Welcome to the thirty-eighth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of September 2023.
Next Update Plans (continued)
In the last devblog, we discussed the target release window for this next update being in early November, however, upon further discussion with the team and after reviewing some of the tasks that we wanted to finish for this update 4TQBM we decided that it would be better to take the extra time and push this window back a bit further. We are now looking at sometime in late November to mid-December. We want to get this update out to everyone as soon as possible, but we also want to make sure that we aren’t rushing any of these last minute tasks that we want to get done to ensure that this next patch goes as smoothly as possible!
Moving M38L9 onto September’s recap:
Character Model Updates
Further improvements have been made to the Operation: Rolling Stone character models, specifically the combat fatigues for the USMC characters:
Maps
Carentan
Carentan received further detailing work and other improvements, and the team is working towards LVCTD getting it to its first playable state:
Jaziira
All buildings and major points of interest for Jaziira have been placed, along with a pass on the foliage. The next step will be to place down walls and other large hard cover positions so it’s in a basic first playable 4ZB38 state for this upcoming update.
Animations
The technical animator has been wrapping up the camera animation system, which recently underwent a large refactor to provide a smoother P5CMP workflow and implementation of camera animations for all weapons and items.
The GIFs shown below are some of the remaining weapons that he had to finish, and every faction kit is just about completed at this time. The only outstanding weapons/items are ones we have MCJWQ very recently been added, and those will be completed in time for the next major patch.
Objects, Models, and Textures
World Props and Environment Assets
This past month the team has also been focused on implementing some micro detail into our maps in order to make 69XHL them feel more alive and immersive. In this next update, you will see a lot more detailed interiors across basically all of the maps:
This will of course be an ongoing process, and Z4WGH some buildings will lack certain details that others might have, but this should be a nice step in the right direction.
New Weapons
We have also added a variety of new weapons into the game, some of which are older and we have shown off ages ago (but that were just never actually implemented), and some that are brand new:
HK417 w/ 13” barrel and Aimpoint MicroT1 optic mounted on a riser, STG44 (although this still requires its own custom animations—currently it is using the AK47 animations), WAR Afterburner Glock 19, TRIARC TRI-11/2011, Mk22 DVJ8I, XM177, DP-28, PPSh-41, TT-33/Tokarev, MP 18, and a Smith & Wesson Model 10
Foliage
We have recently replaced some of the Middle Eastern vegetation with new, better looking, and more consistent and optimized sets of trees, 6F6QP bushes, small plants, grass types, and so on:
Upcoming and WIP Features
Game Packaging Optimizations and Update Speeds
The lead programmer made some tweaks to the game's packaging process, which will result in future game updates being more efficient WMT9I for the Steam client to handle and distribute to players (meaning updates should be completed more quickly than they do now).
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Thanks D7ADB for checking out the devblog, and we look forward to bringing everyone this next update!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
Welcome to the thirty-seventh devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of August 2023.
Next Update Plans
We are now approaching the release window for our next major update! At the time of this devblog, we are looking at early November as the targeted timeline for this update. During the month of October we will be finalizing the automatic mod downloading system for server joins, and 5BKFQ getting in as much polish and bug fixing as we can.
Our goal for this update is to address as many of the recurring bugs and issues that we have seen raised within the community as we can in order to pave the way for the team to start actually being able to focus on the major gameplay features and content updates that we plan to bring to the game in the future. This update will include, but is not limited to: automatic mod downloading for servers, more robust server security systems/options T3N3D for server owners to prevent cheaters and other bad actors from playing on their servers, an overhaul to the AI framework/behaviors, an overhaul to our first person camera animation systems, further updates, improvements, and exposal requests to the mod tools, and more.
With the exception of vehicles, everything that we have been showcasing in the past few months of devblogs since our last update is just about completed and ready for the next build. On the topic of vehicles, we are going to continue pushing our work on these to the mod 7IQH0 that we have been using for testing purposes, and once the lead programmer is ready to begin prioritizing and focusing on the vehicle system it will then begin to be rebuilt and merged into the base game (our goal is that vehicles will ready for the next major update after this one). This is also why we are currently focusing much more on getting our larger maps ready in preparation for this.
