Heads up, everyone: GROUND BRANCH is 25% OFF on the Steam Winter Sale until January 5th!
💗 Consider buying a key from our store
If you have a PayPal account, the same discount also applies in our official GB Store using code GBWINTER22 at the checkout — a cool option if you’d like us to keep the full cut from the sale, or want to add a donation.
Remember to spread the word and get your friends on board!
V1033 Community Test branch coming soon
We are close to finishing up our V1033 update, and we are planning to open it up to public testing by the end of the year. Stay tuned!
In case you missed it…
Since August, we have posted monthly Intel Reports to keep you updated on what’s coming for V1033 and beyond, with plenty of sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes info.
🚀 We're quickly approaching our release target for V1033 — the end of the year. As a result, this Intel Report (#014) will be the last one until the release, so that we can fully focus on the update itself.
Before we lock into release mode, let’s get on with the dev news and showcases for this month.
One welcome, one farewell
Yet another programmer has just been welcomed on board the GROUND BRANCH team: Callum Coombes, who has previously worked on Rising Storm 2: Vietnam alongside environmental artist Will Bullen, is now among the ranks of BlackFoot Studios.
That doubles the amount of code guys from what we had just a couple months ago to a total of four, which should allow us to tackle more areas of development more efficiently.
Happy to have you, Cal!
A bittersweet “goodbye” to Mikson
We’re sad to announce that long-time contributor Mikson is leaving our team this November, after a 4-year tenure. But his departure has a silver lining, as he’s leaving BlackFoot Studios to join none other than major studio Infinity Ward — a massive career move for Mikson, who became an intern for GROUND BRANCH while still in university.
In these 4 years, Mikson has personally recorded and processed dozens of firearm and foley sound effects, mixed countless library recordings, created and implemented soundscapes and ambient effects for all maps, directed voice acting, composed our main menu theme, and had an active voice in various areas of development. Hell, he even put together the V1032 launch trailer!
We couldn’t be happier about his work in GROUND BRANCH — some of you may remember the pre-Mikson days and how much his sounds added to the game — and we’re very proud to have had some kind of role in giving him a little exposure boost into the triple-A industry.
Thank you for all the passion and talent you put into the project, Mik. We wish you the best of luck out there!
👥 Audio goes on: Zack Regan, introduced in Intel Report #011, is taking up Mik's sound designer/engineer mantle.
Birds and blasts
Particles and other visual effects continue to get improved by Charles, with assistance from our programmers and the audio team.
A small but cool detail is the seagull/bird flock, which will add some more life to certain maps:
It’s a simple yet robust system that allows us to create bird flocks of various sizes and have them react to gunfire.
Speaking of gunfire, muzzle effects are also getting a lot of love. In this video, Charles showcases his system for muzzle flash to display different sets of sprites depending on the camera angle. Take a look:
What does that mean? Well, for those who don’t know: particle effects are typically composed of 2D textures — like flat pictures painted on a cardboard cutout — that are always facing the camera. By always facing the camera, you never get to see these flat textures from a different angle — which would give away the fact that they have no actual depth.
With the system showcased in the video, the side-facing muzzle flashes (that look longer) automatically transition to front-facing muzzle flashes (that look rounder) based on the camera angle to give the illusion of a real-world tridimensional effect.
💥 The muzzle flash effects are being created in various sizes and shapes to both offer visual diversity and fit the various weapons in the game.
Charles has also setup an initial implementation for muzzle blast effects — more specifically, the dust raised from certain surfaces when hit by the shockwave created by the proximity with a shooting gun:
Lastly for today’s VFX showcase, the old, funky-looking door chunks created after a door breach are being replaced with an updated particle-based effect. This effect is likely transitional — as in, it will make way for a better one later on — but quite a bit nicer than the silly door chunks currently in V1032:
Quality-of-life updates
We have already shown you some quality-of-life improvements on the server/online side (see Intel Report #013), but we’re eager to streamline and improve the player experience in other areas too.
🥒 This section is largely brought to you by the same guy making all of this cool stuff: Matt "Fatmarrow" Farrow. He would probably say "pretend the emoji is a marrow."
The handling of custom item builds in the Customize Operator screen has been given some love. We know you love your custom builds, but browsing them can quickly become quite unwieldy. So we made a change whereby when you open the item browser, custom builds are initially “stacked” under the default item. Click on the stack, and it will expand to display all your custom builds:
How big will your build stacks get?
