Milestone 5

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Milestone Schedule=
==Milestone 5 - Monday, 25ᵗʰ September 2006 - Networked Vertical Battlefield==
Documentation:
*Final Technical Design Document for Greenlight Meeting
*Final Design Document
Running on PC and X360:
*Multiple players able to traverse the Vertical Battlefield in a networked game
*GUI network menu (Not final, but present to use deliverables)
*Engineer class (Can repair vehicles with Fusion Cutter. Won't be correct model.)
*Jetpack class (Functional gameplay. Can jet above terrain. Won’t be correct model or have any particle effects)
*Command posts (Exist on terrain and capital ships. Can capture, with appropriate capturing HUD display.)
*Respawn menu (with character select, without map)
*Vehicle secondary fire in-game for use by player - Functional
*Vehicles firing laser and missiles (For gameplay evaluation. Effects non-final)
*Vehicles exploding (placeholder explosion only, no debris)
*FX - Lightsaber (Visible in the Stage)
*1st draft of Voice script (main Story and as much in-game as feasible) delivered
LucasArts and FRD to agree the intended content of the Prototype milestone and associated E3 2007 demo.
|-|Roadmap=
==Milestone 5 - Monday, 25ᵗʰ September 2006==
Summary:
*Multiple players able to traverse the Vertical Battlefield in a networked game
Content Detail:
*This milestone presents multiple players able to traverse the Vertical Battlefield in a networked game
*GUI Network Menu and Respawn menu (with character select, without map)
*Respawn menu (with character select, without map)
*1st draft of Voice Script
Gameplay Features (Classes):
*Engineer Class (with Fusion cutter)
**Can repair vehicles with Fusion Cutter. Won't be correct model (Imperial Pilot not complete).
*Jetpack Class
**Can jet above terrain. Stamina bar will deplete. Space behaviour may not be functional. Won't be correct model (Dark Trooper not complete).
*Jedi Class (animation test)
**An animation showcase only, not fully functional.
Gameplay Features (Miscellaneous):
*Command Posts
**Exist on terrain and capital ships. Can capture, with appropriate capturing HUD display.
*Battle Droid as playable character
**May be reduced animation set at this stage
Art (Characters):
*C-3PO
**This model currently has no environment map
*Astromech (misc)
*Rancor
*Imperial Officer
Art (Vehicles):
*V-Wing
Art (Space Cruisers):
*Super Star Destroyer
**exterior-only
Narration: 
*1st draft of Voice Script
**Main Story and as much in-game as feasible
Technical (Network):
*Multiple players able to traverse the Vertical Battlefront
Technical (Effects):
*Lightsaber
*Vehicles firing lasers/missiles
*Vehicles exploding
**Placeholder explosion with no debris
Technical (General):
*GUI Network Menu
*Respawn Menu
**With character select, no map
*Terrain Objects lit
**This refers to static environment objects (e.g buildings, trees).
*Terrain Shadows
Production:
*Deliver Windows Build
*Deliver Xbox 360 Build
*Final Technical Design Document for Greenlight Meeting
*Agree the intended content of the First Playable milestone and associated E3 2007 demo.
|-|Release Notes=
==BF3: September MS5 - RELEASE NOTES==
PC / XBOX 360
*Run game without parameters
*Menu for selecting Single player, Split-screen, Network
===Singleplayer===
Tatooine (tatooine_new.res)
*Terrain has shadows. The terrain lightmap is not final resolution. This is to be combined with the terrain mega-texture for high detail
*CIS base in correct position
*With Mos Espa detail geom. buildings on (near spawn point), with lightmaps
*The terrain has been changed to better demonstrate the play area intended for Tatooine, although the texturing and lighting is very early. The lighting on the terrain objects and military base will be improved further over the next 2 months. The high repetition of Mos Espa buildings and their placement is obviously work in progress.
