Operation: Harsh Doorstop News

Welcome to the fifteenth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of October 2021.

Not a whole lot to go over this month, as most of what was worked on was behind the scenes with the programming team, so this will be a smaller devblog. That said, as of this devblog we have just implemented the very first iteration of the animation overhaul into the Test Environment build of the game, so if you would like to check it out, boot into that version. Please keep in mind that this system is extremely work-in-progress, and what you are going to see as of this first iteration is nowhere near final—a lot has been broken, since many things need to be hooked back up into this new system in order to be functional again (which is part of the team’s main focus in the coming weeks). I will include more information about this system towards the end of the devblog, as this is a pretty major overhaul to the OHDcore framework, and many of the features that are in/planned to be in will be depending on this system.

On to the October recap:

Expansions

[h3]Operation: Invictus[/h3]
The Emissary Development Group Handstop & Witt Machine Big Body Tu-Tu-Three models that were shown off in the last devblog have been completed:



The character artists also put more work into the Eastern European militia model:

Maps

The level designers continued to experiment with lighting on Risala, Khafji, and Monte Cassino:

[h3]Risala[/h3]


[h3]Khafji[/h3]
In the photo above with the arches, you can see a new sand particle effect that the level designers are starting to mess with and add to Khafji as well

[h3]Monte Cassino[/h3]

Objects, Models, and Textures

[h3]World Props and Environment Assets[/h3]
Last month the environment artists worked on an updated art and optimization pass to our desert environments:



Soon, the team will begin doing another art pass on these maps to add more detail and make the environments look more war torn and lived in. They are also focusing on optimization along the way since they will be redoing many buildings, which allows them to do things like reduce draw calls and improve overall performance.



This is an example of our new work flow for this art pass. Buildings will now feature a layered material composed of multiple materials that will allow us to add detail across the buildings in a more flexible way. We are not currently doing this on the buildings you see now. The current building’s purpose has always been to be placeholder while the level designers and environment artists hone in on a more finalized map creation and art direction work flow, so it has been much easier for them to use more basic buildings while so many other elements of the maps are still in flux/constantly changing.

Some more images of props that were created for this scene:

Upcoming and WIP Features

[h3]Animation Overhaul[/h3]
The new animation overhaul that I mentioned at the start of the devblog is now in the Test Environment. Once again, this system is extremely work-in-progress, and what you are going to see as of this first iteration is nowhere near final—a lot has been broken, since many things need to be hooked back up into this new system in order to be functional again (which is part of the team’s main focus in the coming weeks).

This system is going to allow us to do many things to improve the gunplay, the overall player controller, and open up greater potential for many other systems and features that we are planning on adding. This includes, but is not limited to: completely procedurally generated animation blending (which allows us to do things like reloading while in ADS), vaulting and mantling implementation, bipodding and weapon resting, support for weapon customization (so we can do things like make it so the hand stays with a foregrip if it’s moved up and down the rail without needing to add in new animations, for example), alternate optics (such as being able to use a scope plus a canted optic), and so on and so forth. In addition, this system also reduces the amount of animations required per set for any given weapon/item that will be utilizing this system, which means that not only will our animators be able to become more efficient with the volume of animations they produce (which means weapons can get set up and ready for gameplay sooner), but it also means that modders will technically also be required to do less to set up a weapon for any mods they are making, thereby making it easier to create more modding content overall.

We cannot stress enough how major this update is, and all of the doors that it is opening up for us to be able to pursue a lot of features that we and many others want to see—we can’t wait to get this system fully fleshed out and configured/polished up, so that we can start working on all of these other features.

[h3]Bots/AI[/h3]
More work was done to the bot AI last month. Now, all bots can join and create squads, spawn at rally points and FOBs, and they will sprint, crouch, and go prone depending on whatever scenario they are in (such as getting shot at). In addition, a number of parameters were exposed in the SDK so that modders have some more options to tweak the bots to their liking.

Next up, the AI programmer will be polishing up existing systems, and putting some more focus into expanding the tactics and strategies that the bots will be able to implement in certain scenarios (such as bounding/peeling, flanking, and so on). There will be a lot to do here, so this probably will not happen right away, but now that a lot of these baseline systems are implemented and in a playable state, it will be easier for the AI programmer to start focusing on enhancing the PvE experience further.