While this won’t be the most “sexy” update in terms of flashy new content, and all the bells and whistles that we know people would like to see in the base game, this is going to really reinforce all of our existing systems, as well as put 5GVAP us (and the modding and server hosting communities) in a really solid position to begin iterating on all of those things moving forward.
Maps
Jaziira
The level design team has now started work on our newest map: Jaziira. Jaziira is a 2x2km map inspired by the popular Project Reality map “Ramiel”, which is based on a coastal region of Mogadishu, Somalia. QM3HB This map will feature a main city composed of tall buildings, some smaller villages on the outskirts, and some farmland with a variety of vegetation, bodies of water, and tall hills.
The first version of Jaziira is coming with this ZC6Q3 next update, and will be immediately available to everyone!
Saint Quentin
Saint Quentin was recently given a more cinematic 64TJJ overcast look, with rising smoke plumes to add to the atmospheric WW1 feel, and the level design team continued to work on detailing out the rest of the map.
Khafji
In anticipation of being one of the first major testing grounds for vehicles, the level design team has now begun working on expanding Khafji out to its full and original intended size (4x4km). Coming with the next update, Khafji will now feature Y3FII several new areas beyond the currently used city portion of the map that most players will be familiar with.
These areas are still very work in progress, so they will likely lack the detail that the areas in the current map have TE2VE, however, the team is going to continue working on building out and detailing these areas over time, giving Khafji a lot of new playable areas to fight in and explore.
Animations
MP-443 Grach
The MP-443 Grach 4NM3V pistol is a weapon that we showed the models off for a very long time ago, however, we haven’t actually had a use for it till recently (we will disclose what it is being used for later on). It has now received partial and full reload animations:
Improved Camera Animations
All of W62LX our existing weapons have now received a rather substantial rewrite to their camera animation system in order to facilitate a much wider variety and range of camera animations and movement. This not only is what has helped power the camera movements/animations for stance transitions and movement while crouched and prone, but also many other new actions such as camera movement during reloads, weapon/equipment swapping, grenade throwing, and more. All of these systems will also be exposed for modders on the BR2BX next SDK update too!
This rewrite will also open up the option for us to start including animations and movements for many other actions such as jumping, walking and running, and so on (things that will be worked on in future updates).
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Thanks for checking out this month’s devblog!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
Anyone who has ever donated to Operation: Harsh Doorstop on Steam can now get Battlebit: Remastered for 5% off. This bundle discount also stacks with other discounts, including their currently running sale! That means that our donators can currently purchase Battlebit for 25% off!
Our developers helped to animate a number of weapons used in Battlebit during their early development phase, and we're excited to continue supporting SgtOkiDoki and his team after their launch!
In addition to our partnership with Battlebit, our team has also partnered with a number of other incredible indie studios that we feel strongly deserve your support. If you want to support both our studio, and other passionate indie studios... consider buying these games from our partners at a discount!
Thank you so much for your continued support, and we're excited to show you what we have in store for our upcoming updates to Operation: Harsh Doorstop soon! We hope that by continuing to support other indie projects, we can continue to grow alongside other talented studios making incredible games. We've loved being a part of the supportive indie FPS community, and we can't wait to continue helping others to succeed as they help us to succeed.
See you on the battlefield soon!
- Bluedrake42
Development Blog #36 [July 2023]
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the thirty-sixth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of July 2023.
Automatic Mod Downloading
We are now nearing completion of our first 5C0B0 iteration of the automatic mod downloading system that will be coming with the next update, and internal testing will begin soon. This system will allow players to join modded servers without requiring them to obtain the necessary mods beforehand, making running and playing on modded servers much more viable and streamlined. It will still be ideal/recommended that players subscribe to the proper mods first for the smoothest user experience due to how the system will work, however, it will now not be necessary once it’s in.
We will be sure to update the server hosting guide for server owners explaining how they need to set up their servers to best facilitate this once the update comes out. For players, all they will need to do is join a server from the in-game browser and wait for the mod(s) that they don’t have to V3QQ7 download.
