For 80% of Project Zomboid’s development and moderation team this week has been about sniffling, sneezing and waking up three times a night on a damp pillow. Seemingly, an unknown patient zero wandered the halls of EGX and infected us all with something contagious. It’s all good research, perhaps, but it hasn’t been pleasant. That all said, the Mondoid must go on!

A few items of note first. Twiggy is planning some midweek streams of Build 33’s Radio/TV systems, so be sure to follow his and our Twitter feeds. We're thinking Tuesday night Brit-time currently, but that may well be pushed back to Wednesday depending on Turbo code tweaks.

Secondly, if you haven’t seen it already we ran a really interesting blog on Hydromancerx the main man behind the awesome Hydrocraft mod last week that can be found here.

FMOD Returns

A primary part of Build 33 is in trying to up the ante in terms of immersion, and during a discussion about how to improve our helicopter/zombie moments the topic of some early foundation work we did in integrating an awesome piece of audio middleware emerged. Build 33 just felt right for its inclusion, and as such right now RJ is connecting sound-wires backstage for the inclusion of FMOD.

For reference here’s our initial demo video from way back when. This shows reverberation, echo and occlusion. In-game sounds here use actual an approximation of the world: so the size of room, walls and any buildings between the player and the origin of the sound effect are all taken into account. There’s also directional sound on 2.0 speakers, but this will *hopefully* be better on release as we’d like to use an awesome plugin called AstoundSound. That said, right now we need to look into licensing stuff so we can’t confirm it right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwEcwOIAE4U

To follow, here’s a previously unseen video – albeit one with everything ramped up to eleven on the sound-o-meter. It all needs refinement and balancing [particularly with zed noises and ambient music tracks] which is all stuff that’s on RJ’s plate right now.

You should be able to hear, however, cool ambient sounds - every bird is a single bird from a specific place, refrigerators hum, blinds flap in the wind and doors creak. Then there’s the aforementioned helicopter. It’s not just a sound file now, but an actual unseen object that moves around the map via AI. It will always be somewhere, heading off the playable map or perhaps doing passes over certain areas – and could also be tied into scripted events that are heard in reports over the new radio system.

The helicopter will also have sound blending to make it sound natural as it moves away from you, and we can use the same tricks to make shotguns sound like they’re the correct distance away from when it comes to meta-noises and MP. Instead of a permanent headache, helicopters can now be a real blessing as they’ll drag zombies along with them as they depart – seeing as they are now solid objects in the world making sound the zombies can follow accurately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo9e8O0nwr8

Also contained within the above are some new layered ambiance tracks from our music maestro Zach Beever. These will be reactive to the gameplay you’re experiencing (we’re taking some inspiration from Alien Isolation here) and will let us play more poignant music at more appropriate moments. That said, this may not appear in Build 33 as we will need more variation in the first version, and likewise in this video there are some experiments with zombie sounds that are included for the sake of pushing FMOD to see how far it’ll go – these, again, probably won’t be in Build 33.

RJ TIME

To finish, let’s go over to RJ ‘Romain’ Dron to hear how his own work is going on Build 33 – on FMOD and beyond.

So how did the renewed interest in FMOD-integration come about?

Well, a lot of Build 33 is about building immersion, so sounds are a key part of that. We can now, for example, drag the helicopter around wherever we want to. So you'll hear it come from east, and then slowly move overhead to the west! It’ll also be clear if the chopper has spotted you and is trying to follow you (for whatever reason) while it’ll also be possible for you to stick in the forest or inside buildings as it passes overhead. Be careful about showing yourself too fast though!

So what kinds of stuff do you think this will open up for us?

Well music is a big thing too! FMOD allows us to do all sorts of things with sound - bending volumes, merging tracks… so now we’ll be able to control how the music works while you play. If you get into a tense situation, the music will slowly change to match it.  In terms of more general sound effects though, we can add dynamic reverb, muffle the sound of outside gunshots if you're inside a building… all those kinds of cool stuff.

How have all your other experiments in getting the PZ world to feel more ‘lived in’ gone so far?

Pretty good! The randomization of buildings makes every playthrough more tense and unique. You set out to your favourite safehouse like you always do - but what if it's on fire? What if it’s already been looted? What if the previous occupants left the TV on a high volume, and you find a crowd of zombies in the front room staring at a news channel?  Then what about looting someone’s belongings and finding medical books and gear, and wondering whether the dead body downstairs clutching a pistol used to be a doctor or a nurse – or maybe it was the zombie in the bathroom?

Can you also give us a quick recap on how the botany trait is going to work? What sorts of plants will feature?