We are also aware of the number of times you get pop-up dialogs and are asked to fill in item build names when editing your loadout. We don’t want this to get in the way of your Tactical Barbie™ activities, so we put in a new feature using the new mutators system: your item builds are now given default names based on what you have put together.
So your MK17 CQC with a suppressor and a Specter DR scope is now given a default build name of, say, “MK17CQC SD SpctrDR” (see some examples of automatic build names in the GIF above). If you change the build enough that it gets a new name, it gets saved with that new name. If you don’t change the build that much, it just silently overwrites the old build when you click SAVE.
If you want to use your own name, you can still do that, and you can use the new SAVE AS NEW… button if you want to pick a name. If you want to have more granular item build definitions, you can choose one from a drop-down menu. There are currently 5 options for default build naming, all subject to change:
Disabled — Does not provide a default save name for your build (requires manual text input from the player).
Just item name — Suggests only the base item as build name.
Item name + key features — For weapons, this includes the name of the base item, sights, and whether it has a suppressor. For vest platforms, it lists all pouch types.
More verbose — For weapons, this lists all of the above + lights and lasers. For vest platforms, this specifies the amount of each pouch carried (e.g. “JPC 3xPri 2xFrag”).
Unique build name for all changes — Adds a unique build designator at the end of the “more verbose” suggestion in case you prefer every change to be saved as its own build.
Okay, there’s quite a lot of stuff to unpack there, but overall this should streamline the process of putting together a loadout, as well as give the lazier of us a better set of custom build names to work with.
🔣 Don't like the build names or abbreviations the game gives you? Write your own mutator to provide your own naming scheme!
Longer mission timer and new Intel Retrieval feature
If you want your quality of life to be arguably reduced, then we also have that covered for you.
Congratulations to the person who asked for this: you spoke, and we listened. Now you can have your two-hour mission timer (up from the previous maximum of one hour). No, we will not raise that higher, because you are already about as hardcore a GROUND BRANCH player as we can frankly handle.
And if you liked the new Terrorist Hunt “bum rush” feature, you will love the new Intel Retrieval “extraction mayhem” feature (final name TBD). Mindful that the extraction phase of Intel Retrieval missions can sometimes be an anti-climax (usually due to eradicating all traces of tangos in your path), you will now have to be careful what you wished for.
Upon successfully hacking the laptop, you will trigger a security alert that will send the enemy AI to either hunt you down, or to boost the presence at the extraction. We may have to tweak this a bit to be more sane, but in the meantime: prepare for EXTRACTION MAYHEM.
Match system
As part of our server quality-of-life update, we have now implemented a match system, where specific criteria can be defined for the end of a match, such as “Best of 3” for PvP, or “Play until win 2 rounds” for PvE. This can be set on servers in the usual sort of way, and also selected in the Host Game menu for your listen server.
When the match criteria are met, the server will automatically advance to the next map in the map list. Match type and round/time limits can be specified in map lists per mission, so you can have custom match setups for different missions in the map list. Otherwise, servers have predefined settings for PvE/Co-Op modes, PvP modes, and the new game mode type of PvP FFA (free-for-all), which now includes the Deathmatch mode.
But there’s more! The match details can be viewed in the Ready Room on a new screen, along with an interface for all players to vote on what the next map is going to be. Here’s a prototype:
Voting takes place during the round, whenever you want, so there’s no delay at the end of a round to hold a vote. The runner-up map will be offered one more time in the next vote. If no one votes, the maps just advanced one by one as before.
Depot overhaul nears completion
Will’s overhaul of Depot is nearly done, with interiors being now almost complete.
Audio and game modes continue to be tweaked for the new structures, and we’re very excited about getting this one out there for you all to playtest.
AI
As mentioned a few reports ago, AI is being hooked up with a new light detection system that should make night operations a lot more satisfying.
Things were not far along to showcase back then, but they are now — so here’s a short clip to demo some level of sneaking in the dark (with the new white phosphor GPNVG-18 on, as well as the AN/PEQ-15’s IR Illuminator), and then quickly flashing a visible white light at the patrolling AI to showcase the light detection:
And while we’re talking AI, here’s a quick little door breach test that our new programmer Chris put together:
To make it perfectly clear: the video above is not V1033 material, nor is any of it necessarily representative of final features. We just want to show that friendly AI is indeed being actively prototyped and worked on.
🧭 Kris has also been at work with V1033 AI to improve door and ladder navigation, to prevent (or at least reduce) instances of bots grouping up and getting stuck in them.
Ongoing asset updates
In parallel with the more technical and player experience-oriented improvements, older 3D assets continue to be updated to conform to newer models. One such example is the MPX, which is receiving a full remake and currently sits at the low-poly stage, right before texturing:
And that is a wrap for today’s Intel Report!
As always, thanks for staying in touch with development for GROUND BRANCH!
Don’t forget this is the last Intel Report before V1033 — don’t expect more dev blogs until we get the update out of the door.
We got another Intel Update for you, and this month we have news and showcases for both V1033 — our next major update — as well as a little preview of something that will be coming later on (V1034 or later). Don’t forget you can always get an overview of what’s on the way via our Roadmap.
Recap: GROUND BRANCH on GeForce NOW
As announced in late September, GROUND BRANCH is now available on NVIDIA’s cloud gaming service GeForce NOW (GFN).
Earlier this month, we also fixed an issue with GFN players losing keybinds, game/video options and listen server configurations upon ending a play session. These settings were all set to save to the Steam Cloud, so everything is now kept safe.
News for V1033
Here’s what we have this month for our upcoming major release V1033.
Pistol red dots, new models and stuff
V1033 will finally allow you to mount a mini red dot sight (such as the RMR) to pistols that are fit for it. At this time, that includes both G19 models, the MK25 and the M17.
MK25 equipped with the RMR mini red dot sight, as teased on our Twitter
We have also added a new mini red dot sight, the Docter II, commissioned to Cody Cudmore:
As mentioned in the last update, we have also ordered an A2-style AR carry handle, as well as a brand-new M16A4 model that better matches up with the other AR-15 models both in quality and scale. The Bipod Grip is also receiving a new model. Here’s a screenie with all of that stuff put together:
While we’re talking popular demand, we’ve made the SMG/PDW pouches into doubles so you can carry as much ammo for them as you can for rifles:
Selectable shoothouse layouts
Running the shoothouse (sometimes killhouse) on The Farm is always fun, but it can get stale with the fixed floorplan/layout.
In V1033, players will be able to choose between a number of different layouts (5 at the time of counting) — including the old layout last seen in V1030’s “Killhouse” training level — via the Target App display, right next to the shoothouse’s entrance:
Prototype of the upgraded Target App display: now has a dropdown menu to select different layouts, which are previewed on the right
Main room for one of the new shoothouse layouts
💡 We'll continue to expand on shoothouse layouts and functionality as we progress.
In case you’re wondering, the existing layout (currently in V1032) remains as the first option.
Server quality of life
One of our tasks this update is server quality of life. This mostly means a lot of little fixes and features to try and make server admins’ lives easier, but there are also some improvements to the online experience for regular players.
Let’s look at a first example, the Kit Restrictions menu in the Admin Panel:
This is being wrapped up now, and should allow server admins more easily to set up restrictions for the skins that different teams can use on their kit, for ease of friendly vs. enemy identification.
Another feature that has long been requested is the favorite servers feature. The UI has been there for a while, but finally it has been rigged up:
This feature is tied into Steam directly, so you can view and manage your favorite servers offline within Steam as well:
Another change that has been made is to allow server admins to specify a “message of the day” text that can be displayed as usual with the admin motd console command, while simultaneously displaying an image on the server info board (via the new <text> tag). Changes made by admins to the message of the day or server name will also propagate immediately to all users. It’s the little things.
Callsigns
As mentioned last month, V1033 will be bringing callsigns: short IDs by which players may be more easily identified.
Callsigns are displayed as their own arm patches (though only on tops that have a velcro patch) and are limited to three alphanumeric characters (A–Z and 0–9) which can be entirely custom — within limits — or use an automatically assigned Team Element-based value (e.g. “A-01” if you’re first man on element Alpha); the latter can be forced for all players by server admins.
Grayscale US flag and callsign patches applied on compatible top (Fleece Hoodie). Notice that the active checkbox overrides the player-defined callsign (“SCO”) with an automatically assigned callsign (“B-05” or Bravo Five) based on the player’s current Team Element.
Various UI elements have now been updated to include the new callsign system, and as part of the server quality-of-life upgrade, server admins can do whatever player name and callsign validation they wish via a new server management mutator packaged into a mod.