*Respawn menu, with characters. Can spawn as:
**Clone Trooper (with e11)
**Engineer (model of Imperial Officer) (with fusion cutter)
**Jet Trooper (model of Clone Trooper) (with e11)
**Dark Trooper (model of Storm Trooper) (with e11)
**Battledroid (with Battledroid anim set) (with e11)
**Zam Wessel (with cloth) (with e11)
*Command posts. Can choose to spawn on them from spawn menu (text-only)
**In CIS base
**In Mos Espa
**Reactor room of CIS Cruiser (non-moving)
**Bridge of CIS Cruiser (non-moving)
*The command posts are operational, although the symbols that appear when the post is captured are placeholder. A hologram effect is intentional for first playable
*Vehicles (all damageable with explosion, no debris): (ALL Firing laser and missiles)
**Xwing
**CIS AAT
**Republic Starfighter
**Droid Starfighter
**LAAT gunship
**Speeder bike
**Sith Speeder
**Barc Speeder
**Tri-fighter
**V-Wing
*Super Star Destroyer in space. In this version it is in the playable space area for demonstration purposes, although it's intended use is outside the playable area
*The battledroid has its own animation set, with added roll ability. Only prone ability still to be implemented
*Electricity in reactor room
*Cloth on tatooine buildings
**To view the character cloth, choose Zam Wessel from the respawn menu
*2 teams of 2 AI fighting over terrain (on section away from buildings)
**They should NOT target player
**Teams should be different characters (clone troopers vs imperial officers)
*2 teams of 3 – 5 AI fighting in space (near capital ships)
**Should NOT target player
**Teams should be xwings vs republic starfighters
Coruscant (corsuscant.res) PC ONLY
Block-out (with shading). Only include vehicles if they work.
===Network (2-4 players)===
tatooine_network.res
*As single player but no AI in setup
*Multiple players able to use ground and space vehicles
**Able to fly to capital ship and exit
***The moving Capital Ship is only synced if all players started at the same time in this version
**Vehicles can be destroyed with player in it
*Command posts can be captured over network, but only by Player 1 in this version
*Manual respawns over network do not work 100%. The other player occasionally needs to 'kill' your original character in-game before you respawn.
===Splitscreen (2-player)===
tatooine_split.res
(not over VBF)
*As single player but no AI or vehicles
*No capital ships (or spawn points in space)
===Stage (PC only)===
With perspective and orthogonal views
On the stage, press 0 to enter the menu and at the top change the view to Orthographic and then select the angle, top, bottom etc.
*Clone Trooper
**With lightsaber, playing jedi animations one-after the other
**Use [ ] to scroll through the animations. These are not all the animations captured, just a select few for demonstration
*Battle Droid
*Medical Droid
*Storm Trooper
*R2-D2
*Dwarf Spider Droid
*Buzz Droid
*Tri-Droid
*Assassin Droid
*Pilot Droid
*Super Battle Droid
*IG88
*Zam Wessel
*C-3PO
*Astromech
*Rancor
*Imperial Officer
*CIS AAT
*Hailfire droid
*Republic Starfighter
*B-Wing
*Droid Starfighter
*Speeder Bike
*Tri-fighter
*LAAT Gunship
*BARC Speeder
*Sith Speeder
*X-Wing
*Escape Pod
*V-Wing
*E11 Blaster Rifle
*Fusion Cutter
===Differences between PC and Xbox 360 versions===
*Framerate is slower
*Textures are lower resolution
*Republic Base is not lightmapped
*Terrain is missing outer textures
*Terrain is missing lightmap
*Buildings are missing background cloth
*Buildings - lighting changes as move around
*Clouds are disabled
|-|Milestone Feedback PC=
Project Title: Battlefront III
Developer: Free Radical Design
Milestone: Milestone 5
Production: Ted Fitzgerald
Jamil Dawsari
Gabe Gils Carbo
James Morris
Milestone Review PC Version
October 3ʳᵈ, 2006
Milestone 5 Description
Documentation:
*Final Technical Design Document for Greenlight Meeting
*Final Design Document[LucasArts: Approved per the content we saw while at FRD, but we still have to get it up and running on our end.]
Running on PC:
*Multiple players able to traverse the Vertical Battlefield in a networked game[LucasArts: Approved]
*GUI network menu (Not final, but present to use deliverables)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Engineer class (Can repair vehicles with fusion cutter. Won't be correct model.)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Jetpack class (Functional gameplay. Can jet above terrain. Won’t be correct model or any particle effects)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Command posts (Exist on terrain and capital ships. Can capture, with appropriate capturing HUD display.)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Respawn menu (with character select, without map)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Vehicle secondary fire in-game for use by player – Functional[LucasArts: Approved]
*Vehicles firing laser and missiles (For gameplay evaluation. Effects non-final)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Vehicles exploding (placeholder explosion only, no debris)[LucasArts: Approved]
*FX - Lightsaber (Visible in the Stage)[LucasArts: Approved]
*1ˢᵗ draft of Voice script (main Story and as much in-game as feasible) delivered[LucasArts: deliverable approved, but we have some content notes]
LucasArts and FRD to agree the intended content of the First Playable milestone and associated E3 2007 demo.
