Update 35 is live! Find Christmas presents in the game!
Merry Christmas everyone, Update 35 for cyubeVR is live!
Santa flew over your world, and a bunch of Christmas presents fell off his sleigh! Now there's Christmas presents scattered all across your world, and no one will be there to pick them up, unless you find them!
Between today and Dec 31, you can find christmas presents in your world! Inside of the christmas presents you find items - could be gold, could be rainbow dye, but might also just be normal dye or some coal.
Someone also managed to hide some presents in some of your chests - you have no idea who would do that, but they are there, and you're happy about that!
There's also some bugfixes, in this update:
Fixed picture frame resize not working on Vive Controllers
Fixed picture frame selection cards "stacking" on the right controller and never disappearing
Renamed stone that should never exist in inventory to "Buggy Stone" to make it clear that it's not normal stone
Fixed 8K (or 4K) screenshots not working on Oculus Touch Controllers
Fixed bug that didn't allow for "skipping" empty quick slot when trying to select up/down
Fixed red teleport indicator staying visible after trying to teleport there
OpenVR Benchmark
You might already have seen, a few days ago OpenVR Benchmark was released, a VR benchmark software based on cyubeVR. Its available for free as a fully standalone software:
It's the first software that can actually benchmark real VR performance. And who doesn't want to benchmark their VR setup and see how it performs?
OpenVR Benchmark renders a 60 second fly-through through a beautiful cyubeVR world and gives a score at the end. Of course, I mainly work on cyubeVR, and I hope this free benchmark tool will actually make a lot of people aware of cyubeVR that didn't previously know it existed! Getting OpenVR Benchmark released kept me a bit busy with that for a while, but I hope that time was worth it for giving cyubeVR more exposure :) It slowed down cyubeVR updates the past 1-2 months, but now that that the benchmark is released, I can spend all my time on new cyubeVR updates again, like the upcoming furnace!
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game! Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 660 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :) Merry Christmas!
Cheers!
Weekly Report #9 - Concept for furnace with great VR mechanics!
Hey everyone,
the last weekly report was released slightly more than a week ago™ again (or a bit more than slightly more...), so it's time for another one! Yay!
Todays big topic is the furnace that will be added to the game soon™, but let's first mention a few other things!
The cyubeVR discord is still nicely growing, we're at over 600 people there now. That's great! If you aren't in there yet, come join us and chat about the game or general VR topics.
Recently, a great fan-made cyubeVR trailer came out, made by HeyMika, and it's really awesome! If you haven't seen it yet, definitely take a look at it here, and show it to all your friends who are interested in VR :) One might say this trailer is better than the official cyubeVR trailer, especially since the official trailer is a bit outdated by now (I will need to make a new one at some point!). Here's the great cyubeVR trailer from HeyMika:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWP1YBtYUk
New custom mod blocks in the cyubeVR Steam Workshop
Ever since Update 32, everyone can share custom mod blocks through Steam Workshop, and recently there have been a few nice additions! If you also want to create some blocks like that and share them with others, take a look at the tutorial how to create them here, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the #modding channel in the discord :)
Here's two different brick blocks made by Buchman:
The main thing I want to talk about today is the furnace - currently, there's nothing with the functionality of a furnace in the game yet, and that will have to change!
The furnace will be used for processing ore and other materials, but most importantly, it will be used for producing iron that then can be used for making stronger tools and also weapons like swords. You know, the copper sledgehammer is already a really strong tool, but wait until you see the iron sledgehammer!
What makes cyubeVR so special is the great VR mechanics it has for everything, and with the furnace, that should apply just as much as before, or even more. The furnace should be a prime example for what you can do with awesome roomscale VR mechanics in a game like this.
Let's take a look at a concept of the furnace that I've worked on with a concept artist!
What do you think? I think that looks like an awesome furnace! The furnace is built fully out of stone and copper. You will be able to freely place the furnace anywhere in the world where there's enough free place for it to be placed - it won't snap to the voxel grid, just like chest or chairs.
