The monthly development progress reports for Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are in, and as the headline to this story suggests, updates from last month oscillate between the vital and the superfluous on both fronts as development on both projects slogs on.
In Star Citizen’s April report, the team talks about work on AI behaviors and animations for leisure activities and commuting, progress on the Banu Merchantman and RSI Scorpius spaceships, continued transition to the Gen12 graphics renderer, creation of a new HUD for the Vulture when in salvage mode, further movement on space POIs and Lorville’s cityscape redesign, some new mission work for an upcoming new dynamic event, and making a fire extinguisher properly work.
As for SQ42, the latest newsletter talks about level design for FPS and dogfighting scenes, another round of mocap, even more Gen12 renderer integration work, and animation work for things like combat and the master-at-arms handing over or taking back FPS weapons. Also, apparently, the devs are wrestling with realistic bedsheet deformation when AI characters perform sleep and bed relaxation activity. From the newsletter:
“We knew early on that, to hit the fidelity we expect for SQ42, we would need to do some R&D on bedsheet deformation. […] This is a challenging assignment and expands the complexity of the feature. For example, what happens to the sheets if the AI needs to exit the bed in an emergency?”
Not to worry, everyone; how bedsheets crumple when an AI NPC is suddenly roused from sleep is being thoroughly investigated.
