Ravage

[haleks 8212]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuation of the Ravage mod from Arma 3. That means Survival and Zombies !

The project is in very early development, and may contain placeholders or incomplete features.

 

With Bohemia letting go of the decades-old and venerable RV engine for Enfusion, it's time to begin anew... And to learn everything again.

I have zero background with Unity-like workflow or C# programming, so this is going to be quite the adventure.

 

What to expect (for now)

The first release comes with a GameMaster-ready faction for the infected, a single player scenario and a MP mode later down the line. Just zombies, and action/horror showcases at first, survival will come later. Right now, I want to experiment with the AI as I learn the new language and tools.

 

The next steps

...are hard to define at this early stage. But as development on the infected AI progresses, I'll dedicate more time to sounds, animations, and possibly new 3D assets.

Work on survival mechanisms will begin once infected are in a good place.

 

Features :
* Infected faction with individual characters & groups
* Custom appearance & sounds
* The infected have their own AI and are playable
* They react to gunshots and can climb most obstacles
* Interactions such as opening doors or driving are disabled for the infected

 

Known Issues :
* Infected can inadvertently kill each others when clumped together

 

 

Enfusion Showcase

Workshop

[haleks 8212]

Behavior Trees, part 1 : Target Detection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[haleks 8212]

Okay we're getting somewhere...

BTs are completely new to me, but the AI set up is going surprisingly well. After about 2 days of trial and error, I got something pretty solid for the most basic behaviors : zombies can prioritize and select target, chase said target and melee them once in range.

 

And the tree isn't too messy (yet) :

 

Now, I need to program some kind of "idle" routine - and I think we'll have a pretty functional AI already.

And melee is working too (I thought I'd have spent weeks on that one) ! 

[haleks 8212]

What happens when you go "okay, just one bit of polish here and there" :

 

 

The main tree has grown quite a bit. 

That's the target acquisition sequence along with the chase & attack processes.

 

The idle routine is handled by a smaller tree :

 

 

Right now the infected AI is pretty much on par with the old zombies from Arma 3 : they select their target in a similar manner, will investigate their last seen position etc. They react to occupied vehicles too, but have trouble attacking them at the moment. I did have a few difficulties to fine tune the AI so it can perform inside buildings, but I think I got something solid enough on that part - they can run in them corridors and are much more dangerous than before...

 

I reckon it's time to work on sound design if I want to release an Alpha soon, but I already have a few ideas for future AI iterations - how terrifying would it be to see those infected climb up fences and stuff? 

[EO 11274]

16 hours ago, haleks said:

- how terrifying would it be to see those infected climb up fences and stuff? 

 

That would feel like a real Ravage evolution and a absolute game changer....oh how we felt sooo superior using Enhanced Movement in A3, climbing zeds would really level the playing field. Good luck with that particular idea. 🙏

[Husker-71 25]

Hmm...yep ...that would be terrifying

[froggyluv 2135]

18 hours ago, haleks said:

They react to occupied vehicles too, but have trouble attacking them at the moment. I did have a few difficulties to fine tune the AI so it can perform inside buildings, but I think I got something solid enough on that part - they can run in them corridors and are much more dangerous than before..

 

Just because you seem to be intimate with the AI Brain Tree - is it possible to get zombies or any AI to notice a door or fence opening? Meaning if you open a door they could take notice even if they dont spot you?

[haleks 8212]

23 hours ago, froggyluv said:

 

Just because you seem to be intimate with the AI Brain Tree - is it possible to get zombies or any AI to notice a door or fence opening? Meaning if you open a door they could take notice even if they dont spot you?

 

I don't think a BT approach would fit the situation - we would have to constantly monitor a very specific action, and in any case, some amount of coding would still be required.

A more straightforward and efficient solution would be to override the component attached to door actions (that would be the SCR_DoorUserAction.c file in scripts/Game/UserActions/). From there you have access to detailed information, like how wide open is it or who is opening it. Then you can just plug in your own code to force nearby entities to look at it - and that would work every time a door is opened, be it by players or NPCs.

[haleks 8212]

 

I couldn't resist... 

 

 

 

 

 

I did a few tests yesterday and managed to have them climb obstacles using a wacky combination of logics in the BT. It worked pretty well in the tests, but zombies would briefly hop in place when loosing track of their target. Out of frustration I guess.

