Infinity: Battlescape (with seamless planetary transitions)

Weekly Update #43


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

Hey everyone time for another update. This week was a bit slower on the engineering side because I was busy moving into a new apartment. I've made some additional progress on the rendering abstraction for the new UI system but not much else of note. Fortunately Flavien was able to finish his new entity/component system with multi-threaded updates and will be resuming work on the remaining pieces of networking code.

Latest WIP of the Bomber exterior geometry ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../cf5e0204db572554c647e2a9d64df1337e8ebdd6.jpg​

On the art side things continue to move along at a good pace. Dan is wrapping up work on station windows, which contribute greatly to a proper sense of scale, and will soon be starting on final factory geometry. Jan has been putting quite a bit of time into generating and optimizing our Level of Detail (LOD) meshes. These are meshes with lower polycounts that get rendered in place of the fully detailed mesh depending on how far away it is. He's also wrapping up the final corvette geometry which we should have some new screen shots of soon. Lastly Kristian is in the polish phase with the final bomber geometry which is coming along great as you can see above.

Examples of the different LOD meshes for the NPC hauler ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../3962c30a2ce2925959dfb9247617ae312455a4ad.jpg​

Our attorney got us the revised version of our crowdfunding terms of service today. There's still some additional review work to be done but we're trying to get that sorted out as soon as possible so we can release the new pledge upgrade system. Jan has started integrating all of the updated art assets into the game as we begin preparing for our next patch. This patch will primarily be a content update and probably our last of 2016. Most of the team will be out of town traveling at the end of the month for the holiday so we're working diligently to get the patch and the pledge upgrade system released by then.

Example of a material for one of our ships ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../6a580c682005b17f5b8c5747da7befbbdef1f832.png​

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #44


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

Hey everyone it's time for the weekly update. First off I'm incredibly happy to announce we've released our pledge upgrade platform! If you'd like to upgrade your pledge make sure you're logged into your I-Novae account and click here. In other news Flavien has finished his threading and optimization pass for our entity game update loop. In practical terms what this means is that the game will now make better use of all of your CPU cores which is great because you probably paid a lot of money for them.

The corvette final geometry is complete, shown here with light markers ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../29a767663ffdcdfad3a108d0b0fd94c76025d133.jpg​

On the art side we've reached a major milestone - all of the geometry work for small ships is now complete! There's still an ongoing debate within the team about the horizontal bar in the cockpit of the interceptor but aside from that it's all done. The art team is currently working on integrating the new models into the game as we want to release a new patch and host a free play weekend for Alpha backers early in the new year. Unfortunately we probably won't begin texturing the ships until after the Alpha is released so they'll continue to be visually boring on the exterior but exciting in the interior for a while longer.

Corvette with light placements from another angle ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../7666c66c9fd6e95f5cbeb2086a7e26e6714c94fb.jpg​

That's pretty much everything for this week. We'll have one more weekly update of 2016 before the team scatters for the holiday. When we come back in the new year we'll do our annual review while plotting our course forward for 2017.

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #46


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

Hey everyone it’s time for our first regular weekly update of 2017. It’s been a busy week with the release of another patch as we prepare for our Alpha backer free-play weekend. Unfortunately, last week I accidentally misreported the dates. The Alpha free-play weekend will start this Friday, January 27th, at 2pm EST and continue until Monday, January 30th, at 2pm EST.

To download and install the game visit https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape at 2pm EST and click the DOWNLOAD button. You must be an Alpha backer. If you're not an Alpha backer and you would like to upgrade you can do so here. Please keep in mind that this is not an Alpha build of the game, it’s a prototype, and there’s a good chance some of you may run into problems. Representatives of the company will be monitoring our public Discord server and the forums to quickly assist anyone who runs into problems with playing the game.

Alpha map test for factory geometry ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../156b837992dee00b3b2e607ff89c6d5a0421ceac.jpg​

Along with the patch Flavien has made significant progress on optimizing our networking code for bandwidth. It’s now at a point where we feel confident that a player with an average home broadband connection should have enough bandwidth to host a 150-200 player server. Whether or not their computer is powerful enough to handle that many players is of course another matter entirely. I’ve also made quite a bit of progress on the new UI system which now draws colored boxes. Exciting I know but there’s a lot that goes into it and it’s a major milestone.