Character Model Updates
Further improvements have been made to some of the character models, and the overall character creation/setup process. More material slots have been added to all characters to allow for increased texture fidelity. In addition, body proportions and weight painting has been improved, and IRJHB more soldier heads have now been swapped to MetaHuman heads. Finally, more components were added to some of the character models to flesh out some of their designs.
Maps
Saint Quentin
Saint Quentin’s trench network is now completed, and the map is now officially in its first playable state. More landscape 6FMGJ and foliage detailing was also done throughout the landscape.
The map is not completed yet, however, and the level design team is going to continue detailing and fleshing out the 6HFE2 remainder of the map in the coming month(s).
Vehicles
Some more work was put into the vehicle testing mod, including better spawning conditions for the vehicles, as well as an MRAP YW85B and a BRDM being added.
Please note that these models are from the marketplace and are placeholder until we wind up having our own 669QH made from scratch.
Animations
The technical animator has continued focusing on improving our animation systems for the next major update. One such A6ANB system introduced recently in our development build is the addition of animated stance transitions for first person. This system utilizes curves instead of a flat interpolation to and from different stances, meaning you can expect the act of going in and out of stances (especially prone) to take longer and have a more “weighted” feeling to them. In addition, he has also further iterated on the previous crawling locomotion systems we showed off in previous devblogs to add a bit Y6NRF more variety.
These various improvements should add a much more polished feel to our animation systems, and we hope 5HIE8 everyone will enjoy them when our next update goes live!
Upcoming and WIP Features
General Optimizations and File Cleanup
The lead generalist has PATDB been doing a lot of work the past few weeks doing general optimization work, and continuing to clean up the entire project. This includes but is not limited to optimizing maps and assets, centralizing assets and folders within the game project and SDK, removing whatever excess bloat that he can find (such as old unused files and assets that have become useless overtime), and so on.
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That’s it for this month, thanks DT3B4 for checking out the devblog!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
Welcome to the thirty-fifth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of June 2023.
This will be another shorter one as we don’t have a whole lot to share this month due to most of the work going on 59XWR behind the scenes being pretty rigorous programming work that doesn’t have much to show here in a devblog (more on that in the Upcoming and WIP Features section towards the end), so let’s just jump straight into it:
Voting Systems
We have now implemented a voting system into the game. This not only includes the capability for server owners to set up vote kicking on their servers (and configure what it takes to initiate a kick, how long kicked FG3W8 players must wait before rejoining, and so on), but this system will also be capable of facilitating other types of votes as well. This will also be something that modders will be able to tap into for their own creations. Vote kick and other voting issue types will be configurable by server owners through K4AW7 an INI file.
As a general reminder, and for the sake of clarity, things like vote kicking will be optional and up to the server owner to determine if they want to use it. This will simply be yet another measure at server owner’s/admin’s disposal to have as an option to help with potential trouble making players, whether that be cheating, griefing, and so on (most likely this will be a great option for people who wish to run servers but do not have a full admin team and/or cannot be around all the time).
Maps
Saint Quentin
Work continued on Saint Quentin, 67R9C and the level designer anticipates that this map will be in its first real playable state sometime towards the end of July/early August.
Vehicles
Most of the previously shown vehicle animations have now been implemented and replicated for the vehicle system prototype, which will be EKQZT featured in the format of a mod for initial testing. There are still a few that need to be put in, and as you can see in the GIF below some of them still have some camera based issues (such as the camera not following the player when they lean out of the window to fire), but we are getting pretty close to having this ready for testing and tweaking prior to being added to the lead programmers plate for official implementation 45YTK into the base game when he has the time.
Animations
Stance Transitions
The goal of our animation team for the next coming months is to improve the kinesthetic feedback to player actions, and we felt it was a good time to finally introduce proper animated stance 65GIN transitions. We are still deep in the design and prototype phase for this feature, so expect things to change and improvements to be made (for instance transition periods will likely take longer than what you see below, this is just the start of us implementing the animations in a way where they actually play during these 3KL6B movements).
Crawling Animations
We are also currently revisiting our prone crawling animations to round off the feature and polish for our next major update. Below are several WIP crawling animation sets for a variety of different items:
Please note 9ANTD that reloading while moving in prone is not actually planned for the base game, however, we are going to need the lead programmer to help with making that possible to do, and right now he is simply too busy with other tasks. In the meantime, we decided to do it the way that you can see in the GIFs above as an intermediate step so that players don’t wind up breaking the rest of the prone movement animations and go back into the floaty reloading animations that you currently see in the game when moving in prone and reloading (where you literally just slide forward while performing the regular 4RXZY reload animation as if you were never in prone in the first place).