—

That’s all for this month. I apologize for getting this devblog out late in the month—October-December tend to be extremely busy for us, so it has been hard to find the time to get to this when I had hoped to. I will try to get the next one out sooner, and we should have a lot more content to show off next month as well!

Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and/or follow our Steam announcements to track updates, and if you would like to support us early on in development don’t forget you can do so on our Patreon! See you all next time!

-Goomes, Lead Community Manager




Website
Discord
Youtube
Twitter




Twitter
Discord
Website

Welcome to the fourteenth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of September 2021.

To start this one off, I would like to recap the new roadmap that we recently put out for O:HD looking at the next 6 months:



We are still relatively on track with the last roadmap that we put out, however, we have recently been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to onboard a few new developers that will help us complete an overhaul to the animation systems, as well as the user interface, so we have had to adjust the order in which we tackle some of these tasks and bump the timeline out a bit as a result. This means that we have unfortunately had to move our focus on getting the first implementation of vehicles back to a later date, as some of these overhauls are somewhat time sensitive due to developer availability (namely the animation overhaul system).

Fortunately, getting these tasks completed will be very important for numerous objectives/milestones that we have. The animation overhaul will open the door for some major improvements to our entire animation pipeline by allowing us to incorporate new features (like weapon resting/bipodding and canted aiming), improving the overall look and feel/quality of the animations, and requiring the animators to do less animations per weapon/item (which means they can get even more done in a shorter amount of time). The UI improvements will also be the first step in allowing players to do things like having more control over their game settings, doing things like starting matches with bots without needing the console, a whole new server browser experience with filter systems, mod management, and more. In addition to menu based improvements, we will be redoing the entire in-game HUD/UI with this overhaul, which will also enable us to incorporate things like damage indication, prepare for an upcoming medical overhaul, and more.

We are also currently still planning on a public playtest on Steam, and now we will be utilizing Steam's playtesting system to do so. This is something we feel will be much more ideal for us, as we want to get more people into the game while not rushing development or launching into early access prematurely (not rushing these crucial stages is very important to us). We will have more information about this in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned for that.

Make sure you check out the rest of the roadmap to see what else we will be working on during this time. Now let’s get into the September recap:

Expansions

[h3]Operation: Invictus[/h3]
We do not have a Three Round Burst interview this time around, but we do a have bunch of new gun models and parts to showcase:

Barrett M82 in black and spray painted variants

Dragunov


Beretta M9 to replace existing model

MP443 Grach


Trijicon ACOG and RMR

Aimpoint Micro T-1

M203


EOTech G33 Magnifier

RPK16 Drum Magazine

Cloud Defensive OWL Light

ZENITCO Perst 4

ZENITCO RK-2 Handgrip

AKS74 Stock

Emissary Development Group Handstop & Witt Machine Big Body Tu-Tu-Three (WIP)

An example of what many of the parts above will be used for—prototyping our weapon customization systems

The character artists have also gotten close to finishing a new character model for a faction that will be used in Operation: Invictus:

New Eastern European militant model for an upcoming character pertaining to Invictus’s story/lore

Maps

[h3]Khafji[/h3]
The level designers experimented with some new lighting on Khafji, as well as made updates to the foliage:



[h3]Lam Dong[/h3]
Lighting on Lam Dong was experimented with as well:



[h3]Risala[/h3]
Risala also received some experimentation to its lighting:

Objects, Models, and Textures

[h3]World Props and Environment Assets[/h3]
More world props and environment assets have been made to help flesh out the detailing on all of the maps:


Ammo and weapon cases/containers, concrete barriers, a fuel tank, military flood lights, and a water tank

[h3]Foliage[/h3]
More foliage assets were created for use on existing and upcoming maps:

Upcoming and WIP Features

[h3]Animation Overhaul[/h3]
As I mentioned in the start of the devblog, we are currently working on a complete overhaul to our entire animation system and pipeline. This rework is going to allow us to make the weapon animations more dynamic/procedural, reduce the amount of animations needed per set, and open the door to many new functionalities and features that we have long planned for, such as weapon resting/bipodding, using canted and backup sights, holding the weapon in alternative forms (like braced aiming/point shooting), and more.

