Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 21th Development Status. You can see what we were working on the last two weeks.

LODs
Because our tanks most of the time are going to be used on the wide open areas where is loads of vegetation we have to focus on optimization. At the moment for every tree and bush, our artist is preparing LODs (LOD stands for the level of detail, and it’s the process of making less detailed versions of our models that are viewed when they’re further away from the camera.) By doing this we want to make sure that every single one of you is going to be able to play our game with a high FPS number.

Here is a polycount example of our tree which has LODs:

LOD0 - 11.000
LOD1 - 5.000
LOD2 - 2.000
LOD3 - 500
LOD4 - 8



New character face
When it comes to our work on characters, we focus now on making new faces for characters.


Camouflage Net
One of the features of Tank Squad is the possibility to place camouflage nets with branches on tanks to camouflage them.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Tank models

We've been getting a lot of questions lately about how many and which tanks will be available in Tank Squad. We have to admit that our team is not entirely sure about this ourselves. At this point, we're focusing more on gameplay and mechanics than making a list of potential vehicles to add. However, we're sure that new content, including vehicles, will be added even after the game's release to keep adding to the base of available tanks. We still have a lot of challenges and tests ahead of us on the implementation of the new vehicles, so we will keep you updated on how they are going.

Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 20th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

Tree destruction

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Besides bending, ripping off, and destroying trees and bushes VFX Artist also needs to make brand new foliages and for this, he is using SpeedTree software. Corylus avellana or simple Common Hazel is the first species of shrub we are making. Here are a few examples of full shrubs:


And single branches with leaves:


There is another reason to survive the whole campaign - hazelnuts in September and October :)

Repair Station

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This time we would like to show you the progress that we’ve done on the repair station. Four players can cooperate to repair a tank using a crane. Interactive tank parts and objects are highlighted with a colorful outline. We’ve added a dot to increase the precision of selecting objects that players want to interact with.
To use a crane player has to use WASDQE keys. We’ve added a simple placeholder UI as without it crane controls were confusing even for us. Another thing is that to be able to place some tank parts or objects on a tank, you have to make sure there that nothing collides with the spot. Like you could see in the video, you can’t place an engine cover on a tank unless you rotate the turret.

Enemy vehicles AI

Our AI code was rewritten, so we can use the same code base for player tanks and AI tanks.
Now, our AI tanks are synchronized in multiplayer. Code for AI was optimized and cleaned.
We fix many bugs in AI spawners, and we started to connect their behavior to our BattleManager.

Synchronization

We’ve rewritten and optimized our synchronization code for multiplayer. Now, it is way smoother than before. Many bugs connected with it were fixed during this process.

Motion capture Rokoko

One more look on the work with Rokoko motion capture animation. Shooting from Mosin Nagant 91/30 with scope.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a nice weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Boo, tankers! 🎃[/h2]

Today's development status will be a little different from previous ones... We didn't give candies to the kids from the neighborhood who came to our office, and they pranked us! They uploaded Halloween related malware to our project and we didn’t manage to deal with it yet. Anyway, we decided to present you a 19th Development Status and our work as always, every two weeks.




German Campaign

We’ve prepared a draft for a German Campaign made of 6 missions. Each mission is on a different map and has got different characteristics that make it special and unique.

So far the missions are set in this order:

• Small Village - Learn basic mechanics of the game
  
• Village with river - Learn complex mechanics of the game
  
• Forest - Close distance combat
  
• Steps - Long distance combat
  
• Village with train station - Tactical Battle
  
• Village with fortifications - Tactical Battle
  

Each mission is going to have a set of scripts that control the pace and the difficulty of the mission. The scripts include:

• enemy units behavior
  
• friendly units behavior
  
• mission objects
  
• mission events
  
• player’s decision influence on the mission
  
• randomization
  
• events
  

Animation motion-capture

This week we’ve configured and began to record character animations using Rokoko motion capture technology. It consists of a special costume with sensors over whole body including head and fingers.
We went to a shooting range to record shooting animations.
With motion Capture we've tried to obtain animations like: Moving with Weapons/ Changing position from stance to crouch to prone/ Shooting / reloading weapon / Position for holding specific weapons.

