Deadstick - Bush Flight Simulator News

Happy Monday everyone ✈️

We are reviving the Flight Log series today, and planning on bringing them to you more frequently!

In today’s development update we wanted to talk a little bit about Unity and why we chose to stick with this engine as this seemed to be a common question with our announcement. We’ll also have a few images to share of some retextured High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) plane renders.

[h3]Why did we choose this engine / version for Deadstick?[/h3]

We chose to stay with Unity so we could build on the work already done by Chris and his team and it gave us a good head start on development.

We upgraded to the latest version of Unity to take advantage of HDRP. This offers many visual improvements over URP (Universal Render Pipeline) or the previously used render pipeline. Unity released this spotlight video to showcase the capabilities of HDRP.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Disclaimer: This video is used for informational purposes only. All rights belong to the original creator.

[h3]Advanced physically based surfaces[/h3]

HDRP gives us a much better graphic quality and greater fidelity of surface textures and materials across the board. We are able to use advanced shaders with customisable subsurface scattering, translucency, iridescence, anisotropy and real time tessellation and provide Deadstick at a much higher graphical standard.

[h3]Immersive Lighting [/h3]

HDRP uses correct physical light sources with much greater control over the lighting including the light types, shadow options, light exposure and control, light baking, ray marching and ray tracing and reflections, global illumination, volumetric lighting, that's not to say we will use all of this everywhere, but it gives us more options with greater quality.


[h3]Spectacular Atmosphere[/h3]

All of the HDRP tools and rendering options allow for some procedural skies, volumetric fog, volumetric clouds and weather, all adding to the atmosphere of flying an aircraft in near realistic conditions and providing the player with a fully immersive flying experience.

[h3]Maximise Platform Performance[/h3]

Using HDRP we are able to maximise performance by utilising the Burst and Job system and upsampling algorithms such as NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR.

[h3]Example Retextured HDRP Plane Renders[/h3]



Please note that images and videos shown are not representative of the final visuals, all are work in progress while we work on development.

Thanks for reading all, and we’ll be back with another developer update soon.

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- Mythwright

Hi pilots,

It’s been a long time since a news post has gone live, today that changes. We have a major development update for you on the status of Deadstick, and who else to bring you this information but Chris Cheetham himself.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

To highlight some of the main topics of this video:

• New Deadstick publisher, Mythwright.
  
• New Deadstick developer, Spiral House.
  
• Deadstick development updates - incoming and more transparency with the community.
  

The reason we have decided to work on Deadstick is because we believe in it, and want to make sure it becomes a reality. Our aim is to share as much with you, our community as possible between now and launch. This will be a range of information from developer diaries, short videos/gifs, to screenshots of the game being developed - not all news will be a major update but we want to make sure you are along for the journey, you can also join us on our Discord to chat with other pilots.

We hope you will join us in celebrating this new Deadstick era and continue with your patience while the game restarts its development journey.

- The Mythwright Team

Hey everyone,

After working closely together on Deadstick since 2017, both REMEX and The Irregular Corporation have made the difficult decision to end our publishing relationship, with all game distribution and publishing rights returning to REMEX.

A message from The Irregular Corporation - “We have enjoyed working on Deadstick over the past few years, especially getting to know the community – it’s been our privilege to witness your passion and love for the project. So thank you for your support, and also our heartfelt thanks to the entire REMEX team for giving us the opportunity to work on the game. We wish you all the best for the future!”

The REMEX & Irregular Corporation Teams

Hey everyone!

We have opted for a slightly different format for our latest Flight Log to give you a bit more insight behind-the-scenes in to just what obstacles we have overcome and the progress that has been made on Deadstick this year 🛩️ Please find the video below! We hope you enjoy this retrospective and are as excited as we are for what's to come!

We wish you lovely holidays & will see you in 2021 ✨

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Challenging but Exciting Times[/h2]

Most of you will, I’m sure, have been hit in one way or another by the current pandemic that is sweeping the globe. I am pleased to report that the Deadstick team is all safe and well! However, it has certainly presented its fair share of logistical challenges!

As a studio, we have always embraced working from home and so, in many respects, the day to day running of has remained much the same as it was. It has always been our goal however, to ramp up production on the sim and bring in more experienced hands at the right time, to add the finishing touches to Deadstick.

Finding the right talent in this new world, which doesn’t include face to face meetings, has certainly forced us to adapt. Whilst we may all work from home, we have tried to keep the team reasonably nearby as there’s nothing quite like a face to face get together to solve a particular problem, brainstorm a new idea or, in the case of a new start, just showing them the ropes. We have had to however abandon that idea and search further afield this time around, which I’m pleased to say has allowed us to find our two latest additions to the team, Conrad and Lee.

[h3]Introducing Conrad[/h3]

Conrad is a self-confessed destruction expert (fitting after observing his early attempts at flying in Deadstick!) and joins us as a Senior VFX Artist, to help bridge the gap between the aircraft and its environment.

Whether it’s exhaust smoke from a cold engine firing up for the first time of the day, dirt being kicked up from a muddy off airport landing and ruining an otherwise sparkly clean aircraft, or sparks and smoke being emitted as the landing gear unceremoniously removes itself from the aircraft in a harder than anticipated landing, Conrad is the man to make it happen!

