Without further ado, let’s take a look at the week’s highlights!

Top Tenish:

1. WIP – Scenario and ECTs: Caleb and Bull have been working on a new way to author gameplay content. Our editor will have the capability to describe detailed gameplay concepts right in our world editor. Iteration speed on our scenarios will really start to pick up after this milestone.
2. WIP – Tech – Floating Combat Text: Dave completed a first pass of the system this week, hooking up some basic damage and healing flyouts. The purpose of this system is to improve combat readability, so players can not only tell better what is happening, but also help us test more efficiently. Ie: we can use this system to throw more info at players to help debug issues. Of course, this is just a proof-of-concept that the tech works, and is NOT indicative of how this will eventually look.  
   
3. WIP – Tech – Ability Buttons: Matt handed off the next update to the ability buttons for AJ to hook up. This includes preparation, recovery, unusable, and disruption states. AJ already has this hooked up on his branch!
4. WIP – Tech – Patcher Design Update: After getting his Warband UI work into review, AJ began work on the patcher update. This should be up for review fairly soon, and out to Backers next. This mainly includes a change to character and patcher selection.
5. WIP – Tech – Server Stability: Colin has been working on making the server more resilient to network encoding bugs, which is going up for review today. This should not only improve server stability, but also help us find network encoding bugs easier.
6. WIP – Tech – Scoreboard and Permissions: Christina is making solid progress on two projects this week. The first is data support for a scenario scoreboard, so players can get more insight into the details of a round. The second item is upgrading spawn points to use the new permissions system. Before, the rules for spawn point usage could only check against the player’s faction, but now it can use all the rules we have for the permission system.
7. WIP – Art – Mjolnir Electrical VFX: Much of Mike’s week has been spent working on various methods of creating electrical effects. This work is not meant to just fulfill these specific effects, but also to inform how he can better create other effects, as well.
8. WIP – Art – Dynamic Combat Music: Following up from last week’s work on generalized combat sounds, dB has begun working out how that work informs his goals for dynamic combat music. Right now, he’s working on setting up a parameter based on intensity of combat around the player. He’s writing up some rough combat music that can hook into these new parameters.
9. Art – Focus Item Animations: Scott is finishing up all the supporting animations for the one-hand focus and empty hand casting animations. This includes the movement, jumps, flinch, deflect, and death.
10. Art – Deflect Animations: Sandra finished updating the deflect animations to be faster and visually different enough from the flinches. She’s now moved on to a small end-of-the-year task to add flinches and deaths to the three travel stance animations (as of right now, you pop to a combat stance before your flinch or death).
11. Art – Arthurian Heavy Armor Variations: Michelle completed a pass on both arm and leg heavy armor variations this week. These will be handed off to Jon in the coming weeks to work on.
12. Art – Wasteland Terrain Mod: The next scenario map will utilize a bunch of new assets created by Dionne. This week, she wrapped up a grass and weed set, a bunch of dead trees with LODs and collision, as well as a robust group of dead branches and debris.
13. WIP – Art – Place of Power: The next map will also utilize the Place of Power model we previously created. This week Tyler spent time updating the model and breaking it up for import into the map. This also included a rough pass of the map terrain geometry to support Ben’s design. You can catch his stream HERE.
14. Art – Armor Variations: Based on some of Michelle’s concept of a chest piece, Jon completed a modeling pass on all the pieces of the Arthurian heavy armor, ‘cause he’s fast. He completed a quick material pass as well, to see how well the surface details hold up. These results are already informing what we want to do in the future for item creation. Our end goal is more variation, but with less development time.
15. WIP – Art – Scenario UI: James finished off all the CSS styling for the graphic design update to the patcher. As mentioned above, this work is currently in AJ’s hands to finish. You can see some of the previously revealed concept art HERE. James closes out the week with work on an art pass to the “scenario win” and “defeat” UI elements, as well as a scoreboard.

User Stories:

17 Old Cards with 88 Complete
5 New Cards with 40 Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to know about smaller changes that don’t have their own user story.
Remove knockback from entangling vines/roots. Should not both root and knockback. – Complete
Damage taken while in travel stance temporarily slows target. – Complete
Updated Database Ecosystem: Store/Player accounts. – Complete
Updated Database Ecosystem: Game Server. – Complete
Embedded WebAPI server for local builds. – Complete
Improve server performance by cutting down size of items. – Complete
Skill XML Editing Improvement: Harden skills parsing and produce better log messages to improve ease of debugging skill XML changes. – Complete
Skill XML Editing Improvement: Warn if any child effects are found that don’t match to a parent animation effect. – Complete
Skill XML Editing Improvement: Clean up definition loading and fix issues with loading inlined files. – Complete
Skill XML Editing Improvement: Make SkillDetail more readable and reliable. – Complete
Optimizations to health change updates. – Complete

