Night Dive Twitch Streams

[665afbff17827icemann]

Ah nice. Best of luck. I quite liked the look the medical level, from what was shown.

[665afbff17a7fSynaesthesia]

I'll be doing live streams pretty soon, showing how I texture assets I've created for the game. I'll try to keep some of the critique here in mind so you guys find it a bit more interesting.

[665afbff17f07unn_atropos]

°facecam
Dev - System Shock - Daniel Grayshon - 05.21.2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp2gcBjpMjE

Daniel G. finishes a room!

---
Notes by Iceman
Video 10: Daniel Grayshon - 05.21.2018

* More work on Deck 7 (Engineering)
* All levels are built walls and floors then ceilings
* Stephens joins - 0:23:00
* Night Dive's progress on Linux port of SS2 - Completely broken due to outdated tools
* Stephen comments on his eagerness to get the SS2 source code.
* Apparently a video was posted covering this remake and how well it's doing now, and that now ND is listening to the fans and giving us what we wanted in the first place - Completely agree after watching these streams.
* How will music play out - The plan is to go with the same kind of transition between the different tempo's.
* Will there be the option to switch back to the original music - Stephen - Definitely.
* Does Night Dive have any jobs available - Level designers / Environment artists
* What IP's does ND go for - Some by personal interest, some by request, others by chance.

[665afbff18088JDoran]

For those of us who won't be watching all of the videos, can someone sum up the points the videos make, as the videos are posted, please?

[665afbff18216icemann]

That would be great, as these are VERY long.

[665afbff18744sgupta]

I've managed to keep up with all the streams so far, and the highlights I can think of have been:

- A lot of medical has been shown which is more finalized (in terms of texturing, lighting, some assets like beds, doors, objects) than the rest of the levels so far.  There's still more to do, but it's coming along nicely.  This was mostly in Chris M.'s and Stephen's streams (for Stephen's streams, much of the show & tell stuff is often towards the end).  Engine performance in UE4 looks really smooth - some of the highlights of Chri's streams were the lighting and how it interplays with environmental effects like fog, steam, surfaces etc. 

- A lot of progress has been made by Daniel as far as greyboxing of the rest of the station.  i'd say we're most of the way there, in fact.  He's going through the original System Shock levels and putting them bit by bit into greybox as accurately as possible and at a pretty fast pace.  From there, they'll be looked at for fleshing out similar to what we have seen in medical as well as any possible fixes to geometry/layout/expansions.  He also showed how they're roundish when zoomed out and would actually work pretty well space-wise given the shape of the station, giving credit to the original designers.

- In Stephen's streams, we saw some early greyboxed items (such as roller skates, weapons, etc.) as well as early puzzle examples.  The puzzles look like they're based on the originals (ie. wiring for power), but with a modernized and more complex look (more like an actual circuitboard).  We later saw some more finalized assets like the briefcase that opens, a hypo, what looks like a microscope, a medical computer, a gurney-type bed, etc.  We also saw a more finished and operating version of the new door code keypads with error states as well as access granted (451 of course).  On these keypads, they've added a clear as well as back one character button around the zero to make use of the extra spaces. 

- There was recent discussion of the original source port that's going to be replacing the current version of System Shock: Enhanced.  No ETA was given, but it should be relatively soon and is said to be looking great and is planned to be the definitive edition of the game.  There's even the possibility of a boxed version being available complete with updated cover art and a version of the good old-fashioned paper manual that shipped with the original.

- Model work has been done on the mutant and virus mutant.  Stephen has done a lot of Z-Brush work on these for his streams, and they look pretty great.  A few concept (not in-game) designs were also shown during these streams like the new idea for the Hopper.  We also saw an early model of the shuttles that might be in the shuttle bay. 

- DeepChrome has been doing some art streams and we got to see some of her fantastic artwork come together.  She's done portraits of most of the NDS crew that have been used as their stream avatars, and she also did a Star Wars-type poster but with System Shock characters as well as some other neat pieces (the last one was a cyberized version of Stephen's dog which we're calling CyberDoggo).  =oP

- Karlee has been playing games on stream and interacting with the community.  She's mostly been playing Don't Starve (regular and shipwrecked) and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (finishing the latter) - there was also a trivia make-up-your-answers type game with backers along the way.  Stephen also played Turok 2 during this latest stream since it just released in Australia.

- There's a lot of other random stuff during streams.  Q&A's, showing of collectibles, discussions about other games, etc.  If you have some free time, they're even good to put on in the background as usually they don't require your full attention to glean some bits from, but they're also fun to watch in their own right.  I usually catch up while cooking, exercising, doing paperwork etc. when I know I don't have time to devote my full attention.