Basically, when you forage then players with the botanist trait will be able to find medicinal plants. So they’ll be able to turn them into a poultice to put on wounds or infections, or maybe just eat them on the spot. They're clearly not going to be as strong as the medicines you can loot, but they can be really useful in terms of to helping you with stomach pain or to help recover faster from fractures and bleeding. And so, behold!



Comfrey, Plantain [not the banana sort] and Mallow! Yay!

Today's featured image is (again) from the excellent screenshot-taking fingers of NikNik64Rus. The Centralised Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.


Oh, and finally if you're a floating voter or know anyone else who might like the game we're currently on sale over on the Humble Store. It's twenty percent off the game, alongside a whole bunch of other cool zombie games, if you're interested.

 
 
For 80% of Project Zomboid’s development and moderation team this week has been about sniffling, sneezing and waking up three times a night on a damp pillow. Seemingly, an unknown patient zero wandered the halls of EGX and infected us all with something contagious. It’s all good research, perhaps, but it hasn’t been pleasant. That all said, the Mondoid must go on!
A few items of note first. Twiggy is planning some midweek streams of Build 33’s Radio/TV systems, so be sure to follow his and our Twitter feeds. We’re thinking Tuesday night Brit-time currently, but that may well be pushed back to Wednesday depending on Turbo code tweaks.

Secondly, if you haven’t seen it already we ran a really interesting blog on Hydromancerx the main man behind the awesome Hydrocraft mod last week that can be found here.
 

A primary part of Build 33 is in trying to up the ante in terms of immersion, and during a discussion about how to improve our helicopter/zombie moments the topic of some early foundation work we did in integrating an awesome piece of audio middleware emerged. Build 33 just felt right for its inclusion, and as such right now RJ is connecting sound-wires backstage for the inclusion of FMOD.

For reference here’s our initial demo video from way back when. This shows reverberation, echo and occlusion. In-game sounds here use actual an approximation of the world: so the size of room, walls and any buildings between the player and the origin of the sound effect are all taken into account. There’s also directional sound on 2.0 speakers, but this will *hopefully* be better on release as we’d like to use an awesome plugin called AstoundSound. That said, right now we need to look into licensing stuff so we can’t confirm it right now.

https://youtu.be/xwEcwOIAE4U

To follow, here’s a previously unseen video – albeit one with everything ramped up to eleven on the sound-o-meter. It all needs refinement and balancing [particularly with zed noises and ambient music tracks] which is all stuff that’s on RJ’s plate right now.

You should be able to hear, however, cool ambient sounds – every bird is a single bird from a specific place, refrigerators hum, blinds flap in the wind and doors creak. Then there’s the aforementioned helicopter. It’s not just a sound file now, but an actual unseen object that moves around the map via AI. It will always be somewhere, heading off the playable map or perhaps doing passes over certain areas – and could also be tied into scripted events that are heard in reports over the new radio system.

The helicopter will also have sound blending to make it sound natural as it moves away from you, and we can use the same tricks to make shotguns sound like they’re the correct distance away from when it comes to meta-noises and MP. Instead of a permanent headache, helicopters can now be a real blessing as they’ll drag zombies along with them as they depart – seeing as they are now solid objects in the world making sound the zombies can follow accurately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo9e8O0nwr8

Also contained within the above are some new layered ambiance tracks from our music maestro Zach Beever. These will be reactive to the gameplay you’re experiencing (we’re taking some inspiration from Alien Isolation here) and will let us play more poignant music at more appropriate moments. That said, this may not appear in Build 33 as we will need more variation in the first version, and likewise in this video there are some experiments with zombie sounds that are included for the sake of pushing FMOD to see how far it’ll go – these, again, probably won’t be in Build 33.
 

To finish, let’s go over to RJ ‘Romain’ Dron to hear how his own work is going on Build 33 – on FMOD and beyond.
 
Well, a lot of Build 33 is about building immersion, so sounds are a key part of that. We can now, for example, drag the helicopter around wherever we want to. So you’ll hear it come from east, and then slowly move overhead to the west! It’ll also be clear if the chopper has spotted you and is trying to follow you (for whatever reason) while it’ll also be possible for you to stick in the forest or inside buildings as it passes overhead. Be careful about showing yourself too fast though!

Well music is a big thing too! FMOD allows us to do all sorts of things with sound – bending volumes, merging tracks… so now we’ll be able to control how the music works while you play. If you get into a tense situation, the music will slowly change to match it.  In terms of more general sound effects though, we can add dynamic reverb, muffle the sound of outside gunshots if you’re inside a building… all those kinds of cool stuff.