It has two openings, one opening at the bottom for putting in burning materials like coal or wood, and one opening at the top for putting in the material that should be processed and melted. You would put in the items physically with your hands - same like you craft or fill up a chest in the game, but there wouldn't be any slots in the furnace, you just need to throw in enough items. You also have to open and close the shutters of the two openings with your hands.
Once you put in enough burning material, you can set it on fire. How? There needs to be a great VR way of starting a fire. Maybe hitting a stone block with a copper nugget makes a spark? After you started the fire, you have to wait until it's hot enough, and the items at the top will start to melt.
At the side, there is a lever that you can open to let the molten metal (or other materials) flow out into a mold container, where the molten metal can cool off, until you can collect the resulting iron bars into your inventory. Also, it would actually be possible to switch out that mold container to a different mold container, e.g. for producing glass windows from molten glass instead of iron bars from molten iron.
With this design, there also can be some interesting skill element added to the melting process - what if you open the lever too early or too late? Some materials might have to be cast at the exact right temperature to have the best physical properties, so maybe you have to make sure that you melt some special magic ore at the exact same temperature and don't let it become too hot, otherwise it would not successfully be converted into the resulting material you want and you would have to re-melt it again, or even throw it away? Nothing set in stone regarding that mechanic yet, just a thought about what's all possible with this furnace design. You have full control over when you open the lever, and you also have full control over how much burning material you put into the fire chamber, so it likely makes sense to capitalize on that with some gameplay mechanics :)
It's something I'm not fully sure about yet, so if you have good ideas, please write a comment here or come into the discord! The furnace has been discussed about a lot there already, but the more people voice their ideas, the better!
So, that's all for this weekly report. Thanks for caring about the game! Let me know what you think about this new furnace concept!
You can now unlock 50 Steam Achievements in the game!
There's also more features and bugfixes, so let's take a look at the whole list and then get into more detail for the achievements!
Added 50 Steam Achievements
Added stats for Total Blocks Mined, Total Blocks Crafted and Total Blocks Placed in the settings UI of the game
Fixed crystal duplication bug when trying to attach crystal to bucket
Fixed being able to grab crystal from bucket when bucket isn't visible
Fixed it being possible to move chests/chairs while inventory is opened
Fixed teleport to previous teleport location triggering when pressing teleport button while briefcase is opened
When placing a block, there no longer is a small time period afterwards where placing a new block is not possible due to the chunk rebuild, so placing blocks quickly is faster now.
Default locomotion setting is now "With falling" instead of "off". It's likely the better default as people seem to expect falling to be enabled by default in a game like this.
Fixed rendering artifacts (flickering) that sometimes appeared on the downside of blocks
Steam Achievements
There's now 50 great achievements unlockable in the game!
You can take a look at the full list of achievements here: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/619500/achievements
Achievements are a great way to show you what you can actually do in the game. For example, previously it was unlikely that someone who doesn't follow the game update announcements here or has watched specific videos of the game knows that you can re-color existing torches in the game. Now that there's an achievement that you get for re-coloring torches, it's clear that this is something you can actually do, so it's a very nice way of showing what you can do in the game without needing a tutorial to explain it.
The achievements are all unlockable by regularly playing the game - if you just play the game for 10 hours the way it's designed to be played, you likely have unlocked all achievements in the game. There are no achievements that force you to do things just for the sake of getting an achievement.
Stats for Blocks Mined, Placed, Crafted
If you scroll down in the settings UI of the game, you now see stats for how many blocks you have mined, placed and crafted in your total playtime of the game. These stats are stored in the Steam Cloud, so even if you completely wipe the game off your PC and reinstall it, these numbers will not reset and keep incrementing.
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 8 separate beta builds! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game! Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 500 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)
Cheers!
