Community Watch

ANIMATION UPDATE

Nothing super interesting to talk about this week with the animation system, but plenty of progress. We’ve been doing a lot of work on fixing up various bugs with the new software skinning system (the system that allows for 3D models to work across much older hardware) that became apparent when trying to make the video for last week’s Mondoid and resulted in huge scary spikes of flesh petruding from players chests. We’re meeting up with Martin on Thursday to discuss what comes next for models or animation work for the update, or perhaps future ones (ideas are always welcome!), and Binky is progressing with the model texture and UV revamp that will bring in new opportunities for blood overlays, as well as to get the ladies back into the animation build of the game.

EASY CO-OP

We were planning on releasing a build of the co-op system alongside the Mondoid, however a few last minute fixes are still being pushed out, and as 11 o clock ticks around in the UK we thought we better get the Mondoid out there before the panic buying of canned food starts. It’s still possible it will make it out tonight, but if not you can otherwise expect it very soon, likely tomorrow. Keep a look out on the TIS forums for an announcement, as it will not be appearing on IWBUMS and will in fact be on an entirely new branch for testing purposes. (Edit: Help us help you: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/19172-easy-co-op-test/#comment-231159) Big thanks to General Arcade for their tireless efforts bringing some clever networking tech to Zomboid, as well as to EasyPickins for his work on the in-game server settings and his work getting the new system ready to test out,. At the moment it’s only the Steam version using steam invites that we’re testing out. There are still a few changes in the pipe to make non-steam servers work comfortably, though we’re on the case and this will be in place before it goes into IWBUMS proper. The new multiplayer uses UPnP to completely avoid any requirement for port forwarding. In addition the way maps are transmitted to clients has been changed, and we’re hoping it’ll be much more robust with less chance of the langolier style black border issues that strike some players. At the moment the current version in testing still has a few UI improvements required to make it completely newbie proof, but it should prove infinitely more straightforward for the technically challenged. The steps are as follows: 1) The ‘host’ simply starts a game using the HOST menu option, launches the server from within the game, creates their character and selects a spawn location. 2) Once in-game, the host can send invites to their friends via the ESCAPE menu INVITE FRIENDS menu, here all their steam friends who own PZ and are online will appear. Invite away! 3) Their friends will get the invite through a Steam message, and when they click on it, the game will launch and … That’s it. It really is that simple! In fact, in lieu of the version being live for the Mondoid, we planned to provide a few screenshots until we realized the process is so simple there’s not really anything to show! There is of course the potential for bugs with some people’s set ups, in which case please let us know your router and PC configuration and we’ll try and get them resolved as soon as possible. We hope this will bring multiplayer with