Developers from the new Interactables team, a successor to the props team, show a deployable camping chair built in white box. They cover its DataForge record, animation and grip data, and possible deployable beds, stretchers, trolleys, shields and racing checkpoints.
TL;DRThe Interactables team is essentially a props team 2.0, still being defined, aiming at more complex, technical props and eventually shaping its own game features rather than only supporting other teams.
That's a very good question. And I think it's something that's going to be hashed out over the coming months a bit more. But at the moment, as it stands, it's basically a props team 2.0. But the goal of this team is to push the props a little bit further. Whereas we've just done the art before, the Interactables team is about interactables. So obviously more complex props with more functionality, being able to take on a bit more of the technical setup and stuff like that, and be our own entity really. So usually we're just supporting environment team, AI team, mission feature team. Different teams we provide support, but this is going to be more of a team where we can start shaping our own game features and stuff ourselves, which is really, really exciting. Yeah, it's like a props team, but a more in-depth technical version.
TL;DRThe new team is making a camping set of props players could carry in their ship and place anywhere, as an exploratory effort that may not make it into the game.
Yeah, so basically, our team's brand new, and we're just starting to find our feet and get the ball rolling on the stuff we have to work on. But previous to this, before we got started, as we were ramping down our work with the previous props team, we took a bit of time to start looking at what kind of cool new features we could develop, what we're able to do with the skills we currently have, and then maybe what we're able to progress into later on. So to that end, we sat down and thought, okay, what can we do with props? So we thought it'd be awesome to create a cool set of props that players would be able to maybe pick up, take with them to places and place wherever they'd like. Within reason. So we sat around and thought, oh, it would be really cool making some form of camping set, something like that, where players can load up their ship with some equipment, take them to anywhere in the verse, land, and place them and have little camps and stuff.
Yeah, we went wild with the thought process. We're just like, imagine when all the tech comes online and we have lots of players on a server, they'll all come and set up tents and stuff. We can have our own version of Glastonbury, Star Citizen.
And it's not the only initiative that the new Interactables team is tackling. This is just the one that we've chosen to highlight and explore today. Not everything that we make in Star Citizen Live Game Dev goes into the game, but whenever possible, we do try to piggyback on work that you're already doing so that we can see the process of making stuff that has a better chance of someday making it into the game. The team is already scoping out camping gear. We thought, let's make some camping gear today.
Now, interesting, what we're going to be doing today is essentially, if you were to find parity with the ship pipeline you might already be familiar with, we're going to be working in a white box for most of today where we test functionality and develop functionality and stuff. So cup holders is definitely a gray box slash final art kind of task.
That would be a cool thing to bear in mind if I go and take this further. Because this actually started out as just a personal development task. But it got to the point where everyone thought it was actually pretty cool. And they were like, oh, let's give this a try and show it off.
TL;DRExisting art like the camping beds wasn't built with animation in mind, with folding parts modelled shortcut-style, so they're making new art from an animation-ready template instead.
So that would be a good starting point. So part of this was I did go back and review some of the artwork that was already made to be fit for purpose. But the problem is a lot of them aren't built with the animation in mind. For example, we have a bunch of camping beds already in the game, but they're not built in a way which means they can easily be deployed. So part of what we want to do is create some art from scratch that will actually work from the get-go.
So you're saying that in situations like this, it would be more time and cost effective to adapt the art to the animation, than try to take something that was already created and completely redo the animation.
Exactly, yeah. Because sometimes when you're doing modeling, you can take shortcuts. So for example, if you have a folding mechanism, sometimes you'll just model it as it is folded out and then optimize the geometry behind where it folds so that if you actually tried to fold it via the animation, it would not work. Just because where you've tried to optimize it, maybe the mesh isn't clean on the other side, or it just looks a bit jank, or some faces have been deleted to save on polygons for optimization. So going forward, what we usually do is we will set up a template. And then that template has the functionality that is required. And then the artist will go on to make the actual final art.
TL;DRThe chair is meant to be deployable anywhere in the open world rather than tied to one scene, and it was a learning task for setting up deployables, with ideas like tents, stoves and football goals floated.
Well, the idea behind this is that this is the kind of chair that can be deployed anywhere out in the open world. That's the whole idea. So it's not one particular or specific scene. It should be able to go out to microTech or out into the marshes of Lorville or wherever. And chair, bed, table, be able to set yourself up a little scene.
It would be absolutely amazing to see, players already organize stuff, right? So for example, the Daymar Rally, can you imagine if players could bring their own camping chairs and set up and watch alongside the track and stuff? Or later on, we're looking at potentially getting a programmer on our team and being able to create features and stuff like that. So imagine cooking mechanics maybe or something like that, a deployable stove where you can cook things for your mates, tents. One of the ideas we really, really liked the sound of was football goals. So bringing a ball and a football goal that deploys along with you. Thought that would be a really cool idea. But again, this here was a task just to learn some of the more technical stuff in regards to the setup because I know a lot of the art stuff, but in terms of setting it up in DataForge and basically making it actually work, I don't know it that well.
Stuff like when I did the med bed, that was already preset up by a different team. So all I had to do was place the points, animate it, and then that was done. Yeah, essentially, this was a task to learn the setup behind creating deployables, really.
TL;DRDataForge is an internally developed database storing the connections and rules between every item in the Persistent Universe, which moved most (not all) data away from CryEngine's XML system.