First Person Camera Overhaul
Another large part of how we intend to achieve our goal of enhancing the physicality and sense of “weight” of player actions is with our camera animation additions to other various actions within the game, such as this Mk18 set:
We have more of these coming later to accompany other actions, such as jumping, landing, and so PC7L0 on.
Upcoming and WIP Features
Automatic Mod Downloading
The next major feature and task on the lead programmer’s list is automatic mod downloading on server join. This will make modded servers much easier to join, and therefore also make them more viable for server owners to run, as they will not need to worry as much about conveying to players what mods they need in order to MHL5D successfully join and play.
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Thanks for checking out the devblog!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
Welcome to the thirty-fourth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of May 2023.
Maps
Map Redesigns
We have no images to share for these just yet, but currently the maps Lam Dong and Khafji are receiving some redesigns and tweaks. Khafji is starting to be expanded back up towards its original size (4x4km) in anticipation 5AE9N of being a testing ground for the future vehicle framework update. Lam Dong is having portions of the map completely redesigned to better improve the overall flow of the map, and take advantage of some of the spaces that have not been utilized very well in prior versions (in other words, there will be more playable space and should be less flag QFLAM layers that devolve into the frequent choke points that are commonly seen).
Saint Quentin
Saint Quentin continues to receive further detailing and expansion. Support trenches in the back were widened with the grassy fields and communication trenches leading towards the fire trenches at the front towards no RPNIZ man’s land, and forested areas will provide cover for advancing infantry in some places (tanks should work well in these fields).
Vehicles
Last month the 54VXR team pushed more heavily into developing the vehicle framework prototype by creating several armored fighting and transport vehicles with basic functionality. The GIF displayed below shows a ricochet mechanic that some of the vehicles will have when shooting each other in specific locations and angles, and also demonstrates that all players that are inside of the vehicle will die once it is 7QCVM blown up (which then spawns a wrecked version of the vehicle in its place).
Animations
Stance Transitions (Crouch)
We have now MZH99 started to work on animations for stance transitions. To start, we are working on crouching:
Next up will be prone.
First Person Movement Cycle Improvements
Additionally, we're 55AVR working on improving the first person movement cycles with a new blendspace that allows us to seamlessly blend multiple looping animations together to produce more fluid and dynamic 4Z7H0 movements:
Upcoming and WIP Features
Bots/AI
The overhaul to our bots/AI is now more or less completed and can be fully tested on the developer build of the game. All of their past behaviors—the ability to use frag and smoke grenades, shoulder 6MNWI mounted and underbarrel launchers, and so on—have now been reintroduced in addition to their new cover seeking behaviors. The only feature from the previous AI that is technically missing at this point is their ability to crouch and go prone, as these systems are going to need to be recreated from the ground up to work with the overhaul.
The new AI combat behavior (which is triggered by either taking contact or seeing enemies that they decide to engage) essentially has bots seeking cover and popping out of it to attack. They will now search for a "safe spot" if their current 6BFTQ one is no longer providing cover/breaking line of sight, and the same goes for their "attack spot"—if they want to attack but can't see the enemy from their current position, they will now move around until they can. They will also periodically reposition themselves to get closer to their current objective (on a per squad-basis). In the future, this same underlying system will be used for further "reposition actions", like pushing forward, retreating/breaking contact, flanking maneuvers, regrouping, and so on (at the moment, HLQME we have only implemented "move closer to objective").
General Optimizations
A handful of general optimizations have been made to further improve overall performance:
Various assets and decal materials (which every projectile creates when an impact decal is spawned) were optimized in order to reduce draw calls. In addition, quality switches were added to master materials for “Low” settings (all normals on this setting will now get replaced by a flat normal texture which heavily 4W07P reduces texture memory and draw calls), as well as for particle effects (which achieves the same thing noted above).
