Hey Guys,

Spencer

This week  I finally made some time to fix the vehicle physics. The handling on the Goat was horrendous and so fragile to configure that I decided to scrap the whole system we had in place. We were using a 3rd party library which was based on physically accurate simulation model and used Unity’s PhysX wheelcollider. Problem with this is, we spend most our time in real life driving on almost perfectly flat paved roads, and in game we expect that sort of handling all the time. If you took a dune buggy up a bumpy cliff at 100 km/h you would indeed lose traction and flip out.

Another problem is that the Unity 5 wheel collider is horribly unstable, not to mention changes its dynamics quite often, making upgrading to newer versions of Unity a pain as we have to rebalance the vehicles again.

In place of this, I built a much simpler system that uses none of the above (Instead uses manual raycasts and forces). As the wheel forces are completely custom, I now have complete control over how things handle. Instead of configuring friction curves, gear ratios, clutch / differential and engine rpm torque limits; we simply say top speed = X, acceleration force = Y, grip multiplier = Z and everything handles nicely.

You also now have some level of rotation control in the air to make jumps more fun, everything controls pretty similar to GTA 5 now.

Roach Kit

Next I implemented all the new Roach panels and skins Mils has been working on (as seen in the header). A big benefit of the vehicle physics simplification, is that attachments can have additive effects on the performance of the vehicle without having to worry about breaking the initial fragile handling settings. For example, the engine sets the base acceleration & fuel consumption rate, the gearbox sets the initial top speed, a roof scoop can add additional traction multiplier (because downforce?) and a bonnet air intake can increase acceleration force. Armor plating can reduce damage to the car but also adds weight which slows it down.

All this runs through our entity stats system which the player uses to simulate metabolism / environmental effects. This means we can do things like decrease traction when the vehicle is wet or make a gun that causes a 90% drop in engine power for 10 seconds with a single line of code.

As usual, can’t wait to open this up in our SDK!

World Spawner

I also built the world spawner loot table for all the vehicles. In the new system, you can’t craft vehicles anymore. What this does is generate a random set of panel attachments, wheels and engine parts and spawns the chassis in the world. There is a very small chance that the vehicle will be drivable on spawn, likely you will need to scavenge for parts before being able to drive it. I decided to make the panels that the vehicle spawns with fixed for now. Meaning if you want a Roach with the complete SharkWeek body kit (feature image), you need to find it. Vehicles chassis’ will be easy come easy go, so will give you a chance to find a large enough number to eventually get that ideal rare spawn with the kit you want. This will likely change once we add some very expensive tools / machines that allow remodeling of vehicle body’s, until then you must find your perfect one out in the world.

Engine parts and wheels can be added / removed still and paint can be added but not removed.

Cow_Trix

This week I’ve been fixing exploits, bugs, and a few issues we’ve been meaning to get around to for months but never have. A small sample is implementing sounds for the Yeti, making machines not stack, adding more server configuration options, and fixing some memory leaks on the server. I’ve also started implementing the Infamy system – we’ll reveal more on this soon.

Mils

I am tying up loose ends and polishing any art assets that have had a bit of a place holder vibe. Also doing some fresh creations that we need for the launch.
This includes; Icons, Vehicle Skins, Promo materials for the launch.

Gavku

Pretty much just trying to crank out content up till release. This week I finalised the Windmill model and made sure it was able to be separated into multiple pieces to get more bang for our buck. I have also done a snow/arctic and a forest type skin for the shigi, as well as multiple spear textures and feathers to make it easier to locate.

Dazzler

I was away last week with my family working on my tan 🙂
Hard back into it, sorting out all the animation bugs for shotgun and spear after Spencer’s hard work implementing them last week. Lots more to do to tighten the character up, including re-doing a lot of the rifle work based on some less awkward 3rd person posing that works better, and adding in a few more sounds.