Pretty good! The randomization of buildings makes every playthrough more tense and unique. You set out to your favourite safehouse like you always do – but what if it’s on fire? What if it’s already been looted? What if the previous occupants left the TV on a high volume, and you find a crowd of zombies in the front room staring at a news channel?  Then what about looting someone’s belongings and finding medical books and gear, and wondering whether the dead body downstairs clutching a pistol used to be a doctor or a nurse – or maybe it was the zombie in the bathroom?

Basically, when you forage then players with the botanist trait will be able to find medicinal plants. So they’ll be able to turn them into a poultice to put on wounds or infections, or maybe just eat them on the spot. They’re clearly not going to be as strong as the medicines you can loot, but they can be really useful in terms of to helping you with stomach pain or to help recover faster from fractures and bleeding. And so, behold!



Comfrey, Plantain [not the banana sort] and Mallow! Yay!
 
Today’s featured image is (again) from the excellent screenshot-taking fingers of NikNik64Rus. The Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.[/center]
[center]Oh, and finally if you’re a floating voter or know anyone else who might like the game we’re currently on sale over on the Humble Store. It’s twenty percent off the game, alongside a whole bunch of other cool zombie games, if you’re interested.

 
 
For 80% of Project Zomboid’s development and moderation team this week has been about sniffling, sneezing and waking up three times a night on a damp pillow. Seemingly, an unknown patient zero wandered the halls of EGX and infected us all with something contagious. It’s all good research, perhaps, but it hasn’t been pleasant. That all said, the Mondoid must go on!
A few items of note first. Twiggy is planning some midweek streams of Build 33’s Radio/TV systems, so be sure to follow his and our Twitter feeds. We’re thinking Tuesday night Brit-time currently, but that may well be pushed back to Wednesday depending on Turbo code tweaks.

Secondly, if you haven’t seen it already we ran a really interesting blog on Hydromancerx the main man behind the awesome Hydrocraft mod last week that can be found here.
 

A primary part of Build 33 is in trying to up the ante in terms of immersion, and during a discussion about how to improve our helicopter/zombie moments the topic of some early foundation work we did in integrating an awesome piece of audio middleware emerged. Build 33 just felt right for its inclusion, and as such right now RJ is connecting sound-wires backstage for the inclusion of FMOD.

For reference here’s our initial demo video from way back when. This shows reverberation, echo and occlusion. In-game sounds here use actual an approximation of the world: so the size of room, walls and any buildings between the player and the origin of the sound effect are all taken into account. There’s also directional sound on 2.0 speakers, but this will *hopefully* be better on release as we’d like to use an awesome plugin called AstoundSound. That said, right now we need to look into licensing stuff so we can’t confirm it right now.

https://youtu.be/xwEcwOIAE4U

To follow, here’s a previously unseen video – albeit one with everything ramped up to eleven on the sound-o-meter. It all needs refinement and balancing [particularly with zed noises and ambient music tracks] which is all stuff that’s on RJ’s plate right now.

You should be able to hear, however, cool ambient sounds – every bird is a single bird from a specific place, refrigerators hum, blinds flap in the wind and doors creak. Then there’s the aforementioned helicopter. It’s not just a sound file now, but an actual unseen object that moves around the map via AI. It will always be somewhere, heading off the playable map or perhaps doing passes over certain areas – and could also be tied into scripted events that are heard in reports over the new radio system.

The helicopter will also have sound blending to make it sound natural as it moves away from you, and we can use the same tricks to make shotguns sound like they’re the correct distance away from when it comes to meta-noises and MP. Instead of a permanent headache, helicopters can now be a real blessing as they’ll drag zombies along with them as they depart – seeing as they are now solid objects in the world making sound the zombies can follow accurately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo9e8O0nwr8

Also contained within the above are some new layered ambiance tracks from our music maestro Zach Beever. These will be reactive to the gameplay you’re experiencing (we’re taking some inspiration from Alien Isolation here) and will let us play more poignant music at more appropriate moments. That said, this may not appear in Build 33 as we will need more variation in the first version, and likewise in this video there are some experiments with zombie sounds that are included for the sake of pushing FMOD to see how far it’ll go – these, again, probably won’t be in Build 33.
 

To finish, let’s go over to RJ ‘Romain’ Dron to hear how his own work is going on Build 33 – on FMOD and beyond.
 
Well, a lot of Build 33 is about building immersion, so sounds are a key part of that. We can now, for example, drag the helicopter around wherever we want to. So you’ll hear it come from east, and then slowly move overhead to the west! It’ll also be clear if the chopper has spotted you and is trying to follow you (for whatever reason) while it’ll also be possible for you to stick in the forest or inside buildings as it passes overhead. Be careful about showing yourself too fast though!