The specific format of these callsigns can also be chosen by the server owner.
Maps and game modes
Docks missions
All game modes are now made for the new Docks map, including the most complex Intel Retrieval setup so far. Some more limited Deathmatch areas have been created, and DTAS (Dynamic Take and Secure) should be a very interesting tactical proposition on this map.
Uplink should be a challenge for defenders and attackers alike, and both Terrorist Hunt and Team Elimination will of course also be present.
Depot overhaul
The Depot overhaul continues, and as the teasers below show, it’s proving to be a pretty massive one. Can you tell which areas of the V1032 version these angles correspond to?
The updated Depot will also require a game modes and acoustics update in order to account for the design changes.
Ready Room hints
Though not directly related to level design, we have also made some updates aimed at new players, with revamped hints in more prominent places, as well as “in-world” Ready Room hints to make things as clear as possible about where to go and what to do to start your first GROUND BRANCH game.
All hints are temporary and disappear after the first few sessions, though they can be reset under Settings › Gameplay to start appearing like at first launch.
Hostage Rescue (PvP) and Terrorist Hunt improvements
While we are working on a PvP Hostage Rescue game mode, we are not ignoring the PvE modes.
Besides the AI improvements discussed in Intel Report #011, the Terrorist Hunt mode is being refined with two new features that we’re currently testing:
On some larger maps, a new “AI hotspot” feature will be available where certain areas of the map spawn a larger-than-usual number of enemies, providing more of a focus and a challenge
The return of the “bum rush” feature, in which the last few enemies on a map just can’t take it any more, and attempt to charge down the remaining players — hopefully reducing the incidence of “where’s that last damn bot?”
Audio
As the long process of audio optimization continues, Mikson has put a little time aside to record a short preview of the new gunshot tails for large interior spaces, which you can check out below:
Beyond V1033
Some features are an ongoing development that might see their beginnings well before they’re ready for the public.
Such is the case of friendly AI, whose first steps were teased last month even though it’s at least a couple of updates away from an initial playable iteration. Gotta let you all know it’s being worked on, right?
So this month we’re showcasing some of the upcoming female characters and related assets that we’ve been working with Pau Peñalver to have ready for V1034 (tentatively!). Let’s take a look:
As ever, keep in mind that although these renders are made with “game-ready” geometry and textures (as opposed to high-poly and super resolutions), they do not reflect the final in-game look due to the lighting.
That’s all for today’s Intel Report!
Thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH’s development, and have an awesome rest of the week.
As announced earlier this month, GROUND BRANCH was set to become available on GeForce NOW — NVIDIA’s subscription-based cloud gaming service — this September.
And just as announced, players can stream GROUND BRANCH (via Steam) on GFN as of this Thursday! A pretty cool opportunity for those without a beefy PC setup to try GB out.
Time for another Intel Report, where we go over the latest happenings in development as the upcoming GROUND BRANCH update V1033 continues to evolve.
📅 Be sure to check out last month's Intel Report (#011) in case you missed it!
GROUND BRANCH on GeForce NOW soon
As mentioned last month, GROUND BRANCH is coming to GeForce NOW — NVIDIA’s cloud gaming service — which will make the game accessible to a whole new audience of subscribers.
NVIDIA has confirmed that this will happen sometime this month:
We’ll be sure to make a quick announcement when it goes live!
New coder in the house
Last month we announced the addition of VFX Artist Charles Schmidt and Sound Designer Zack Reagan to the team, but some of you may remember that we still had a vacant senior programmer spot. And this month we’re very happy to announce that is no longer the case, as Christoph Bockhahn joins us in a Senior Programmer capacity!
Chris’ resumé is too humiliating for us to fully cite, but it should suffice to say that he was working for Acer before and has a master’s in astrophysics. In addition to his general programming background, Chris has industry experience in UI, tech art, gameplay engineering and, of course, the mandatory Unreal Engine skills.
The biggest benefit of getting Chris on board is going to be speeding up AI development, which is of course great news for most of the GROUND BRANCH player base.
Let’s all welcome Chris to the team! We’ll take a quick look at some of his initial work next.
Though implementation is still very much under-the-hood at this point (meaning nothing cool to showcase, unfortunately), Chris has taken the time to start prototyping a friendly AI ordering system:
Patches and callsigns
Continuing the work on patches for headgear and shirts, we now have callsign patches in-game, for ease of identifying operators on the field.