The NPC hauler ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../a72c782e1f7ef2db36b5091570ea9379e94c5cb9.jpg​

station windows, the initial geometry pass for our cockpit bobble heads, and final factory geometry. Lastly, I’m going to try to get a few more improvements to our installation runtime completed before the start of the Alpha free-play weekend. That’s it for this week, we’re looking forward to seeing all of you Alpha backers in the game over the weekend!

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #47


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

Hey everyone it's time for another weekly update. This last weekend we had our Alpha backer free-play weekend. Overall it went quite well though we do apologize to those of you who experienced problems - particularly our Chinese users who couldn't play due to issues with handling Chinese characters. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, our server held up respectably with only a single crash in the very beginning which was quickly resolved, and we now have a long list of bugs to fix! For those of you who weren't able to participate here's a video recorded by one of our players:


https://vimeo.com/201536542

fan made video highlights from the free fly weekend.


Obviously this last week our time was primarily devoted to ensuring everything was running smoothly for Alpha backers. Moving forward we're going to spend all of the next week working on fixing those new bugs. After that we'll resume work on our previous tasks - the new networking code and the UI. On the art side everything continues humming along nicely. Kristian is working on final geometry for factories, Jan is working on concepts for the bobble heads, and Dan is finishing up the station windows.

Player screen shot from the Alpha backer weekend ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../0ee0f67e31bcaa59a603d9865b80bdea3cb68cf5.jpg​

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated over the weekend. We're working diligently to release the Alpha and as soon as the networking and UI code gets finished we'll begin iterating on gameplay again. Everything should start coming together pretty quickly at that point as we implement weapons, capital ships, the resource system, in-game chat, etc. Your patience is greatly appreciated and this weekend has only reinforced our confidence that once we're finished this game is really going to be something special!

Fighting it out during the Alpha backer weekend ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../153abbce661bd0375c0d29ae1ecd0800923a73a3.jpg​

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #49


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link




Hey everyone time for another weekly update. You may recall that in the previous weeks update we mentioned we'd spent a lot of time on optimization. Originally we intended to only spend a week on it but there were a few outstanding issues we still wanted to address and that ended up taking up most of this week. Fortunately that effort was not without merit as we've improved the performance of a key system by 400%. On top of that we're working on releasing a new patch soon including these optimizations, some new content, as well as a number of bug fixes.

WIP factory geometry ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../2e25df5eeb953750c99d7c87f59eb5ed63f98695.jpg​

On the UI side I ran into what appears to be a bug in NVIDIA's Vulkan driver which stopped my R&D effort dead in its tracks. I pivoted into building the D3D11 backend for our new rendering system, something I was going to have to do at some point anyway, and I should be able to resume work on the UI R&D shortly. The optimization effort was primarily spearheaded by Flavien and now that it's complete (for the time being) he'll be getting back to finishing up the networking. Our goal was to get back to iterating on gameplay by March but given that it's already halfway through February it's possible it might not happen until mid-March depending on how long the rest of the UI and networking stuff takes. Once we do get back to iterating on gameplay we expect to progress to the Alpha release fairly quickly.

A concept drawing of the googly eyed asteroid bobble head (for the cockpit dash) ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../91ed10224847a5584de069beba1859542fd71770.jpg​

On the art side work continues on some large multi-week efforts I had mentioned previously. Specifically the mockups for the bobble heads, the station windows, and the factory geometry. After those items are finished we still have final geometry for land bases and capital ships before we start on materials and texturing.

Googly eyed asteroid concepts (for the cockpit dash)​

That's it for this week. Bear with us as we finish up these last couple of major technical hurdles and then it'll be onto all of the exciting stuff!

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #50


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

​

Hey everyone it's that time of the week again, here's your Infinity: Battlescape weekly update. This has been one of those nose to the grindstone weeks where everyone is working diligently on fairly large projects. Our recent optimization pass is finished for now and we released a new patch that's been showing around a 20% improvement in frames per second (FPS) on average. Flavien is back on networking which we hope will be wrapped up within a few weeks. Once he's done with it there'll still be some optimization work left but we're going to defer that until Beta or later so we can get back to gameplay.