Well music is a big thing too! FMOD allows us to do all sorts of things with sound – bending volumes, merging tracks… so now we’ll be able to control how the music works while you play. If you get into a tense situation, the music will slowly change to match it.  In terms of more general sound effects though, we can add dynamic reverb, muffle the sound of outside gunshots if you’re inside a building… all those kinds of cool stuff.

Pretty good! The randomization of buildings makes every playthrough more tense and unique. You set out to your favourite safehouse like you always do – but what if it’s on fire? What if it’s already been looted? What if the previous occupants left the TV on a high volume, and you find a crowd of zombies in the front room staring at a news channel?  Then what about looting someone’s belongings and finding medical books and gear, and wondering whether the dead body downstairs clutching a pistol used to be a doctor or a nurse – or maybe it was the zombie in the bathroom?

Basically, when you forage then players with the botanist trait will be able to find medicinal plants. So they’ll be able to turn them into a poultice to put on wounds or infections, or maybe just eat them on the spot. They’re clearly not going to be as strong as the medicines you can loot, but they can be really useful in terms of to helping you with stomach pain or to help recover faster from fractures and bleeding. And so, behold!



Comfrey, Plantain [not the banana sort] and Mallow! Yay!
 
Today’s featured image is (again) from the excellent screenshot-taking fingers of NikNik64Rus. The Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.[/center]
[center]Oh, and finally if you’re a floating voter or know anyone else who might like the game we’re currently on sale over on the Humble Store. It’s twenty percent off the game, alongside a whole bunch of other cool zombie games, if you’re interested.

For the past four days the Project Zomboid team have been spreading our infection at the EGX games show in Birmingham. It was pretty staggering, really. Talking to so many passionate PZ players and (hopefully) introducing a bunch more to the Survivor pool was an amazing experience.
Right now the almost the entire PZ team and a bunch of amazing Community friends are travelling back to Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Scotland, Wales and (yes) Newcastle – so this is a lighter Mondoid than we’d usually like, but in case a photo of a Spiffo-shaped cake isn’t quite enough for you (thanks Tooks!) we’ll do our best with it.
 

On the final day we got a version of Build 33 running on the stand containing Will and Turbo’s work so we could show it to existing players who passed by and get some fellow dev feedback – it went really well but also spotlit some areas in which the new features could be tied into the game a little more smoothly. We brainstormed some simple ways to make the radio system feel a bit more real when tuning into new radio stations, for example, which would have it feel more like turning an analogue dial.

We also came up with a way to adjust the delivery of Turbo’s furniture movement system so it feels like less of a ‘side salad’ to the way the existing game works. This all notwithstanding, the plan is to put the build containing these features into internal testing upon Turbo’s return to Holland – so that the fundamentals of the systems can be checked out while Turbo makes any necessary adjustments.

Finally, having watched several thousand players (a fair proportion of them console kids) going through the PZ tutorial we’ve got a list of tutorial tweaks to make that’s a mile long. There’s only so many times you can witness someone pressing the individual ‘R’, ‘M’ and ‘B’ keys when they’re requested to tap ‘RMB’ before you realise you have to take action.

Oh, and in case you were one of the people in the comments who wanted a Spiffo t-shirt or art prints: they sold okay, but there’s still a bunch left. We’ll have a chat with the people who helped us with them over at Gamer’s Edition and work out the best thing to do with them, as well as hold a few community competitions I’m sure.
 

It’s great to come back to our Steam accounts to see awesome activity in our Steam Workshop tabs. As flagged in last week’s Mondoid RingoD updated and uploaded the TIS-curated Community Map Bedford Falls just before we all left for Birmingham – but it’s now been joined by a tribute to a familiar prison and ever more subscriptions and downloads to thePhoenix ‘Desperate Measures’ map.

To make up for this somewhat lightweight ‘tired and travelling’ Mondoid, we’ll also be running a new ‘Mod Spotlight’ blog later this week to highlight some of the coolest and most popular mods on the Workshop and forums – starting with a chat with Hydromancer, the person behind Hydrocraft, who kindly agreed to answer a few of our questions.
 

Amidst our thanks to Nasko, RJ, Thuztor, Tooks, Rhys, Connall, Turbo, Onto, Twiggy, RingoD and Kirrus for their amazing dedication, it would be remiss of us not to flag your attention towards some of the other AMAZING and passionate dev teams we’ve been surrounded by for the past few days. As such, we can assure you that a quick browse of any of the following would be more than worth your while: Theo and Lizzy, Super Mixtape, Fire Fu, Just Shapes and Beats, The Masterplan, Iron Fish and Riot: Civil Unrest. Oh, and playing on Valve’s HTC Vive is like looking into the face of frickin’ God.