- The next KickStarter update is planned in early June (initially June 4th, but this might be pushed to June 8th instead).

Hope that helps!  I'll try to remember to mention the cool bits of upcoming streams as I catch up with them (I sometimes get a bit behind). 

[665afbff18874icemann]

Sounds like Night Dive has fallen into the same trap that nearly all the modders did, in that they've been focusing all their level design efforts into the Medical level. I hope we see work on other levels soon.

[665afbff18c82sgupta]

Sounds like Night Dive has fallen into the same trap that nearly all the modders did, in that they've been focusing all their level design efforts into the Medical level. I hope we see work on other levels soon.

As mentioned, much of the grayboxing is done for the rest of the station, so medical is certainly not the only thing being worked on; it is, however, the most polished and interesting to look at right now. 

One thing said in the streams (and of course this is all subject to change, but based on their progress so far) - from my understanding, they're hoping to have the station fully navigable by September or so, though without all assets/game systems in yet.  Progress as of the latest streams (since the hiatus/refocus with the revised timeline) seems to be something they're pleased with overall (and certainly seems to be going a lot faster than pre-hiatus).

Oh, one other interesting conversation during the streams was that they may, at some point (and I say "may" carefully as there were no promises made) release the original Unity demo standalone for archiving purposes, a playable build of what they were working on pre-hiatus, and then perhaps a new demo based on Unreal 4 to serve as a timeline of production, hiccups included, which I personally think would be pretty cool.

[665afbff18d9ficemann]

Well as their still getting into the medical level and it's nearly June that does not give them much time to get through all the levels prior to September.

4 months may sound like a long time, but it flies past when it comes to designing stuff. A person could spend an entire day just getting a single room to look right.

[665afbff18ed0Synaesthesia]

We're approaching the game build from what makes the most sense. Medical is a huge level with a lot of complexity. We want to knock it out since it's the first place you start off in. We're moving on to the Reactor or Research decks afterward and working in a logical progression for now.

The blockouts for the rest of the station are being diligently worked on as we fine detail the other parts of the station.

[665afbff1904eKolya]

@sgupta Thanks a lot for the summary of these streams. Much appreciated.

[665afbff19352sgupta]

@sgupta Thanks a lot for the summary of these streams. Much appreciated.

No problem.  =)  From here on out, I'll try to post in this thread about the juicy bits from streams as I watch them.

[665afbff19469icemann]

When LGS did it, didn't they have different people designing each level? Speeds up times that way plus results in different looks to various levels since each person tends to design different to the next.

[665afbff19720Kolya]

No problem.  =)  From here on out, I'll try to post in this thread about the juicy bits from streams as I watch them.

Thanks, that would be really cool. And I know I won't be the only one to appreciate it.

[665afbff19b13icemann]

Ok I'm slowly going through the video streams. Big time investment required so I've taken to doing my own games dev stuff as I have the videos playing. I figure watching / listening to these will give me a MUCH greater insight into exactly where things are at + of how they are developing this remake.

Watched so far:

* 1st video - Video of railings created for use in the medical level. An interesting video, though not much goes on for very long periods of time. But you get to see things from a level designing / asset making stand point. So if you have an interest in making levels or assets then this is a good video for you. For me I have the interest for that, but still was mostly doing other stuff and jumping back to look when he'd go back in-game to test out things and talk about texturing etc. An interesting video.

* 2nd video - Just started watching this one. 1st one with Stephen in it. Stephen mentioned about wholesale lots on Ebay for video games which immediately had me pause the video to go look that up (as my side job is running a vintage games business online). Have to say that the videos with Stephen in them seem to be the more informative ones as far as info on where things are at + have much more discussion go on in them. Must get back to watching that now. This one (much like his last video) has him modelling enemy models. This time round the virus mutant.

Bits of interest:
* Night Dive's working to obtain the rights to Westwood's "Bladerunner" and the "Blood" series.
* Level geometry for the remake will be sticking with the original look.
* The way cyberspace will be handled in the remake hasn't been decided on yet. Much debate going on, on how to do it. - I say do it like how Shadowrun does it.
* Some good discussion on Dead Space and it's origins as a System Shock game originally.
* Night Dive's plans after the remakes release - Keep acquiring older game licences and provide re-releases of those games.
* System Shock 3 is 100% being handled by Otherside. Plot, direction of the game etc. All left to Otherside to decide.   - Quite happy about this choice of direction. Gives respect, where it's due.
* Will there be mutant variations, male / female etc - Yes
* Gender choice when starting game - Not definite, but very likely as it has zero effect on the plot
* Possible DLC - Play as a mutant. Goal to stop the hacker.
* Game code giveaways
* Good background music again
* Gameplay footage at 2:08:00. You get MUCH more of this in the earlier video. So what Stephen takes you through, you've seen in extensive detail if you've watched the earlier video. In between the 2 videos it looks like more of the railing got added level wide. Beyond that, no other differences to Medical.
* A fair bit of Medical is still inaccessible. Vaccuum of space left in place of the blocked off areas.
* Get to see a bit of the Flight Deck level at 2:11:11. No textures or functionality in the level at this stage.
* Some test maps displayed at 2:14:13. Taken through a test room to test item functionality.
* Get to see a glimpse of the inventory system at its current state. 2:14:55. Inventory system appears to be 100% in SS2 style of inventory tetris.
* Logic puzzles - 2:15:40. Get to see 2 different types.