Pre-rendered shot of the factory nuclear reactor ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../e50333dae6f56cd70a2974a494a66907f7b62b5d.jpg​

Work on the UI is coming along nicely. The implementation of our new async D3D11 renderer is more or less complete, though a lot of testing remains, and the blocking issue with Vulkan that I previously mentioned has been resolved. This means that the UI R&D is back on track in both Vulkan and D3D11. As we've mentioned before Vulkan won't be supported at launch, we're just laying the groundwork for a future upgrade of the entire engine sometime after the game ships to retail. Hopefully I'll have some screen shots of the new UI system within a week or 2 - the exact time frame will most likely depend on how long it takes to implement support for text.

WIP placeholder for the googly eyed asteroid bobble head (for the cockpit dash) ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../9e0a2f1f64805dbf30dd722f6ff7169336e22a5d.jpg​

On the art side Dan will soon begin work on final geometry for the destroyer. Jan is wrapping up the placeholder for the googly eyed asteroid bobble head, seen above, and once he finishes the placeholder for the space whale he'll begin work on final geometry for planetary bases. Kristian is about halfway done with the final geometry for all of the various structures associated with factories and it'll take him a few more weeks to finish all of it.

More station windows ​

That's about it for this update. Due to everyone working on large projects we aren't quite sure when the next patch will be, probably sometime in March, but the good news is that it should be a large update containing the new networking and/or the new UI as well as bobble heads (most likely without the bobble).

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #51


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

​

Hey everyone it's time for your regularly scheduled update. This week everybody continues their work on large, multi-week projects. Flavien has made some good progress on networking and has completed his initial implementation of our new client-side prediction code. To summarize, this means that the server is able to compensate for latency so that when it looks like you shot something on your screen the server actually agrees with you. This is obviously extremely important for a solid dogfighting experience. There's still quite a bit of work left to be done as he needs to merge his test code with the game's code and once that's working move onto server-side collision detection with planets - a difficult problem.

Pre-rendered image of the command center of a factory ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../383d1a2463ede5669fbd052d4cd7661ca9745a02.jpg​

I ran into what I'll refer to as an unexpected patch of deep mud while working on the path rendering R&D for the UI which has slowed me down over the last few days. The paper I'm using is dependent on some big-data and scientific computing algorithms that are readily available on NVIDIA hardware but not AMD hardware. I have to convert them to be cross-platform which is time consuming, error-prone, and tedious but once I finish getting through it I'm optimistic about wrapping up the rest of the initial path rendering code soon. I'll still have to take care of font rendering and a few other things but at least I should be able to start showing screen shots.

WIP placeholder for the space whale bobble head (for the cockpit dash) ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../3d86d4311b45a262c1b8b69d0086c7251bbd3bff.jpg​

On the art side Kristian continues to work on the factory which is composed of many large, complicated structures. Once Jan finishes with the space whale bobble head placeholder, which is already looking pretty good, he'll be helping Kristian finish up the factory before they both move onto the land base. Dan is starting on the final geometry pass for the destroyer which is likely to be the first capital ship we implement in the game.

That's it for this week, until next time!

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #52


Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link

​

Hi everybody, this is Flavien. Keith is away on a trip for a bit more than a week so today and next week I'll handle the weekly updates.

On my plate this week, more work on networking and.. physics. I've found a "stuttering" issue in the way we currently handle our multi-threaded physics and spent a few days fixing it. Unfortunately it half-broke my networking prototype, so I had to redo a bunch of stuff that was working last week. Speaking of networking prototype, I feel that I should elaborate on what the state of networking is, as Keith only mentionned a few words about it in the past weeks.

When I started working on the new networking model, I created a new independent prototype ( surprisingly called "networking experiment" ) which recreates some of the gameplay.. in 2D. It is client-server based just like the real game, but the top-down 2D view allows a much easier understanding of what's going on in terms of networking updates and physics. Although the view is in 2D, the actual simulation remains 3D. In this prototype I already implemented client side prediction, lag compensation, smooth actors paths interpolation and bandwidth compression. I also downloaded a small utility called "clumsy" which allows to simulate various latencies, packet drops and other typical failures. I've also tested the new prototype in real conditions between EU & US under a 150 ms ping.