Update 33 for cyubeVR is live! Magic vacuum bucket, magic crystals and more!
Hey everyone, Update 33 for cyubeVR is live!
The old bucket has finally been retired and been replaced with an awesome new magic vacuum bucket! Collecting items became way easier. Also, magic crystals have been added which you can find and charge with either sun or moon light, resulting in different crystal colors. You can attach these crystals to the bucket to make it either attract or push away items with multiple meters range. A vacuum bucket!
There's also more great new features and a lot of bugfixes, so let's take a look at the whole list and then get into more detail for the new magic bucket and crystals and all the other great things!
Added new magic bucket!
Added crystal blocks
Added magic crystals and mechanics for charging crystals
Added support for animated custom mod blocks
Added player coordinates below the settings in the inventory briefcase
Default bloom setting is now "Medium"
Significantly improved world loading speed
Added "starter chest" next to the player when creating a new world with some items inside
When starting a new world, the player now starts with 10 torches in the inventory
Added support for running the game through DirectX 12
Fixed shovel not working correctly on custom mod blocks
Fixed haptic feedback of shovel
Fixed place tool not being updated when no more of item left in inventory
Fixed placing chests/chairs being possible at invalid locations
Fixed tool selection sometimes not working
Fixed spawned items when destroying mesh objects like chests or chairs
Fixed nuggets being too heavy (moving too slowly) with telekinesis
Fixed image of currently crafted item not being visible correctly on side of bucket
Fixed some blocks not having "pop" sound when being destroyed
Fixed "ghost items" from quick bar being visible as real items in "slide UI" on right controller when using Vive controllers
Fixed visual ghosting on hand
Fixed behavior when attempting to add an item with a stack limit of 1 to an existing slot of that item in the chest
Fixed color of numbers on block items in chests incorrectly switching between black/white
Made sure that bow is always deactivated when inventory is opened
Updated compiler from Visual Studio 2017 to Visual Studio 2019
More performance improvements
Fixed multiple crashes
Magic bucket
The old bucket has finally been retired, and a new bucket has been added to the game. Yay! This new bucket looks way better than the old one, it's extremely detailed and has nice 8K textures on it. It also has a slot for a magic crystal, nicely integrated into one side of the wood.
By default, the bucket always has a low-pwer short range vacuum effect now with a range of a bit less than a meter, or a few feet. This means the bucket will never not have any magic effect. If you attach a charged blue crystal to the bucket, the bucket has a very strong vacuum effect with many meters range that makes it extremely quick to collect items from all around you - you just need to point the bucket at some items and the items will get attracted by the bucket and automatically added to your inventory!
To attach a crystal to the bucket, you just grab a crystal and drop it into the crystal slot on the side of the bucket. If the crystal is charged, the veins of the bucket will start glowing in the crystal color and the bucket will activate the magic effect that corresponds to the crystal color. A blue crystal will make the bucket suck in items, and a red crystal will make the bucket blow instead of suck. So, you have a vacuum bucket and a leafblower now!
Magic crystals
You can now find crystal blocks in caves, and when you break those, you get one magic crystal.
You can charge these magic crystals either by exposing them to sun light, or by exposing them to moon light. Sun light will charge the crystals blue, while moon light will charge the crystals red. For charging them, you just place the crystals somewhere outside. During charging, you see a charging effect that shows you the crystal is actively being charged. The more charge a crystal has, the brighter it becomes.
If you have a fully charged blue crystal outside during night, it will slowly discharge until it's at 0% charge and then it will switch it's color to red and start charging again. If you have a red crystal exposed to sunlight, the same will happen. You need to make sure that you collect your fully charged crystals during the correct time of day, otherwise you might not get the full desired crystal charge color.
Crystals can not be stacked in the inventory. Every crystal has a green bar below the icon that corresponds to the amount of charge in the crystal. Additionally, the exact % of charge remaining in the crystal will be shown at the top in the name of the crystal, e.g. "Magic Crystal (80%)".