As a Backer, I’d like to experience positionally-based audio and music within the world of Camelot Unchained.
Generic combat audio based on number of surrounding players: – Complete
Create quad sound identifier. – Complete
Attach quad sound to dark side explosion. – Complete
Add dark side explosion to other battle events. – Complete
Spawn NPCs and test accuracy of quad panning. – Complete
Add Quad sound to player listener. – Complete
Setup that quad sound to pan based on quad RTPCs from first quad sound. – Complete
Test in game. – Complete
Replace test sound with actual battle ambiences. – Complete
Or add quad sound to Player Spawn but mediate it based on Action Intensity. – Complete
Add distance filter to 10mm Looking at Me object. – Complete
Figure out the Action Intensity ballistics. – Complete

As a Backer I’d like a patcher to not only update my game, but also give me the most important news and updates, get support, chat with the community and look awesome while doing it!
Visual Update: First pass styling concept art. – Complete
Visual Update: Second pass styling concept art. – Complete
Visual Update: CSS complete. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to have a selection of character emotes to use.
Update old emote animations, yes, no, and point, to use shared starting point as test for future animation system tech. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – Arthurians
Books: First Pass planning mix and match parts system. – Complete
Book – V1: Modeling pass. – Complete
Book – v1: Materials. – Complete
Book – v1: Integration. – Complete
Book – v2: Modeling pass. – Complete
Book – v2: Materials. – Complete
Book – v2: Integration. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – TDD
Books: First Pass planning mix and match parts system. – Complete
Book – v1: Modeling pass. – Complete
Book – v1: Materials. – Complete
Book – v1: Integration. – Complete
Book – v2: Modeling pass. – Complete
Book – v2: Materials. – Complete
Book – v2: Integration. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – Viking
Books: First Pass planning mix and match parts system. – Complete
Book – v1: Modeling pass. – Complete
Book – v1: Materials. – Complete
Book – v1: Integration. – Complete
Book – v2: Modeling pass. – Complete
Book – v2: Materials. – Complete
Book – v2: Integration. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to be able to pick an item up off the ground, put it in my inventory, and if applicable, equip it.
Drag and drop supported in inventory. – Complete
Updated tooltips with inventory items. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like a better instrument library to build interactive music.
Create church bell instrument. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to test the look and feel of combat with the new animation system while using a focus item.
Left hand focus casting animation, used in one-handed item weapon stance. – Complete
Right hand empty hand casting animation, used in one-handed item weapon stance. – Complete
Focus item and empty hand upper body travel animations. – Complete
Focus item and empty hand jump, deflect, flinch and death animations. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to see shout abilities conveyed in game through animation, sound, and VFX.
Create test animation to verify priority weighting and functionality for polearm. – Complete

As a Backer, I want an animation system that blends multiple animations together, and allows for immersive and fun combat.
Animation Viewer:
Add Animation viewer to editor displaying AnimSets and Clipsrefs. – Complete
Animation viewer displays region priorities. – Complete
Animation viewer displays AnimSetTags and ClipTags. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like the ability to build, spawn, aim, and fire a siege engine at players and buildings.
Scorpion SFX originate from scorpion position, not center of the zone! – Complete
Hide player’s weapons when using a siege engine. – Complete
First pass synced animation to player. – Complete
Improve projectile prediction between server and client. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like the landing areas to be propped out with a wharf from which player can travel to and from other islands.
Second pass – Arthurian ship model and materials. – Complete

As a Backer during Beta 1, I’d like to have a selection of basic clothing to wear about town.
First pass female clothing assets – High poly modeling. – Complete
First pass female clothing assets – Low poly modeling. – Complete
First pass female clothing assets – materials. – Complete

As a Backer in Beta 1, I want NPCs that serve as both allies and enemies in battle, as well as characters that provide important information to players.
Add Healer NPCs. – Complete
Additional rules for who can create NPCs. – Complete
NPCs can guard a location, returning if pulled too far. – Complete
NPCs can auto fill teams. – Complete
Add support for item loadout variation.  – Complete
Randomize NPC gender. – Complete
After spawn, NPCs can be assigned to an entity to defend. – Complete

As a Backer, I want to enter a siege scenario, complete objectives, and have the outcome factor into my character’s progression.
Concept art – Victory and Defeat UI elements. – Complete
Replace devUI victory and defeat popups with art versions. – Complete
Add queing and auto start to scenarios once a minimum team value is met.  – Complete
Add NPCs to auto fill a team once scenario starts. – Complete
Replace NPCs on a team if additional players join an in-progress scenario. – Complete
Players return to spawn point at end of scenario. – Complete
Time of Day and Ammunition needs can be set per scenario, vs. using a server setting. – Complete
Remove NPCs from scenario at end. – Complete
Don’t add NPCs if team is full. – Complete
Add dev button to remove NPCs from a match. – Complete
Scenario tracking refactors, upgrades, and fixes. – Complete
Update how the progression tracker reads from the json Config. – Complete
Upgrade progression summary printouts. – Complete
Real-time scenario summary info. – Complete