 


That’s all for this week until the Mod Spotlight blog. If you’re one of the people we met on the show floor and said you either already own the game or were considering joining in the fun – then it was lovely to meet you. And we’re sorry for the faint smell of sweat and coffee breath.
 
The Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.

For the past four days the Project Zomboid team have been spreading our infection at the EGX games show in Birmingham. It was pretty staggering, really. Talking to so many passionate PZ players and (hopefully) introducing a bunch more to the Survivor pool was an amazing experience.
Right now the almost the entire PZ team and a bunch of amazing Community friends are travelling back to Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Scotland, Wales and (yes) Newcastle – so this is a lighter Mondoid than we’d usually like, but in case a photo of a Spiffo-shaped cake isn’t quite enough for you (thanks Tooks!) we’ll do our best with it.
 

On the final day we got a version of Build 33 running on the stand containing Will and Turbo’s work so we could show it to existing players who passed by and get some fellow dev feedback – it went really well but also spotlit some areas in which the new features could be tied into the game a little more smoothly. We brainstormed some simple ways to make the radio system feel a bit more real when tuning into new radio stations, for example, which would have it feel more like turning an analogue dial.

We also came up with a way to adjust the delivery of Turbo’s furniture movement system so it feels like less of a ‘side salad’ to the way the existing game works. This all notwithstanding, the plan is to put the build containing these features into internal testing upon Turbo’s return to Holland – so that the fundamentals of the systems can be checked out while Turbo makes any necessary adjustments.

Finally, having watched several thousand players (a fair proportion of them console kids) going through the PZ tutorial we’ve got a list of tutorial tweaks to make that’s a mile long. There’s only so many times you can witness someone pressing the individual ‘R’, ‘M’ and ‘B’ keys when they’re requested to tap ‘RMB’ before you realise you have to take action.

Oh, and in case you were one of the people in the comments who wanted a Spiffo t-shirt or art prints: they sold okay, but there’s still a bunch left. We’ll have a chat with the people who helped us with them over at Gamer’s Edition and work out the best thing to do with them, as well as hold a few community competitions I’m sure.
 

It’s great to come back to our Steam accounts to see awesome activity in our Steam Workshop tabs. As flagged in last week’s Mondoid RingoD updated and uploaded the TIS-curated Community Map Bedford Falls just before we all left for Birmingham – but it’s now been joined by a tribute to a familiar prison and ever more subscriptions and downloads to thePhoenix ‘Desperate Measures’ map.

To make up for this somewhat lightweight ‘tired and travelling’ Mondoid, we’ll also be running a new ‘Mod Spotlight’ blog later this week to highlight some of the coolest and most popular mods on the Workshop and forums – starting with a chat with Hydromancer, the person behind Hydrocraft, who kindly agreed to answer a few of our questions.
 

Amidst our thanks to Nasko, RJ, Thuztor, Tooks, Rhys, Connall, Turbo, Onto, Twiggy, RingoD and Kirrus for their amazing dedication, it would be remiss of us not to flag your attention towards some of the other AMAZING and passionate dev teams we’ve been surrounded by for the past few days. As such, we can assure you that a quick browse of any of the following would be more than worth your while: Theo and Lizzy, Super Mixtape, Fire Fu, Just Shapes and Beats, The Masterplan, Iron Fish and Riot: Civil Unrest. Oh, and playing on Valve’s HTC Vive is like looking into the face of frickin’ God.


 


That’s all for this week until the Mod Spotlight blog. If you’re one of the people we met on the show floor and said you either already own the game or were considering joining in the fun – then it was lovely to meet you. And we’re sorry for the faint smell of sweat and coffee breath.
 
The Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.

It’s a busy, busy week at TIS Towers this week as the vast majority of the dev workforce and a considerable chunk of community will be heading to Birmingham (UK version) later this week (APART FROM NASKO WHO MUST HAVE GONE BEFORE POSTING THIS, THE FILTHY BEAST) to attend the EGX games show and to shove Zomboid into the faces of the assembled masses. If you fancy coming along then there are still tickets available.

In the meantime, for this Mondoid, we’ve caught up with two devs – one of whom is hammering away on the ever-more complete-looking edifice of Build 33, and another who we haven’t heard from for a while. There was also quite a big bug/tweak update to Build 32 back on Thursday from the consistently wonderful EasyPickins, the full skinny on which can be found here.