Here is a good video recap that Bluedrake did showing off some of these systems in their early/WIP stages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqDyQEBq0n4
[h3]UI Overhaul[/h3]

We are also working on a complete overhaul to the UI/UX of the game, which will not only encompass what the menus will look like, but also the in-game UI.

Here are some mock-ups for the menu redesigns:



And a WIP concept of the overhaul to the in-game UI:



Please keep in mind that these images are all still very early, placeholder, and are subject to change. Right now, they are mostly being designed with functionality in mind, and once all of that is completed the art team will be redesigning the aesthetics and overlook look/feel as they see it appropriate.

[h3]Other Fixes and Improvements[/h3]
The lead programmer optimized the game's file structure when packaged so that the patching process is a bit faster/more consistent for new updates on Steam, among some other miscellaneous fixes and tweaks. He also finished up the first iteration of mod support that was included in the last SDK release.

—

Thanks for checking out our update for September! I apologize for getting the last two devblogs out so late in the month—next month I will be aiming towards releasing the October updates during the first half of November, so I anticipate another devblog will be out not much longer after this one is posted.

Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and/or follow our Steam announcements to track updates, and if you would like to support us early on in development don’t forget you can do so on our Patreon! See you all next time!

-Goomes, Lead Community Manager



Website
Discord
Youtube
Twitter




Twitter
Discord
Website

Welcome to the thirteenth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of August 2021.

August marked an important milestone for O:HD, as it was the first full month that modders were able to get their hands on the OHDcore SDK and start experimenting with modding. There have already been a lot of very cool projects being made, including night vision and thermal mods, a picture-in-picture system for scopes, a handful of new maps, total conversion projects, ports of existing mods for other games, retextures of models, and so on. It’s been great to watch people show off their work, figure out challenges and learn new things together, and help each other out. Here soon it will also be possible to actually package and play these mods as well, so everybody is going to be able to enjoy and share their creations with the community.

We have also successfully contracted several members of the modding community to officially work on O:HD in order to incorporate their mods into the base game (which I will go into more detail about later in this devblog), so it’s already excellent to see cohesion and working relationships being generated between the modding scene and the official development team—this is an important part of our vision of working alongside the community to make O:HD into the framework and experiences that everybody wants to see. The support on the Patreon has been a massive help as well, and is a big reason that we are able to do things like this with the community, so thank you to all of the Patreon backers that have been showing support!

We greatly appreciate everyone who has been active with modding so far trying out the SDK and giving us feedback! The SDK is still very much a work in progress, so all comments, critiques, questions, and so on have been extremely helpful for the team in planning future improvements and updates to the framework. If you want to chat with other modders, are looking for a place to learn more or help others out, or just want to talk about game dev and modding, be sure to join our Discord and look for the modding categories!

Now onto the past month’s worth of work:

Expansions

[h3]Operation: Invictus[/h3]
We have another round of the “Three Shot Burst” developer interviews prepared by the ISMC team:

Interview with Dean, a.k.a. Wolf_95, developer for Operation: Invictus

Operation: Invictus is the flagship expansion for the upcoming title Operation: Harsh Doorstop. It is the newest project created by the original devs of the ISMC mod.

1. What are the most important lessons you've learned from the games you've previously worked on?

The two most important things I've learned are these: don't be afraid to make mistakes, and use your free time wisely. on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, I did facial animations for Cpt. Price, Alex, Farah, and Gaz - and there was a ton of "learn by doing". The crunch time was tough and I was worried I was in over my head, but I recalled my old boxing coach's advice: Pressure makes diamonds. I worked vigorously, asked questions, made mistakes, and learned from them - all of which made me better.

2. In what ways has your experience playing airsoft influenced the way you think about art in games/films?

I enjoy learning about things by stripping them apart and putting them back together - hopefully improving them as well. It's a useful perspective in 3D modeling and animation - I wanted to understand every small detail, and that gives me insight on how to improve them. Airsofting also taught me effective teamwork towards a common goal, and making that process as fun as possible. In games, I think the fun you have making it is reflected in the final product, and it's impossible to fake.

3. What franchise would be your dream to work on?

When I was two, my dad and I played Resident Evil, and I've been hooked on the series ever since. [laughs] I have the Umbrella Corporation logo tattooed on my arm/neck/shoulder/ass. The time we spent playing that game is what interested me in game development, and it'd be so fulfilling to work on the series. I'd love to help make a Resident Evil: Outbreak MMO/Survival-Horror someday - that's been a dream since I was young.

Bio: Dean, a.k.a. Wolf_95, is an experienced CG industry professional, working on The Last of Us: Part II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), Gears of War 5, and the film IT Part 2, as well as others that are still under NDA. He creates 3D models and character art for O:HD. He's an accomplished musician, and an avid airsofter, living in Southwest Scotland.

Here is some of the new content for Operation: Invictus that the ISMC team worked on last month:

AS VAL


SVD/Dragunov


New Eastern European militant model for an upcoming character pertaining to Invictus’s story/lore (and yes he will receive boots)

Concept art for more variations of the global terrorist network that will be used in Invictus’s story/lore

[h3]Operation: Overlord[/h3]
New assets for the Operation: Overlord expansion:


M1911A1 to replace the existing one—this will of course not just be used in Operation: Overlord as this pistol was used throughout numerous wars/conflicts


Motorola SCR-300 Radio Transceiver


ZF39 Scope for the Kar98

[h3]Operation: Rolling Stone[/h3]
The NVA character has received a new head:

Maps

[h3]Lam Dong[/h3]
Lam Dong’s jungle foliage colors were tweaked to blend together better with the environment (plus some pretty screenshots):



[h3]Monte Cassino[/h3]
Monte Cassino was finalized with tall and retaining walls, props were placed throughout the outside of the Abbey and in the Abbey courtyards for hard cover, and foliage was improved (including more natural ground clutter in certain places):



[h3]Argonne[/h3]
No updates for Argonne, just some nice screenshots of the new scoped Springfield rifle:



[h3]Risala[/h3]
No updates for Risala either, just more nice screenshots showing off the scoped SKS and some of the map’s scale:



[h3]Khafji[/h3]
The landscape materials for Khafji were tweaked for more variety of ground textures, and more ground details:

Animations

New weapon animations were made:

MP7, M40A1, FG42, M3A1 Grease Gun, MP40 (this one is older but never included in prior devblogs)

Objects, Models, and Textures

[h3]World Props and Environment Assets[/h3]
Various props and environment assets were created for Risala and Monte Cassino:

Gate/arches for Risala, and a fountain and statues for the Abbey in Monte Cassino

And an ammo supply crate:



[h3]Weapon Parts[/h3]
An optic was also made by a new modeler on the team:

Colt Brownell 3-4x Optic

Upcoming and WIP Features

[h3]Community Hires[/h3]
Thanks to all of the generous support we have received on the Patreon, we are pleased to announce that last month we onboarded and hired several members out of the community that started working on numerous features that we have had on the agenda, but haven’t had the time to get to: gore, vaulting and mantling, and an overhaul to our animation systems (making them more procedural and dynamic, which will be necessary for some of the other features we have planned, such as weapon customization).

In this devblog we only have previews of the gore work, created by Xorberax (the creator of the Bloodlust mod for Arma 3), to share with you:



Next month we should have content to show off of the other systems—they are a bit too early to show off at this point, or the bulk of their work/improvements were done in September (in which case they aren’t suited for this devblog). Stay tuned!

[h3]Mod Content Loading System[/h3]
The lead programmer started work on the content loading system, which includes support for creating, packaging, and running user-generated modifications from the packaged game client and server deployed on Steam. As of the time of this devblog, an update should have been pushed to the main branch of the game allowing for mods to now be loaded into the game!

In order to use a mod, place the mod folder in the following directory:

\Steam\steamapps\common\Harsh Doorstop\HarshDoorstop\Mods

Please note—if you do NOT have a Mods folder in this directory, simply create it yourself. If you have downloaded a mod and it is a zipped file, make sure that you unzip it first. Here is an example of what a proper Mods folder should look like (please note that the following file path is for the Test Environment, although it is no different for the Main Branch):



If you are a modder and you are not sure how to create and package mods, please join the Discord and look for the modding categories to seek assistance.

[h3]Bots/AI[/h3]
The AI systems also received a cleanup pass which consisted of various fixes and QoL adjustments to the setup and behavior of the O:HD AI GOAP implementation. The AI can now also spawn at the forward most spawnable cap points now. More improvements to AI coming soon!

[h3]Other Fixes and Improvements[/h3]
In addition, the lead programmer assisted with some refactoring and cleanup of the WIP scope/optics code, as well as implemented some fixes in the engine code for various client-side issues that players would intermittently encounter after a map change.

—

That’s all for August, thank you for taking the time to read if you have gotten this far. Another big thank you to the Patreon supporters! The support has been amazing the past few months, and has been a huge help in moving things forward at a quicker pace. Your support not only contributes to getting members of the official team paid, but also allows us to put money right back into the community by hiring talented modders to officially contribute straight to the project.

Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and/or follow our Steam announcements to track updates, and if you would like to support us early on in development don’t forget you can always pick up a testing key for O:HD on our Patreon! See you all next time!

-Goomes, Lead Community Manager






Website
Discord
Youtube
Twitter




Twitter
Discord
Website

Welcome to the twelfth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of July 2021.

Seeing as this is the twelfth devblog, this marks one whole year of monthly devblog updates! As such, here are links to all of the past devblogs for quick reference in case you want to go back and look at the entire year’s worth of work:

2020 July-August September October November December

2021 January February March April May June July - Current devblog

I want to take this opportunity to also repost our tentative roadmap to Steam early access release, so that we can get a snapshot of roughly where we are in relation to this:

Source development kit is supposed to be SOFTWARE development kit (this is a typo)

At the time of this devblog, everything in the top row is available and/or in the game in a basic/first iteration state, with the exception of the construction update, which is still being prototyped and has taken a backseat to work on the mod support update now that the SDK is out.

Oh yeah, did I mention… THE SDK IS OUT!



If you want to get your hands on it and start experimenting with modding, you can download it here. As mentioned above, the mod support/content loading systems are not available just yet, but we wanted to get the SDK/modding tools out into the community’s hands as soon as possible so that modders could start familiarizing themselves with the tools, and potentially start building up their projects in anticipation for Steam Workshop support, and other content distribution methods. We hope that when O:HD drops into early access that there will be a variety of mod content already available for people to use day 1! Please do keep in mind that the SDK is still a WIP, so if you do run into any issues, or can’t do something that you want to do, visit us in the O:HD Discord and let us know—the more feedback we get the better!

We have also hit another major milestone internally: passing 1,000 supporters on the Patreon—a big THANK YOU to all of the support and everyone’s belief in the project, it goes a very long way!

Now let’s get into the updates done in July:

Expansions

[h3]Operation: Invictus[/h3]
We have another round of the “Three Shot Burst” developer interviews prepared by the ISMC team:

Interview with John, a.k.a. Temptor, developer for Operation: Invictus

Operation: Invictus is the flagship expansion for the upcoming title Operation: Harsh Doorstop. It is the newest project created by the original devs of the ISMC mod.

1. What gives you the most inspiration when creating original models?

Looking at other artist's work is a massive inspiration - their techniques of sculpting and texturing fascinate me. War movies and documentaries are another big source of inspiration - to see how combatants and operators carry themselves or how a particular piece of gear sits on their body helps me to think of deep, realistic details, and helps me anticipate how they move. More abstractly, music is a major source of inspiration and motivation - and a personal necessity. I'll find inspiration with Killswitch Engage or The Contortionist.

2. What advice would you offer to someone who's interested in getting into character modeling, and potentially working on a game/mod in the future?

First, start small. Learn the fundamentals. It takes patience but will help in the long run. Second, don't go it alone. There are many like-minded people who are beginning their journey too. Join one of the many 3D modeling/3D sculpting discord groups with people willing to help and critique. Thirdly, do not give up. There were times in the beginning where I wanted to quit because it was too hard and I wasn't confident I could do it. I'm so grateful I pushed through that. Stick with it and you'll grow an understanding of the process and make massive strides forward. You'll be glad you didn't give up! And lastly, always have fun doing it!