All I needed was to write a proper script to determine if climbing is needed and possible, the rest is done with vanilla components.

 

The feature is available as a scripted BT node and can be plugged in on any kind of unit.

 

 

The implementation is a bit rough at the moment (I'll have to fine-tune it and find the correct height threshold to abort the action), but it's already a game changer... Next-gen ravagers are going to need higher walls to protect their camps. 🙂 

[EO 11274]

OMG!

[Private Evans 498]

Random thoughts 🙂

 

Inspiration taken from the movies "I am Legend" , "Crazies" and "28 Days Later".

 

Infected activities and behaviours depending on the level of daylight, roughly ranging from idling and hiding in the shadows and interiors during daytime and roaming around, hunting during night time and anything in between.

This would defenetly add some new tactical and gameplay elements and also could lead to some very dramatic situations in case of sudden weather changes ( would of course require a dynamic weather system). 

Imagine  walking through a dark forest full of idling infected hiding from the sun, when suddenly dark clouds fill the sky and the infected start to awake ...or looting a small town at the coast when out of nowhere thick fog rolls in from the sea ....city streets in bright daylight would be more or less completely safe while pitch dark interiors would be deadly traps. During night time though, when the infected start to roam around and hunt, such interiors would be empty and could be looted ( how scary that would be).

The possibilities would be endless since you also could play around with infected senses and then mix and match to whatever liking.

Also I could imagine the infected not to be just like the28 Days Later infected including sprinting, vaulting and climbing but also a bit like from the movie "Crazies" make them use in some cases melee weapons like kitchen knives, axes and pitch forks etc. :)) and climbing ladders and opening doors....

Why not even adding some nasty booby traps..as you said, the infected are hunting us ! 

 

I am really happy to see you working here on the new engine 🙂 keep it up

 

[veles-zv 176]

looks very promising. its nice to see how user friendly the sdk is with nodes which leads to great mods like this being more accessible in the future. 

[haleks 8212]

8 hours ago, veles-zv said:

its nice to see how user friendly the sdk is with nodes

 

It's night and day compared to the Arma3 suite.

The only tools I ever used before Enfusion were DsUtils, TextView and the AddonBuilder, and that's it. I remember opening the FSMEditor a couple of times, and deciding that, nope, thank you but I'll write my AI in SQF. ^^

 

Reforger : once I open the Workbench, I stay in it. Having everything you need in one place is very comfortable; being able to edit and test on the fly without having to reboot anything is mindblowing to me. The tools are very well made, and for once we have graphical interfaces that are actually well done : BTs were surprisingly easy to get into, and sound design seems to be very similar (the audio setup for the infected is going to be much more detailed than what we had).

 

Animation, though, looks like another beast... 

 

In terms of UI and accessibility, Reforger sets the bar high.

The fact that I no longer need to "hack" my way through scripts (so far) to achieve what I want just says it all : at the moment, the new Ravage has one small custom script - in Arma 3, at this stage, the mod would be 75% of painfully, slowly written scripts already...

[haleks 8212]

Phew, it's been a pretty busy week, but I'm making steady progress...

 

I've come up with a basic audio setup for the infected (thanks to the devs for the wiki documentation!); at the moment they have 3 custom sound sets, each one corresponding to a state dynamically defined in their BT :

 

The design may change, but right now the idea is this : infected will play either one of the "idle" or "aggressive" sound sets depending on whether they have a target, and a "spotted" sound set will be used each time they acquire a new target. Each sound set has its own unique sounds, but they also share a pool of common sounds with dynamic parameters. Right now I'm using modified samples from real world animals like lions; those are played at different speeds and with different parameters depending on which set/shader is being used.

It does work pretty well, and feels more natural compared to the Arma 3 version of Ravage; the audio is directly related to what the infected is doing : if it's chasing you, you'll mostly hear panting behind you, and you'll know right away if it's making any intense effort, like climbing a wall or trying to take a bite out of you.

 

There's room for a much more granular approach, but I think I've got something solid enough for an alpha release with the current setup.

With the most essential features being almost ready, I reckon it's time to put everything to the test with a first demo mission. 🙂 

[laxemann 1673]

17 hours ago, haleks said:

[...]

 

Looks super neat and I can't wait to hear what it sounds like! 🙂
Though I gotta/wanna clarify that I barely worked on the documentation, it was largely done by our great audio programmers themselves as well as @reyhard and @Lou Montana 🙂

[Zakuaz 195]

Ooh man, this is exciting!

