Hello all! It's been a while!

Welcome to our first devblog, where we'll share what we've been up to since (checks notes) ...March? We'll go around showing off some of the work we've been doing. This is a new format for us, so please let us know what you think, or what you want to see!

(As an additional note, not everything we've done since March is shown here! A lot of stuff isn't done yet or isn't really shareable.)

(And for you Steam frogs, Steam doesn't support video above 5MB, so to view the videos in this post, head on over to https://passtime.tf/news/blogone/.)

HUD Concepts (disclaimer)

I'm including this here as a disclaimer that all HUD elements shown in this post are early concepts and a lot of things are completely untouched. Rather than cropping out unfinished sections or trying to hide anything, I thought it would be best to show everything in context, so keep that in mind.

PBR Shader - Kin

I've added the Source PBR shader (made by Thexa4), which allows us to use prettier materials like the ones used in Unreal Engine games.This is exciting, because it opens up possibilities to use types of materials that were previously quite difficult (or impossible) to replicate in Source.You can read more about the PBR implementation and its uses here.

New JACK Model - Kin

The main reason I wanted this shader is because Bobby Joe made an incredible looking remodel of the JACK, which was previously only being used for renders.

The Blender model uses a PBR material, and while we did manage to port it to work with TF2's VertexLitGeneric shader, we couldn't quite get it to look as amazing as it should.Despite having the new shader, porting the material directly still didn't give ideal results, so I recreated the textures from scratch with PASS Fortress in mind.

Here's how it looks:

JACK Crosshairs - Kin

I was initially interested in helping the dev team because I wanted to fix the JACK crosshair system in TF2. The default reticles were all hard-coded, meaning that changing them in-game wasn't possible, and customization was lacking. In fact, the base game only uses 3 different reticle files, which are recycled for every type of reticle in PASS Time.

I've implemented a system which allows you to choose different files for each, which are:

• Bounce reticle (when throwing the ball, both the inner and outer sections)

• Pass reticles (when locking on, inner, outer1 and outer2 sections)

• Team icons (when your teammates are hidden behind geometry)

• Ball outline (on the loose ball, both inner and outer sections)

• Goal indicator (drawn on the enemy goal when you have the ball)

There are now options for file, color, alpha, scale, spin speed, as well as an option to override the color with your team color. To go along with this system, I've created a total of 61 new high-res files which can be combined to make some really cool looking crosshairs. I also recreated all of the default crosshair sprites from PASS Time using proper mipmaps and filtering, which makes them look much cleaner.

HUD Crosshairs - Kin

If the word "crosshair" hasn't lost all meaning to you already: this part is about the actual crosshair in the middle of your screen.

TF2's default crosshairs really haven't aged well, so I've been working on adding some new ones that look better on modern resolutions. Competitive TF2 players have been using custom VTF crosshairs for many years, but the process of changing them is long-winded to say the least.So, there is now a selection of VTF crosshairs directly in the game, which can be chosen through the menu just like the regular TF2 crosshairs.

Where's the JACK? - Kin

One of the biggest hurdles for new players in PASS Time is developing the spatial awareness to be able to track the position of the ball.As it happens, most other ball games solved this problem a long time ago, by adding an indicator on the ground directly below it. So that's what I did! (Video unavailable.)

Carrying Indicator - Kin

Big news for all the viewmodel haters: there's now an (optional) indicator around your crosshair that appears when you are holding the ball, which you can make any file, color and size you like. (Video unavailable.)

Lua UI - Lucy

Working with raw C++ to make UI is a pain. I hope HUD creators will be happy to hear that I've been working on a modular Lua-based system to allow UI code/panels to be managed by the HUD creators. This lets more complicated UI be made easier, and will also allow us to make changes to UI animations and code without having to recompile the game. At the current moment, you can also replace these lua files with custom ones like .res files in TF. No promises though.

Currently, the system is in progress and in early stages, but it is being made to work as a wrapper and in tandem with VGUI. When it's complete, we will be making new UI code exclusively using it.

Here's an example of a simple Lua file that can be used to create a label:

---@type vguiLabel
local testLabel = nil

function Update(frametime)
end

function Init(parent)
testLabel = vguiLabel.new(parent, "testLabel", "My default text!")
testLabel.text = "hate noob"
testLabel:SizeToContents()
testLabel:SetVisible(true)
ConMsg("Init called!")
end

Discord Integration - Lucy

Discord Rich Presence is on the way as a low-priority feature, but I've been encountering some issues with integrating it properly. We're waiting on bugfixes on Discord's end, but once those are resolved, the game will show your status on your Discord profile.

Improved JACK controls - Carl & Arda

We've improved the controls around passing and free throwing the ball.

Keen players will remember that holding secondary fire (right click) while also preparing to throw would stop any lock-on passes. Since that was unintuitive, you can now hold secondary fire to charge up a no lock-on throw, and just release it to throw the ball.

To cancel a throw now, you press the opposite button to the one you're holding, so if you're locked onto someone by holding primary fire, you can cancel the action by pressing secondary fire, and vice versa. There's also an option to swap around which button does what, so you can choose which feels more comfortable for you.

For those of you that hate change, there's a setting to use the old controls. :]

Quality of Life - Carl & Arda

There's quite a few small changes that aren't worth their own section, so here's a list of some of the changes we've made:

• Instead of having a stalemate when the round timer ends, the golden goal state ends the round once a team has scored a goal. This can be turned on and off with the p4ss_golden_goal [0/1] convar.

• When it’s a stalemate (and golden goal is not enabled) and there is not enough time to spawn the ball before the round timer ends, it will now end the game immediately, instead of awkwardly waiting 30 seconds.

• When holding the JACK, holding any attack button is now buffered and will immediately put you into the throwing state when available.

• mp_tournament team names are now 12 characters long instead of 3/4.

• The ball will no longer spawn 1 second later than usual if coming out of setup time.

• You can now whistle while the ball is neutral.

• The whistle state will no longer clear when the ball switches from held to neutral.

• The Demoman's pipes now have a sound cue before they explode.

Conclusion - Lucy

That's all for this time around! Sorry for keeping you all in the dark for so long. A lot of these changes are from more than a month ago, since the stuff we have cooking now isn't quite ready yet. Next blog will have a lot more cool stuff!

To be candid, this is a lot of ours' first time working on a Source mod, much less being on a serious project with a team. We're all volunteers, getting strictly no money off of this. I'm incredibly happy with how development is going, and I think you'll all be happy with the game when it comes.

Speaking of, who is "you all"? Let me just check the wishlist count really quick...

...oh.

That's a really big number.

I'm shocked with how much support and interest there is for the mod. Thank you all so much, honestly. It means a lot to us. 🧡

We've been thinking of setting up a Patreon or Ko-fi or something alongside the Discord server shop to help fund future server costs and maybe even possible matchmaking. If people are interested in that / would donate, it's definitely on the table. Valve have let us know concretely that we cannot make any money off of the mod, no exceptions. Because of that, we can't give you any rewards in-game (even cosmetics!), but we can give you our eternal gratitude.

In any case, we'll keep working on the mod until it's done. A reminder to everyone reading this to join our Discord server to keep up with the latest. If you have any questions, feedback, compliments, speech bubble gifs, feel free to tell us in the Discord. We look there and read everything even if we don't respond.