Preparing for Scorched Earth & Human Character Pipeline Changes

[Cedric]

The major version patch we're rolling out today includes some shader improvements and under-the-hood changes that help us prepare for the upcoming Scorched Earth release.  The goal is to get these changes out sooner so the Scorched Earth patch isn't as big to download on launch day and also helps our team identify issues before that major release.  Scorched Earth is still on track to release at the end of the month, and we're just wrapping up our final bits of development before submitting it to cert. After that, we’ll be clear to release!

This patch also contains one other significant change from the live game. We've improved the pipeline for human characters by removing redundant assets simplifying the process of making character animations and assets for both modders, content creators, and the internal team. 

From a player perspective, when this patch rolls out, you'll notice your female character having changed its proportions, but we've gone ahead and implemented new functionality on the Scissors, allowing you to adjust your character's appearance at any time, including bone modifications. There are still a few things we’re working through, such as animation issues (emotes, whistling) however, these will get resolved over the next few weeks or with the Scorched Earth release.

For content creators, we’ll be releasing a new Devkit update today so you can start making the changes to your assets. We’ve also created a Blender file that you can use to help convert your assets to support the new character model (and will be looking into a solution for Maya users but that is TBD). You can download the blender file and read up on the instructions here:
https://devkit.studiowildcard.com/guides/legacy-female-armor-conversion

[Cedric]

Hey Survivors,

Here is a quick update on this Major version patch that just rolled out. We're aware that there has been an increase in both client and server crashes - we've patched as many on the server side as we can (you'll have seen the various updates come through), and we've also addressed some client-side on PC (we're preparing these for console as we speak).

These crashes were caused by technical changes we've made to the core game as we remaster Scorched Earth. Changes in the long term that will make remastering content smoother, and also provide modders with some more flexibility when developing their content too. Unfortunately, when it went live, it caused certain mods to crash as they hadn't been updated to use the new technology - we've since released the Devkit which will allow modders to update their mods to resolve these crashes (and we're also putting additional checks on our side into the game to protect against them).

We appreciate your reports and patience. We know it's been a rocky few days, but the patch has been very informative and also helped us identify and resolve a number of issues that would have otherwise impacted the Scorched Earth release. We’ll continue to monitor the live game and keep you updated as we move towards the release of Scorched Earth!