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Thank you for checking out this month’s devblog!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
Fix "+connect " command line arg not working (used by steam to cold start the game into a server from the command line)
Security fixes to client authentication procedure when joining a server
Fixed player name/score stats (steam server info) not getting updated initially for a newly connected player
Preserve in-game player stats (kills, deaths, etc) for players that disconnect from and subsequently reconnect to a server within the inactivity threshold established by the game mode (5 minutes by default)
Fix issue with character movement replication breaking the intended send rates for client moves when game time was dilated
Miscellaneous
Update Steamworks SDK to version 1.57
SDK
Fix "X imported Y, but it was never saved as an export." log warning spam (that was benign) when packaging or otherwise cooking content for a mod
Change Impact FX "DecalMaterial" property type from a material to a material interface to allow for decals to utilize material instances for impact fx
Join the vehicle playtest...
Please watch this video for all relevant information:
Once vehicles are added to the base game, supporters will be able to playtest them prior to release. If you are not yet a supporter, please consider becoming one here:
Welcome to the thirty-third devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of April 2023.
Let’s get straight into it:
New Lighting System
The new lighting system has now been integrated into all of the currently existing maps, and nearly all of our existing materials and textures have been updated to better fit into this new system.
More specifically, the lighting system 5FWQB blueprint was updated to add more user friendly features to it so it is more of a drag and drop experience for our level design team (as well as modders), and requires fewer tweaks that have to be made to be implemented. In addition, lighting and fog cubemaps can also now be baked—a PDF explaining how to do all of this will be distributed when this next patch goes live on the main build.
All of our materials have been updated for the new lighting system as well. We adjusted all material specular, metallic, and roughness values closer to the proper PBR settings, and parameters and nodes were added to the master materials that should help metallic and specular values look proper under the new lighting. We are also preparing further optimizations to all material and texture sets as well.
Last but not least, all of the lighting layers/levels for all of our currently existing maps have now been updated to use the new lighting system, and multiple lighting layers have been created: Dawn, YPLFM Morning, Mid Day, Afternoon, Sunset, Overcast, Heavy Overcast.
There is still some more polish work to go on the above showcases (such as fixes to some exposure values and some of the ground materials), however, this should be a pretty good demonstration of the new lighting in various IPKGF environments/terrains.
Character Model Updates
Continuing with the work that was shown in last month’s devblog, improvements were made to the US and Russian soldier characters. Each character received more material slots, allowing for higher quality textures. The Russian soldiers received new MetaHuman heads and had some chest rig straps adjusted/fixed, and the US soldiers received some new gear to their belts/rigs 5ELAK as well.
Maps
Tan Binh
Tan Binh was updated to receive the new lighting system (a noon layer for now), mostly as placeholder 63LEF until the next SDK update comes around to get the latest lighting templates and tweaks. More foliage types were also added to improve PTIXR detailing.
Saint Quentin
The rest of the trenches were placed on Saint Quentin, including some improved trenches for the frontlines. This map also received a noon 5G4XJ lighting layer similar to the one shown on Tan Binh.
Omaha Beach
Omaha Beach also received some G7T5N improvements to the foliage.
Vehicles
Turret Animations
Our animator has finished animating the PBEG5 DShK for our vehicle prototype by completing the reload animation, and he is now wrapping up the whole animation pass for our technical pickup.
Upcoming and WIP Features
Bots/AI
The new updates to the AI can now be played and tested in the Development Build of the game. At the time 5A3XX of writing this, their behaviors and abilities have been stripped back down to just their raw movement and attacking patterns so that we can fully test/verify their new line of sight behavior that they utilize in order to take cover from incoming fires. We are still working through a few kinks/bugs (such as one that is preventing them from properly being as aggressive as they need to be to push and capture objectives), then T079G once we resolve those we will begin working back in their other behaviors, such as being able to utilize grenades and launchers, and change their stance. We will also be doing a complete pass to all of their existing values (including accuracy) to make sure everything feels good with this new system, as their ability to now move in and out of cover presents a lot more unique and dynamic scenarios.
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Thanks for reading 85Z0Z!
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
You can play with these changes NOW if you are a supporter! Install Operation: Harsh Doorstop - Development Build if you own the supporter DLC on Steam!