The results so far are very encouraging, and much better than the currently available build. However, because it remains a prototype, it's still going to take time before the code is cleaned and "plugged in" ( basically a huge copy/paste ) into the new code branch. Once this is done, I'll still have to do some work on server-side collisions ( especially with the planets ), as everything is now mostly server-sided. Then the next step is to resume work on gameplay, which will include the new resource system, new weapons, controls/flight changes and maybe an initial implementation for capital ships.

Factory hangar module WIP ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../6b6b6fed8651448ba3804efd71fc207669aebbf2.jpg​

Needless to say, the alpha release is not going to happen any time soon; we're probably at least 2 months away, if not 3, from that happening. To be honnest this is pretty disapointing to me as I was anticipating faster progress. Also on a private note, I am going to relocate to a new but cheaper place in Brussels some time in April, which is probably going to cut a good week of work at a critical timing. I apologize for that.

Keith is still working on the new user interface code. He's been in "shader hell" for a week now, and from what he told me he had to convert a dozen of shaders ( from which 2 or 3 are massive, and very complicated ) from the paper he's been using. Before he left for his trip he finished that work, so when he's back he'll resume work on the font rendering. We're using a "path" rendering system for the GUI ( a big word to say we can rasterize curves ) in the hopes that it'll bring a higher quality than what most games are utilizing ( bitmaps ) which do not work well with anti aliasing and zooming. As we can use "vector art" directly, we should get really good anti aliasing and high text quality at various resolutions and screen sizes.

Corvette render with ambient occlusion ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../8ebf701fc9451d5560bfd8b6253001360a0047de.jpg​

On the art side, Jan has imported the new bobbleheads as assets to the editor, so they're now ready to be used in game. I'm not sure when we'll have time to make a new build; we'll have to experiment with springs for the bobblehead physics ( probably around beta ), so in a first step the bobblehead will likely be a static 3D model standing somewhere in the cockpit. Jan has also been producing a bunch of short video clips of our 3 main ships ( interceptor, bomber and corvette ) and started to help Kristian on the factory assets like level-of-detail experiments.

A factory module in the editor ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../d0a5c8cf1d9339cfc6b28aab6c4048c60d3cb9b5.jpg​

Kristian is still busy on the factory assets, modelling and texturing modules as he goes. Some of the modules will have an in-game function and be destructible in game ( the nuclear reactor provides energy to the factory; the gun tower defenses; the sensor tower allows to detect incoming hostiles, etc.. ). We are hoping to model a "destroyed" state of those modules when their hitpoints reach zero, but we'll probably lack time to do that before beta, so in the alpha version we'll simply swap those models with some kind of placeholder dirt/blast material.

Finally, Dan's making good progress on the global shape and plating on the destroyer, but it's still to early to show anything yet :slight_smile: That's all I have for now, I'll bring you more news next week,

-Flavien

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #53


Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link



Hey Everybody, Flavien again for this week's update as Keith is still away for a few days. This week's been a bit slower than last week, but I'm wrapping up the networking tests. The last piece missing is bandwidth compression which was broken some time ago and which I need to reimplement. I've also spent a few hours playing with some minimalistic A.I. for missiles and auto-aiming turrets ( which will mostly be used on the corvette, capital ships and defense buildings ). It seems to work pretty well so far, despite having to solve a quartic equation (!) to anticipate where to aim projectiles at, ahead of the movement of the target's. Who said programmers don't need to be mathematicians ?

Factory concept art with HUD ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../e61a078b4a9fc4ea5379e08e8f0d4e586a3f3ae3.jpg​

Jan finished to render the small ships promotional clips, but still need to edit the final videos. Meanwhile he's also helping Dan on the destroyer design. Hopefully we'll have something to show you in the next update.

Space station in game prototype ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../3aa254e18b1c4edd9df76dd98696f567782e2480.jpg​

Kristian is working on more factory module assets. He completed the biggest / most complex ones so far, but there's still a handful of smaller / simpler modules that need to be done. You can see in the following pic some of these modules.