Animated custom mod blocks
The last updated added custom mod blocks that anyone can easily create, add to the game and share through Steam Workshop. If you haven't seen that Update, read more about it here:
After that update was released, one request in our great discord server was to make it possible to add animated blocks, for example for animated water. Support for that has been added now!
Creating animated blocks works same like creating regular custom blocks (which you can read more about here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/619500/discussions/3/1640917625019543783/) with only small differences in how you have to create the texture. If you want to create some great animated mod blocks and share them through Steam Workshop, it's best if you come into our great discord server where we will be happy to assist you with any questions you have :)
Player Coordinates
If you scroll down in the settings, you can now see your X and Y coordinates in the world. The coordinates are in meters. This should allow you to make sure that you never "get lost" in the world, and that you find your way back to your home no matter how lost you get. You only need to be able to remember the coordinates of your home.
Making the game a bit easier for new players
When starting a new world, you now start with 10 torches in the inventory, and additionally a chest is spawned next to the player, with 10 dark processed wood and 10 light processed wood being inside of the chest.
Having the initial torches should makes it way more convenient for a new player to find some coal for building more torches. Torches can be re-used infinitely, so 10 torches are for sure enough to make finding the first coal easier. Having the chest with processed wood inside results in multiple nice things:
1. A new player knows there are chests in the game, and sees and can play around with the great VR mechanics of the chest. 2. A new player knows there is processed wood 3. A new player can easily play around with how placing blocks works, without having to collect some first 4. A new player has something to look at / play with at the spawn, even if using a slow CPU that might cause initial world generation to be slow 5. Every time you come back to that location, you see the chest, so you will always know where you initially spawned in the world
DirectX 12 support
The game now supports running through DirectX 12. To do this, you need to manually launch the game with the additional command line argument -dx12. Testing shows that DirectX 12 does result in slightly worse performance when using Nvidia GPUs though. Results might be different on AMD GPUs, so there DirectX 12 might result in improved performance. DirectX 11 will stay the default for now. DirectX 12 will be required for raytracing support in the future!
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 17 separate beta builds! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game! Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 500 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)
Cheers!
Update 32 is live! Steam Workshop integration with custom mod blocks, improvements to controls, a lot of bugfixes and more!
Hey everyone, Update 32 for cyubeVR is live!
With this update, a great new feature is added to the game: Everyone can now easily create custom mod blocks with custom recipes and share them through Steam Workshop! You can subscribe to any of the blocks that are available on Steam Workshop, and they will automatically be downloaded and updated through Steam. These mod blocks have a lot of flexibility and they can be used just like any other original block in the game!
There's also a lot of bugfixes and other improvements, so let's take a look at the whole list and then get into more detail for the custom mod blocks!
Custom mod block support!
Adjusted controls for enabling the bow on Index Controllers, Touch Controllers and WMR
Adjusted optimization for deer/rabbits to make them look a bit more natural in their movements
Telekinesis now also works on rabbits
Fixed dead animals sometimes being back from the dead after restarting the game
Fixed animals sometimes being able to spawn at locations where they shouldn't be able to spawn
Fixed chests sometimes not working correctly
Improved world loading code
Fixed distance fog not using correct distance based on the view distance that is set
Adjusted distance fog color to be a bit more white and less blue during the day
Reduced controller latency
Decreased AO strength in dark areas
Fixed inventory UI sometimes flickering in the game desktop mirror window
Fixed telekinesis affecting individual item of item structure, it now correctly affects the whole structure
Moving around chest/chairs with index controllers now also works when using "grab" instead of trigger
The number on block items in chests now has a different color and already appears at a greater distance
Keep "ghost" representation for block item in quick bar when none of that item are left in inventory
It's now possible to swap places of items in the inventory by dropping an item on top of another slot
Fixed some blocks not playing any block destroy sound
Fixed block destroy particles sometimes not having the correct texture
Fixed multiple crashes
Custom mod blocks with Steam Workshop integration!
