Update 9: FPS Controller 2.0 news - Interstellar Marines

Update 9: FPS Controller 2.0

The first thing you'll sense when you fire up this Interstellar Marines update is our brand new super smooth first person character controller; designed from the ground up to make your movement as fluid and natural as possible. We've also improved the audio effects, especially the SMG's gunfire, enhancing your immersion.

In the playground you'll discover the brand new Astrodome map. Astrodome has extreme weather effects, and in the future will be a real test of your abilities as a Marine as we develop it into a training ground. We've also spent time during this update to look for performance tweaks and enhancements to ensure Interstellar Marines runs as fast as possible.

To top it all off we have the first version of our Spectator mode all ready for video creators and live casters to try out.

Click here to see Interstellar Marines on Steam.

Off the Cuff

Update 9 was intended to be a fairly small update, really just a sprint of 2-3 weeks after the Christmas holidays.

Somehow this update grew substantially, and after some investigation we've concluded we must sadly lay the blame at Ronnie and Miki's feet. Both of them have worked exceptionally hard over the last several months to develop the FPS Controller. This piece of code has to be fool- and future-proof, so we can add new animations, new weapons, new attachments and new gadgets without having to change the animation rig each time.

This update also includes the first version of the new spectator system. We're really looking forward to seeing what kind of videos the community can produce using this new tool. So if you do create a video with it, please share it with us, and we'll share the best one we receive.

Round Up

This month you're invited to join us for the second community tournament. And in case you can't make it, we're also going to be live streaming on our Twitch channel using the new spectator mode.

When we released update 8 we wondered who would be the first rank 100. Now we know, so a special congrats goes out to Cornson who put in some serious hours to ensure he was top dog. Well done!

And finally, while recording footage for the next documentary, Jonas caught this bug on camera. The video had some great feedback from the community when we posted it on YouTube. So we thought we'd share it with you - we hope you find it as amusing as we did!

Click here to see Interstellar Marines on Steam

Version: 0.5.9
Released: 10th February 2014

New Features

• ADDED: A new character rig with support for advanced animation blending.
• ADDED: New walk and run forward/backward, strafe left/right, jump and reload animations.
• ADDED: Fully dynamic and physically-based weapon swaying/bobbing.
• ADDED: New spectator mode:
  • Works when joining as spectator in Multiplayer or in Playground mode
  • Toggle between camera modes on keys 1, 2, 3 (rebindable in settings)
  • Level camera: Cycle next/previous camera on LMB/RMB (left/right mouse button). CONTROL toggles autocycle/hold mode
  • Free camera: Use keys forward/backward/strafe left/strafe right to move and left/right mouse button to move up/down. MSW (Mouse Scroll Wheel) controls move speed. CONTROL toggles steady/fly mode
  • Follow camera: Click LMB/RMB to switch to next/previous player. MSW zooms in/out in thirdperson. CONTROL toggles viewing in third-person/first-person
• ADDED: New map "Astrodome" to Playground. The map is to be used as a multi-purpose training arena that can be customized realtime to different tactical combat scenarios.
• ADDED: "Movie Mode" user setting that toggles all in-game UI off (except Chat window).
• ADDED: Kill icon over head on dead marines.
• ADDED: ZPS icon to developers on names/scoreboard UI.

Improvements

• UPDATED: To Unity 4.3.
• UPDATED: All maps to distribute CPU/GPU load more evenly.
• UPDATED: Terrain and vegetation on applicable maps (better performance).
• UPDATED: Slow helmet shader (50% better performance).
• UPDATED: All audio files/settings (150% better performance and smaller memory usage).
• UPDATED: "Pitch black" modes to actually be completely dark (bug fixed in Unity 4.3).
• UPDATED: Lens flares on weather crane so they fade in/out faster.
• UPDATED: SMG 1p/3p firing sounds.
• UPDATED: SMG reload and aim sounds.
• UPDATED: Jump and land sounds.
• UPDATED: Helmet sounds.
• UPDATED: Lasers so they are less visible (1p/3p).
• UPDATED: SSAO to work better with fog.
• UPDATED: The Suit System to muffle audio instantly when it is disabled.
• UPDATED: DOF to work better with new marine in hip/aim as well as spectator camera.
• UPDATED: Missing level geometry colliders on all maps.
• ADDED: Collision to trees and bigger vegetation.
• ADDED: More level cameras to all maps.
• ADDED: Wind to trees and vegetation.
• ADDED: Rain ambience sounds to crates.
• ADDED: "Confirmed kill" sound.
• ADDED: Level camera toggle sound.
• REMOVED: Audio occlusion effect when helmet down and Suit System is online.

Fixes

• FIXED: "when moving, the aim shifts upward in first-person"
• FIXED: "laser/flashlight doesn't consistently turn on/off when viewed from certain angles"
• FIXED: "flares render through the weapon in first-person"

Known Issues

• Footstep audio and FX does not work on terrain (known bug in Unity 4.3).
• Third-person jump animations does not work correctly yet.
• The game will stop updating when switching out of fullscreen in Windows (known bug in Unity 4.3).
• View jittering may occur when jumping on lossy networks.
• Audio may cut off partially/completely on weapon/helmet sounds.
• Other players will seem to float above or interpenetrate while standing on a moving dynamic platforms (network smoothing will exaggerate this effect).

Keep the great feedback coming!

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME,
Your team at Zero Point Software