DataForge is pain. This is DataForge here. DataForge is basically the place where we keep all of the connections between every individual item that makes up the universe and set up the rules and the guidelines in how that interacts with one another. The crazy, insane database at the heart of the Persistent Universe. I'm sure some folks who have been around here for a while might be able to remember links to old ATVs where DataForge was being developed originally. We did some segments on it way back when, if you're really curious to learn more. But it's a totally internally developed way to store and retrieve the data that is necessary to make the Persistent Universe work. And one of the biggest things it did was it got us away from CryEngine's XML system for a lot of stuff. Not everything, for being completely honest, but for most things.
I don't even really know what else you can compare it to, really. It's really, really cool. Essentially what I did when setting up the first deployable that I ever did, it was essentially mashing two DataForge records together and learning how they both worked. And it's a really cool modular system that can actually do stuff like that. It's really awesome.
There are other things like it from other developers; the issue is that other developers don't share them. They don't talk about them. They don't expose them. So the references wouldn't make any sense. But it's our version of a common necessity for MMOs.
TL;DRArtists can use any folding animation they like if they keep the chair metrics (sitting position, carrying) consistent, and the DataForge record also lets them customize things like grip data.
Yeah, so really all this is just some demonstration geometry. The main thing is the actual record. So I was talking about DataForge earlier. This is the record for that. And they can essentially do any kind of animation they want as long as they stick to those metrics. So the chair metrics so that the player always sits in the same position, they're able to rest. And as long as it folds up so that they can carry it in the same way, there's no reason they can't change the animation up. Even if it's a different size when it's folded down, they've got the ability to go into this record and actually change down here, I think. They've got stuff like the grip data, so they can change what orientations it can be picked up from, the shape of the grip. So maybe it's a flat grip, maybe it's a rounded grip, the dimension of the hands. So there's all sorts of features. You could spend all day in this just looking it up, but there's a lot of customization to be done through this. And this is essentially just going to be the base version. And then you can see down here, there's all sorts of different...
Exactly. So every chair in the game is sort of based from the same original chair, right? It's always going to be the same sort of height. And that just means that people can be more flexible in their approach when making stuff. All the tech travels forever and yeah, it's cool beans.
TL;DRMotivation comes from the team now being able to develop its own work, using gaps caused by blocked dependencies for side tasks, and from shifting people to the right task to keep things fresh.
To be honest, since the new team update, it's been pretty nice because essentially, we were just making the art before, and now we have a real awesome chance to take our own work further and develop our own stuff. So for example, I haven't been tasked with this specific thing. This is just stuff I've been working on between tasks. So there'll sometimes be a day or two where you're waiting for your next task or you're waiting for it all to kick off. So you're just doing prep work to see how you can prepare yourself for it. And this was one of those tasks for us. We had a spare day.
Those things come up quite a bit because something you're supposed to be working on gets blocked by a dependency from somebody on another team, and you need them to finish their thing before you can continue on the thing that you're supposed to be working on. So you find other tasks to make sure that you're always being as productive as possible. I think we have an episode of ISC dedicated to that phenomenon coming up later this next quarter, about the sort of middle tasks, the things that aren't necessarily laid out but tend to crop up during development when you have to wait on something from somebody else. Another way that folks are always battling tedium: if you've been following the project for any prolonged period of time, you've heard a lot about "this team was supposed to work on this, but they're moved over to this", "this artist was on this team and they're now on this team or that team" and stuff like that. Part of that "the only constant in game development is change" mentality is keeping things fresh and interesting and motivating for the people who are working on the project. Of the many reasons decisions are made throughout game development, one of the considerations is always about trying to place the right person to the right task. And this person might have been the right person for that task three months ago, but they may not be the right person for that task today. It might be somebody else because of the last thing they worked on or just where they are in their career development at that time. So it's an amazing calculus that is worked out by our producers and our directors. And you can go back to, gosh, there was an SCL we did, I want to say 2017, 2018, where we worked with producers and built a schedule out. It was super popular. Literally, we spent an hour building out a schedule and I got a lot of crap for it. But it's another essential part of game development, to show the various considerations that go into why these people are on this thing and not this thing. It's an amazing calculus that I wish more game developers talked about.
Now, baseball bat is not a deployable. Baseball bat is a melee weapon that I've been asking for for years. And that is technically there. There was one in the CitizenCon demo last year. It wasn't used, but if you watch it, it was there behind the counter at the outpost.
Yeah, so it's annoying that we've got that fine line between weapons and props sometimes. And while I'd love to make a deployable baseball bat or something, weapons team would get that pleasure.
Yeah, deployable shields and stuff, that's been on the want list for a long, long time. Deployable racing checkpoints, yeah, that's also been on the list. We were talking about scramble races a couple years ago, one of the things that got reprioritized down the list a bit, but I was having a conversation with somebody about scramble races internally just earlier today. And I said the words, don't pull the rug out from under me. When it gets further along, then we'll talk about it.
Oh yeah, definitely. Like I said, because we're a brand new team, this is for me to learn how to create this stuff essentially. And I've combined an existing thing like a bed, a chair with a carryable. And using those same techniques that I've learned, I can probably look at other things in the game, like I know we've got the gurneys and stuff and the trolleys, and we can look at making deployable versions of those too and just see where the future can take us really. And then hopefully when we get additional support and the team grows, we'll be bringing more and more complex stuff into the universe. I think this is really the start of something really, really awesome. I'm very excited about it and I know the team is as well.