Hyperwheel Overdrive v0.12.0 has taken us quite awhile to get out, but the wait is worth it. This update sets the foundation for the future of Hyperwheel Overdrive on the latest Unity LTS version. We have to do some reworking to get it working for Unity's new XR system, and with that means many big optimizations including the move from single pass to single pass instanced rendering (stereo instancing). There are bunch of other technical improvements under the hood, but rather than bore you with the details, we'll just tell you the highlights, and then include the full changelog item list as always.
Voice Chat Upgraded to Spatial Audio
The voice chat system was hit-and-miss and more often than not during testing evenings, we had to rely on Discord anyway. We've updated the voice chat system and worked through the bugs we were experiencing and now we're left with something that is reliable and sounds pretty great. You can enable or disable voice chat easily, mute yourself, or mute any other player. And in the process of fixing things, we revisited spatial audio. Initially, we tried it, but when a player was 2 kilometers away from another player, they couldn't hear them. It has been reworked to give us the best of both worlds: if a player is more than 100 meters away from another player, their audio source is placed in the direction of the player, but only at that 100 meter max. So there is some volume tapering off by distance, but only to a point. Works pretty slick! We knew the voice chat would have to be fixed up to realize our vision of a great cross-platform play multiplayer experience; Meta AppLab release for Quest 2 isn't far off!
Upgraded SteamVR Input
We had some issues with the old implementation. We were using the SteamVR legacy inputs, and the defaults were a bad setup. This has been upgraded and fixed up and we include default profiles for Oculus Touch, Valve Index, and HTC Vive controllers.
Smoother Driving
While there are indeed a ton of comfort settings to help make Hyperwheel Overdrive accessible to any VR player (full artificial rotation locking, etc.), we also wanted to ensure the car experience became not much rougher than the smooth driving offered by the boat. The result is a more rigid suspension system when dealing with inclines (ramps, quarterpipes, & hills) and a suspension system better capable of damping bounce from landings. Lastly, the tires stick a little better to the ground, especially terrain.
Improved UI
We updated the "Races & Challenges" menu panel to include unlocking conditions for all locked events, and also to show any trophies on the page. When items are selected, the gold, silver, and bronze trophy times are now shown as well. This should make it easier for players to understand progression. There's lots of content to unlock!
Power-up Interaction System Reworked
We squashed many bugs, and a there a number of them that had to do with power-ups and projectiles. The power-up hand interaction system has been reworked to be far more reliable as well as prevent unintended uses of power-ups.
“It's a heap, but give me a couple of weeks and it'll look like a streamlined butterfly...”
We also improved performance in a bunch of different ways. The game runs far more efficiently than it used to, and we already had done a lot to speed things up with v0.11.11. We added object pooling for plane wings, grenades, and rockets, and figured out where we could shut things down that didn't need to be running in the background. Because we've focused quite a bit on getting our Meta Quest 2 builds up to par, performance optimization has been a big focus.
Content?
Yes, of course we have worked on content updates (in addition to the Volcanica stage changes outlined in the changelog below). But it's all being kept in a locked box for now. The v0.12.0 update represents, to us, a modernization of Hyperwheel's software. It took us a long time to get things where it needed to be to move forward. But the stage is now set for a healthy dose of content updates to arrive throughout the v0.12.x series. What will the new content be? New stages? Match types? Hamster ball vehicles? We're not ready to talk about it!
The Bright Future
Obviously, we will be dropping the Early Access label pretty soon. Hyperwheel Overdrive has matured over the last couple years and is ready to live up to the vision. And if our action-packed, unique VR game is well-received in upcoming platform releases, we imagine other options for expanding the game to new players. The description in our initial Early Access launch mentioned flat PC game support, but development requirements main that part unmaintainable at the time, and so we dropped it to focus on other things. We would love to get back to letting flat gamers play alongside their VR gamer friends (with no hand interactivity of course; just a forward-mounted gun). We also think the PS VR2 controllers would be great for Hyperwheel. So we're already dreaming of the future. But for now, here's the full changelog of v0.12.0:
Changelog
v0.12.0 (Build 548): May 31, 2022
- upgraded from Unity 2019.4 to 2021.3
- upgraded to new Unity XR system
- upgraded to new Unity input system
- upgraded rendering from Single Pass to Single Pass Instanced (big performance gains)
- upgraded voice chat system to latest version & added positional audio
- upgraded various other packages to latest versions
- upgraded SteamVR and re-implemented SteamVR input for OpenVR
- added default SteamVR input bindings for Oculus Touch, Index, Vive, & WMR
- improved ability to keep wheels on ground while driving on terrain
- added wheel collision damping forces based on wheels pointing forward at impact
- improved ability to drive straight off ramps further by adding angular damping forces
- decreased wheel gyro forces when boat initially becomes airborne
- significant Volcanica terrain changes
- upgraded terrain shader to MicroSplat for better performance & graphics
- doubled grass & vegetation in Volcanica & HyperCorp Complex
- added objective position indicator when not facing towards objective target
- implemented object pooling for plane wings & projectiles
- fixed multiple power-up interaction bugs and cleaned up logic
- set other players & bots to use single audio source for engine & paddle wheel sounds
- increased volume of tire collision sounds
- disabled hand interactor collisions with most colliders to improve efficiency
- added launcher power meter to rifle for Spiked Balls and Seeker Balls
- improved glow / bloom effects
- improved menu memory usage and performance
- fixed multiple menu interactivity bugs (buttons & scrollbars)
- fixed UI pointer hand swapping bug when hands touch menu object
- added trophies to Races & Challenges menu panel
- added unlocking conditions to Races & Challenges panel & various Match Setup fields
- made Vector Stadium locked by default and adjusted some other unlockables
- improved hyperwheel particle effects
- updated look of boosts to help players determine boost orientation
- overhauled layers to decrease unnecessary physics interactions
- set CTF short respawn time 2 player limit to disregard bots
- fixed power-up question mark icon display over water
- made the new sign posts rigidbodies that can be knocked over
- changed spectator follow camera to physics-based movement
- adjusted spectator controls to use average of head & hands positions for forward
- added stick input movement to follow cam to adjust follow offset position
- made players hitting speeds that should be unreachable trigger a respawn
- smoothed out networked vehicle body rotation
- added real velocity to speedometer when difference is 20% or greater
- fixed speedometer bug that resulted in slightly inaccurate speeds
- fixed bug where boat grounded in water couldn't accelerate from either traction or paddles
- improved boat forces to always ride along surface even if boat is pointed down into water
- improved plane pitch stability
- improved efficiency of boundary damage application
- improved thruster controls interaction efficiency & added sound to grab/ungrab
- fixed bug where B button release after manual respawn was still triggering "recover"
- added sound & animation to positional boosts & made them apply forces to projectiles
- fixed bug with upside-down plane grounded gyro not rotating in correct direction
- added checkered flags to all race finish line checkpoints
- regenerated fonts to improve text sharpness
- added new "Stones" unlockable vehicle decal
- fixed audio distortion bug when using smaller than regular World Scale settings