Hey folks – we’ve got 22 days until Hurtworld hits Early Access on December 4th, so we’re all flat out adding in as much juicy content as we can, fixing bugs, and getting ready. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Spencer

This week I finally got around to implementing some long awaited new weapons, the Spear and the Shotgun. Spear can be used in stabby stabby mode or thrown like a javelin. Wherever the spear lands it will stick and can be reclaimed. I also created a test build where spears stuck in walls could be stood upon. This makes for some cool emergent behavior and a bit of a nightmare to balance so I think I’m going to hold off on that one until we know how it will affect climbing bases etc.

The shotgun is the first weapon with actual inaccuracy which has been something I have needed to get around to for a while. The challenge posed was that our server and client both simulate the projection of bullets to prevent cheats, and this simulation needs to be exactly in sync otherwise nothing works. We need the client and the server to both generate the same pseudo random number for each bullet fired. Usually this is done by seeding the random function the same, however pre-sharing this value on each bullet for an automatic weapon is a decent bandwidth overhead.

This problem is solved without overhead by using the time tick the bullet was fired as a random seed, this paves the way for me to add recoil and movement inaccuracy to all weapons which is desperately needed. (Y)

Here are some of the weapons in action (Our resident AV guy Chris is away this week, excuse the quality):

I also built the Vehicle attachment system to support the awesome vehicle customizations that Mils has been designing. It works mostly like gear on a player, each item you equip changes the look and behavior of the vehicle. As everything is just item based, we can do some cool stuff with item transitions like flat tires, overheated engines based on external environmental factors. Likely I will run the engine like a campfire, giving off heat to itself. If it gets too hot for too long to transition to a less powerful engine and start billowing smoke.

The awesome part of all the possibilities is that we get a lot of stuff for free by re-using the existing equipment framework used on the player, and allows for lots of emergent behavior once we flesh out more effects.

Currently any wheel can be put on any vehicle slot, which makes for some weird looking (and handling) designs and some badass ones. I am yet to solve the wheel being too big for the chassis, hopefully I won’t have to put a radius limit in, I can probably just jack up the suspension if the wheel is too big.

Next week I should be able to have a crack and reworking the vehicle physics finally

Mils

I have been creating more car attachments this week, here you can see one of the new skins on this new shell. This shell’s name as a whole is currently the ‘Bogan Supreme’ Inspired by the Holden Panel Van, which for non-Aussies is an Australian iconic car of the 70’s & 80’s.
The parts are all swappable and can be combined with all the other components from the other shell sets. Also you can see the interchangeable wheel sets, which players will be able to swap to create a truly unique, if not, ridiculous, or cool looking vehicle. We wait with anticipation to see what oddities you all come up with.

 

Gavku

Cow_Trix

I’ve been busy adding in some analytics in preparation for release, so we can tell things like if the game is performing ok, how long people are playing/living for, and if crashes happen what might have caused them. Hopefully we can use this (completely anonymous) data to fine tune and balance the game.

Hey Guys,
Not a heap to show this week, mostly Steam build prep / integration.

We did finally lock down a more concrete Steam EA release date. If everything goes to plan Hurtworld will be available on the 4th of December!

Spencer/Cow_Trix

This week I’ve been doing more work integrating all the biomes together. The amount of content in the map became a bit unmanageable so I’ve been working on extending the awesome map editor Sean wrote to make life easier.

We will eventually release this as an SDK so you guys can create new maps. This is also a big step towards procedural map generation. We weren’t planning to do procedural maps, however the more complex the map gets the more we rely on procedural tools, no reason not to bring them into the runtime game.
I’ve also been testing some new landscape types like a grassy savannah to break up the yellow desert a bit.

Mils

Here’s one of the images I created for one of the Roach body skins. I wanted a graffiti style pattern to put on this one, so I had to create a whole piece for it. I thought the words ‘Hurt World’ are pretty apt for use as the basis.

Also I am working on more body kits for the Roach, so that we will have a nice array of interchangeable components.

Gavku

Finished up some of the environment work and am now currently going over some of the existing creatures and adding new skins. Displayed are a couple of the new Tokar skins, and one of a fairly scummy looking Bor….irradiated???? 😛

Dazzler

I am in animation revision mode. Throws have been finished and functioning, next up is making the rifle ironsighted animations feel less off balance. Laundry list of little glitches and stateflow bugs too.