Factory modules ​

See you next week with another update from Keith !

-Flavien

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #54


Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link

​

Hey everybody. Flavien again for the last update until Keith his back ( I was mistaken last week, his return flight is actually.. today, so he can't do the update this week either ).

On the technical side, I was able to wrap up the last networking tests. Everything seems to behave pretty well even under relatively bad networking conditions ( packet drops, lag of 200+ milliseconds etc.. ). I've started the integration step to the real game, however while doing so I detected more physics-related issues; in particular we seem to have a major performance issue where space stations ( which are composed of millions of triangles ) cause collision detection slowdowns despite being millions of kilometers away from where dynamic entities are.

Another factory concept from Kristian ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../e1ed972f00814cf97d88b1ba8d028e3e1e1bc8d9.jpg​

Looking at the code it seems to be an issue with our 3rd-party physics library (ODE) taking a slow code path instead of the optimized one. I already have a fix in mind, so it shouldn't take more than an afternoon to fix. In other news, bandwidth compression has been reimplemented and I've continued playing with some basic A.I. for missiles and auto-turrets.

Not much to report on the art side as everybody is busy continuing their work from last week; Kristian is wrapping up the factory buildings, while Dan and Jan have been working on the destroyer. They're refining the global shapes and plating, here's a WIP paintover ( lacking details since they're not that far yet ):

Destroyer shape paintover ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../48fd85b2976ef5c6d933693c4c030a5d5fc437f5.jpg​

Destroyer underside paintover ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../72e4b3b1d8807fc0017393c5c6446553348f3124.jpg​

See you next week !

-Flavien

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
​

 

Weekly Update #55


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

​

Hey everyone time for a slightly late weekly update. I (Keith) am back writing the weekly update - I was out of town visiting family for ~2.5 weeks and Flavien had taken over in my absence. Most notable for this week we've released a new video showing off a networking simulation with 300 players in a "massive space battle" firing streams of blue bullets. It may not look like much but the simulation represents the culmination of Flavien's work on the new networking code, particularly latency compensation with physics simulation, and he's now going to begin merging the new code into the game.

Pre-rendered image of a factory ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../e03ddc85d2463779c634d74e4ad9c0bca5030ce0.jpg​

Now that I'm back I'm resuming my work on the UI. The core path rendering R&D is nearly finished however there's a lot of work remaining on font rendering, text layout, styling, keyboard/mouse input, animation, and optimization. On the art side Jan and Dan are still working on the geometry pass for the first capital ship to be integrated into the game - the destroyer. Kristian has started on the materials for the factory and we hope to have some pretty new screen shots of that sometime in the near future.

WIP engine prototype for the destroyer ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../ac22d7fe2f908e02298dd9115132663301eaadcc.jpg​

The big task over the next week we'll be addressing is updating our scheduling. Needless to say the networking and UI systems have taken much longer than we initially anticipated for a variety of reasons that will probably be a blog post for another day. This means at a minimum we're looking at another 2-3 months before we can ship the Alpha. The good news is that these 2 systems are the last major R&D unknowns we have scheduled and once completed we'll be getting back to focusing purely on gameplay with the occasional diversion for art team internal tools. To make up for the additional delay we're considering the possibility of having 1 or more Alpha player weekends like we did in January.

That's all for this update. I'll talk more about the next patch and scheduling next week after I have more time to finish getting reacquainted with life.

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #55


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

​

Hey everyone time for another weekly update. As I mentioned last week I'm going to go more into scheduling with this update. At the moment the new networking code is being merged into the game. This is the single most important blocker for the release of the Alpha and once it's finished Flavien will resume work on core gameplay. I'm continuing my work on the UI and once that's complete I'll join Flavien with finishing up the Alpha gameplay and making some additional improvements to the launcher, installation runtime, website, and payment platform.

