Elan Ruskin Profile picture
Using integers & coding performance at @InsomniacGames. Also @despair on the azure ceiling site and @crash@mastodon.gamedev.place

May 9, 2021, 22 tweets

I liked this video so much, I decided to write up all the bugs in it. Maybe other devs can spot things I missed, or speculate likely causes and assignees.

(I've omitted repro steps for 280-character brevity.)

Screen-space overlay appears and vanishes abruptly when camera intersects sprinkler volume. Probable setup issue with ease in/out on the effect.
Assign to: tech art

Character is re-triggering animation while executing door behavior. Most likely a code issue.
Assign to: gameplay

Tree and van are re-snapping to spawn points after instantiation. Tree sometimes uses van's spawn point. Level markup or startup script issue? Spawn points might be tagged wrong in Houdini.
Assign to: environment art, maybe procgen. Reassign to gameplay if it's a component issue.

Vehicle attach point is offset one meter from character root node. Check the rig first, but might be a code issue.
Assign to: rigging; they might need to reassign to gameplay.

Reference to Paperboy is very on-the-nose. Clear with Legal before shipping.

Cat is spawning embedded in geometry. Might be a procedural issue, either incorrect tagging of spawn markers, or the overlay zone is displaced from the ground zone. Or a hand-placed spawn marker is just in the wrong place.
Assign to: procgen team, possibly design.

Bus driver level-of-detail ranges are set wrong, not loading high MIPs or detail model. Could be a setup issue with the character, or else one manifestation of the many general streaming issues.
Assign to: character art to check the setup, then engine if it's a loading issue.

NPC randomization attachments are loading & spawning late. If it's a loading issue then it's a dupe of the bus driver problem.
Assign to: gameplay or engine, depending on who owns the head-attachment component.

Passenger spawn point is offset from the seat in level markup.
Assign to: environment art

Prop attach point is offset from head joint. There might be a systemic code problem if related to the bicycle thing.
Assign to: rigging, then gameplay if not a content issue.

Randomized prop is continually switching, maybe the component is restarting itself.
Assign to: gameplay

Erm... like most graphics bugs, I have no idea.
Assign to: render

Animations are playing at the wrong rate, possibly t-posing. Might be a decompression issue.
Assign to: engine

Bad spline points on scripted car path. I, uh, might have seen this one before:
Assign to: environment art or design, depending on who owns that markup.

Pop-in due to streaming not keeping up. There seems to be a systemic issue with just-too-late loading of background objects.
Assign to: engine

High and low level-of-detail MIPs for ground texture do not match.
Assign to: environment art

NPCs triggering wrong animation behaviors, entering alert state vs friendly faction. Multiple issues with using the wrong offset point for ground collision tests. Distant character not playing walk animation, maybe a bad bounding sphere?
Assign to: gameplay

Character spline for scripted sequence intersects level geometry, causing camera to hang up. Did someone move parts of the level after the paths got laid down?
Assign to: design

More streaming not keeping up. Models and textures are loading too late. Unclear what's pushing the camera outside the elevator, as it looks like collision and render models load together, which is why dynamic props are falling out of the other missing cabs.
Assign to: engine

Quest item spawner is re-triggering every frame. Looks like a scripting issue.
Assign to: design (scripting)

Tesselated floor geometry is exceeding vertex buffer size, causing some triangles to drop out. Or maybe it's something else altogether, I dunno, everything the graphics team does is witchcraft to me.
Assign to: render

Swept collision queries are incorrectly testing vs the floor's render mesh instead of ground-plane collision.
Assign to: me

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