Hello there, and thank you so much for checking in!
This month’s Status Report will include a brief recap of July’s game update and subsequent issues, information for creators, and a community showcase.
July Update Recap
Last month, ChilloutVR released a major update that had been a work in progress for quite some time. Much was worked on during this development period to make significant improvements to the game as a whole, far more than what could be briefly mentioned here, and we’ve been enamored by the positive feedback from the community.
You can read the full changelog here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/661130/view/3650781708186173693
While we’re very happy to take this next step forward in ChilloutVR’s development, a number of bugs were found by the community soon after release that are currently being investigated. This includes issues such as lip syncing and voice chat occasionally not functioning as expected, among various other minor issues that are actively being worked on. We hope to have them resolved as soon as possible, so stay tuned for further updates.
Shader Replacement
To recap some information we’ve shared in our July Status Report, an alternative and more optimized rendering method called Single Pass Instanced was introduced during the development of Unity 2019. It was available alongside Single Pass rendering, which had been commonly used for VR game development, and is what most content uploaded to ChilloutVR was intended for. However, as of Unity 2020, Single Pass rendering is no longer supported and any projects looking to upgrade their version of Unity must also take this into consideration. This doesn’t so much concern development of the game as it does creation of assets, which in our case would be Avatars, Worlds, and Props, because shaders used with uploaded content must have support for Single Pass Instanced. While some popular shaders created and used by the community have already adopted these changes to ensure future compatibility, those that haven’t may only render in one eye as a result.
To remedy this, an attempt is made to replace the shader if possible, or fallback to Standard. This may not be reliable in all cases, and could cause content to not look as originally intended.
We urge creators to update their incompatible content as soon as possible.
Those familiar with developing shaders, or want to learn, can use Unity’s documentation as a resource here:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SinglePassInstancing.html
Content Patching
As a result of the Unity engine upgrade, there was a major problem when loading a comparatively small number of content built with Unity 2019. Anything bundled using Audio Mixers and loaded on the latest version of ChilloutVR would often cause the game to crash, creating an unstable and uncertain environment after the update was released. An investigation concluded that it was an issue that would need to be fixed by Unity themselves, which was done in Unity 2022, but requests to backport this fix have been rejected. Unfortunately due to a number of other problems with Unity 2022, it is not a viable upgrade for ChilloutVR at this time.
So while this may not be an issue that we can directly fix ourselves, another approach was taken. Over the course of a few days, all content uploaded to ChilloutVR with Unity 2019 was scanned and subsequently patched if this particular issue was found. For those interested, here are some stats on how much content was effected:
- Avatars: 11,711
- Props: 2,707
- Worlds: 96
New content will continue to be patched for a time, but uploading via Unity 2019 and CCK 3.4 will not be possible in the near future to prevent this and other issues from persisting.
If you have not yet upgraded your project(s) to Unity 2021 or CCK 3.5, relevant information can be found here:
https://developers.abinteractive.net/cck/setup/
r/place
Over the last few years, Reddit has hosted a collaborative event on the subreddit r/place where individuals all across the site can all contribute towards one large canvas by placing only a single pixel every few minutes. Naturally, this has led to many communities vying to claim and maintain a spot, in addition to some stunning art, to ultimately be immortalized in the final piece.
During the most recent event, several members of the community were able to secure a spot and spread some love for ChilloutVR. We love to see efforts like this from the community, and are really appreciative of those who take the time to show their support in various ways.
Canvas: https://placedata.reddit.com/data/final_2023_place.png
Location: Lower left corner
We hope to occasionally showcase more unique and interesting work from the community in the future, so we’ll be looking out for more!
Final Notes
As always, thank you for your continued interest and support of ChilloutVR's development.
Next month, expect to hear about our future plans for the next major update of ChilloutVR. Stability of the game is currently the primary focus for the Team, as outlined in July’s Recap, but we hope to be back on track working on new and exciting features after we’ve squashed a few pesky bugs.
Many members of Alpha Blend Interactive will also be attending Gamescom this year. As such, general activity may slow down a bit later this month, but you’ll still find several of us hanging around.
But that’ll be all for this month. Tune in next month for more updates like this, see you next time!
Social media
Find us on social media with the links below:
Discord: https://discord.gg/abi
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlphaBlendNET
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@AlphaBlendInteractive
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChilloutVR/
Support Alpha Blend Interactive
Like every company, we need financial support to be able to push updates and improve our product. We are grateful for every bit of support we get.
If you want to support us you can do so here: https://www.patreon.com/AlphaBlendInteractive
We are more than thankful for your support!
Not on our Discord server yet?
Use the link above to join our discord server and get in touch with our wonderful community, get help with creation-related topics and find people to play with.