“Hello! So, this morning I’ll be doing a few small tweaks and fixes to my Radio and TV system, and then getting my branch merged with all the other 33 stuff hopefully without getting bitten/scratched in the process.

There’s been a lot to tidy up on the radio system – UI stuff, MP functionality, the WordZed utility and a good load of smaller stuff that needed polishing.

A major hurdle that’s been overcome is in ensuring player to player radio communication is working coherently. I’ve been doing some testing helped by Twiggy and Tooks, the results of which can be seen here – please read on for the explanation though!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYvy2cLsrxA

In this video all the radios are set at the same frequency of 500mhz, and both myself and Tooks are invisible to the zombies – which is why they can be seen getting attracted to the voices coming out of the radio sets rather than our tasty bodies. The biggest complication with P2P radios and walkie talkies is working out exactly what is player conversation in the direct vicinity is picked up, what is transmitted and what is received – and how it’s seen on-screen. As such I’ve developed a set of rules to govern it all cleanly.

At first you can see me not wearing a radio device. I’m standing in-between Tooks and the HAM radio, and not in range of any microphone at all. It’s when I move closer to Tooks, who is using a walkie talkie the entire time, that my second line is picked up by his device and transmitted to the HAM radio. After this my character equips a radio as well, and I transmit some lines – first standing away from Tooks and then closer to him. Seeing as we both have walkie talkies equipped and on the same frequency, based on a few rules, the radio system then picks the best suited device to actually transmit it. It’s all about avoiding duplicates on the airwaves.

Now this is in the can there’s not that much more to add – next step is internal testing and further fixes/changes from feedback. That said, I also still have to put in recording onto tapes, broadcasting from said tapes and a system that lets modders make use of the radio stuff easily. None of that is vital to the internal test though.”


“Hello! I’m currently taking a small break from working on the North East section of the official map to update Bedford Falls, the first community map that I created that contains hundreds of new buildings, most of them made by members of our forums. For the uninitiated, you can check out what Bedford Falls looks like through an overlay on Blindcoder’s superb map project.



Now that we have Steam Workshop integrated it felt like a good time to get it spruced up and up into an easily downloadable mod on Steam that players can subscribe to and get fed updates whenever they arrive. One of the major things that the map was lacking was the relevant info to help handle the updated zombie distribution system, now I’ve integrated it I’m thinking that it should help up the ante in and around Bedford Falls. Expect lots more zombies in bathrooms!

The other major thing that this update will add is the foraging, no more will you have to head miles West or North from Bedford Falls before you can start foraging for those all-important berries and twigs. I’m hoping that this will make Bedford Falls a much more viable location for your post-apocalyptic hide outs.

Once I’m finished with this process I will be creating a thread on the Zomboid forums which documents exactly how to update an older map to work with all the current build’s features, how to package it as a mod and how to upload your mod to the Steam Workshop for others to subscribe to and download.

I would also say that now is a very good time for building makers to upload their solo buildings onto the Workshop – as when Creative Mode hits in Build 33 then this should see them being used by map makers and Creative Mode servers much, much more. This will in turn allow those maps and servers to grow exponentially. Once back from EGX I will be going through the list of buildings Bedford Falls contains and working with the community to provide a much larger library of buildings for us all to use in Creative Mode, leading to more map mods and unique servers. Exciting times!”


Hokay then, we’re off to EGX – where we’re planning all kinds of development meetings [it’ll be the first time we meet Turbo in the flesh for example!] alongside the fun of meeting gamers on the show floor and attempting to infect them with Zomboid. It’ll also be the site of our first grand ‘merchandise experiment’, so if we never sell t-shirts or art prints ever again then you’ll have the disinterested people of Birmingham to blame.

The t-shirts currently look like this by the way. Cool, non?



Anyway if you’re coming along then please, please don’t be shy – as we’d love to have a chat and maybe a drink too after the show floor clears.

See you there, or here again next week!

Today’s featured image from the EXTREMELY mysteriously named ‘█|’ on Steam. The Centralised Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.

It’s a busy, busy week at TIS Towers this week as the vast majority of the dev workforce and a considerable chunk of community will be heading to Birmingham (UK version) later this week (APART FROM NASKO WHO MUST HAVE GONE BEFORE POSTING THIS, THE FILTHY BEAST) to attend the EGX games show and to shove Zomboid into the faces of the assembled masses. If you fancy coming along then there are still tickets available.

