Project Zomboid News

To both of you out there who aren’t playing Red Dead Redemption 2 right now, we have a treat! Build 40 has been officially released!

Build 40 contains a simulated weather and climate system – recreating true-to-life weather patterns through 365 days of the year following a virtual warm and cold front system.

Once this version is out and fully patched, then the team will moving into the animation codebase currently being prepped by our friends at T.E.A. for Build 41.

As far as Build 40 goes, the following video gives you a brief taster of what to expect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UmCQZNf5hU

New stuff that can be seen in the above video includes:

Hey all, here’s what’s happening.


Build 40 is for all intents of purposes done now, with one addition that might need a few fixes that we’ll explain the reasoning behind below.

On Tuesday we released Version 40.26 to the IWBUMS public beta. As we forecast last week, this contained:

• New, rare, inventory clothing types to better insulate players.
• Thunderclaps when players are banned on a server. (Optional)
• Better admin control over weather effects
• Fixed map bugs. Fixed missing vehicle skids sounds in MP. Fixed broken MP car locks. Fixed container bugs. Lots of other fixed bugs.

Being the first product of Bitbaboon Steve’s new internal autobuild system though, there were a few teething troubles that caused issues for our Linux server operators. Which has expedited the release of today’s Version 40.27. This contains remedies for annoying small tree collisions, and car battery fun.. but predominantly it contains the below.



We’re pretty happy with the fog, mist, storms, improved snow and other general additions of Build 40 – but something we weren’t 100% satisfied with was getting an indication of wind speed and direction across to the player. There just weren’t any indicators on-screen, and we weren’t making the most of a lot of the work on the simulated climate and weather systems. It was something of a blemish on an otherwise really cool feature. And so Turbo scurried off to his experimentation chamber and…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO-RkLWUF_Q

This is now playable on the IWBUMS beta, but will need some balance and feedback from testers as to how strong the effect should be at different wind speeds. We also, clearly, need to know if anyone notices any change in performance. Right now, trees sway slightly in low wind – and in storms, especially, at night they’re a bunch more atmospheric. (We’ll also be adding in better wind, and other, SFX in Build 40 patches.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq3WR8bq2hY

Through building this system into the game, Turbo has also unlocked some helpful visual niceties that the game has needed for a long time. They will also be of huge benefit to our players who are hard of hearing.  In this build, this includes:

• Doors shaking when zombies hit them
• Locked doors shaking when the player tries to open them
• Trees shaking slightly when the player is chopping them down.
• Trees rustling when the player, or zeds, walk through them
• Trees shaking after car collisions

Please note, however, that in the current IWBUMS beta the bigger trees move too much in response to player/zed actions – and some of the SFX are a bit off. Here’s a compilation vid of the new feature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo80PqbvUXI



Work continues with the TEA’s preparation for the entire team moving onto animations once 40 is final and patched, a lot of it under the bonnet kinda stuff. A big improvement to the animation system and tools is the ability to clone animation states and override aspects of them without needing to completely duplicate the state logic that drives it.

An example of this would be for handling (quite literally) weapons while walking, strafing or attacking. We can now define the core states for handling walking, strafing, sneaking, attacking without a weapon equipped, and then creating other states using that as a template that say hold a one handed weapon, or a gun, and substitute animations while still retaining all the logic tying together and blending the animations with the gameplay. Functionality such as this will speed up Animator Martin’s job of implementing all these states into PZ, and cut down the replication of work from the coders once we’re all inside the system.

• We’d like to welcome ChrisW back to our bank of coders, who will be picking up where he left off with the Sims style cutaways we’d like to make internal building navigation a bit slicker.
• As mentioned last week RJ is now working with Xeonyx, creator of New Denver, to help debug his new Hollywood Studio map and come up with an Official PZ Challenge system for it – for when it’s added to the main game. Here’s another screenie from it.

This week’s sunday service from KurtZ. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

As mentioned in recent weeks, we’re now on clean-up duties before the release of Build 40 – which will then be patched with whatever’s necessary, before the animation branch being worked on by the guys over at TEA is fully merged into the main dev codebase for work on Build 41.

Last week, on IWBUMS beta 40.21, we put in the reflective windows skybox to better show season/day/night (and in prep for a future build’s reflective water), and also included Turbo’s more natural-looking snow, which can also be seen in the featured image above.

In the mean-time we’ve had several other test builds backstage, and are now putting out beta version 40.25. The full changelist can be found here, but the headlines are below.

• Weather patterns are now more random, generally shorter, less intense in terms of screen darkness and have more periods of clear sky.
• Cloud patterns seen on the ground have been updated, and have new textures – night has been improved.
• Ground snow accumulation has been improved and updated, also working better when snow is turned on with admin/debug tools.
• Weather periods can now also be fully modded, including a designated ‘modded’ stage which can be freely modified.
• Insulation properties of different clothing now more clearly shown in the UI.
• Spawns have been added for McCoy Logging and Fossoil vehicles, which weren’t appearing – alongside improved car spawns at gas stations in general.
• Fixed: various chatbox and admin issues, a longstanding MP issue in which loot was respawning way too soon, the weird tile visual effect with some zombie corpses, crowds of zombies launching cars like bottle rockets (!) and players sometimes being trapped in their car (and zombies getting confused) by Yuri’s invisible anti-clip forcefield.

