed to start a company you've got a What's that process like? Like where do where do you start? Like obviously you have to find a place to work. You're in you're second. So So basically we had a discussion. I then made the really hard

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    decision to hand in my notice um uh and leave a bunch of guys I really enjoyed working with. Um uh and then I just started you know the location we had I had set up the original company was in Wimslow. We loved the location. I like that's the reason I picked there in the first place. Got good transport hubs. Manchester airport is literally a 5-minute drive away or you know you can walk it in probably 15 20 minutes. There's a there's a mainline train station which goes through the country to London up to Manchester which is literally a two-minute walk you know from the office. And so we decided to stay in Wimslow. So I just basically went around looked for um buildings which were available um contacted um um a surveyor in England surveyor someone who basically helps you you know get um the property sorted and then just took it from there and built it out. When I left, there was a core group of about four guys who who really wanted to join um who'd been working for me for years.

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    Um Nick Elms, who's creative director, Derek Senior, who's a tech director, Phil Meller, who's the um lead designer on Squadron 42. Um uh and so we all kind of um we got together and and um and so we kind of left um Travelers at the same time. Uh and then were fortunate enough that um a a few more guys from Travelers, you know, once we'd left contacted us and and and you know, want to join us and so forth. And so originally the the course of maybe 20 people were um some guys from from from the LEGO games, but then now the company is is you know we're like in our office now about 170 in in the UK office and there's probably I mean there's you know now it's the vast vast majority are all people from a lot of different companies from a lot of different countries. We've brought people back from Canada, from the US have come over from um you know all over

41. 00:33:09

    Europe and so forth and things. We've got a really good um development crew there. Gotcha. Now, we announced Foundry 42 at Citizen Con that year, which was October. So, between August and October, uh where was the company when we announced it? Okay. So uh so well obviously from August I basically well we handed my notice and they take four weeks and so um I didn't leave until and so I handed my notice beginning of September from member and so I was actually I finally left um working um travelers in beginning of October and then the company ran from my office at home um for about two three months. So I have I have a and so and so there was basically five of us working out of the office when we got going and if people remember and go way back they might might remember there's

42. 00:33:56

    one or two shots we might have done in this sort of very small area if you go way way back to the to the old stuff and that was in the old office and so and then and and the first guy to join us there was um um David Gill who we know is bone who's who's our our lead um UI um programmer and he was there as well with the office and we're getting getting the code base and working working the stuff from home and then we were working there while the office was getting built out. And of course, as soon as we get into the office, we did. And we got in uh so fast that literally the builders were still working around us. And we just we just got one little room sorted and we just all dove in there and just put all the desks in there. And by then we had about another three or four people joining us. And there was a little thriving group of us in this one room. And then, you know, and then I think when we finally got on the floor, there was maybe about 14 of us. And then we just built from there really. Now, this this is one of those things that gets often forgotten that whole

43. 00:34:45

    first year. It's we're building the game, but we're also building the company. Oh, yeah. No, we're still building the company. I mean, yeah. I mean, and you and it's not just about it's not just getting people, it's getting the right people in and finding them. And then you once you get them in, you've got to get them trained up. They've got to spend time learning the code base. Um, you know, and that kind of, you know, that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, we grew from 14 to like 170 in the space of what, just a little bit over two years. Um and and we've been and we and we are very selective about making sure we get the right people because if you get the the wrong people in it can really set you back in a lot of ways because you think stuff's been covered. It's not you know it hasn't been you have to fix stuff up and so forth and things. So yeah, but it was like so we building the company. I mean you know we started on one floor of the building room which is um you know in Wimslow. We we then got the second floor last year and now we've just got another floor um which we just

44. 00:35:32

    moved into a few months ago. So we're on three floors now. Um and you know it's just this never and then we we basically decided to um you know uh you know obviously got into the team structure the whole pretty much the whole audio group apart from um there's some support in Austin is all based in in the UK and so we then had to we then when we we moved the floor we had to then rebuild out and get proper audio suites and you know audio rooms in there and so forth. I know some of the some of the backers who've done visits around their office will have I've seen it all and and the layout and so forth and things, but it it's um so it's always changing and just getting things sorted. Then you grow and then you have to try and make room for people and then we go through phases where everyone's just crammed in and it's like you know like some sort of sweat shop and then we get another floor and we can just like sort of like spread. So when did you move into that building? Was you said you were in the you're moved in the building in December 2013. Yeah.