==General Feedback==
On the PC side, MS 5 once again significantly moves the game forward. The additions in the GUI, as well as the new game assets added to Tatooine are starting to come together and feel like a game.
We like the look of the main menu graphic and although we guess that this is not what the final menus will look like, we wondered if it is a good indicator the direction you’re taking it (static background with menu). By contrast, the spawn menu feels very different as it not only shows the realtime battlefront in the background, but an animated soldier depicting one’s selection.[FRD: We intend to make the main menus more dynamic, ie not static background with menu]
The battle droid animations that are currently in place look good, and are headed in the right direction. We think that currently they look a bit goofy, especially when rolling, but this is probably alright since the battle droids themselves are somewhat silly. We wondered if there is any thought for the animations to capture some more of the droids personalities as seen in the films, such as Super Battle Droids pushing other droids out of the way, or shooting through them on occasion.[FRD: We agree that it would be a nice idea to see such behaviour in the Super Battle Droids. Once they are functionally implemented, we can investigate this further]
Although there’s clearly a lot of work still to be done in Mos Espa, it’s great to see the work in progress thus far. The size and feel of it seem to follow what’s in the design doc, although this will be more clear when we have real buildings in the city. However it’s understood that this is just a section of Mos Espa and not the whole city. Currently the section of Mos Espa seems to be laid out in the middle of the map, rather than the upper extreme of the map as shown on the last design doc that we saw. Is the current layout reflecting changes in the design or will it change in later milestones?[FRD: The layout is representative of the current design. It’s positioning is offset from the flyable area.]
The interior corridors of the Republic base show off a series of sections of walls filled with consoles and monitors. We discussed while on sight that the plan is to not have any static looking devices of this type and we look forward to seeing those in action. Will these displays portray the battle as it happens or will they be baked-in?
Lastly, would it be possible for us to get transcripts of any text that’s been written using the Star Wars font (Aurabesh). Fans *will* try to translate them.[FRD: We will submit transcripts for any Aurabesh text used in the game. Our intent is for the displays of devices to be baked in to the environments. However, ‘Live’ game footage is an appealing prospect and something we could investigate]
For a first pass, we love the jet troopers. The fact that flames coming out of their back is a bit disconcerting but we feel the physics work great. The current camera position isn’t ideal for flying however, we should experiment here to try to find a better camera position for jet pack users.
The imperial officer look is great, although we’re not sure what class that model is intended for. We don’t picture engineers having that clean cut a look, and he’s probably too old to be running around a battle in melee combat. What’s the current plan on the use of this model?[FRD: The imperial officer is for the story based missions aboard the Star Destroyer and Death Star.]
The Coruscant mesh is exactly what we envisioned when we spoke about deliveries for this stage of development. We will continue to play through it and give you further feedback on this level, separate from this Milestone Review.
On the stage we were very happy to see the motion capture animations of the lightsaber wielding trooper. Although the style needs to be more jedi-like, the animations themselves looked great.
We also loved the smoke clouds caused by the secondary fire missiles on vehicles. Flying through them slows our frame rate down quite a bit however.
Lastly, we were able for the first time to fly in tandem from the ground into space and into a capital ship. We noticed that it’s fairly easy to ram into the ship one is following, but otherwise it was fairly straightforward.
MS5.png
==Open A Issue(s)==
(Provide details on “A” related issues if any. “A” issues are issues that cause the developer to not pass the current milestone. Use the headings from the milestone description list as a guide for reviewing open “A” issues.)
==Open B Issue(s)==
(Provide details on “B” related issues if any. “B” issues are issues that should be fixed by the developer to improve the quality of the game and to guaranty passing the current milestone. These issues are of lower severity to level “A” issues. Use the headings from the milestone description list as a guide for reviewing open “B” issues.)
For future builds we’d like to see a built in frame rate counter to gauge build performance.