Concept ideas for final carrier geometry ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../31ce6e6eb5085c2f6648e39d87aabcd234b7b689.jpg​

Like we said last week it's going to be at least 2-3 months before we're able to release the Alpha and we'll have one or two, maybe even three more Alpha free-play weekends to make up for the delay. The first of these will occur after we finish integrating the new networking code into the game. This process could take around a month as the networking affects every single part of the game and we have to tear down the game to build it back up. Any intermediate patch would essentially be a version of the game that would appear to be a significant regression from what we currently have though in reality that would be because non-upgraded systems would be disabled.

WIP materials for the factory ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../a7727f5863a34aa087f96f402469aeea6bb5ec98.jpg​

Once the next patch is released and the new networking code is verified to be working smoothly we expect that Alpha gameplay will begin to rapidly take shape. This will include the implementation of the resource system, capital ships, teams, radar/sensors, turrets, and new weapon systems. After the release of the Alpha rapid iteration of gameplay should continue into Beta. We will be holding multiple Beta free-play weekends during the Alpha, like we've done for Alpha backers, to help make up for delays in their access to the game. At the moment, depending on how much time we need for polish during the Beta, we're probably looking at the game going gold sometime in the summer/fall of 2018. From that point we expect to be supporting the game and releasing additional content for a significant amount of time.

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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This game looks really promising and I wish you all the best in making it work. Can't wait to try it out one day as I love all things space and sci-fi.

 

Amazing, i love the concepts and material Looking forward

 

Weekly Update #57


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

​

Hey everyone time for your weekly update. The big debate this week has centered around the design for the final geometry of the carrier. The decision is between a long carrier or a stubby fat one due to centripetal force at the edges. Technically speaking we can just choose whatever we think looks the best and make up fake reasons for it but we do try to stick to designs that are at least somewhat plausible in relation to real life. Feel free to join the debate and give your opinion on our forums. As far as the rest of the art team is concerned Kristian continues his work on materials for the factory and Dan is still working on the final geometry for the destroyer.

Different basic hull shapes for the final carrier geometry ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../523666aeda01311912dffb35d89ab5b26f7a1421.png​

On the engineering side Flavien continues to integrate the new networking code into the game - which is necessary for our next patch. I've finished the initial R&D implementation of path rendering, which we'll be using for our UI, and I'm currently testing it with a multitude of different geometries to fix any lingering bugs that may be hiding. Once that's complete the next step will be to finish implementing the UI within an R&D sandbox before finally integrating it into the game (similar to how we did the new networking code).

WIP materials for the factory ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../ac910a56dab3bfc3a96d5b5a2ea5ffa23836efea.jpg​

That's it for this week. There's a few more things to wrap up and then we should start to have a whole lot more to talk about!

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
​

 

Weekly Update #58


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

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Hey everyone it's time for your weekly update. On the engineering side this week has more or less been a continuation of last week - merging the new networking code into the game and finalizing the new UI rendering code in preparation for adding support for text, layout, etc.

WIP final geometry for the destroyer ​

Spoiler

​

On the art side Jan and Dan continue their work on the final geometry pass for the destroyer. You can see an early work in progress screenshot above. Jan has also been doing some material work experimenting with different ways to do armored plating.

Different layers combined to create armored plating ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../c73efca0a9f261874f7842096bf00af2ab4b2fe4.jpg​

Kristian is finishing up the last few things with factory materials and then he'll be moving onto the final geometry pass for land bases. That's all for this week. Updates will likely be a bit on the short side until we finish getting the new networking code merged into the game. After that we'll release a patch and have plenty of new things to talk about!

Examples of detail textures used to compose armored plating ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../9f83d927f5a64cd35bbae3f88fdc767e8b8b67cd.jpg​

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Looks great! i'll keep an eye out on this game.

 

Weekly Update #59


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

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Hey everyone here's your weekly update. On the engineering side Flavien has integrated support for Steam. We probably aren't going to release the game on Steam until the Beta begins but most of the work for doing so is now complete. I was continuing my work on the UI when I ran into some crazy memory corruption issues. Those ended up taking a few days to fully resolve however in the process I've greatly improved our tools for tracking memory allocations. That means if/when a memory corruption issue pops up again in the future it shouldn't take as long to find the source of the problem.