45. 00:36:20

    Okay. So, December 2013, we're talking 14 months since the original pledge campaign started. Uh, we've we've got an Austin office. We've just built out an LA office. We're just getting the UK office going and you guys are about to take over Squadron 42. Yeah. The original idea was we would go and run Squadron 42. Yeah. So, what what condition was Squadron 42 in when you took it over? like well I mean it was it was it was obviously you know uh it was very basic of you know barebones stuff in terms of like the whole project I mean you can't you you know that's what you know when you're dealing even even having the the leg up of having the the cry tech obviously the technology needs and has needed and as everyone knows I mean we spent a huge amount of resource and time last year um you know basically making sure it could run the way it needs to do

46. 00:37:09

    to run the game and so forth. So we have like um uh you know like you know just in terms of like all the 64 you know bit changes we have to make all that kind of stuff there's a huge amount of work we have to go through and so you're you're building the code base out you're making all these sort of changes to to make the you know to make the game work. Uh and Squadron 42 is the same because obviously it's a shared code base and so working on it. So we basically started working on the assets. We came out with what the story plan was and worked that with Chris and Dave hadock and and then Will came on as well working on the stuff and things to get the story fleshed out and then we have a we have a large design. Then we started hiring the designers to then start getting all the levels broken out. So we have like a you know sort of different levels there to play through and so forth. Well Erin, that seems like a good place to pause for a bit. We're going to we're going to stop the interview here and come back next week with the rest of this talk. Uh back to you guys, Ben and Sandy. for you guys. Mission control, do you read me? Mission

47. 00:38:14

    control, do you read me? This is Commander Roberts, mission command, Foundry 42. Come in. This is mission control. Receiving you, Commander. The Eagle has landed. The Eagle has landed. Strike recon team is online. Acknowledged, Commander. Transmit identification data now. Transmitting now. Confirmed, Commander. Personnel validated. Strike team assembled. Mission is a go. I repeat, mission is a go. Execute executive order, Squadron 42. Good hunting, commander. Thanks, Control. Good to be back. Heat. Heat.

48. 00:39:26

    Welcome everybody to another episode of The Wonderful World of Star Citizen. I'm your host, community manager Jared Huckabe. And joining us today is our first time two-time featurette here on The Wonderful World, Mr. Chris Wolf, otherwise known as Combustible Props or Mr. Combustible. How you doing, man? Good day, guys. Pretty good, actually. So, what should I call you? Should I call you Chris? Mr. Combustible, combustible props. Uh, Wolfie Works. Um, whatever you feel comfortable with. All right. Thanks, Tim. So, Tim is the guy who is made who he's done a lot of 3D printing. Uh, you may have seen him before. He did his uh his full uh Star Marine outfit. Uh, he's also responsible for that wonderful 3D printed Retaliator model that hangs in the back of our fan cave set. Uh, and that was you, right,

49. 00:40:15

    Chris? Absolutely. I'm not misremembering anything. No, myself and uh Fire Spikes. Spikes, who was another Star Citizen uh fan favorite. He's he's responsible for all that crab stuff, right? Yep. With butter. Yeah. All right. All right. So crab stuff aside, uh we wanted to take a behind the scenes look at the making of that 3D that 3D printed uh retaliator because everybody tends to think, "Oh yeah, I could 3D print. Why don't you just give me the file and I'll I'll print it up and and it'll and I'll they'll have their own 3D printed uh 3D printed retaliator." There's a lot of stuff that goes into making one of these things. And we wanted to take the time to detail some of that. So I understand we've got a a video prepped, right? Absolutely. So if we u I don't have anybody else here. Let's

50. 00:41:03

    Let's roll the clip. Okie do. So, this is the video I created for the 3D printed Retaliator. This just documents all the steps. Um, so what you're seeing here is the entire model and the cube is the uh printer bed size. So, that's what I use to size everything for um slicing. Uh, and this section you'll see is the one of the sections. And you can see it's hollow and it's not filled in. The printer would have a heart attack printing this. So, what I'm doing here is um building in all the the walls. So, you know, blocking it in and making certain it's all one solid piece.

51. 00:41:52

    Gotcha. This looks like what? Google SketchUp. Yeah. I'm I'm not a very good modeler, so this is about my skill level. Gotcha. So Fire Spikes takes the model. He cuts it into pieces for you. Uh no, he extracts it from the game and does a lot of uh processing work. So separating out various parts like uh landing gear. You can see one of the mistakes um when you don't clean the model up properly. Um, so he takes a game model, extracts it and separates all the bits and then uh shoots it through to me and I'll scale it and slice it up uh ready for the printer. And then I on each individual part I'll um you know box in and you know stitch in the walls.