[665afbff1a084JDoran]

Sgupta and Icemann, thanks for the clear and interesting summaries, no doubt I'm not the only person with deteriorating hearing who's glad to have the video's information available to read.

* The way cyberspace will be handled in the remake hasn't been decided on yet. Much debate going on, on how to do it. - I say do it like how Shadowrun does it.

How does Shadowrun do it? The only Shadowrun game I've played is the first person shooter (which, from what I read, was a million miles from the gameplay, game-style, atmosphere, etc, of the other Shadowrun games) and I don't recall any cyberspace in that, so I'm guessing you mean a different Shadowrun game.

[665afbff1a1dbunn_atropos]

@icemann Took the liberty to attache your summary to the first post, so people get a idea what the video is about without much searching. Hope that is okay for you?

[665afbff1a57efox]

How does Shadowrun do it? The only Shadowrun game I've played is the first person shooter (which, from what I read, was a million miles from the gameplay, game-style, atmosphere, etc, of the other Shadowrun games) and I don't recall any cyberspace in that, so I'm guessing you mean a different Shadowrun game.

Nothing to write home about. Of course everything looks and sounds "cyber" and your toolset is different but other than that not much sets it apart from the "real world".

[665afbff1a772sgupta]

Personally I'd love them to retain the flying feel of Cyberspace, but make it a bit more akin to Descent.  I wouldn't even mind the wireframe look personally, but if they wanted to depart from that, I'd understand - they could have enemies "rez in" and "derez upon death" and such though.  Speaking of, maybe it could look a bit like the Rez games (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEuL3nZz9_w) - I haven't played 'em, but the visuals are pretty neat looking.  I definitely think it shouldn't look too much like the "real world" - it should feel otherworldly and fun to navigate; that's just my opinion tho'.

[665afbff1a9ecicemann]

@icemann Took the liberty to attache your summary to the first post, so people get a idea what the video is about without much searching. Hope that is okay for you?

Thats fine go for it.

[665afbff1aaf3icemann]

Note that I edited my earlier post with notes on the final 30 minutes of that video. Due to how long the video streams go for, allocating enough time to watch them in their entirety can be tricky.

[665afbff1ac24icemann]

3rd video (Chris Mansell - 04.26.2018):

* Whilst you have Chris putting stuff in the level (Medical), you have Stephen and Karlee talking in the background.
* You get to see the actual placement of textures and props to properly flesh out the level this time round.
* A couple of extra props now in the level.
* Some flickering lights now in the game.
* Daniel joins the stream at 1:04:00.
* Interact-able props shown at 1:30:40

[665afbff1addeicemann]

4th video (Daniel Grayshon - 04.30.2018):

* A look into level building of deck 7
* 1 to 1 recreations of the original SS1 levels is impossible in Unreal as paper-thin walls is un-doable in the engine.
* Showing of maintenance level. 13:20
* Has the original SS1 up for point of reference
* Later has some work on engineering
* Stephen joins the chat. 0:56:00.
* With Night Dive all employees work 100% from home.
* More source port info will hopefully be made available soon.
* Stephen chats about how he got his start in the games industry and worked his way up - 1:14:00
* How many people working at Night Dive - 15-16 + temporary contractors
* Will Night dive do any original IP games - Yes. In the future. Likely spiritual successors when IP cannot be acquired.
* Still not sure on how to do cyberspace
* Will the voice actor for Diego be coming back to do logs - Hopefully. Good chance of this happening.
* Background music in this one has a very SS1-ish kinda sound to it.
* Another play of Medical. 2:07:00. More switches and props added in. Some new lights added in.

[665afbff1af02icemann]

5th video (Stephen Kick - 04.27.2018):

* More more done on the virus mutant
* Night Dive has been suffering from trademark snipers, sniping trademarks.
* This video I'd put a NSFW warning on, due to a large portion of the mutant work focusing on a particular body part. Much hilarity ensues.