[h2]Hiya! Minerkey here for this update post![/h2] There's many things to jump into so I'll get straight into it. Over the past year the HDTF team has grown from about 5 people to 20 - including weapon animators, modelers, shader programmers, VFX artists and more. As such we can now afford to become more ambitious with our overhaul of Hunt Down the Freeman! As the team has grown, we’ve also ditched the old name: M3SA Team and the M3SA build are no more - Operation Whisky Freedom is ready to go! [b]Something to note is that since I am on the art side of the team, this blog post will mainly focus on art/graphics-related content, but there is a ton of mapping and gameplay work being done still[/b] With our sweeping changes to the game, we’re adding a ton of new features we can’t wait to utilize, and for the TL;DR I’ll list them here, but if you want more detail its down below [list] [*]Physically-Based Rendering [*]Updated VFX [*]FMOD Studio for dynamic music [*]Parallax-Corrected Cubemaps [*]Depth Of Field [*]Overhauled weapon animations [*]Plans for overhauled Black Mesa section [*]Reworks to Albuquerque [*]New weapon models and materials [*]Bullsquid & Houndeye [*]Workshop support [/list] [i](note: all content shown may change during development, it's all work-in-progress)[/i] [h2]Shaders & visuals[/h2] The source engine uses a specular setup for its materials, a method that isn’t often supported by newer software and hasn’t really been used in games for a decade. PBR (physically-based-rendering) is now the industry standard, utilizing metallic, roughness and ambient occlusion maps and gives a different look to metal surfaces compared to the typical specular shading system. PBR also simplifies our workflow and is the main rendering method of modern tools such as Substance - allowing our artists and modders to more-easily create content. Another benefit of PBR is that it only uses greyscale (black = off, white = on) allowing for more compression without drastic changes to visual quality Subsurface-scattering is also a feature of our PBR shader, allowing us to emulate the way light affects materials such as skin and plastic on NPCs and models. Along with that, PCC (parallax-corrected cubemaps) is integrated into our shader. Source engine cubemaps often do a good job but break-down in motion, they appear to move with the player and are very inaccurate in most situations. Using parallax-correction, cubemaps are able to take on the shape of a boxy room, allowing cubemaps to warp and distort according to the player’s location. While this system is implemented in the game, it has yet to be used in our maps. Theres also talk of implementing screen-space reflection as well to accommodate realtime effects and non-boxy areas which cannot use PCC - but thats just an idea. [url=https://youtu.be/H35QWMuoF3Y]An excellent example of this PCC is showcased by Tripmine Studios and their implementation of it[/url] Something to note with our current PBR+SSS+PCC shader is that it is in the process of being rewritten, as it has some issues. Along with this, it is currently not functioning properly with cubemaps, which results in metallic materials becoming incredibly dark - as can be seen on PBR surfaces across the board such as the Hardballer/1911, AR2, AK, etc. Another addition in the works is DOF (Depth of Field) which blurs parts of the screen. When aiming down sights in games you may notice the gun is blurred to allow the player to focus on what they’re aiming at, and this is something we’re going to be replicating. Of course this is planned to be an option in the menu you can disable. Only issue is that right now it isn’t functioning on AMD cards, which we’re hoping to resolve but currently has our shader artists very confused. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/75ebafa08ffb5f1aa98d8a2f54befbeea0f5a43a.png[/img] [h2]Animation[/h2] Along with me, a new animator - Manimal - has joined the team to work on first-person animation. Currently, the MP7, knife, 1911, AR2, USP, Spas-12, pills and Remington have been reanimated and implemented into the game, and we plan to give all the player’s weapons the same treatment! Camera shake has also been implemented (though currently unused) to complement the new animations - similar to how the feature is utilized in games like Modern Warfare 2019. Manimal has also posted video of their animations as they are completed, which can be found [url=https://www.youtube.com/@Manimal1920/videos]here on their channel[/url] [previewyoutube=Bi34oRqC35g;full][/previewyoutube] There are also plans for small first-person animations when interacting with the environment, such as getting off the hospital bed in the Albuquerque hospital. and as a last-minute addition, we are also working to bring support for staged reloads - so if you reload and switch weapons before it finishes, upon switching back it will continue from there, rather than restarting the whole reload animation from scratch. Its done at the qc level as opposed to game code, so its not a permanent change and those who don't like it can revert it [previewyoutube=T3gaPpjdyCM;full][/previewyoutube] [i][b]Update: due to Manimal/Randy's behaviour he has now been removed from the team and is no longer affiliated with OWF or HDTF. From what we have heard, this is yet another case of such an incident involving him. And given his immediate actions after that (posting transphobic and racist content, insulting team members, etc in a dedicated hate server) we are glad he is no longer a developer. That being said, there is work to be done and decisions to be made in terms of removing, replacing or keeping the animations he has made.[/b][/i] [h2]Weapons[/h2] Weapons have been a large focus of our small art team, and as such have of course been receiving new animations. New materials are also in development for our guns and after bringing on Aperture Aerospace to help - some of the more problematic weapons have been getting new models, such as the AR2 and 1911! Our next models include new AK, USP and M16 models as they could do with overhauls, especially the last two. [i](Note: as our PBR shader isn’t functioning correctly, these images are rendered using Cycles)[/i] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/ecd07c194d9e8d5601d6b004bedd48e2eef3d514.png[/img] [h2]AR2[/h2] If you've tried out the AR2 in the past month you might notice that it's been completely remade! With help from myself, our lead M3SA and Gamedev, the AR2 has received a brand new model and materials that better fit the original design, along with new animations by none other than Manimal! Our VFX artist Justyn also has plans for new particle effects to add to the weapon. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31675198/bc00732cefa65d249c5aba6c4d89349b684a896d.png[/img] [h2]VFX[/h2] Thanks to another member of the team, Justyn, particles have been improved for Hunt Down The Freeman. Expect smoke to come from the barrels of guns after firing along with smoking empty shells to come flying out and hit the ground! [i](note: this is old footage and as such doesn't include the custom smoke particle we've made, you can see it in-game now!)[/i] [previewyoutube=lSrJgNUHX6c;full][/previewyoutube] [h2]FMOD[/h2] You might’ve seen FMOD on the splash screens of many modern games, and now we have it too! FMOD is a Third Party Audio Middleware that allows us to play a range of audio files, while also allowing us to make dynamic music or sounds that can be affected by the game’s code with the use of FMOD Studio. We have currently implemented the entire API and have it working in-game, but have yet to implement it into any of our maps for the time being. We hope that in the future mappers and modders will be able to utilize it to make more engaging maps with dynamic music and even more [i](note: FMOD .bank files are map based and should be stored inside “sound/fmod/desktop/