We will be holding an IWBUMS Community Megatest tonight to see how many major irritations remain, and to gather info on the login issues that hampered the last Megatest – should the same problem arise.

If you would like to join in then keep an eye on the TIS forums. Free PZ codes for participants will be available (usual conditions apply) but please note that this isn’t a stress test so the required player number on the server might be limited.

 

It’s been a busy week for TEA preparing for the code merge of the animation build into the mainline development branch as soon as build 40 goes final. They have completed the vast majority of the tasks required for the handoff, at which point they will continue to work on bits of extra technology to make the main animation build development go smoother, and end up with better results, while the rest of the team beavers away converting the main branch’s character states to use their new fancy state system.

TEA have implemented all the character control and combat features that were present in the early animation build, but with the new elegant and fast to implement data driven state logic that will act as example for the rest of the team to use as a basis, as well as being a much more robust and bug free base than what existed before, so we’re hoping that while it certainly won’t be a quick task, with the entire team pushing toward it we’re hoping progress will be swift, and we can finally start showing more exciting videos on the Thursdoids with the confidence that they are finally around the corner. Animations represent a huge amount of work as well as a linchpin for the rest of the major features to be implemented into the game. Each build after and including animations (intermediary quick builds aside) on our roadmap to 1.0 and filling in those missing features everyone has been waiting for (yes, those). It’s going to be an exciting 2019!

After the hand off, TEA will be looking at some extra tech, such as animation retargetting, which will not only mean a much easier time for modders to implement their own animations and models by allowing animations to be adapted to slightly differing skeletons, but will also save poor Martin many many hours of reexporting hundreds of animations whenever we decide to add a bone to the skeleton (looking at you, backpacks!). In addition, they are going to look into finally getting the proper rotation blending working nicely, which has been a thorn in our side since day 1, and would if nailed allow for better turning and much more immersive turning animations. Though obviously it’s key that we retain the nice responsive character movement, so we’ll need to experiment with how to allow for animated turning without the character feeling sluggish to control.

 

This week’s snow scene from Taquitosito. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Hey all, here’s a quick run-down on where we’re at with Build 40 and beyond.


With the final touches being made to build 40, we’re now at the point of making a decision on what to do for the next build.

The issue with huge features like our new animation and clothing system, and everything that comes with it, living on another code branch is you tend to have to play catch-up a lot. The developers on the base game add or fix things on the non-animation branch, those changes need merging in – and due to the vast differences in the underlying code due to the animations this tends to add in extra work for the four guys over at TEA working on the new systems.

There comes a point you’ve just got to go all in and commit, or you’ll be playing catch-up forever. So (even though we have a few non-anim things ready to roll for Build 41 – like improved MP admin and gamepad functionality) as soon as build 40 is live and patched, we will be making the leap and merging in both the work we originally did, and all the extra animation tech that’s been worked on by TEA into the main development branch

This will mean that every developer at Indie Stone, including the chaps at TEA and at General Arcade, will all be working directly on the same version, and the focus of the entire team will be shifted onto making sure the entire game functions with the new animation system.

There is still a lot to do, there’s a lot of game there and things like cars and multiplayer will need some work to get functional, but this move will commit us and the next non-hotfix and non-patch build after 40 goes live will be the animations build.

It also means that blog updates about it all (once the dust has settled from the big switch-over) will hopefully become a bit clearer and less dry and technical. As well as, say, this week’s news that ‘Zac has made improvements to the BlendField renderer to help visualise how the anims blend together’ we can increasingly show how the PZ gameplay we all know and love/hate is coming together with the new visuals etc. Which will hopefully prove less frustrating.

Before this happens, though, TEA need to bed down a few things and prepare some documentation –and we need to get Build 40 out of the door and patched. So….



We just released version 40.17 to the IWBUMS beta, patchnotes for which are available here. We’re pretty much done with Build 40 at this point, but do need to smuggle in some more temperature balance and seasonal SFX.

We’re going to do a new internal test build for 40.18 tomorrow with some required fixes for admin commands and the chatbox, with the intention of then releasing it to IWBUMS early next week so we can have one final Community Megatest to shake out any remaining cobwebs.

There will, as always, be free PZ codes for people who help out – and due to the additions to the game mentioned below it should be a lot of fun. Please keep an eye on the forums for details.

