SimGuruGraham just finished up with another Implementation Review Meeting today regarding the community stuff pack project. From this meeting he has given us a look at a “Model Spec” along with some new information.
Just held a quick Implementation Review meeting for Clothing Piles. They’re essentially the glue that holds the laundry system together. Here’s a portion of the GSO (Global Object Spec, or sometimes simply “model spec”) we reviewed in today’s IR meeting for the Dryer.
From the root of the object you can see the location the Sim routes to when using the dryer, and the transform bone. The transform bone is what we attach the animation to so the machine shakes when in use, which will make everything under it shake as well.
Under that transform bone you’ll first see a joint for us to attach VFX to, so you can see the clothes tumbling inside the machine. All the XYZ coordinates on top of the object are the various small & medium decorative slots (deco slots for short), so you can add clutter.
Finally, the flat green surface is where cats will route across, and the green panel is where Sims will press buttons to use the machine. Remember – this is one aspect of what we discuss in Implementation Review meetings – there’s a lot of info to coordinate across the team!
Update #2 – SimGuruGraham has shared some additional info below.
Important milestone for the community Stuff Pack today; our dev line (“development line”) is officially open for us to start working in! Separate dev lines are how we’re able to work on multiple packs at the same time. Each planned release has its own dev line to work in.
It may surprise you to learn that we have 6 active dev lines currently, a challenge for guys like
@SimGuruSteve, who help manage our builds! Every day the changes submitted to the build in various dev lines are tested, verified, and integrated down the dev lines sequentially.For example, work done on the Cats/Dogs expansion won’t affect our Stuff Pack until we integrate the various code/data changes they’ve made. Because the community SP is further down the dev lines than Cats/Dogs, any changes we make to the game for laundry can’t affect Cats & Dogs.
By having our SP dev line ready while we wrap up IR meetings, we’re positioned well to enter production on the pack first thing on Monday.
We don't use dedicated lines for different packs… when something new is ramping up, they just get whatever line happens to be available.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
The order they're in shifts around as well depending on the planned release dates of the content in each one.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
With that in mind, it wouldn't make much sense for the various teams in the studio to establish tribalism around "their" line 😉
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
We're going to have a hamper, where the dirty clothes are gathered, and collected from when taking them to be washed. 🙂
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
Exactly!
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
It's actually the opposite. 🙂 Because pets are ahead of us in the dev line, we have access to & can account for them when creating laundry.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
We know when it will be finished, but release date info is one of the few things I can't share about this pack, other than sometime in 2018.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) August 23, 2017