Weapons we've used: Rewolver Smith Wesson, PPSh-41, PPS, Mosin–Nagant, Kar98k, MG42, DP28.

Some of the animations we’ve done in our office:

• Pouring fuel
  
• Instructing a driver
  
• Turning on an engine
  
• Pulling cables
  
• Using hammer
  
• Firing with mortar
  
• Digging with shovel
  
• Soldier surrender
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Repair Station
New features:

• Engine Stand Model to make tank’s engine easier to repair
  
• Player can pick up those objects and place them on a tank:
  - Flag
  - Sandbags
  - Canisters
  - Shovel
  - Camouflage
  - Tools
  - Boxes
  - Barrels
  - Tank parts
  
• Outline for objects to pick up
  
• Ghost object to show the player where to place and object
  
• Multiplayer synchronization
  
• Entering a tank through a hatch
  
• Turn on/off the engine to be able to repair a tank
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Bendable plants

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thanks for all the support and have a SCARY weekend 🎃
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 18th Development Status. Check out our two weeks of work.

DP28 Weapon

DP-28 was a Soviet light machine gun, chambered in 7.62x54mm R, featuring a very unique and recognizable feature, a pan magazine. Deployed in 1928, and withdrawn in 1960 in USSR, it still serves some other countries to this day. It was used in aircraft (DA) as well as in tanks (DT), each having its modified variant.



Repair Station

Here is our new interpretation of a German repair station. We are trying to reconstruct the spirit of the field repair station as best we can, using real references from the Eastern Front. You can see that there is much more detail than on the previous version we had before such as new vegetation, spare tank parts, ammo boxes, etc. As players, you will spend quite a lot of time here supplying and repairing your tanks, so let us know what you think about it.



BMW R75

We are working on a german motorcycle BMW R75 model. We have a high poly model and we are going to optimize it and texture it. In Tank Squad you will be able to ride the motorcycle and also you will be able to make simple repairs on it like changing a wheel or refueling it. Motorcycles were often used under Kursk and we want to replicate that in our game. They were popular amongst tank engineers who needed to reach immobilized tanks quickly. Also, they were part of recon.



Post Process

One part of the visual aspect of the game is a post process. We are configuring color balance, saturation, contrast, light color, etc. Each scene is going to have its own post process settings. We want everything to look nice, sometimes changing post process in one aspect make something else look worse, for example, fire begin to look too bright or sky too dark so it requires quite a patience but effects speak for themselves.



Thank you and have a nice weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 17th Development Status. You can see what we were working on the last two weeks.

Player character

Although Tank Squad will not be a typical FPS, you will still be able to get out of your tank and shoot enemies. We are constantly optimizing and improving code for our character controller. At the moment we are working on the smoothness of movement and aiming. Also, we are making players able to take simple actions, like picking up stuff, press buttons, etc.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Destroyable Trees

Our tanks can now drive through wooded areas, ramming trees and bushes along the way. We can feel the heaviness and the destructible power of our tanks. In further iterations, some trees will be bendable and some will break immediately.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

New Universal Vehicle Code

We took code used by our tanks, the Physic Tank Maker and now rewriting it to use more optimized model-controller approach (this give us less amount of Components on GameObjects - this means less ram and cpu usage).

We already did this for:

• Driving
  
• Aiming
  
• Shooting
  
• Rotating Turret and Cannon
  

Change it to use not physic base approach, as it was causing much trouble for us.

• AI (WIP)
  

It will use that same path finding system as our infantry, so it will be much easier for us and more optimized than standard NavMesh (Path Finding is a system that allows AI to find obstacles)
This new AI system will have better code for finding allies, enemies, aiming and shooting.

It also is rewritten to be more universal:

• So it can be used by all of our game’s vehicles
  
• So we can use one prefab for both player and AI (both ally and enemy)
  

Environment
We’re working on new materials for terrain, which include:

• Grass
  
• Field
  
• Road
  
• Mud
  
• Dirt
  

We take great care to make levels look nice and aesthetic. In terrain we are using smart materials, which improve the production time and effort. Also smart materials give us more creative freedom.



Question
Since we are creating these development statuses for you - our future players, we want to pose a question to you.
What content would you most like to see in our statuses?


Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals