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Ancient Warfare 3 News

0.40 Bug fixing patch

  • Fixed color picker result on camo clothing items
  • Fixed color picker result on terrain surfaces
  • Fixed that the surface placement direction was not applied
  • Fixed wrong description for backpack shield slot setting
  • Fixed missing footsteps on zombie units
  • Fixed that randomized object (like plants) did not save their variant

Update 0.40

As mentioned in the last blog post, this is the first update of the new monthly update schedule. It features some nice quality of life features and technical improvements.

[h2]Color Picker[/h2]
The new color picker can be accessed in the battle and unit editor to pick a color from the visible objects. This can be used to quickly select colors based on the colors of vanilla content or other colors you like in a scene.


[h2]File Browser Improvements[/h2]
With all the different kinds of custom content, the file browser has become an essential tool when saving, loading or importing stuff. This updates adds some qol features to it:
  • Bookmark paths
  • Click on folders in the navigation bar to quickly navigate back
  • Rename entries
  • Folders are now supported for custom items
  • Delete/rename buttons are only visible while hovering


[h2]Invisible Units[/h2]
With the addition of custom equipment items, ghost units were "abused" to create custom unit shapes by adding custom face equipments and armor items, but the semi transparent color of the ghost units was still visible. The new Invisible and Invisible With Blood options for the unit appearance in the unit creator can be used to create fully invisible units with or without blood effects. And zombie units can also be invisible!


[h2]Footstep sounds[/h2]
The player and units now have footstep sounds depending on the surface they are walking on.
https://youtu.be/w1pdXEpzCqU

[h2]Player/Unit Improvements[/h2]
To improve the feeling while controlling a player, there are some improvements in this update (and more are planned)
  • The head is now slightly tilted while leaning
  • Replaced the landing sound which now also depends on the surface
  • Standing still now reduces recoil by 10%
  • Crouching now reduces recoil by 25%
  • Added some arm sway while aiming a weapon to prevent it from being perfectly still
  • AI units will now rotate their heads up/down while aiming at a target at a different elevation


[h2]New Scripting Nodes[/h2]
The planning phase for more extensive changes to the scripting system has started to make it easier to use and also allow users to add custom logic without having to actually edit visual scripts. But for now, this update only includes some new scripting and adjusted nodes:
  • Added HUD/Activate node to hide the vanilla HUD elements
  • Added movable object GetPosition/GetRotation nodes to prevent having to cast them to object
  • Added Unit/Move and Movable/Move nodes to quickly move units/objects by an offset instead of having to calculate the absolute target position
  • Movable objects can now be rotated with the Rotate/RotateLocal/SetRotation nodes
  • Added Player/IsGrounded and Player/LookDIr nodes
  • Added key to string cast nodes to display key bindings as string
  • Added GetRight/Forward/Up direction vector nodes for movable objects
  • Added Math3D/LookRotation and Math3D/RotateTowards nodes to help with calculating rotations
  • Added Unit/Activate footsteps sound to activate and deactivate footsteps for individual units
  • Added Unit/GetTags node to get an array with all tags that a unit has
  • Added additional unit output to the GetPlayer node to prevent having to cast it to unit
  • Added keepTags input to ReplaceUnit/ReplaceUnitCustom nodes to keep all scripting tags that are attached to the unit


[h2]Memory Improvements[/h2]
With all the custom content from the latest update, some memory related problems were detected which caused crashes over time and overall reduced performance after a while. These issues mainly affected the load/save system when working with larger battles, so this update includes various improvements and fixes to make longer sessions with many save/load processes more enjoyable and stable,

[h2]Other Improvements[/h2]
  • Modular parts will no longer snap and jitter around while placing them in overlapping placement slots. This was especially annoying when placing roofs
  • Impact effects for bullets (sound & particles) are now more reliable and there are some new effects for materials like glass or plastic
  • All lists in the game now scroll with the same speed relative to the item size
  • Poison and flame damage is now displayed on the HUD
  • The visiblility of workshop items is now loaded into the UI before updating them
  • Custom items from the workshop now display as "[V1_W]" in lists to identify them
  • Colors can now be dragged into folders in the color management UI
  • Transparent colors are now supported in the color management UI
  • Increased sound capacity of the audio system


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
Most bugs have already been fixed in the previous patch
  • Fixed a bug that caused custom objects with surface placement to be placed wrong
  • Fixed a bug that caused the custom container item setting to place the door at an invalid position

Update 0.39.1

  • Fixed some scripting node descriptions
  • Fixed incorrect weapon rotations in some menu backgrounds
  • Fixed incorrect snowman hat interaction after being dropped
  • Fixed that the head device (night vision) could not be toggled on/off
  • Custom corpses can now be referenced as movable object in scripting
  • Fixed preview of armor in equipment panel
  • Planes will now crash when their pilot died
  • Fixed custom item icon preview tool
  • Fixed a bug that caused custom items to become missing when subscribing to new units or prefabs
  • Fixed flipped normals on the improvised semi auto rifle
  • Fixed a bug that allowed invalid .obj files with NaN normal values to be imported
  • Fixed siege and animal filters in the placement list
  • Fixed that the custom particle system cone arc was limited to 90° instead of 360
  • Fixed that using units with unknown custom equipment from the quick play menu would result in them missing their equipment when playing
  • Fixed that when loading player equipment presets with unknown custom items, the items were missing on the player

Custom Objects Update

[h2]Custom object creators[/h2]
Based on the first custom creator update for custom weapon and equipment items from the beginning of June, the custom object creators are now available!

Similar to the custom equipment items, custom objects can be used anywhere, where you can also use vanilla objects. And custom objects can be uploaded and downloaded from the workshop too.
There are also various UI improvements which also apply to the equipment creators like improved contrast and look, better warning/error messages, additional information while hovering over some UI settings and some creators also show information, errors and warnings directly in the settings without having to validate the item settings.

[h2]Custom environment objects[/h2]
The environment object creator can be used to create Trees, Bushes and Rocks which can be placed in the battle editor and prefabs.


[h2]Custom Consumables[/h2]
The custom consumable creator can be used to create objects which can be consumed/used by the player. You can choose from a variety of preset consumables like Food, Drinks, Meds, Ammo and Keys or create custom functionality with scripting events. The UI notifications and interaction sounds can be modifed too.


[h2]Custom Modular Parts[/h2]
The custom modular creator allows you to create all the different modular building parts like Foundations, Walls, Floors, Doors, Windows, Roofs, etc.
The default modular size can also be exceeded to create custom parts like this fishing pier.


[h2]Custom Effects[/h2]
Custom effects are particle effect only objects which can be placed to decorate your battles and controlled with scripting.


[h2]Regular Objects[/h2]
This creator can be used to create a variety of different objects like small or large decorative objects, objects with collisions, objects where units, objects or equipment can be placed on, and objects which can be destroyed. There are also a variety of different placement settings to adjust how the object is placed in the editor. And to quickly add functionality there are a variety of features to enable and set up:
  • Ammo Crate - adds bullet to the player while in the radius of the object
  • Heal Create - heals the player while in the radius
  • Light Effect - adds a point or spot light source to the object which can be adjusted in the battle editor and with scripting
  • Particle Effect - adds a custom particle effect to the object which can be adjusted with scripting
  • Text - adds a text which can be adjusted in the battle editor and with scripting
  • Scripting Interaction - the player can interact with this object and scripting can be used to add custom functionality
  • Trap - custom or preset particles/sound can be played and damage effects set up to make the object work like a land mine for instance
  • Damage Area - while units are close to the object, regular, poison or flame damage can be applied
  • Container - A door and animation can be selected, the object can be locked with keys in the battle editor and controlled with scripting


[h2]Background Objects[/h2]
Background objects are large scale decorative objects which can be placed on or next to the terrain to create backgrounds like skylines.

[h2]Scripting Integration[/h2]
As already mentioned, objects with features like text, lights, particle, effects, etc. can be referenced and controlled with scripting, similar to how vanilla objects with these functions. In addition, objects which dont block or provide AI surfaces can be spawned and moved with scripting.


[h2]Improved Color Management[/h2]
There is a new color management tool to store colors by name and organize them into categories. Colors can also be sorted by name, color or date. This management tool can used to load and save colors for each color picker in game.


[h2]More Details[/h2]
If you want to have a more detailed look at the features above, you can play around with the update yourself, or check out the two development blogs about the consumables and environment objects
https://youtu.be/t53EmjJpfdo
and complex, modular and background objects
https://youtu.be/OjcR_R3fyVo

[h2]Next Update[/h2]
There will probably be a few small patches in the upcoming week to improve the stability of the newest update. After that there are a bunch of small gameplay improvements and quality of life changes planned that have accumulated due to the size of the last two updates. There will also be a fixed update schedule from now on. On the first monday every month, there will be a bigger update with features, improvements and maybe content. So the next regular update will be released on October 3. If you want to follow the development, make sure to join the official discord server, where I regularly post previews for upcoming updates.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2][h3](and small improvements)[/h3]
Below are is a list of all the bug fixes in this version:
  • Added a 'None' value to all database id input nodes to allow comparison against custom item ids
  • The high culture menu scene now spawns on low end computers
  • Renamed GetPositionDelta to GetPositionDeltaLocal and added GetPositionDeltaGlobal to avoid confusion
  • An error is now displayed when 'gas' caliber is used without flamethrower preset
  • Fixed that when placing new custom corpse units with the same gear but different poses would result in wrong poses in the editor
  • Fixed a bug that caused camera to get stuck when a tank was destroyed while the player was the gunner
  • Fixed that planes dont avoid helicopters
  • Fixed a bug that caused worse rendering performance for some unit clothing setups
  • Fixed incorrect colors of some face equipments
  • Fixed a bug that caused different instances of the same custom corpse to cause bad rendering performance
  • Fixed that duplicated ground vehicles could be placed on foundations
  • Fixed SG11 shotgun barrel opening
  • Fixed S47 gas tube opening
  • Fixed P1911 flipped normals
  • Fixed incorrect light opimization in the battle editor
  • Fixed that fog areas would block snow coverage in the editor
  • Fixed incorrect AI behaviour in fog areas
  • Fixed future and 6 inch turret's bullet accuracy on long ranges
  • Fixed that the reaper unit's weapon was missing
  • Fixed that vignette and other scripting image effects could get stuck
  • Fixed wrench model handle
  • Fixed that using the bow animation would cause miss fires that would still use ammo but dont spawn a bullet
  • Fixed that custom prefab icons were invisible on lowest graphics settings
  • Fixed that M2 flamethrower could not be used in the arsenal
  • Fixed that placing custom weapons in safes would not rotate them properly
  • Fixed that some parts of the glass door stopped being transparent after breaking
  • Fixed that scripting lights could not be referenced as movable objects
  • Fixed that falling into water from very high height would still cause fall damage when reaching the land again
  • Fixed terrain paint biome color list
  • Fixed rug object's default color setting
  • Fixed flipped normals on halloween tree 2 model
  • Fixed that default/custom feral zombie speeds didnt match
  • Fixed that spawning or selecting a weapon with smoke particle effect preset would play it for no reason
  • Fixed that custom rpg could not be validated when an external magazine was set before switching the preset
  • Fixed that when controlling a vanilla unit, the face equipment was missing
  • Fixed that using the GetPosition node on a player in update causes it to be default at first frame
  • Fixed some scripting node documentation errors
  • Fixed a bug that prevented custom units with certain items from being generated
  • Fixed that loading the same map with custom items twice would cause a loading error
  • Fixed flipped normals on AP40 iron sight
  • Fixed that setting the bullet amount for a custom placed gun would reset when loading the battle

Custom Objects Update - Release Date

Hello everyone.

After working on the custom item creators since the beginning of 2022, the custom object creator update will be released next monday (September 5)!

In the meantime, please make sure to check out this video about custom modular parts and objects:
https://youtu.be/OjcR_R3fyVo

And if you haven't already, this is the first video about custom environment objects, consumables and effect objects:
https://youtu.be/Z-pkkQwlfIc