52. 00:42:42

    Gotcha. And I noticed we left the torpedo bay clear here. Absolutely. So we we tried to keep everything functional. So all the the bomb bays, all the torpedoes, all that should be, you know, should be there. And now h how how did you decide on a scale? Uh the scale itself um links back to how much detail you want. So the more detail you want, the larger it has to be. And here you can see the the printer itself with the internal grid structure. Um, I think I scaled it to about 70 cm long and that allowed you all the landing gear and flaps and Bombay doors to exist and be, you know, viable. Gotcha. And this is made of What is this

53. 00:43:33

    made of? So, this is ABS plastic. Um, I use ABS a lot because I can use acetone to to weld it together. Um it's pretty toxic if it's, you know, if you're breathing it in, but uh yeah, it's not too bad. Um so this is the the model together. This is after all the bits have been fused together with acetone. Um the model itself, the 3D print is quite rough. So there's multiple passes with uh you know sandpaper and um oscillating tools just to clean up the surface. You can sort of see all the detail there. Gotcha. And you remember how long you spent on just this on just the sanding?

54. 00:44:21

    Uh this this aspect it would have been at least 4 days just solid sanding. Um as you can see it was quite comfy in front of a fire. But, uh, it's, uh, it's a lot of work. Um, so this is the spot putty. Um, so this is what you need to do to fill all the gaps. Um, once I get a bigger printer, uh, I'll have less gaps to fill because I can print larger parts. Um, so every single join I had to fill. But not just fill, I had to sand it. Uh, so there's multiple passes with the filler and the sanding. Gota. And what kind of what printer are you using for this? Uh, I'm using an up plus two. I'm actually using two. Um, it's uh it's a

55. 00:45:12

    really reliable printer. The only drawback is that it's got a small print bed, so everything you print on it has to be cut up and has to be sized correctly. Hopefully, I'll get one with a bigger print bed soon. I don't know if you can see all the the little holes and things that I'm I'm hitting, but So, this is and and I'm sorry. What made you decide to build the Retaliator in the first place? Uh, well, I I wanted to do a second ship. Um, and it just so happened that uh you asked me to, you know, the information about doing one for CI and

56. 00:46:00

    yeah, I I laughed at that. So, thank you very much for that. Yeah, you're Yeah, I uh most people probably don't know this and they no reason they should, but I foot the bill for this one. So, you you donated your labor. I donated my money. Full respect for that. Uh we actually we actually started this project before I started working here. Really? If I remember correctly. Wow. When did when did we start this? Um close to August, I think. Was it August? I thought it was bit longer than that. Yeah, I think Oh, then never mind. Yeah. Uh so so this is the um the landing gear and bomb bays uh torpedoes. Um, and this is a primer filler. So, it it gives a a very thick primer coating. And once again, this is step one of

57. 00:46:51

    about four steps. So, primer, filler, sand, primer, filler, sand. You can see all the pink areas where all the uh all the spot filler gets covered over and the bombay. And how do you get in the bombay without it pooling up? Uh difficulty. You got to be uh tricky with the the spray paint. So these are the these are the 3D printers. Uh what I'm printing here are the uh the turrets and the bases. I had to redo these because they were too large. They didn't fit into the sockets on the the ship itself. Gotcha.

58. 00:47:38

    So, it's a a slow process. I think this would have taken a couple of hours to print. Yes. I remember when we first pulled it out, one of the one of the turrets fell out and it fell on the floor and we had to do this whole everybody watch where you're stepping. Everybody raise your right foot. Everybody raise your left foot to make sure we found it without stepping on it, destroying it. It's it's a a hard jigsaw puzzle to to do in reverse. So getting everything fit virtually and then doing the same physically in a model format, it's uh it's quite good. Uh so these are the uh the fins. They're held on by uh pins. So they hold right angle. Yes. And I'm here to tell you there is a

59. 00:48:27

    specific left fin and a specific right fin. And if you try to put the left fin into the right fin spot, they will break and you will have to ask Mr. Combustible to make you new ones. Hopefully I color matched them perfectly. So was Yeah. No, they they came across great. Awesome. Uh so this is the uh the matte black. This is the base coat. Um I did a few color tests and this turned out to be the the most stealth looking uh matte black paint I could find. So once again, this is uh the first of about two passes just to try and get all the the nooks and crannies. Looks very Sorry. Yeah, it looks shinier than it ends up. Yeah,

60. 00:49:13

    that's when it dries it becomes matte. It definitely comes out very uh very shiny. Um as you can see here, the the dried color is quite good. Uh, so what I'm doing here is masking off the areas um ready for the red trim. Once I've added the the tape, we just cover the entire thing in newspaper and then spray the the amazing looking red um without hitting the rest of the ship. So that would be bad. Uncle turns anger into fundraiser. It's It's always cool seeing old news stories.