Having worked in the games industry for about 5 years, most recently at nDreams focusing on VR, Conrad specializes in destruction, Houdini and shader work, and came to the video game industry after a spell living, sailing, and working as a motion graphics artist in South East Asia.





[h3]Introducing Lee[/h3]

Lee joins the ranks of 3D Environment Artist on the Deadstick team - no small feat! Working in the industry for over 5 years now, with his last role as Senior Art Generalist at Hammerhead VR, and with numerous clients under his belt, including the likes of Jaguar, Whirlpool, Sky and the BBC, Lee is tasked with all things airport and settlement related. Bridging the gap between the natural and man made elements within the game and adding the next level of detail to our airports to make them pop and shine.

Given the first person nature of Deadstick and the ability to explore all locations on foot, this is no easy task, but we’re already seeing impressive levels of detail being added to our airport buildings to really add to the immersion of the sim.

Lee can currently be found finessing dirt and grime on our airfield hangars to make them truly feel like they are part of the harsh and unforgiving environment that is our Deadstick world.



[h3]The Search Goes On[/h3]

It’s great to see fresh blood and new momentum on the Deadstick team. However, the search still goes on and, over the coming weeks, we are looking to hire two additional Environment Artists and a Senior Programmer - so if you think you might have the relevant skills, or know someone who does, please visit the website and get in touch - you might be just what we’re looking for!

And now to the progress!

[h2]Maintenance & Customisation in Deadstick[/h2]

A huge part of real life bush piloting is maintaining and customising your aircraft, so obviously we want to reflect this in Deadstick.

[h3]Maintenance[/h3]

In Deadstick (as in real life), there are two main reasons for maintenance: wear and tear.

Wear is just the inevitable damage that occurs as a component gets old and moves towards the end of its lifetime. Older parts may become less effective or even fail suddenly and (if you’re in the air) catastrophically.

Tear is damage incurred abnormally - most obviously when you hit something!

Every component of the aircraft simulates these two aspects of damage. When you need to address problems, you go to a maintenance facility… If you can’t make it yourself (e.g. you don’t have an undercarriage any more), you can salvage your aircraft to get there.

Normally you’ll go to the facility by choice, but periodically you will need to go for scheduled maintenance to avoid fines.

[h3]Customisation[/h3]

A pilot needs to fit the aircraft to its purpose. In Deadstick, you can buy a range of customisation options that let you optimise the performance of your aircraft to what you’re planning to do.

For example, if you’re delivering to improvised strips, you might want to add wing slats to decrease your take off distance or, if you were flying to the frozen north, you might install tundra tyres to increase your grip on ice.

There’s also a plethora of visual options just for bragging rights: paint jobs, liveries and even dash ornaments!

[h3](Re)designing the UI/UX[/h3]

In games, we distinguish between user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). These terms aren’t totally distinct but, broadly speaking, UI is what the user sees on screen and UX is how they interact with it. UI is whether a button is attractive and intuitive (e.g. looks like a button), while UX is where the button is and whether the user knows what it does.

If you’ve played Deadstick at a show, you may have seen a prototype version of the UI for maintenance and customisation. For those who haven’t, here’s a flavour of how it looked:



This UI was very functional, but maybe not the most attractive. It also didn’t reflect some mechanics that have been added to the game since - the main change being that repairs and refits now take in-game time. That means you now build up a manifest of changes before ordering them to be made.

So we’ve recently been through a process to make sure it works mechanically and has a more attractive look that’s consistent with the rest of the UI screens.

Typically, we approach this in a standard way. Once we have the abstract design, we mock up “on paper” (we work remotely, it’s not actually paper) a rough idea of how the screen works.

We will then get it working in-game using placeholder graphics. The intention is to nail the UX before we start implementing UI. This is a bit like making sure you finish building a house before decorating. If we realise we need a new button somewhere after the Artists have produced a beautiful layout, there may not be space for it without rearranging everything.

So once we have a UX we’re happy with, we pass it on to the Artist who makes it beautiful… (read about that in the next section).

Once we’re happy with the design, the Artist decomposes the mock-ups into assets we can use in Unity. For example, here’s a texture page for the manifest window:



Once it’s implemented, we pass the UI back to the Artist to review and check it matches his vision with no omissions, etc.

[h3]Artistic Notes[/h3]

The overall aim with the Deadstick front-end is to give an edgy look but still manage to keep a level of simplicity and usability. It’s important that the game feels believable to both casual gamers and the more serious flight sim fans.

With the above in mind, I’ve kept the buttons simple and, in many cases, they are just white text on a slightly distressed background plate. The grunge helps to tie in with the whole ‘bush flight’ element of the game.

The Maintenance screen has been one of the most challenging areas to design with a lot of important information to display. I’ve tried to keep this as clean as possible.



With Deadstick being a simulator, it’s really important that the menus actually reflect their real-world counterparts and a perfect example of this is the Aircraft inspection pop-up. The design is based on a real Inspection Sheet and the slightly grungy edges help it sit comfortably with the rest of the UI.



The customisation screens have the same level of complexity as Maintenance and, once again, it’s vital that there is enough space to highlight the relevant areas on the aircraft. Again, the text is clean and there is a subtle grunge level added to all of the background bars.



[h3]In-Game Shots[/h3]

Bringing it all together, we end up with this in-game:









Stay tuned for the next update where we shall be revealing more!