In the meantime, for this Mondoid, we’ve caught up with two devs – one of whom is hammering away on the ever-more complete-looking edifice of Build 33, and another who we haven’t heard from for a while. There was also quite a big bug/tweak update to Build 32 back on Thursday from the consistently wonderful EasyPickins, the full skinny on which can be found here.


“Hello! So, this morning I’ll be doing a few small tweaks and fixes to my Radio and TV system, and then getting my branch merged with all the other 33 stuff hopefully without getting bitten/scratched in the process.

There’s been a lot to tidy up on the radio system – UI stuff, MP functionality, the WordZed utility and a good load of smaller stuff that needed polishing.

A major hurdle that’s been overcome is in ensuring player to player radio communication is working coherently. I’ve been doing some testing helped by Twiggy and Tooks, the results of which can be seen here – please read on for the explanation though!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYvy2cLsrxA

In this video all the radios are set at the same frequency of 500mhz, and both myself and Tooks are invisible to the zombies – which is why they can be seen getting attracted to the voices coming out of the radio sets rather than our tasty bodies. The biggest complication with P2P radios and walkie talkies is working out exactly what is player conversation in the direct vicinity is picked up, what is transmitted and what is received – and how it’s seen on-screen. As such I’ve developed a set of rules to govern it all cleanly.

At first you can see me not wearing a radio device. I’m standing in-between Tooks and the HAM radio, and not in range of any microphone at all. It’s when I move closer to Tooks, who is using a walkie talkie the entire time, that my second line is picked up by his device and transmitted to the HAM radio. After this my character equips a radio as well, and I transmit some lines – first standing away from Tooks and then closer to him. Seeing as we both have walkie talkies equipped and on the same frequency, based on a few rules, the radio system then picks the best suited device to actually transmit it. It’s all about avoiding duplicates on the airwaves.

Now this is in the can there’s not that much more to add – next step is internal testing and further fixes/changes from feedback. That said, I also still have to put in recording onto tapes, broadcasting from said tapes and a system that lets modders make use of the radio stuff easily. None of that is vital to the internal test though.”


“Hello! I’m currently taking a small break from working on the North East section of the official map to update Bedford Falls, the first community map that I created that contains hundreds of new buildings, most of them made by members of our forums. For the uninitiated, you can check out what Bedford Falls looks like through an overlay on Blindcoder’s superb map project.



Now that we have Steam Workshop integrated it felt like a good time to get it spruced up and up into an easily downloadable mod on Steam that players can subscribe to and get fed updates whenever they arrive. One of the major things that the map was lacking was the relevant info to help handle the updated zombie distribution system, now I’ve integrated it I’m thinking that it should help up the ante in and around Bedford Falls. Expect lots more zombies in bathrooms!

The other major thing that this update will add is the foraging, no more will you have to head miles West or North from Bedford Falls before you can start foraging for those all-important berries and twigs. I’m hoping that this will make Bedford Falls a much more viable location for your post-apocalyptic hide outs.

Once I’m finished with this process I will be creating a thread on the Zomboid forums which documents exactly how to update an older map to work with all the current build’s features, how to package it as a mod and how to upload your mod to the Steam Workshop for others to subscribe to and download.

I would also say that now is a very good time for building makers to upload their solo buildings onto the Workshop – as when Creative Mode hits in Build 33 then this should see them being used by map makers and Creative Mode servers much, much more. This will in turn allow those maps and servers to grow exponentially. Once back from EGX I will be going through the list of buildings Bedford Falls contains and working with the community to provide a much larger library of buildings for us all to use in Creative Mode, leading to more map mods and unique servers. Exciting times!”


Hokay then, we’re off to EGX – where we’re planning all kinds of development meetings [it’ll be the first time we meet Turbo in the flesh for example!] alongside the fun of meeting gamers on the show floor and attempting to infect them with Zomboid. It’ll also be the site of our first grand ‘merchandise experiment’, so if we never sell t-shirts or art prints ever again then you’ll have the disinterested people of Birmingham to blame.

The t-shirts currently look like this by the way. Cool, non?



Anyway if you’re coming along then please, please don’t be shy – as we’d love to have a chat and maybe a drink too after the show floor clears.

See you there, or here again next week!

Today’s featured image from the EXTREMELY mysteriously named ‘█|’ on Steam. The Centralised Block of Italicised text would also like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox.

 
Hello everyone and welcome to another fine (or dreary) Monday (delete as appropriate)! Today we’ll have a chat with the awesome Martin, who has been plugging away doing a whole wealth of animations and models to add to the game. THIS IS NOT FOR BUILD 33, as it comes with a rewrite of movement, combat, and practically every player and zombie action in the game, but it should be finally ready for build 34. Then the runway is clear for take-off with the final stage of [REDACTED] development, which while still some ways off will finally have all the jigsaw pieces laid out.

