Various fixes and improvements, but mainly :
SC2 – Rampart
• The fissure now originates from "deep underground", not just a surface point ! and you can now "draw" the crack like in SC1 !
• New popup menu for quick tools access 🙂
• Instant "Lava into Rock" function !
• Map Export / Import (finally !!)
• Small gas / explosion effects pushing particles and fluids :)
• Added some vegetation (small bushes) on cliffs (not much on its own, but it opens the door to many more objects. I'm currently modeling things like a car you can drop into the scene for scale reference ^^)
⚠️ Note on exports :
This is still a prototype, map export works, but :
- Some rendering properties may be altered (specular variations, etc..)
- Source properties are not exported yet
(I’ll improve this in future updates, but I really wanted to release this version ..)
(I originally planned it for January .. 😅)
That said, map export is already quite complete, you can open/edit diffuse/specular/height/normal maps in any external tool !
Next update : Steam Cloud saves, empty Sandbox map + compatibility with Terrain Painter saves !
SC6 – Commerson
• still in WIP, but you can now jump between different stages in time !
• => new textures & graphics settings
⚠️ About fissure particles :
I know some of you experience heavy slowdowns on this scenario ..
I'm sorry for this, it seems to be an OpenGL-related issue, depending on the GPU .. Yes, it's (very) demanding, but it should run ..
On GPUs like RTX 2080 / RTX 3060, performance reaches around 40–50 FPS !
If you have a good setup but still get lag :
- Stop the eruption
- Switch to Low Settings
- Restart eruption
At some point, command buffers synchronization recover and performance can jump 10× higher !
I’m still investigating, but OpenGL is clearly showing its limits here.
.. ideally I've always wanted to move the app to Vulkan API 😉
So now we can (almost !) fully reproduce the 2016 Commerson video ! 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8n28Ti1ow0
(back then it wasn't real-time in HD with all particles, but everything was rendered on my GTX 780 !)