Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Talk about anything related to Unvanquished.
User avatar
kharnov
Granger
Posts: 1851
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:54 pm UTC
Clan: GT
Location: New York City

Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by kharnov »

We've made our thirteenth alpha release today, on the anniversary of our very first release a year ago. Download it! Read on for what's new.

ImageUpdatesNew Parpax release!The result of several months of effort and our new texture swapping tool, Chameleon, the map has been fully modernized to take advantage of the new texture effects permitted by our engine. To those who have played earlier versions of Parpax, the map will look significantly better overall, and in general, it's quickly easing into its position as one of our default maps. In addition to being fully normal mapped, as well as containing brand new textures, the map itself has been updated based on gameplay feedback. Check it out!

New Plat23 release!For this release, Plat23 has also been updated, with major adjustments to the outside area connecting the two bases. The area is now much more complex than it used to be, with large structures to provide cover, and a lower level to utilize for protection or sneak attacks. It looks neat, too! Make sure to provide plenty of feedback, as the map is approaching a stable release.

Human updates!We now have a redone base texture for the human model, at a higher resolution than the old one. Not only does he now have darker features, but his environmental protection suit has added detail to it, and the spec maps have been edited to ensure that he is not as glossy as before. In addition, stray pieces of light armor are no longer present on the base model, ensuring that he looks appropriately unarmored. Over the coming month, we will be redoing his helmet and armor, and then we'll be adding support for color variations.

Added bot improvements!As with last month, our behavior-tree based bots have received some more updates. For instance, they have improved steering, and will no longer get stuck while trying to maneuver through small doors. It should now be possible for bots to move over larger gaps as well, and they can also fall down greater distances on certain maps. Navmesh generation has also been enhanced with some new options and more efficient code. We've also managed to get bots compiling with qvms, meaning that in a release or two, we'll be able to finally merge the bots branch into master, and you'll be able to use bots without having to compile the branch.

More console work!The in-game console looks and functions even better than before, with some more of the work we've done on improving it. For one, the scrolling is much more smoother than it was in the past, and there are some new animations to give it a more polished appearance. It also has a markerline and scrollbar, too! Hopefully, the improvements will make it much more attractive for players to use.

Translation updates!We've added the latest updates for the German and French translations, based on the work of our community translators. If you speak one of these languages, feel free to share your impression of the translation work. We have also added code-side support for plural forms, in the instance that your language requires certain things to be pluralized where they would not be in English.

Click here to read this article on the main site!

User avatar
ViruS
Granger
Posts: 1020
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:24 am UTC
Location: Antartica - West Australian Post shore
Contact:

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by ViruS »

I didn't expect a release today though. I'm glad I got a release on a non-late-monday time :D

ImageImageYou[TubeImage

User avatar
Tom
Dragoon
Posts: 253
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:34 pm UTC
Location: France

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by Tom »

Nice! And for players who can, at 21:00 GMT today there is a Planned Development Game (read more).

Sabun
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:02 am UTC

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by Sabun »

Awesome sauce!

I made a gameplay video of this release, it's not the best. Hopefully it's at least better than my older videos :)
You can watch it here if you like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doFwEKBcUQ

phpBB [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doFwEKBcUQ[/video]

Keep up the good work guys, and thanks for supporting Ubuntu/Linux!

User avatar
Ishq
Project Head
Posts: 1145
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:32 pm UTC

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by Ishq »

Nice video. I had fun watching it :) Although, that was not the look we were going for with plat23. Try deleting older versions of the map. You might be missing some textures.

Some people on our IRC noted that the cause of this could be you're using an outdated version of libwebp. Try to compile using the USE_INTERNAL_WEBP option enabled.

Sabun
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:02 am UTC

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by Sabun »

Glad you enjoyed it!

Alright, I'll try that. Hopefully I can make it work and have some more fun :)

User avatar
seana11
Tyrant
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:00 pm UTC
Location: Well, the sign says "You Are Here"...

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by seana11 »

Comments:

Maps should not be predominantly black. Ever. (Unless you're playing Doom3, but that's different :P) Maps can be dark to some extent. Good places to make a map dark are on places where players will not normally be. Examples include the ceilings, corners, and unreachable places. However, places where the players will be should always be lit brightly enough to identify aliens/humans there. Take a look at some screenshots I took in parpax. The dretch is very well hidden, and would not be noticed unless it was looked for. This discourages more riskier strategies such as using wallwalk to hide, because the dretch now only has to find a dark enough spot and wait for a passing human. It also makes it harder for humans to identify where aliens are coming from, not because of alien skill in evasion, but because he can't see them. This ends up so that humans just camp in their base, because every time they venture out, they are ambushed. There is a very good guide by yyler on lighting in maps.

The cliff on plat23 should simply be a deathpit, not walled off. It will still have the same effect on players if they die when they fall in, and it increases immersion.

We need a good menu system for building and changing class. I suggest something like what tf2 has. If you have not played tf2, here is what I am talking about: player pushes disguise button; menu pops up and player pushes number of the class he/she wants to disguise as; player is disguised as that class. (This is also used in the build/destroy and class selection dialogs)

Image

Key combinations are easy to memory, and make for >.25 second disguising, allowing players to be effective at that class without having to muck with binds. Atm, it takes 2 seconds to use a menu to do something, and it does not allow the player to move or react while up, whereas the tf2 one does. This could really make our game more friendly to n00bs.

Image
Image
Image

User avatar
Viech
Project Head
Posts: 2139
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 11:50 pm UTC
Location: Berlin

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by Viech »

seana11 wrote:

Take a look at some screenshots I took in parpax. The dretch is very well hidden, and would not be noticed unless it was looked for. [...] There is a very good guide by yyler on lighting in maps.

Thank you for the guide, but for me parpax isn't remotely as dark as on your screenshots. What gamma do you use? The default should be at 1.3. How do yocto and plat23 compare to parpax? Unfortunately it's tough to predict brightness due to different gamma settings and different screens (I have an IPS panel with a backlight that is still pretty intense on 0%).
Could you post a screenshot of a normal situation so I can compare it to my own experience, maybe take a shot of lower storage?

Responsible for: Arch Linux package & torrent distribution, Parpax (map), Chameleon (map texture editor), Sloth (material file generator), gameplay design & programming, artistic direction

User avatar
velociostrich
Dragoon
Posts: 318
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 6:24 pm UTC

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by velociostrich »

seana11 wrote:

Key combinations are easy to memory, and make for >.25 second disguising, allowing players to be effective at that class without having to muck with binds. Atm, it takes 2 seconds to use a menu to do something, and it does not allow the player to move or react while up, whereas the tf2 one does. This could really make our game more friendly to n00bs.

Plans for this have been discussed a number of times (even way back in the TremZ days), but it just has never been implemented.

User avatar
StalKermit
Dragoon
Posts: 260
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 6:05 am UTC

Re: Alpha 13: one year of Unvanquished!

Post by StalKermit »

kharnov wrote:

New Plat23 release!For this release, Plat23 has also been updated

A map updating when released? Surely this has gone too far...

Post Reply