3. You're a drummer. What are your three favorite drum beats from any song ever?

This is a hard one but if I have to choose my three favorite beats, in no particular order: The Meters "Cissy Strut", Team Sleep "Your Skull is Red" and Led Zeppelin "Fool in the Rain" because John Bonham.

Bio: John, a.k.a. Temptor, is a 3D artist and modeler for Operation: Invictus. He does most of his work in Blender, Zbrush, and Substance Painter. As a percussionist, when he's not crafting characters, he's listening to or making his own music. He loves ocean fishing with his friends, and mentoring his 5 year old nephew who wants to learn 3D art.

Here is some of the new content for Operation: Invictus that the ISMC team worked on last month:


AK-74 Warfighter


HK417A2 w/ Schmidt and Bender PM II optic


SKS w/ PSO-1 optic

CMMG MK300 Endeavor


Another HK417A2 variant w/ a 13” barrel vs. the scoped version shown above, which is a 20” barrel

[h3]Operation: Overlord[/h3]
Major progress was made on the character models for Overlord that are being developed to replace the placeholder models we were using:

US Paratrooper


German Paratrooper (Fallschirmjäger)

Maps

[h3]Risala[/h3]
Risala received further polish, detailing, and optimization work:



Risala also received a facelift to the map UI:



[h3]Argonne[/h3]
Argonne also received further polish, detailing, and optimization work:



Argonne also received an update to the map UI:



[h3]Monte Cassino[/h3]
Last month a lot of work went into further detailing the Abbey for Monte Cassino, as well as more polish, detailing, and optimization passes:





Monte Cassino also received a new map UI:



[h3]Khafji[/h3]
Khafji received an updated map UI:



[h3]Lam Dong[/h3]
And last but not least, Lam Dong also received a new image for the map UI:

Animations

A batch of animations were completed for new weapons, and variants of past weapons:


AK-74 Warfighter, HK417A2, Chauchat, Madsen, grenadier variants for the M1 Garand and Kar98k, and a Walther P38 pistol

Objects, Models, and Textures

[h3]World Props and Environment Assets[/h3]
A series of world props and environment assets were created for Operation: Overlord and Michael:

Farmhouse buildings


Pillbox bunker asset

Miscellaneous props and assets

[h3]Foliage[/h3]
New foliage assets were created for future maps that will be made in Western Europe:



New trees were also made for more Mediterranean themed maps:

Upcoming and WIP Features

[h3]Optics[/h3]

We now have a first iteration/basic implementation of optics in the game. Work has begun on bringing more optic variants to many of the weapons using this system as well, so expect to start seeing more variations of weapons that you’ll be able to use with them.

Schmidt and Bender PM II on the HK417A2, and a PSO-1 on the SKS

Eventually we plan on looking into doing picture-in-picture (PiP) optics, and having the option for players to use whichever they prefer, but for now the goal is regular optics that have a nice, large and clear sight picture. PiP optics are very taxing on performance, and require a lot more background work to get working properly, so we will get to that later after we have this first initial implementation feeling solid.

[h3]Bots/AI[/h3]
More work has continued on bots and AI (mostly background coding work). Soon, the bots will be able to split up and have some move to attack the next flag, and some hang back to defend the last flag. Improvements and enhancements to their behavior will always be happening as well—we have a lot of plans for what we would like for the bots/AI to do.

—

I hope you enjoyed this month’s devblog, and we look forward to sharing more with you next month. A big thank you once again to all of the Patreon backers!

Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and/or follow our Steam announcements to track updates, and if you would like to support us early on in development you can do so through our Patreon! See you all next time!

-Goomes, Lead Community Manager






Website
Discord
Youtube
Twitter




Twitter
Discord
Website

[h3]Hi everyone,

We are holding a playtest for O:HD on Sunday, August 22nd @ 5:00PM EST over in the O:HD Community Discord.

This playtest will be on the main branch of the game (not Test Environment), and will run for however long people want to play.

We look forward to seeing you there![/h3]