• Turbo has added climate and weather MP admin panels that should make for some really interesting roleplay and gameplay opportunities on PZ servers. Storms, snow and fog can be triggered at will to cover the entirety of the map – as well as overall climate values can be now be ticked to override what the game has conjured itself depending on what time of year it is. Server admins can also play around with how night appears, whether the game appears in monochrome etc We’re hoping that it’ll be a lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b-b9D675Ig
 

• Rain and snow now look like they hit the ground, which makes for a huge visual improvement. Rain then disappears, and snow fades out. Likewise, Turbo has also fixed how precipitation wasn’t clearly visible when zoomed in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQC3PcCBn7E

• There’s also a bunch of fixes including: issues with various in-game tiles, gun sounds not being heard far enough away in multiplayer, two bugs that spawned a random zombie in a barricaded bathroom and the ability to learning from the TV and radio when asleep. Full list here!

This week’s van diagram from La_Chaise™. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. 

Hey all, Thursday greetings.

 

We’ve just released IWBUMS beta 40.14, which is another release that’s primarily fix and polish – our current aim for the devs working on this build being to make lots of quality of life corrections and adjustments while Turbo finishes his weather/climate work and the version can get a full public release. You can see the patch notes here.

To this end this version fixes missing raindrops, absent MP storms and other climate errors – while EP has also figured out the annoying sound volume and delayed sound issues, which should now be eradicated. The telepathic ‘terminator’ zeds trailing after players in MP that several of our IWBUMS testers have reported have also been stripped of their powers.

EP has also made improvements to alleviate longstanding woes with zombies appearing in your vision cone all-too-late in large buildings like the Mall, and Yuri has made fuel caps more accessible through his vehicle anti-clipping force-field.

EP has also been through all the various vehicle features and made them operate as you’d expect when the car battery is dead or uninstalled, also having them still operational until the car is powered down when the battery is removed and the engine is going. Another minor, but irritating and ancient, bug he’s figured out is the frozen food that’s been spawning in freezers long after the final power outage.

Please be aware that SpiffoSpace remains open for IWBUMS testing. This server, based in France, has no password and can be found by anyone running the beta (access details here). Once we’ve added in some admin power over weather (admin-triggered storm/snow/fog etc) we will be coordinating a Community Megatest on here.



Due for internal testing over the weekend and early next week, Turbo has redone the way the IWBUMS beta currently has changes in temperature, and resistance to hot and cold, impact on the player. Although it works okay-ish currently, the edges were too rough – and deaths were often broken/cheap.

His revamped system focuses on how resistance to the elements is calculated – and the way it takes hunger, thirst, worn clothing, wetness and exercise all into account should be a marked improvement. The temperature ‘safe zone’ range will be wider too, and the system takes ‘real time’ minutes into account rather than ‘game time’ – so fast forward peril is decreased, alongside being dead by dawn next to the embers of a camp fire.

The next version will also improve weather visuals to better distinguish rain from snow, and add in temperature conversions – so our Kentucky setting gets its proper and correct Fahrenheit readings, rather than horrid old European centigrade.

 


While the four guys over at T.E.A. continue to work on our new animations system, we thought it might be worthwhile mentioning the fifth horseman of that build: our music composer Zach Beever.

Since animations are such a fundamental evolution of the game, we want a whole bunch of new music to bring players along emotionally with the new visuals. Zach’s been working with us for months now, preparing a whole host of new tracks, many including familiar themes and motifs from old favourites.

Rather than drip them in one by one, and to give him time to work on them as a collective whole, we felt their impact would be far greater if they all went in together. To this end, behind the scenes, Zach has now completed 19 new music tracks, with more to come – and a part of one of the latest can be heard below.

https://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/zacpreview.mp3?_=1
     
For thoughts on his direction and inspiration for the music, we thought we’d ask the man himself.

“When I began work on the soundtrack some years ago, part of the overall vision was to incorporate instruments that were totally removed from the Kentucky setting. The thinking was to mirror the massive shift in the world—that whole zombie thing—with an equally big change in the (expected) music. What could have possibly been played by the banjo and fiddle, for example, went to the tar and duduk.”

“Recently, though, the team brought up a player’s suggestion to reexamine this and tie in aspects of the local music. This took some thought and a good bit of experimentation, as I didn’t want to upset the identity we had created for Zomboid.”

“The result is a new set of tracks that, I believe, expand on the old ones faithfully—the mood is still there, but now we’ve got American-style sounds mixing with the more middle-eastern sounding ones. When everything’s heard together, I hope the occasional appearance of these instruments (and their distinct playing styles) hints at the past world.”

 

Behind the scenes there’s currently a lot of conversation about revamps of existing systems (farming, last week’s thoughts on polishing the power outage etc) but something else we’re discussing are ‘survival-style’ skill and recipe-based enhancements to vehicles. To which end, we thought we’d float this image of our potential direction with this in front of the community – to gauge opinion and gather some feedback.

Please note that this is NOT a final representation – it requires a full art pass, not to mention a lot of coding work that will likely come from General Arcade’s Yuri for a future build. It does, however, show how a modular model system could work – and we’d like your thoughts on it.



 


It’s currently the Annual Penisham Celebration on our forums. Feel free to join in, but be aware that Penisham will only be available for another five days.

This week’s patriotism from GodImtrash . A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. And did you ever wonder how the Knox Event played out in the UK, well wonder no more…