[haleks 8212]

Well, my to-do list for the infected is pretty much empty...

Unless something comes up, I only need to adjust a few cosmetic things and they should be ready for release. \o/

 

Here's what I have so far :

- Infected Faction with individual characters (3 loadout variants) and a small group for Game Master.

- Custom appearance and sounds (some assets are placeholders, but they do work and look fine for now).

- Custom AI : compared to Arma 3 they can run in buildings and climb walls. They no longer go around obstacles and will always choose the most direct path to their target (gone are those long columns of zombies along roads and fences). They react to vehicles - but can't really hit them at the moment - and to gunshots, as well as nearby sounds : if you're trying to sneak up behind one, you'd better be careful.

 

Infected are playable too. I think I took care of everything that could break immersion in that regard : they play like any regular character, with an unarmed melee action tied to the middle mouse button (or whatever key you've weapon melee assigned to). Most of their interactions are disabled : they can't enter nor drive vehicles, they can't pick up objects or use gadgets. That means they can't open doors either - now it does make sense to find shelter in a house...

Just make sure all of them doors are closed.

Infected sounds are also limited to contextual actions (such as climbing) while controlled by a player, so you won't go crazy if you play as an infected for an extended period of time.

 

...And I can't think of anything else to take care of. 🤔

[haleks 8212]

Hello chaps,

 

Ravage for Reforger has been released. 🙂 

I've had some troubles uploading it, so let me know if you encounter any issues with the workshop.

 

Version 1 comes with a basic SP demo - short and small scale. Next versions should come with a dynamic spawn system and allow more ambitious game modes.

The OP has been updated with information on the current release; note that you may encounter other issues such as characters lacking collision with other characters - some of those issues stem from Reforger being incomplete, and will hopefully be fixed with future updates to the game.

 

Very much WIP, and there's a ton of stuff to balance, but it should offer a bit of fun nonetheless.

Enjoy people ! \o/

[Husker-71 25]

Thanks for this, really looking forward to trying this! Cant see it in the workshop, where do I find it?

[EO 11274]

Thanks Haleks, really looking forward to seeing how Ravage looks within Reforger. I also appreciate your endeavour to get a version out in what seems like such a short time since the Workbench was released, kudos mate!

 

@Husker-71 Make sure your quick search tab is set to ALL then click on Recently added.... 

 

[Husker-71 25]

Thanks EO, that fixed it...Gonna have fun with this!

[Husker-71 25]

Very nice. The concept works even better with the better weapons physics and graphics of Reforger. I almost made it to the car...I was at the vehicle when I got jumped from behind! 

 

 

A thought ...make it foggy!

 

I really hope the mission creation system is improved/made more accessible, much like Arma 3, I am deep into mission creation on Arma 3 but so far just have not been able to get to grips with it on Reforger.

Watching with a great deal of interest and support! 

 

Really appreciate the work guys!!....

[EO 11274]

2 hours ago, Husker-71 said:

A thought ...make it foggy!

 

Might be getting older and slightly forgetful from time to time but I could've sworn there was a fog preset within the Weather settings on release day (I totally recall playing around with it) then it just seemed to have been removed without mention in any of the subsequent changelogs. 

Spoiler

 

[haleks 8212]

25 minutes ago, EO said:

 

Might be getting older and slightly forgetful from time to time but I could've sworn there was a fog preset within the Weather settings on release day (I totally recall playing around with it) then it just seemed to have been removed without mention in any of the subsequent changelogs. 

 

 

There is a Fog Component in the workbench, but I think it's broken at the moment. 😕 

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

Just tried and failed 3 times the showcase mission,  yesterday... all Zeds are Runners or was I unlucky? Lol (are we going to have the "default, slow "Romero´s" zombie?) 
Now that zombies jump over fences the fear factor spiked a lot, gotta try a little more harder today, I´m anxious to see the survival mechanics, now that we have fully furnitured houses and buildings 😃

Are you planning a module like Derelic or Reforger doesn´t features custom damage to buildings right now? EO´s suggestion of a thick fog would increase a lot the terror mood! Indeed I wasn´t expecting an early alpha of Ravage but now I´m asking a lot, gotta control my eagerness wink wink 😉

Kudos, Haleks! 😃