INTEL UPDATE #007: Road to 1031

As this year comes to an end—and what a bastard of a year this has been—comes also the time for our final report of 2020. Intel Update #007 brings you all the major development details and behind-the-scenes of the last couple of months as we move towards GROUND BRANCH V1031.

So what’s been going on in BlackFoot Studios country?

Development has had its ups and downs since our last release, but we’re hanging in here and doing our best, as always. Here are some recent highlights:

Kris was out of action for a while

Having the only programmer and UE4 wizard in your team mostly out of commission for about three weeks as engine- and logic-related tasks pile up on the checklist is never fun. Kris was on meds that left him drowzy and unable to focus (he’s feeling better now and no, not Covid-related!), but since going off of them around a week ago, he has been catching up and pumping out fixes and under-the-hood work.

This has definitely set things back considerably, but on the flip side…

Reinforcements have arrived

As some might be aware, we were recently looking for an assistant UE4 developer/programmer to share Kris’ significant workload—and are happy to announce that we now have that person on board! Ethan Wade (aka WaderTheGamer) is a long-time GROUND BRANCH supporter and solo UE4 indie developer for his personal project. As a guy with UE4 skills and many years of closely following the game, Wader has been able to quickly tackle a lot of minor and not-so-minor tasks (which we’ll cover in a bit), and has been immensely helpful in implementing quality-of-life improvements as well as helping the rest of the team get their work into the game.

Mikson made a blanket hut to record foley

[RECORDING FOLEY]

AAA devs: *tens of thousands of dollars on studio time, engineers and overblown 4-minute promo video on sound design alone*

Indie devs: pic.twitter.com/OVGt9SxH6B

— GROUND BRANCH (@GroundBranch) November 26, 2020

Yes, our sound designer Mikson has been very busy, as we will also show in a bit. In the above pictures, you can see the legend’s setup for recording crunchy, clean magazine drop sounds. More on his work after the fold…

How’s 1031 coming along?

Normally, we’d fill this section up with written details and screenshots, but since it’s the holidays and the update isn’t here yet, we thought we’d make it up to you with something a little nicer:

That’s right—animations and character assets may have been delayed to V1032, but we’re still making GROUND BRANCH look (and sound) a little better in V1031 with a lot of new visual effects and audio improvements, from entirely new sounds all the way to directional audio.

Attachments

As shown, attachment controls are getting a much needed upgrade: you will soon be able to bind lights and lasers to your preferred keys, and those will offer both a “hold” and a “toggle” functionality: hold the key to keep it on for as long as it’s pressed, or double-tap to leave it on (until you double-tap it again to turn it off).

In making attachment usage easier, we have also moved the Magnifier from the Attachments Wheel to the same keybinds used for zooming in and out with a variable power scope; the result is a much more intuitive and accessible control scheme.

Lastly, we are adding the IR Illuminator function to the AN/PEQ-15—a useful tool for nighttime ops, especially in low-contrast areas where the invisible light can help outline targets. The illuminator will offer two settings, accessible via the Reticle Brightness Up/Down commands: LOW outputs a broader-angle, dimmer IR light; whereas HIGH produces a more focused and brighter one.

Wristwatch

The wristwatch is a standard piece of gear which displays the current time and a compass ring that rotates according to the direction the player is facing.

It should greatly improve teamwork and navigation, as players will be able to quickly figure out which way they are going, which wall is the “north wall” one of your teammates just mentioned, at which direction enemies have been spotted, and so on. We plan on adding more functionalities to the watch app in the future, such as a heartbeat counter to help estimate player stamina status and maybe more.

Audio

New movement sounds that vary according to how much gear is being carried have also been implemented, and although we were not able to record previews at this time, this genuine graph makes it all look very official:

In addition to all the new audio we have already mentioned, Mikson has been working on the pending map soundscapes for 747 and Power Station. And speaking of map soundscapes, he is currently getting some done for these…

Upcoming maps

We don’t want to give too much away, but John has been creating a pure CQB level and we got ahold of a couple of sneak peek shots for you here:

Promising, right? It’s a nice change of mood from the current map selection, and it’s sure to captivate the old R6 crowd. Needless to say, it’s all a work in progress.

The new training complex is also scheduled to hit with V1031 and replace all the old training areas with a single big map. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here are some previews:

As mentioned a while ago, you can run around this map by typing travel training_base into the console (~ or Num *) and hitting Enter↵.

Menu work

We’ve also been updating the UI to be more intuitive, consistent and nicer-looking. Here’s how the Settings screens and key icons are coming along:

So these are some of the things that are on their way for our next main release.

In addition to the stuff we have just gone over, you can definitely expect a couple of updated models here and there, a new functionality or two, and general quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes all around. For one thing, game modes are having their foundation worked on by Kris, though we don’t have a lot to showcase from that department just yet.

V1032 work continues in the background

In case you missed Build Update #027, animation and character work had to be pushed to V1032.

We haven’t shared progress on those fronts in a while, so let’s take the time to do so in this post, shall we?

Character assets

Some of you may recall that entirely new character assets by freelance artist Pau Peñalver are just waiting for the new character rig and animations to be fully setup and working in the game.

Although we have posted a lot of previews of these new assets before, Pau has since uploaded a handful of albums showcasing his GROUND BRANCH models in an even better light, so be sure to check out the eye candy right here. Here are some teasers:

Pau has a few other GB albums up that you scroll through in his ArtStation page: artstation.com/pawered

Animations

🚧 WORK IN PROGRESS
Keep in mind that animations are all WIP and will likely receive multiple passes before their final iterations.

These previews are captured straight from the editor and therefore use simplified lighting, texturing and overall rendering. Camera placement and rigging are also subject to change.

Reloads

Having up to four types of reload per weapon means a lot of work for Mike.

For communication and clarity purposes, we are categorizing them internally as proactive vs. reactive (whether you are reloading as precaution between engagements or because your weapon has run out of rounds, respectively) and retention vs. no retention (whether you keep the used ammo container or not). See if you can figure out which of these are which:

Prone

Not much to talk about here, other than prone is seeing some work again. Due to all of the possible issues that may arise with such a big feature (considering all the very complex implementations we have in GROUND BRANCH), we cannot 100% confirm prone will be ready for V1032—but we sure as hell will try our best.

Below are some previews for crawling in various directions. Again, all WIP:

Prone/Crawl (Forward)

Prone/Crawl (Backward)

Prone/Crawl (Left)

Prone/Crawl (Right)

 

Oil Rig

Level artist Will continues to build Oil Rig—one behemoth of a map—for V1032. Take a look at these:

And that is all we have for you right now.

Thanks for sticking with us through another year!

We’re incredibly grateful for all the faith, loyalty and support that GROUND BRANCH keeps getting from so many of you in the community, in spite of what can be, at times, a frustratingly slow and difficult development.

This year may have been tough, and it certainly was for a whole lot of people all over the world. We can’t complain much ourselves: significant development strides were made, word of the game keeps spreading, people are playing and looking for sessions, new players keep arriving in our Discord and broader community every day, and the list goes on.

We hope that you’ve had as good a year—and holidays—as the circumstances allowed, and that you’re able to end it in as a positive a note as we were so fortunate to.

Please stay safe, and we’ll see you on the next cycle of increasingly tactical invention.

Here’s to a much better 2021,

—The BlackFoot Studios Team