Hello sinners! Since the last update, I am overall happy with the current state of the game’s combat, but I felt like it was time to revisit the second (or first depending how you look at it) most important aspect of the game: The Art.
The main goals of this update were the following:
- Create a default visual setting that is a little more welcoming and smooth for new users. The classic look is cool but it takes some getting used to as it is.
- Improve the game’s steam / youtube viability that suffers greatly at low bitrate due to the highly contrasting and highly saturated colors.
- Improve and polish the aesthetic overall.
The main additions are:
- Gradients - Instead of flat shading, the lighting and intensity of the original color gets mapped over a range of colors. This results in a look with more depth and polish overall.
- Outlines - All models have distinct outlines to better distinguish them from one another. This improves the readability a lot in differentiating enemies from the background.
- Blur / AA - Added a smoothing effect so the grain and edges are not so harsh
- Improved lighting - More pronounced shadows, shadows retreat as you get very close to objects so you don’t clip through them as before
Importantly, all of these aspects (and more) can be customized to your liking in the new and improved visual settings menu. Choose from presets that include the original look you know and love, or dial in your own settings that work for you.
Lastly I wanted to make a special mention of one aspect that has made marketing the game a challenge: recording / streaming compression absolutely wrecking the look of the game. I put a lot of effort into trying to find a default look that fared better with compression, but in the end I found that it would require drastic change in art style which would take away from the spirit of the game. As a result, I added a specific streamer friendly mode to the visual settings as a preset as a concession to help with this issue. As I always mention, recording at a high bitrate will preserve the default look very well (and is preferred), but I understand especially on twitch the bitrate is capped low so it’s not always an option. The main things that help are lowering compression and saturation, so feel free to see what the minimum is you can get away with to preserve good quality based on your bitrate.
Thank you for your patience with this update, and hopefully the next one won’t take this long. Coming soon is more content, but for now here is the rest of the patch notes:
Optimization
- Disabled HDR on cameras for a big performance boost. The result is slightly improved performance from before, and even more so if you disable some graphics options
- Added option to disable shadows all together for big performance boost on low end rigs
- Moved all particle effects to use the main color shader. Before they were rendered on a separate camera which was expensive performance wise and didn’t quite fit the style. Also this means effects will properly sort behind walls, enemies and the player rather than being overlaid on top like before.
- Delayed level load slightly after getting into the start area so that there’s less time spent on the load screen
Bug Fixes
- Fixed floor plates being pressed and still glowing after
- Fixed bug where only one stat was shown for items hovered on the stats menu