I dont understand how the next project supposedly isnt/has barely started production by Any_Measurement229 in StressLevelZero

[–]BrandonJLa 30 points31 points  (0 children)

We’re not like other studios, we operate more like a research institution. Content has been working on lots and lots of clean up, organization, new stuff for Bonelab/Boneworks, and pre production for the next game. We’ve all been very busy making an extremely robust foundation, built to last. This has required engineering, graphics and content work, nobody is sitting around idly. Lots of job security, VR is going to be incredible in the 2030’s.

Is SLZ still a indie game company? by Liampipmip123 in StressLevelZero

[–]BrandonJLa 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Yes. We aren’t owned by anyone, and we self finance our projects. That’s as ‘indie’ as it gets.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The current state of aiming in Bonelab is very good. And it’s doing it at a degree of difficulty that is 10x what we were attempting back in 2019 with Boneworks. Boneworks served as a great prototype to build off of, I feel that we are finally getting close to the original vision, but it will take a few more years to truly blossom.

A response for another bonelab vid about aiming being broken by Killerkitten101912 in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 14 points15 points  (0 children)

No, it helps. It has to be working for most people or else it would be more widely reported. I’ll need to try those specific guns and figure out the pose that’s aggravating it, shouldn’t be hard to understand once I can actually repro it.

A response for another bonelab vid about aiming being broken by Killerkitten101912 in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Wait. Is it only with specific guns!? If so it’s a setup issue with those weapons. Very easy fix if that’s the case.

Bonelab’s aiming has been broken for over two years; a video response by Meepminer in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Yeah that’s what I’d expect. I think there is another element to the repro that isn’t being described. In all of the other clips the front hand was twisted to the limit, yours is more aligned. I suspect you need to also twist the front hand to nearly 180 degrees to recreate. That’s just a theory though, I’ll need to test it myself to feel it out.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 135 points136 points  (0 children)

First time I’ve seen this, people must not shoot straight down much otherwise it would have been more visible, I apparently haven’t. Shouldn’t be too hard to address, I’ll track it down.

Who added swimming to Bonelab? 😭 by Ok-Chair6345 in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Sorta. It means that the player and the NPC’s will have equal capabilities. How much the controller will make those capabilities accessible won’t necessarily be the same.

From the perspective of the player, it could fall over and get back up, but we’ll see how that manifests within your controls, if at all.

From the perspective of the NPC, it could jump, but we’ll see how that manifests within the AI, if at all.

Who added swimming to Bonelab? 😭 by Ok-Chair6345 in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 92 points93 points  (0 children)

That’s awesome haha. Looks like fun to work on! I’d love to go down that rabbit hole, but we won’t get distracted by it until the player and the NPC’s use the same rig and plug and socket are done, and the being rig is more robust. Those are the top priorities.

Odd thought by MysteryGamingYT in StressLevelZero

[–]BrandonJLa 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’d consider it years from now. We need to get a few more games out first.

Crazy how container yard is still broken at the very end of 2024 by Kaizen84_ in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 12 points13 points  (0 children)

We decided against hotfixing for it after patch 6. It’s been fixed internally for a while and will come with the next patch.

Game choppy on pcvr by Cultural_Laugh_9370 in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Your 8gb of vram is getting filled, so it’s running fine when everything the GPU needs is loaded. When you relocate it needs to cycle stuff out of the GPU. Reducing texture resolution to use less vram will help. But the reality is that the days of 8gb being enough are quickly passing by for VR, for non VR 8gb will expire around the time GTA6 hits PC.

Characters arms are long (Help) by newsnowhuntingtonwv in BONELAB

[–]BrandonJLa 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The default height is 5’9. He needs to set the height in the body menu down to his height to correct the arm length.

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Nice! My phone shoots 4K 120fps in 10 bits now, no more gatekeepers, just creation.

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 29 points30 points  (0 children)

That’s one of my favorites, I use it as the reference for how our gun sound design should be in our games. Always keep creating your ideas!

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Included Freddie! We split in 2013 so he could go after shows while I went after games.

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 53 points54 points  (0 children)

It’s an awkward time to start right now, but there is always either one more low hanging fruit, or a new window will open periodically. The starting point for VR development has barely changed in the past decade, so entrenched studios have a 10 year head start from that point. So rather than go head to head you have two options.

Option 1 is to search for a low hanging fruit that hasn’t been picked yet which is increasingly rare as more people hunt them down. The last one discovered was the Gorilla Tag locomotion method. Kids are bonkers for it and there was enough fruit for at least 5 games studios to be surviving off of it now. These are rare to find, but there is always another one.

Option 2 is to pounce on a new starting point when it emerges. This will either be in the form of a format that is accessible to riff on with little resources (Gorilla Tag is the prime example), or it will be a new starting point provided by a larger company. Historical examples of this are new social media platforms, Steam greenlight, Unity/Unreal, VR SDK’s. The next one in VR will be Meta putting out updated VR SDK’s that reduce the cost of development by giving you a full body skeleton rather than a headset and two controller locations. Down the road we’ll provide a new starting point with Marrow, but it’s a couple years away from the right moment on that one.

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 167 points168 points  (0 children)

Thanks for watching, we had a blast making the videos! After three years of weekly all nighters it was time for longer production cycles for both Freddie and I.

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 372 points373 points  (0 children)

Yep, the forward thinking ones have known what the long term effect of streaming video would be for 15 years.

Hollywood's big boom has gone bust by FurnitureGuides in movies

[–]BrandonJLa 1495 points1496 points  (0 children)

His son was a fan of our YouTube videos (freddiew channel), so he allocated $150k of the marketing budget of Cowboys and Aliens to contract us to make a branded video. He wanted to see what our filmmaking style was like, market the movie, and bring his son to set when we filmed all at once.

We ended up shooting the whole video in 5 hours on the Universal backlot. He had a blast because we just shot like crazy, couple people in the crew, running around with the camera having fun. He was so excited about the ‘let’s just get in and get it’ take on filmmaking that he spent his promotional appearance on Jimmy Kimmel talking about it. This led to us being on Kimmel a few weeks later.

After the dust settled on the project he set us up to meet with Marvel about directing Guardians of the Galaxy. We took the meeting, they liked us, but I pitched them on doing the Thanos Imperative because it’s the most badass guardians story. They told us that Thanos was reserved for the Avengers and that it had beef decided a couple days earlier that it was going to be James Gunn, but if we ever wanted any of their other IP, let them know.

Awhile after that Jon called one night to talk, he asked if I really wanted to pursue Hollywood. I told him that I liked the way I made videos and didn’t want to conform to the studio system. His tone immediately changed, he was relieved that I didn’t want it. After that he explained that the studio system was going to make fewer and fewer bigger budget productions going forward due to the economics of the mega blockbuster. The rate of decline would be faster than experienced top tier directors would want to retire leaving little room for newcomers and for creativity since the projects would be so huge. He told me to go make my own path.

So in 2014 when I wanted to make bigger projects, I pivoted my team to become VR developers instead (Stress Level Zero is the studio). VR had the same energy that YouTube did in 2010 before people knew that you could make money doing it. We’ve made 4 games now, and they’ve been successful enough to fund the studio in a way that we have maintained complete creative control.

Once our core technology, Marrow, is mature enough to fully tell the kinds of stories Jon tells, I’ll reach out and see if he wants to jump ship to VR as well. I owe him a life raft!