New Cards:

As a Backer, I’d like to see improvements in combat readability to support testing before the start of Beta 1.
Add MaxMoveSpeed to physics tab of perfhud. – Complete
Make sure all healer archetype abilities have generic VFX where necessary, particularly on targets. – Complete
Update previously created deflect animations to look less like a flinch and happen faster to better pair with deflect timing. – Complete
Create YOU WERE KILLED BY CHARACTER USING ABILITY screen on death. – Complete
Stonehealer stones have placeholder VFX to show area of influence. – Complete
First Pass system: Floating combat text to show damage and healing on target. – Complete
Create pre-built abilities for 3 Beta fighter archetypes, to speed testing and understanding of class mechanics. – Complete
Create pre-built abilities for 3 Beta archer archetypes, to speed testing and understanding of class mechanics. – Complete
Create pre-built abilities for 3 Beta healer archetypes, to speed testing and understanding of class mechanics. – Complete
First Pass: Status effect icons on player HUD. – Complete
Audit and update existing animation priority system for use. – Complete
Update existing in-game animations to use priority system. – Complete
Weapons are removed from player hands in travel stance. – Complete
Weapons are removed from player hands during casting. – Complete
Ability Button Update: Visual Design pass. – Complete
Ability Button Update: Replace old button visuals showing cooldown, error, queued, and hit. – Complete
Ability Button Update: Make buttons use updated SkillState schema. – Complete
Ability Button Update: Fix skillbar responsiveness to screen size. – Complete
VFX: Update appropriate melee abilities to play blood splatter and other hit effects. – Complete
VFX: Update appropriate melee abilities with weapon trails. – Complete

As a Backer, I want to enter a control point scenario to further test gameplay before the start of Beta 1.
Design: “Greybox” map layout and gameplay mechanics. – Complete
Rough pass terrain layout and rough sculpt. – Complete
Wasteland Terrain Mod: Grass/Weed set. – Complete
Wasteland Terrain Mod: Dead Trees. – Complete
Wasteland Terrain Mod: Dead tree debris. – Complete
ECTs: Spawn points no use our fancy new entity editing tech. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to create more variations of existing armor models.
Determine a plan of attack between concept and character art to determine the scope of what will look good when re-using existing geometry. – Complete
First pass concept art: Heavy armor chest piece. – Complete
Second pass concept art: Heavy armor chest piece. – Complete
First pass concept art: Heavy armor arms. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to create a reuseable permission model that has more capabilities than the current system and supports the full feature set needed for Beta.
Create new Permissible classes that various systems will eventually use. – Complete
Support sendToServer on them, which is how an entity that uses permissions can move from one server to another. – Complete
Support DB round tripping for new permissions allowing permissions to be retained after restart or logout. – Complete
Apply to items – First use = Vox. – Complete
Apply to buildings – Update current building code to use new permissions. – Complete
Update API layer – to support future updates to plot UI. – Complete
Support new scenario plot capture feature, which means plots can change hands in ways other than just through factions, such as via scenario teams. – Complete

As a Developer, I’d like to investigate using other cloud services to save on costs and utilize newer technology and resources.
GCP:  Deploy fully embedded server as initial proof-of-concept. – Complete
GCP: Update cloud manager to have a more generic interface for communicating with various cloud SDKs. – Complete
GCP: Update existing (AWS) cloud manager implementation to support the new interface. – Complete

Hey there! You’ve made it to the art for the week! We start off with some of the armor variation concept art from Michelle.

As mentioned above, here’s Jon’s first experiment with this process. If you look closely, you can see he put in different densities of detail on the armor so we could determine what scale will be most successful in-game.

Jon applied a quick material test to see how well the details read. Not at all finished materials here, folks!

Next up, we have some work-in-progress from James on the UI styling for the scenarios.

Earlier today, Dionne was tasked with the oh-so-exciting job of putting together some seaweed cards to populate our beaches. So sexy! These groupings are assembled from real-world scans to fit our needs. Side note: I really love this seaweed. I really really wanted to be the one who got to do it, and I’m jealous!

We end off the week with an appropriately festive image, courtesy of Michelle!

MJ here: just wanted to drop in a note of my own before we go on a much-needed break until early next year. 2017 was an exciting and very frustrating year for us. The good news is that while it started off badly (re-abilitation for the SUCK!), it has ended on quite a high note for everybody that is interested in Camelot Unchained and City State Entertainment. While the reasons for all this aren’t necessarily apparent to our Backers now, by the end of January it will be. As I have said on multiple streams, I promise that by the end of January that that which has been murky will become clear, and our Backers should be experiencing joy-joy feelings, even though the holiday season will be over. I wish each and every one of you, your families, and your friends, a Merry Christmas and a very, very Happy New Year!
-Mark

Okay, that’s it for this update! CU next year!
-t