*Note - These changes are only on the Experimental Branch. To access the Experimental Branch, be sure to select it in your Steam Library. If this app does not appear, please check if this app is hidden in your Library. Experimental Branch changes upgrade to the primary branch monthly.
Hey explorers! We focused much of this week to performance, and we found a lot of savings! Not to get too technical, but physics tree calculations were eating up 30fps, and the various UI canvases were eating another 20fps. Basically, we cleaned up a bunch and gained a very significant frame rate boost!
LOD Fading
Unity has a fancy LOD system that actually works well and is performant, but does not have a native shader to handle the fade. We augmented this feature to allow for true dithered LOD fading, which completely removes the ugly LOD popping. On top of that, since it's 1 bit alpha, the LOD shader sorts perfectly with the atmosphere and is extremely fast to render.
VSync Off
We trying something else this week: forcing Vsync to off. This will uncap the frame rate. There's a few artifacts that this caused (like the logo flickering when loading a world) but it's really fun to play at 120 fps!
Crafting Unlock Progression
We are also trying a new progression system to add clarity to the tech tree progression. Simply build from your current build options to sequentially unlock new buildables. We have tried all kinds of fancy unlock systems and gates in the past, but sometimes simple is better. So far, we like the simplified approach, but let us know what you think.
Creatures Come Out At Night
Yet another gameplay balance idea we're testing, is having creatures mostly come out at night. The goal here is to have them start emerging while the sun is setting, then more and more come out under the shade of darkness. Oh yeah, night is a little darker too.
Improved First Person
Lots of updates here. We found the physics springs that run the boyancy on the camera were clamped at 30FPS, creating a jitter. We opened this up to an unlimited speed, which gives the result of silky smooth spring movement in first person. On top of that, we added a nicely modeled helmet interior and cleaned up the DOF settings.
UI Version 3.0
The in game UI got lots of treatment. For instance, you can now move while in menu. There's a status bar on the top, and we'll be making progress on getting more full screen with the UI panels, such as the skill tree. Speaking of skills...
Proficiencies And Stats Are Turned Off
Skills are in and Proficiencies and Stats are out. We'll be building up the Level System with experience points, which will unlock various skills and abilities. Again, we're on a simplification kick this week! So weird.
Change List
Added - New progressive buildable unlock system
Added - Updated news screen with notification about build progression system
Added - Big optimization pass
Added - Collision LOD system
Added - LOD fading shader
Added - Collision optimizations for dungeons and low orbit
Added - Collision optimizations to all minerals
Added - New textures to Proteus ground
Added - Sound to on person crafting
Added - New interior helmet art
Added - Optimized first person helmet interior
Added - Helmet interior to first person camera rig
Added - Improvements to first person helmet interior
Added - New rotation methods for directional and strafe rotation to AI
Added - Configured all movement behavior tasks to properly utilize interface rotation method
Added - Optimized Sand Dunes
Added - Scalar to creature species animation speed
Changed - Tweaked hunger and thirst drains
Changed - Improved first person camera springs to higher frame rate
Changed - Optimized HUD to one canvas
Changed - Set build item to move much snappier
Changed - Optimized minimap
Changed - Widened compass
Changed - Optimized all mineral colliders
Changed - Optimized all environment base colliders
Changed - Optimized all Proteus 2 environment rock colliders
Changed - Removed the need to crounch when walking down a slope
Changed - Optimized all plant colliders
Changed - Proteus fruit and berry balance tweaks
Changed - Up res pod and map textures
Changed - Various UI layout changes
Changed - Optimized sand dunes
Changed - Updated all creature prefabs and creature behavior trees to utilize proper rotation speeds and styles
Changed - Optimized various creature calculations to improve framerates
Changed - Optimized various vehicle calculations while they are not piloted to improve framerates
Changed - Creature Zones now have set hours within the day that they can spawn, proteus creatures are now mostly nocturnal with very few active during daylight
Changed - Ground fitter on creatures to be more performant and look a bit less robotic, more organic
Changed - Skeliopod sped up rotations
Changed - Lower worm earthquake intensity
Fixed - Player should no longer spawn within rocks or under structures after loading back into the world
Fixed - Creature zones will properly spawn while the player is in a vehicle, correctly this time
Fixed - All buildables are now unlocked by default in creative mode
Fixed - Interaction sounds on utilities are now played when interacting with them instead of just looking at them
Fixed - Set up movement to not move while in console or pop up modes
Fixed - A bug where the weather would never go back to sunny after hazy
Fixed - Rename popup should now properly ignore unintended key input
Fixed - Crash when looking at crates
Fixed - Rotations on item crates
Fixed - Set all rock materials to opaque by default
Fixed - Chat panel will no longer appear in singleplayer after the player is killed
Removed - Camera shake in spaceship when entering atmosphere
Removed - Health indicators on creatures
Please check out this experimental build and let us know how we're doing. We hope your feedback is positive at which point we'll graduate this to the Main Branch. In the meantime, controller support and story integration is top of the list for next week!
“It’ll be dark soon and they mostly come at night! Mostly!”
-Brian
No, I don't work at JPL, but making a space game allows me to think I do.