WIP destroyer comparison with non-capital ships ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../9e869b850ccf8865fed8fa64dccc48767b9190f5.png​

On the art side Dan continues his work on the final geometry pass for the destroyer which is coming along nicely. Originally Jan was going to help him but we decided to move Jan over to doing the final material pass for stations. Kristian has finished up the material pass for the factory and is working on the final geometry for the land base.

Pre-rendered image of the WIP destroyer ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../a7f7f7ef3d2cd639cfb8df189edb5ae12a01a0f7.jpg​

That's all for this week. Now that the Steam integration is finished Flavien is moving back to completing the merger of the new networking code into the game. Depending on whether or not we run into any unforseen issues it could take another couple of weeks as a number of game systems have to be rewritten during the merger.

Pre-rendered shot of the engines of the WIP destroyer ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../9cc8435519db67f0834fc430ba8bb84860b8d689.jpg​

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
​

 

Weekly Update #60


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

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Hey everyone it's time for your weekly update. Flavien has been busy continuing his work on merging the new network code. A number of low level systems have been completed however there's still quite a bit of work left to be done. Unfortunately on my end I had to take care of a bunch of administrative things last week and, aside from some bug fixes, I didn't get a chance to do much coding.

Planetary orbital defense cannon ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../d0b66885019715853917016ba7517ea278bef6b0.jpg​

On the art side Kristian continues his work on planetary bases, Jan on texturing space stations, and Dan the final geometry pass for the destroyer. Planetary buildings have a modular design that ultimately connect to a central command center like spokes on a wheel. There was a fair amount of discussion surrounding how the ground around these buildings will be constructed. Smooth parts of a planet at the micro level still tend to be quite lumpy. When constructing buildings in real-life heavy equipment is used to make the ground level but in our case, due to technical limitations, we can't do that at the moment. Instead all of the buildings in our planetary bases will be on base plates to provide a level surface. We discussed the possibility of having little roads and industrial vehicles driving around but ultimately concluded we won't have the resources to implement what would ultimately be an aesthetic feature.

WIP station texturing ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../d30ab8f0fbf5e62dbfe2d448f422633495042fc7.jpg​

Another challenge we've encountered is with regard to large chunks of geometry - most notably the station pieces. As far as we're aware our stations will be some of the largest ever included in a game. It's quite difficult to provide interesting micro and macro detail on every centimeter of a square kilometer of station surface area. You can see an example of the challenge above. If you were zoomed in close to the station you would see a lot of small detail but from far away the piece looks bland and repetitive. There's a good chance this is going to be an ongoing issue and it's something we will continue experimenting with. That's all for this week, until next time!

Another shot of WIP station texturing ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../a44bd08733c821509b9aae1fb2b9d83ba3063205.jpg​

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
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Weekly Update #61


Originally posted by I-NovaeKeith CEO & Cofounder - source link

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Hey everyone time for your weekly update. Last week Flavien and I switched places regarding available coding time. Flavien was busy getting ready to move into a new apartment which took up most of his time. I, however, was able to fix the last outstanding bugs with path rendering (that I'm currently aware of). There's one remaining rendering feature concerning large shapes that I have to finish before I can start final testing and code cleanup but that shouldn't take too long. After that it will be onto adding support for font rendering, text layout, and finally integration into the game.

WIP land base structure ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../ea9db00085014c154ef75a521788b5cac3c7dbe2.jpg​

On the art side Kristian continues his work on final land base geometry and Jan on the station material pass. Dan spent last week producing some short videos of extremely high quality 360 degree renders of the interceptor, corvette, and bomber. There's still some on-going post-production work but we hope to release them in the next weekly update. Unfortunately they don't include materials since we didn't want to spend the time it would take to rebuild all of our materials in 3rd party rendering applications. That being said the detail work of the geometry really comes through and we're looking forward to showing them to everyone.

Work continues on the station materials ​

Spoiler

https://inovaestudios.blob.core.win.../5d7ea774f8c4924e20f3c235556671afe5c66c4f.jpg​

More information on the state of the new networking code should come once Flavien gets everything sorted out with his new apartment. The networking code represents our largest blocker, it was our biggest risk item, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and once we get past it we expect we'll be able to move quickly on the rest of the Alpha to-do list.

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Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape

Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
​