Post news Report RSS 0 A.D. Weekly Report #4

The latest development news, compiled in our fourth weekly report.

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0 A.D. Weekly Report #4 (Week 33)

Wildfire Games, the international group of volunteers developing 0 A.D., are happy to present this week's 0 A.D. development report.
If you want to find out more about the development of this open-source, cross-platform real-time strategy game or if you are interested in game development in general, it might be an interesting read.

If you want to be part of this project, we urge you to post your application in our forums. We are currently looking for Gameplay, AI, Sound and Graphics Programmers along with Animators and 3D & texture artists. You prefer to do something else than programming or drawing? Luckily for your portfolio we are also looking for a Sound Lead, Video Editors, a Documentation Manager and Scenario Designers. Still no luck? Head to our forums and join our active community!

Art & Programming & Sound

Note:This week's report will be a bit shorter than the previous reports. Alpha XI is very close to being released (late August - early September). Not many new features have been added this week as we are approaching the 'feature freeze'-phase. It gives us some time to test the game and remove as many bugs as we can find.

Myconid's post-processing effects made it into the game! The new features have been tested throughout the week and many bugs have been fixed. It will take some time before the artists let their models take full advantage of all the new possibilities (see previous weekly reports), but the results will be spectacular! Luckily, some effects don't require additional work. So enjoy a breeze through the trees and the smooth LOS (line of sight)!
Omri Lahav never stops remastering existing tracks and recording new ones. Lately he has been experimenting with taiko drums and percussion, to create the most exhilarating battle music. In short: expect a lot of new music in Alpha XI !
Deiz added a 'Stop' button to the GUI for immediately halting units, improved gate closing behaviour when locked or when no enemies nearby and continued quantumstate's work on team/private chat for multiplayer games.
General Kenobi has been updating his Scandinavian rock formations.
Pureon has recently finished his amazing Brythonic Broch model, the new fortress for the Britons. I have very strong evidence (a personal message in fact) that this is not the last new building model for the Britons!
Quantumstate added support for multiplayer chat, which Deiz continued, and support for cropped images in the GUI game setup (so playing in different resolutions won't affect map preview sizes).
stwf kept working on the new Sound Manager, which we really want to include in the next alpha release!
Wraitii kept working on Qbot XP - a new bot that will provide a greater challenge than its predecessor. How do we know for sure it is a greater challenge? Easy: Put Qbot and Qbot XP in a 1vs1 battle a couple of times and compare the results. Let's say Qbot XP came, saw and conquered.
Zaggy1024 has been updating Roman buildings with Myconid's post-processing effects (specular maps, normal maps).

Check back next week for more development news!

Post comment Comments
Swyter
Swyter

Great. Just wanted to comment about a small confusion: normal, specular and ambient occlusion/light-maps aren't post-processing. Just shaders, or effects if you want.

Stuff like SSAO, tonemapping, HDR and bloom are.
Looking forward to the next release! :)

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plumo Author
plumo

You're right, my mistake. But don't worry: post-processing effects are also being added (bloom,...) :)

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Glarg
Glarg

Just curious, will the bloom be easy to change (menu option)?

A little bloom can be subtle and tasteful, but all too often in games I see way too much being used (RA3 is the biggest offender that comes to mind, on some maps). This wouldn't be a problem, but there is typically no good way to dial it down to personal preference.

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theprplppleater
theprplppleater

Don't worry, we'll ensure that our use of it is tasteful. The AoE3 look is something we want to avoid.

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plumo Author
plumo

Menu options will be added, yes.

I agree that too much bloom ruins everything, so we will only add it if it is subtle.

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CptIstvanofArdeal
CptIstvanofArdeal

i think that this will be a great game but it needs time develop properly

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