Everyone can now create an custom blocks for the game, showing custom textures, with custom recipes for crafting the custom blocks. Creating a custom block is very easy, you don't need to be an expert in any special software, the game just needs some 2D images. So if you would want, you could go into Paint, draw some textures and create a custom block based on those! I've written a detailed post here about "How to create custom mod blocks for cyubeVR":
If you are interested in adding some great blocks to the game, that will hopefully explain every step in a lot of detail!
And if you don't want to spend any time creating your own blocks, you can super easily subscribe to mod blocks from other people on the Steam Workshop!
There is a full and working integration for Steam Workshop, which makes it extremely easy to download and install new custom mod blocks.
You can share your custom mod blocks with anyone through Steam Workshop, and you can browse through Steam Workshop to find and subscribe to new custom mod blocks that are automatically downloaded and updated through Steam.
Take a look at cyubeVRs Steam Workshop here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/619500/workshop/
Since this feature has been tested in the beta build of cyubeVR for a while now by our great beta testers, some awesome mod blocks have been uploaded to the Steam Workshop already!
Take a look at these blocks, all made by Endermoonlight:
For managing the Steam Workshop (uploading new items and seeing which items from the workshop you currently have installed), there is a new UI in the main menu, where you see all your locally installed mod blocks, and all mod blocks you are subscribed to on the Steam Workshop. Uploading new blocks to the workshop or updating existing ones can also be done there with one single button click.
The Steam Workshop integration is hopefully very easy and convenient to use! And if anyone ever has any questions, there's also the new #modding channel on the official cyubeVR discord, for in-depth discussion about anything related to this great new feature! If anyone needs any assistance with creating custom mod blocks, just tag me (@sbsce) on the discord and I'll likely reply within a few minutes :)
I hope that we will get a ton more awesome custom mod blocks in the workshop in the near future, if you believe you have any skills with designing such things, please do! I'll mention the best custom mod blocks in upcoming announcements here on Steam.
One thing to note, loading into your world is slower the first time you load into the world with a new custom block config. So if you subscribe to a bunch of blocks from the workshop now and you see the game take longer than usual to load the whole view distance, don't worry, that's normal and only happens when you change which custom blocks you have installed.
Adjusted bow controls
On Index Controllers, Touch Controllers and WMR, the bow is now no longer "hold to enable". Instead, you need to press the button once to enable the bow, and then either press the button again to disable the bow, or open your left hand to disable the bow (same like you leave the tool and block place mode on the right hand). This was changed because before, it was not possible to use the bow and use smooth locomotion at the same time, as your left thumb could not simultaneously hold the bow button and also use the thumbstick. Now you can use the bow and move at the same time.
Telekinesis now also works on rabbits
This is a small thing, but it's so much fun! Telekinesis is currently still only supported on Index Controllers, but in the near future it will be supported on all other controllers too. If you have index controllers, definitely try to let some rabbits fly!
Improvement to quick bar slots in inventory
This has been a long requested feature for the inventory: When you have some item in the block quick bar, and you place the last of that item or drag it out of the inventory, a "ghost" representation of that item now stays in the quick bar, and once you add any of that item to your inventory again, it's directly usable at the quick bar slot where it previously was.
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 14 separate beta builds! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 500 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)
Cheers!
Update 31 is live! Support for Valve Index Controllers (Finger Tracking!), Hands, Major refactoring of controls, SteamVR Input System!
Hey everyone, Update 31 for cyubeVR is live!
This Update is very much about giving the game the best possible support for the new Valve Index Controllers, but it also adds completely new control schemes for Oculus Touch Controllers and Windows Mixed Reality Controllers, and no matter which controller you use, you now see hands in the game that make use of SteamVR Skeletal Input to move your fingers as accurately as possible depending on how accurate your controller can track your fingers. The new SteamVR Input system also means you can rebind all cyubeVR controls through the SteamVR Input Bindings Dashboard now!