Due to the length restrictions, you will be able to read the rest of this blogpost here:
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/2015/09/re-re-animated/

ːcherrypieː

 
Hello everyone and welcome to another fine (or dreary) Monday (delete as appropriate)! Today we’ll have a chat with the awesome Martin, who has been plugging away doing a whole wealth of animations and models to add to the game. THIS IS NOT FOR BUILD 33, as it comes with a rewrite of movement, combat, and practically every player and zombie action in the game, but it should be finally ready for build 34. Then the runway is clear for take-off with the final stage of [REDACTED] development, which while still some ways off will finally have all the jigsaw pieces laid out.

Due to the length restrictions, you will be able to read the rest of this blogpost here:
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/2015/09/re-re-animated/

:cherrypie:

 
Happy Mondoid everyone, we bring news of Steam stuff. Build 32.27 is now out of IWBUMS testing and live for everyone, which means that a whole new world of Steam Integration is now ready for Zomboid infection!

You can read the full patch notes here, but the headlines run as follows: Steam Multiplayer via dedicated servers that can be installed and updated using Steam CMD, Steam Workshop for the upload and download of whatever User Mods/Maps tickle your fancy, and of course Steam Broadcasting. There’s also a bazillion (estimated figure) bug fixes that come as part of the package.

We’d like to thank the fantastic guys at General Arcade for laying the groundwork that would allow us to tie PZ closer to Steam [which is genuinely no mean feat, given that it’s built in Java] and of course to the tireless work of EasyPickins who got into the back-end’s guts and tied it all together.

We’ll continue to improve it all as we go, of course, and right now are super excited to see what mods and maps appear and go on to flourish.


So, where are we at with the next build? Read on, reader.

Creative Mode

After the first batch of Creative Mode internal testing we’re currently adding features such as ‘Undo’ and more powerful editing tools. Testers were really excited about Creative but it did spotlight fiddlier areas, and we want it to be smooth as butter upon release. We’re also going through it all with TIS map-makers Andy and Paul and making sure it’s a valid tool to speed up map production upon release, as well as flood Steam Workshop with recreations of your home towns and favoured tourist destinations.

Radio, TV, Walkie-Talkies and Moveable Furniture

All of Turbo and Will’s bits of Build 33 will be going into internal testing this week, after an initial smaller-scale MP test today or tomorrow. Aside from polish, that’ll go on from now until release when required, all narrative content for 33 is now a lock – coming in at 7046 lines, spread over 546 broadcasts, covering 11 stations and playing out (in the main) over the first ten in-game days of play.
As well as coding into WordZed the facility for translators to easily track developer changes in the master spreadsheet, Turbo has also been making sure that the zombie inhabitants also appreciate the cosy glow of a CRT if someone human is speaking…

RJ’s Stuff

Our resident Frenchman is off on honeymoon at the moment, a decision that clearly appalled us, but is currently working on something that’s still unannounced which will go into Build 33 if it’s finished in time. It’s essentially finalizing some work that will integrate PZ with some pretty awesome middleware that’ll have a massive impact on player immersion and your awareness of the zeds, but due to us having to sort out the license and boring stuff like that we can’t share explanations or videos just yet.

Suffice to say: it’s pretty cool. On top of this, clearly, there’s also the botany work and ‘lived-in apocalypse’ features that he already has in the bag.


We get asked all the time about Project Zomboid merchandise, as it seems a lot of you really want raccoon-emblazoned shirts and posters to make your life complete. It’s really tough to know quite what the demand for this sort of stuff would be though, so (when not conducting her secret mission) Mash has been working on a test run of art prints that will (most likely) be on sale at the upcoming EGX gaming show in Birmingham later this month. [Edit: Mash wants it known that Andy did the heavy work apparently].

If everything goes well then we can think of ways to extend merchandise outwards to the online world, and if it goes really badly then we’ll have several crates of unwanted Spiffo imagery to get rid of. Whichever way it goes, it’s likely that interested parties from the internet will eventually benefit.
You can get a sneak peek of the art prints and vote on what size you’d be most interested,here. Meanwhile, here’s the Spiffo that may well adorn the garments of EGX attendees.


 

This week’s featured image is an amazing hellscape from Akamai over on Steam. That’s it for another week, so all that remains is for myself – the italicised block of text – to inform you that the PZWiki awaits your input and that the TIS Email Subscription service can forward Mondoids and Release news to your inbox. A good day to you Sir, or Madam.

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