A completely free DLC has just been released for all owners of BlastZone 2 that greatly improve terrain detail. This DLC applies to the Home Planet, Alien Planet, and Caves terrain and it really is a sight to behold. They show every little detail of each crevice and ridge in the scene with high resolution lighting to show it off. Please note that the only way to enable these new terrain detail settings is from the “Launch Configuration Tool” option from the game startup window. Also, the first time BlastZone 2 is started up using this DLC, the load time will take much longer than usual, but subsequent game launches will reduce it.
EXTREME QUALITY CAVES IMAGE
EXTREME QUALITY ALIEN PLANET IMAGE
This DLC has been split into two packages, “Very High” and “Extreme” detail. The “Very High” detail package raises the baseline terrain detail by 10x (bringing it from 65k tris to 650k tris per block) and provides the best compromise between greatly improving detail while keeping performance reasonable for most moderately powered machines. The “Extreme” detail terrain pushes triangle counts to the absolute limit of what the content pipeline and game engine can handle, having 32x the detail of baseline terrain (about 2.1 million triangles per block). Extreme detail is not suggested for use by most users, as it drastically increases system requirements, requiring atleast a Radeon RX 480 or Geforce GTX 1060 to run at adequate performance.
The reason why this has been released as separate DLC and not included in the base game is because it greatly increases the game install filesize (from 80mb to 800mb), and greatly increases load times. These should only be used by players with higher end machines. The base game was built as the best compromise between keeping the game scalable to run well on low end machines and integrated graphics, while keeping the graphics substantially better than most games at the designed minimum and recommended specs.
As of a few months ago, the content pipeline and model management system in BlastZone 2 was limited to 65k triangles per object, and the terrain was built to make full use of that limit. Given that, the terrain was still able the achieve a competent level of graphical fidelity while keeping performance very high. As of v1.25.1.0, the model management system and model loader was greatly improved to raise the triangle count limit all the way up to about 2.1 million. The new model management system had many other advantages as well, but this DLC is the first time the new triangle limit has been fully leveraged.
In addition to the DLC, lower quality terrain is now included in the base game as well. These terrain models were taken directly from the Android version of BlastZone 2 and have a triangle count of 5k per block of terrain, having less than 1/10th the geometric complexity of the baseline terrain. This detail level is ideal for really old, low specced machines, netbooks, or integrated graphics. Even so, the amount of detail still contained in these models is much better than you’d think, using the low triangle count as intelligently as possible.
The home planet terrain has also been greatly improved for all detail levels. Lighting and shadowing has been adjusted to better accent finer details of the terrain. This was done without any performance or memory hit as well, so everyone can enjoy the improved terrain detail. Here is a screenshot illustrating it.
IMPROVED HOME PLANET LIGHTING AND TERRAIN IMAGE
There are a few other tweaks and updates included in this update as well. Here are the full release notes:
- Added a new 'Low Quality' terrain detail option for low end machines -This uses terrain models from the mobile version of BlastZone 2 -Ideal for low end laptops or integrated graphics
- Added support for the new 'Very High Quality' and 'Extreme Quality' terrain free DLC packs -These higher quality settings dramatically increase system requirements, so use them at your own risk! -'Very High Quality' requires a Radeon RX 460 or Geforce 1030 or above -'Extreme Quality' requires a Radeon RX 480 or Geforce 1060 or above -Graphics cards of similar performance from previous generations work as well -To access these new settings, the new DLC packs need to be downloaded -They aren't included in the default install to reduce filesize -These settings do not affect the 'Outer Space' environment, since it doesn't contain any terrain -Triangle count comparison for each detail level per block of terrain: -Low: ~5k tris -Normal: ~65k tris -VeryHigh Quality: ~650k tris -Extreme Quality: ~2.1mil tris
- Updated the configuration application to adjust Terrain Detail -This is the only way to change this setting, not in game
- Improved lighting and shadowing of the Home World terrain
- Adjusted the screen fade transitions to ensure the new scene is fully loaded before showing it
- Fixed the item pickup particle animation occasionally using the wrong colors
As usual, to ensure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.26.1.2” or above. Enjoy the new content and there is more to come!