Players can choose a three-letter callsign code, or have one generated automatically when changing name. Servers can also apply a callsign patch policy, for example to force players to have callsigns based on their chosen element (A, B, C, D), to override any selection by each player. There is no need to choose a callsign patch in the character editor — these are added automatically whenever a callsign is used.
Depot is getting a visual update
Environment artist Will has moved on to giving Depot a thematic art pass to get it more in line with Storage Facility, which is set in the same region.
Here are some preview shots:
New Storage Facility previews
The Storage Facility map overhaul is done, so why not appreciate some ultrawide shots of that beauty in a different lighting?
Audio optimization continues
This month we have further optimized the audio side of things by lowering the amount of memory usage by at least half, based on performance testing on Small Town with 30 bots.
This was done by optimizing how the weapon sounds were loaded. Now, instead of all weapon sounds being stored at all times, only the ones in use during a particular mission or round are stored.
This method will also allow for easier audio modding in the future, as you only need to edit and rebuild the sound bank for the weapon you want to mod instead of rebuilding the entire weapon sound bank for just one weapon.
Combined with the CPU optimization that we detailed last month, we’re looking at roughly a 50% gain in audio performance so far — not too shabby.
🎧 Weapon tails and other sounds are also continually being reworked and improved alongside the optimization work.
Doors: a game designer’s nightmare
Doors are having part of their logic redone to address one of its main issues: getting both players and AI stuck in them.
Some degree of physics simulation is also being added in order to once again allow cracked doors — that is, partially open ones — to be pushed by just walking into them.
We’re also hoping to get a nicer looking effect for exploding doors while we’re at it.
More VFX progress
Work on particle effects continues as Charles converts all of the existing VFX to the newer Niagara system before reworking and improving them.
He has zeroed in on bullet impacts and has recently started improving the breaching charge explosion:
Animations
Though we cannot showcase it at this time for various annoying reasons, we can confirm that some basic new manipulation animations will make it to V1033.
Players will actually start seeing their character flip magnifiers on and off, flick the Specter DR’s lever to the front and back, and pull their night vision goggles up and down.
🚪 A basic "magic hand" type of animation for door interactions may also be present as a placeholder. That still beats telekinesis, right?
Mike has also been busy with hand poses and reload sequences to fit the new and updated weapon models, which we’ll cover next.
Weapon models
Weapons and related assets continue to be created and revamped as needed by our trusted contractors, which — between brand-new items and replacements — has so far allowed us to add over a dozen new weapon models to V1033.
Let’s make a quick list, starting with the new weapons:
MK17 CQC / DMR
Wz.88
AK-105
PKM
PMM
M24 SWS
Speaking of which, here’s how that last one turned out:
Now for the replacements/updates:
M1911A1
AK-74M
AKS-74U
AK-105 Alpha (replacing the AK-74 MI)
AKS-74U Alpha (replacing the AK-74 MI CQB)
SVD
M16A4 (currently in development; the old model has issues in both scaling and quality consistency)
And that’s not even mentioning extra parts and new/updated attachments that will make their way into the game as we go.
As promised, here’s the new AK-74M, as well as the AK-105 with tactical Zenitco furniture:
More renders of the AKs on the AK Productions ArtStation right here.
We can also confirm that an “A2” carry handle is finally coming for the M16/M4 series of weapons. That’s right. We caved.
⁉️ WHY THE FOCUS ON VISUALS? WE WANT BETTER AI!
From time to time, part of the player base questions our priorities, which is understandable: why are we putting resources on models, effects or any other superficial thing when there are areas of development in more urgent need of attention?
Well, that is simply because not everyone on the team can do everything. For example, telling our art guys to shift their focus to gameplay code will only result in neither art or gameplay seeing progress.
So while progress may be slow in certain areas, others may (and should) continue to develop normally.
That said, AI has seen little progress in the last couple of updates, but is now getting worked on intensively, beginning with the integration of the new Kythera middleware. AI is one of the harder aspects of game development, and the results won't be immediate — it's an ongoing task that will be spread over the next few updates and beyond — but the key takeaway here is that we are now "all systems go", in all areas of development.
This has been Intel Report #012!
We hope you found this post informative and interesting enough to make the soul-crushing wait for V1033 a bit more bearable.
Thank you very much for reading, and we’ll see you on the next one!
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