Here is a new official video showing how Valve Index Controllers work in cyubeVR, and also showing the great new hands with finger tracking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbKpVV1ppJY
As usual, here's a very quick overview of the things changed in Update 31, with some more details below:
Instead of seeing controller models, you now have hands in the game
Controls are now using the SteamVR input system, allowing rebinding
Added new control scheme built for Valve Index Controllers
Added new control schemes for Oculus Touch Controllers and Windows Mixed Reality Controllers
Added telekinesis using finger tracking, only working with Valve Index Controllers for now
Added setting for hand size
Major modifications to the tutorial
Added new "Bindings Overview" to the bottom part of the inventory briefcase, telling you what every button on your controller does
Added setting for making that "Bindings Overview" visible or hidden
Main Menu is now looking better and sharper
Bow feels better now and has better haptical feedback
You can now adjust the block placement distance by grabbing the preview block of the block placement tool with your left hand
Hands with finger tracking
You now have hands in the game! Depending on which controllers you use, you also have (close to) perfect finger tracking! Real finger tracking only works with Valve Index Controllers, and the second most realistic finger movement representation you get with Oculus Touch controllers, as those also have a bunch of sensors to detect where your fingers are. Vive Controllers support basic finger movement (Grip - Not Grip, and thumb on touchpad). Windows Mixed Reality controllers do not support SteamVR Skeketal Input currently, so with WMR controllers, you will see fully static hands.
The game uses SteamVR Skeletal Input for the finger representation, you can see some examples of what the different controller types are capable of in this announcement post from Valve about SteamVR Skeletal Input:
There is a fully new control scheme in the game, added from the ground up for Valve Index Controllers. Not only Index Controllers are using that though, but, with some modifications, also the Oculus Touch controllers and WMR controllers. With this new control scheme, the thumbsticks are used for movement and turning, and grip is done with grip buttons or, in the case of Index Controllers, natural gripping objects. For seeing how the new control scheme works, definitely watch the video linked above!
SteamVR Input
The game now uses the SteamVR Input system. This means you can actually yourself rebind all controls in the game through the SteamVR Input Bindings Dashboard which you can access by going to Devices -> Configure Controllers in SteamVR. So, if you don't like some binding, you can actually change it yourself, and everyone can even share bindings for the game through Steam Workshop! This also means that the game will "automatically" be compatible with all new upcoming controllers now, even if I as the dev would never actively add support for those, as the community would always be able to create perfectly fitting bindings for any new controller that SteamVR supports.
Tutorial overhaul and button mapping overview
Since there is a completely new control-scheme in the game, the tutorial had to be adapted to still explain everything correctly no matter which controller you are actually using. To accomplish this, there are now basicalyl 4 different versions of the tutorial - one for Vive Controllers, one for Oculus Touch Controllers, one for WMR controller and one for Valve Index Controllers. Also, the first 3 tutorial pages are now about the "First steps in the game", and hopefully make it easier for someone new to understand what the first steps are when playing the game. At the end of the tutorial, a new page has been added about moving blocks after they are placed, as that's a great feature of the game that was never explained in the tutorial before!
Additionally to that, in the bottom part of the inventory briefcase, you now see a quick overview of what every button on your specific controller is doing. There also is a setting that allows you to disable this overview if you do not want to constantly see it because you are familiar with the controls already. Just as an example, this is how the button mapping overview looks like while using Oculus Touch controllers:
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 14 separate beta builds! In the case of Index Controller support, testing was obviously not done as in-depth as usually with other features, as not many people had Index Controllers yet! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're almost 500 people strong there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)
Cheers!
Update 30 is live! Major engine update with significant performance improvements!
Hey everyone, Update 30 for cyubeVR is live!
