Valve and Counter-Strike have released a gigantic update for what has become a major success for the Steam platform, fixing many of the main issues dragging down the player experience of what is now the most played game on Steam, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The update aims to “modernize” player and character animation systems and hitboxes, providing gamers with a refreshed and improved experience in the popular PC shooter from 2012.
The update aims to improve the overall visual quality of the game. From Counter-Strike’s official blog;
“The new system modernizes the player’s skeleton and hitboxes to better express at-a-glance exactly what your enemies and teammates are doing. We’ve upgraded all the existing body animations, and added some new ones like visible weapon deploys, bomb defusing, and ladder-climbing.”
Fans of shooters have shown their appreciation to Valve for including this title in the Steam selection with over 600,000 downloads, and the new update should bring many former players, as well as new players, back to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, swelling those numbers even further.
Valve is becoming extremely adept at the art of refurbishing classic games and throwing them onto Steam, and I have to say I really enjoy it. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Here is a full list of the changes in the update;
[ ANIMATION / GAMEPLAY ]
– Replaced all player body animations (Existing character models retained for demo compatibility)
– Replaced all world model weapon animation
– Updated shared player skeleton
– Re-rigged all player model geometry and player scaffold animation
– Updated animation networking to continually synchronize animation state instead of periodically latching
– Player animation sequence selection is now server-initiated
– Added new player states including bomb defusal and ladder climb poses
– Added thirdperson weapon deploy animations to more accurately represent viewmodel deploy state
– Extended all vertical aim matrix ranges to encompass the majority of vertical aim pitch so weapons line up precisely to firing angle
– Added reverse-bone-merge animation support so weapon models can store and play independent animation on the player holding them
– Added support for arbitrary numbers of articulated mechanical parts on world weapon models
– Updated weapon world model articulation points, bodygroup presets, holster positions and reverse-bone-merge skeletons
– Added physics motion to holstered attachment weapon locations
– Added support for non-polygonal capsule-shaped hit volumes, defined by a line segment and radius
– Replaced shared hitboxes with new capsule-based set
– Rebuilt player ragdoll angular constraints, physics hulls, and interaction pairs
– Ragdolls now assume more exact pose of their parent player on physics init
– Re-built animation statemachine to support blending locomotion over any weapon aim or action poses
– Enabled support for dynamic player animation layer re-ordering
– Sequence blendlayers now correctly contribute to computed cyclerate
– Added defuser cables and multimeter model
– Added hlmv support for capsule rendering, submodel attachment previewing, ragdoll constraint limit and bone name rendering, plus numerous small fixes
– Added model format support for named bodygroups, combined physics hulls, activity modifiers and animation system specific metadata
[ UI ]
– Fixed a bug where the mini-scoreboard armor/helmet information was not displaying for coaches
– Added sv_show_voip_indicator_for_enemies server convar. If set, it will make it so the ‘voice chat’ icon shows over enemy players as well as allies when they are using their microphone.
– Added sv_showbullethits feature to visualize server-confirmed hits and near-misses on listen servers
[ RENDERING ]
– Fixed improper stencil state in glow pass rendering
[ GAMEPLAY ]
– Added dynamic player culling to prevent players and weapons poking through thin walls and revealing their position
– M4A1-S:
— Reduced price
— Reduced armor penetration
— Reduced ROF
— Increased base spread
– Zeus x27
— Reduced price to $100
– Dual Berettas
— Increased armor penetration
— Increased range modifier
[ GOTV ]
– Added viewmodel position lerp to gotv camera transitions
[ OVERWATCH ]
– Players can now report enemies for anti-competitive griefing (i.e. deliberately losing).
