This update adds significant improvements to the ocean water in preparation for future drivable watercraft update. There is also improved transition when entering and exiting the water.
We have also improved the switching between graphics quality levels, plus increasing the detail in some elements in lower settings (particularly in caves) so there is consistently no difference in what you can see. Another addition is cinematic quality graphics options, which are basically settings we deemed too costly performance wise to be suitable for Ultra. These are in their own section, and there is no overall cinematic quality setting to avoid anyone mistakenly enabling.
Patch Notes:
Environment
- Added more consistent materials for foliage allowing effects quality level to be switched smoothly at runtime without foliage disappearing.
- Added changes to the cloud density changes, this is to reduce overcasts and more commonly produce lighter varied clouds.
- Added Ti-Plants to foliage density scaling, which should help draw in low/medium graphics settings.
- Added performance optimization to low quality shadow setting by removing the directional sunlight. Instead this relies on an increased skylight, which also helps stopping the scene looking so washed out without the presence of shadows.
- Added performance optimization to turn off parts of the ocean water material when entering caves.
- Added improved water material with planar reflections present in high and ultra.
- Added improved water transitions (from/to underwater etc.) to be smoother and more reliable.
- Fixed issue of shininess of some leaves.
- Fixed issue with fire particles not rendering correctly outside ultra/high.
- Fixed some terrain painting issues around waters near Kiokio.
- Fixed some water-height issues around Rohai.
- Fixed incorrectly placed trees on Naupata.
- Fixed an issue with ambient occlusion masking some emissive objects for some users.
General
- Added some minor improvements to address an issue where character could still be seen in a vehicle when getting out on rare occasion.
- Added various performance optimizations to reduce level loading times.
- Added cinematic graphics option section, these are very performance demanding settings, that were deemed too expensive to be included as part of ultra. Primarily useful for taking screenshots.
- Added cinematic graphics option to enable advanced scene capture for planar reflections (primarily effects the ocean, means you see landscape and objects in reflections, by default you just see the sky)
- Added cinematic graphics option to enable volumetric fog.
- Added cinematic graphics option to enable a data driven night sky (shows more accurate stars, but currently not aligned to time/date, but will be someday. Unlike normal stars, each star is an actual object with correct representation in 3D space and appearance).
- Added cinematic graphics option to enable convolution bloom (most noticeable on the sun).
- Fixed an issue with a Vista Point camera in Matapari.
- Fixed an issue with a Vista Point assigned to the wrong area.