61. 00:50:02

    Heavy duty blue super wipes. What are heavy duty blue super wipes? Uh Chucks maybe. I'm not sure. Chucks brand. I don't think we have those here. So So this is where the paint is. Sorry. The the tape is coming off. Um, leaving the nice sort of red trim. And this is after all the weathering uh and silver paint on the landing gear. How do you do the weathering? Uh, so the weathering sort of breaks up the the flat color like the flat black and it adds a bit of shade to the raised areas. So the the technique I used was dry brushing. So you get a bit of dry you get a bit of paint on your brush and then brush it over the edges

62. 00:50:51

    and it sort of stays only on the the raised uh raised texture. There'll be a couple of um close-ups where you'll be able to see it a bit better. Now the the the one thing that really stumped me is how you paint canopies. Uh like you can't paint clear. So I decided to to settle on a gold sort of um gradient that you know you see astronauts having the the gold uh visors and things like that. So I know it came out great. I would love to see someone make a drone out of one of these. That would be amazing. How about that? They can't make it out

63. 00:51:41

    of mine. Mine's on the wall. Nobody's touching it. All right, man. Well, that was cool. Uh, thank you so much. No worries. Honestly, it didn't look that hard. I'm pretty sure I could make one of those if I tried. I I reckon you could. Just uh get a a 3D printer and you're set. Yeah, that's all you need. Just a 3D printer and that's all. You just pop in the thing, you open the file, and you hit print. Yeah. Well, thanks for taking the time to speak with us, Chris. Um, do you have a you have a you you have your next Star Citizen plan lined up? What are you making next? I am holding out for the new armor that I may have seen recently. That's uh at both parts super scary and super exciting. So, almost it's it's so close. Uh Jeremiah and Omar are doing some fantastic work.

64. 00:52:30

    You're not going to be disappointed. I can't wait. All right, Chris, thanks for taking your time to be on the show. Uh, back to you guys, Ben and Sandy. And that's how we got our retaliator. I know because I saw the same video. Just saying. All right, then. That was our acting performance for the week. Now, it is time for this week's MVP. Envelope, please. Look, it's got nice little pretty stars. And the winner is Fast Cart. Congratulations, Fast Cart, for being this week's MVP with a wonderful spreadsheet detailing all the various Star Citizen game packages over the years, including everything they get you and comparisons to standalone items.

65. 00:53:18

    Maybe a uh comprehensive spreadsheet doesn't seem that exciting for folks interested uh in visceral space combat action, but uh it helps us quite a bit. We showed it to our VP of publishing, John Erskin, who uh was just astounded by it. So, this is this is a spreadsheet that has uh impressed the king of spreadsheets. So, congratulations, Fast Cart. You are this week's MVP. Moving right along, we have the art sneak peek. What is it? The art sneak peek is no more. It has been replaced with a new segment which we're calling ATV Fast Forward. Aha. We now have a new segment to replace the art sneak peek. Check out our ATV Fast Forward where we show you not just art but a glimpse of all the new systems being worked on for Star Citizen. Take a look. Adding foley to characters has always

66. 00:54:19

    been a huge time consuming task due to the high number of markups that we had to do for each single animation. We had to come up with a more automated solution. And so we built a system that drives audio directly from the player movements in game. By doing so, we recorded a brand new set of sounds. The new folly system also allows us to add more dynamics to the character movement as well as achieving a better sync. Here are some examples. Be sure to tune in to Reverse the Verse

67. 00:56:02

    tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Pacific on Twitch. We'll be talking all about that uh fast forward and all sorts of other Star Citizen related issues. If you uh if you love the show or other video content, be sure to hit like and subscribe. I know that sounds silly, but it it does help with our metrics. It helps get the word out there, and it helps promote Star Citizen. So, we'd really appreciate it. Ben and I are also on social and we post little tidbits every day, sometimes on the weekends, too. So, if you'd like to follow us, here's the link below. You guys can tell us what you really think. And thank you as always to all of our subscribers for making this show possible. We will see you next week on Around the Verse. Did you know that many of Star Citizen's

68. 00:57:13

    developers are on social media? If you would like to follow Star Citizen on Facebook, you can find us here or on Twitter here and even Instagram here. And for a full list of developers personal accounts they're willing to share with the community, check out this link. You can find out uh what I bought at Amazon this week. Star Wars stuff. It Yeah, it was probably Star Wars stuff.