Welcome to our seventh Weekly News Roundup, in which we report the news surrounding Dead Matter from the past week(s).
Apologies for the delay between the weekly news roundups, they have become more like monthly news roundups (if even that). The main reason for that is, that there just isn't enough for us to cover on a weekly basis at the moment. We gather everything, and post it once it is enough to justify an article. After the games' release we have all intentions to make this an actual weekly format, but since the game is still in development, patience is required.
The team around Dead Matter has grown yet again, to a total of 19 people, and in this article we'll look at what the new blood has been working on. There is now an official Instagram account for Dead Matter, so head over there and say hello.
Now let's take a look at everything from the Happy Holidays Development Update and a few things from various places...
Dynamic Snow
Hippowombat, one of the new artists on the team, will be working on dynamic weather functions for Dead Matter, he started off by tackling Dynamic Snow. Here is what he had to say (and show):
I've started working on dynamic weather functions for Dead Matter, beginning with dynamic snow. The first step was to set up a base layer that faded snow visuals and displacement based on a combination of elevation (snow level dropping with temperature) and angular allowance, which cooperatively drive each other as the global snow coverage value increases in-game.
Hippowombat / playdeadmatter.com
Next I wanted to make sure that coverage didn't occur under covered areas, so I built out a system that lets the level designers bake out a static intersection map for static objects. With texture packing we should be able to cover a massive area (100km²) with reasonable intersection accuracy.
Hippowombat / playdeadmatter.com
Looking at how snow builds in real life, I added an additional pass to allow snow to pile up against objects that it intersects with.
Hippowombat / playdeadmatter.com
Finally, I began work on a dynamic pass that allows for snow trails/indentation in-game, by capturing select actors and writing them to a temporary buffer that travels with the player.
From here, I'll be focusing on refining the static capture process to make sure it's as efficient & easy to use as possible, and then I'll be looking at ways to keep dynamic snow trails persistent even if the player isn't around when they're created, or if they leave the area where they're created.
Hippowombat / playdeadmatter.com
Canmore Signage
Nihito, another new artist on the team, has been working on Signs that will be scattered across Canmore, which will also be featured in the closed Alpha map.
User Interface / Coding
Also new on the Dead Matter team is programmer Disseminate, so far he has been working on the User Interface, the settings menus and various systems that will run Dead Matter under the hood.
I've been getting up to speed with the project and what's been done already (and there's a lot that's been done already so it's taking a while to get used to where everything is!)
For now, I've mostly been working on Dead Matter's user interface. Specifically, creating a window manager, building input components, and doing a pass on the main menu. If you're not super technically inclined, a window manager keeps track of the UI windows that are open, has some utilities for making new windows like prompts or the server browser, etc. Generally nothing too flashy, but getting this done means we can whip up UI in no time. This is useful for stuff like panels on machinery, equipment, ingame interactable stuff.
I've been tweaking the settings/options menu as well. We want to make sure nobody playing Dead Matter suffers bad performance for any reason, so we need to take care with the settings we implement. I also worked on the server browser a bit to make it more performant.
For something more interesting, I've been planning the timeline, seasons, and weather systems in Dead Matter. One of our goals is to make a realistic timeline as you play; the world should change with time and there shouldn't be any hiccups, inconsistencies, or generally weird bugs (for example, a jittery sun/sky, or snow in July). It's still in the planning phase but I think it's coming along smoothly.
Disseminate / playdeadmatter.com
Dialog Work
Regicidalnut, who is also writing the Dev Blogs, has been writing on dialogs for NPCs and fleshing out their backstories. Duke Cartilage, presumably an NPC in Dead Matter, has been named. NPCs that the player interacts with more often should have believable background stories and situations to talk about and point you to interesting places to explore...
Iron Sights Reload Animation
On the official Discord, we got to see a reload animation while aiming down iron sights. Not much else to say, you can keep your aim on the target and reload at the same time, looking good!
SVD Dragunov
The SVD Dragunov, Stefan Engdahl has been working on, which we've partly shownbefore, has been finished. Here we get to see it in all its final glory, in various colors and with various attachments.
Ruger 10/22
As we've reported before, Stefan Engdahl reworked the Ruger 10/22 a few months back. Now, almost half a year later, he shared some new images of his work.
A new shotgun in the works, shared without any context on the official Dead Matter Twitter.
Aiming & Moving Animations
A small preview of various aiming and moving animations, such as side strafing, that was shared by lead developer Nik Z on Twitter.
Item Animations
Also shared by Nik Z on Twitter, a glimpse into the work he has been doing regarding animations for toolbelt items and other usable items such as the Morphine Injector.
Reload Animations
And thirdly, shared by Nik Z on Twitter, we see reload animations of topping up a "box" magazine with single rounds and/or a stripper clip.
Armored Hazmat Suit
And last but not least, the Armored Hazmat Suit. Concept by @VitkaS5, mesh by @DogtoothCG.
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