[FRD: Noted.]
==Open C Issue(s)==
(Provide details on “C” related issues if any. “C” issues are issues that should be fixed by the developer to improve the quality of the game. These issues should be addressed in later milestones. Use the headings from the milestone description list as a guide for reviewing open “C” issues.)
Art/Animation
*We’d like to get transcripts of all text written in Aurabesh that show up in game textures.[FRD: Noted.]
*We’re unsure of what the Imperial officer model shown in the stage will be used for.[FRD: Please see the earlier response.]
*Is it possible to make the droid animations viewable in the stage?[FRD: Yes, we will implement this.]
*In game, Zam Wessel’s neck is too elongated. In some animations, particularly jumping, her neck grows even longer.[FRD: Noted. We will investigate this]
*The ground vehicles controls are extremely sensitive now. A small touch causes a huge response.[FRD: Noted.]
*The Sith speeder seems a bit small in-game.[FRD: We built this to scale. We will check the game’s scale to ensure accuracy.]
Design
*Is the current Tatooine layout temporary or is it representative of the final layout design?[FRD: This is still work in progress. However, the ground area is representative of the current layout design.]
Overall Rating: PASS
|-|Milestone Feedback X360=
Project Title: Battlefront III
Developer: Free Radical Design
Milestone: Milestone 5
Production: Ted Fitzgerald
Jamil Dawsari
Gabe Gils Carbo
James Morris
Milestone Review 360 Version
October 3ʳᵈ, 2006
Milestone 5 Description
Documentation:
*Final Technical Design Document for Greenlight Meeting
*Final Design Document[LucasArts: Approved per the content we saw while at FRD, but we still have to get it up and running on our end.]
Running on PC:
*Multiple players able to traverse the Vertical Battlefield in a networked game[LucasArts:  Not Approved, see Class A bug below]
*GUI network menu (Not final, but present to use deliverables)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Engineer class (Can repair vehicles with fusion cutter. Won't be correct model.)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Jetpack class (Functional gameplay. Can jet above terrain. Won’t be correct model or any particle effects)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Command posts (Exist on terrain and capital ships. Can capture, with appropriate capturing HUD display.)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Respawn menu (with character select, without map)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Vehicle secondary fire in-game for use by player – Functional[LucasArts: Approved]
*Vehicles firing laser and missiles (For gameplay evaluation. Effects non-final)[LucasArts: Approved]
*Vehicles exploding (placeholder explosion only, no debris)[LucasArts: Approved]
*FX - Lightsaber (Visible in the Stage)[LucasArts: Not applicable to 360 version]
*1ˢᵗ draft of Voice script (main Story and as much in-game as feasible) delivered[LucasArts: deliverable approved, but we have some content notes]
LucasArts and FRD to agree the intended content of the First Playable milestone and associated E3 2007 demo.
==General Feedback==
Although we understand that the PC version is currently ahead of the 360 version, we were surprised to find that the 360 milestone 6 is virtually unplayble due to its low frame rate.
Even so we found that it still does contain all of the features required by the milestone. It should be noted that for the First Playable milestone we expect to see 30 fps on the Xbox 360.
Although we were able to see a networked game on the game browser, we weren’t able to join one successfully. 
ms5360.png
==Open A Issue(s)==
(Provide details on “A” related issues if any. “A” issues are issues that cause the developer to not pass the current milestone. Use the headings from the milestone description list as a guide for reviewing open “A” issues.)
==Open B Issue(s)==
(Provide details on “B” related issues if any. “B” issues are issues that should be fixed by the developer to improve the quality of the game and to guaranty passing the current milestone. These issues are of lower severity to level “A” issues. Use the headings from the milestone description list as a guide for reviewing open “B” issues.)
*The 360 version of the game is unplayable due to low frame rates.[FRD: Noted.]
*For future builds we’d like to see a built in frame rate counter to gauge build performance.[FRD: This will be present in future builds.]
==Open C Issue(s)==
(Provide details on “C” related issues if any. “C” issues are issues that should be fixed by the developer to improve the quality of the game. These issues should be addressed in later milestones. Use the headings from the milestone description list as a guide for reviewing open “C” issues.)
*The text on the multiplayer game join selection is too small to read.[FRD: Noted.]
Overall Rating: PASS
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Category:I&T - Milestones