Most importantly, the Unreal Engine version cyubeVR is based on was updated from 4.19 to 4.22. The engine update took a bit longer than expected to be done, but it results in significant performance improvements on its own, and in addition to that, I also spent quite a lot of time optimizing various different things in the game further. You could say, this update is about "making the game ready for 144hz on Valve Index" :)
Here is a very quick overview of the things changed in Update 30, with some more details below:
Update Engine to UE4 4.22
Significant optimizations related to deer and rabbits
Fixed issue that caused a lot of unnecessary triangles to render for chunks in the distance
Optimized how torches, chests, picture frames, deer and rabbits are rendered, resulting in significantly fewer draw calls, and as a result better performance
Very significant optimization related to shadow rendering of chunks in the distance, making it roughly 10 times faster
Added new INI option HideControllersForVideoCapture for hiding controllers in high res video capture mode
Experimental support for rendering the game using Vulkan
Added button to main menu that triggers some music to be played on your controllers using the vibration motors
Changed font in main menu to be more readable
Music toggle in main menu is now persistent, so its state will be same the next time you open the game
Updated min spec warning in main menu
Fixed what happens when you try to put a structure of items attached together into a chest
Fix for making sure picture frames are receiving light correctly
Applied a fix that should make the game look more correct on Pimax or Valve Index
Fixed bottom stone at bottom of the world not always generating correctly
Fixed flying particle in air and birds not being visible in high res video capture
Fixed multiple possible crashes
Engine Update
cyubeVR is now using Unreal Engine 4.22.2. Previously, the game was running on Unreal Engine 4.19. 4.19 was released on March 14, 2018, and 4.22 was released on April 2, 2019, so it's more than a year worth of engine changes to UE4.
The engine update improves performance significantly - with 4.22, the rendering code of UE4 was moved to a more intelligent Frostbite-like approach, making better use of available CPU and GPU resources.
Significant performance improvements
Apart from the performance improvements coming from the engine update, I also took the opportunity to take a very in-depth look at all the relevant code in cyubeVR that could be optimized further - and got some nice gains out of that.
Shadows for chunks are now, after a certain distance, always rendered based on LOD chunks instead of full res chunks. There isn't any visible difference, but this hugely improves performance of shadow rendering, especially when using higher view distances, or higher view distances for LOD0 chunks, as high geometric complexity for visible chunks now no longer directly correlates with high geometric complexity for shadow rendering, the cost for shadow rendering is independent now from LOD settings for visible chunks.
Previously, shadow rendering got exponentially slower the higher the view distance was, with this optimization, when using higher general view distances and/or higher view distances for LOD0 chunks, shadow rendering can be more than 10 times faster than before.
If you have more than 16GB RAM, definitely take a look at increasing the view distance of the game in the INI, as having a higher view distance looks super awesome!
Some of these optimizations require the game to recreate the "Instant Loading files" for your world, so the first load of your world after updating to Update 30 will be slower than usual. Don't worry, world loading speed will be back to normal after the first time of using Update 30.
Vulkan suport
You can now run cyubeVR using Vulkan, instead of DirectX 11. Vulkan support is still a bit "experimental" compared to DirectX, so there might be bugs that are not known yet. In general, it runs very nicely with Vulkan though. To run the game using Vulkan, navigate to the directory that contains the cyubeVR.exe, and create a shortcut to that .exe where you add " -vulkan" at the end. Then run the game using that shortcut.
This Vulkan support is the first big step towards official Linux support for cyubeVR, as the game will always run with Vulkan on Linux.
Hiding controllers in high res video capture
When using the high res video capture mode, you can now choose to have your controller models be invisible in the high res video output. This ini setting has been added to the game:
HideControllersForVideoCapture=0
As for all such settings, you can find this ini file in Appdata/Local/cyubeVR/Saved/WindowsNoEditor/Game.ini.
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 16 separate beta builds! Especially in the case of an engine update, a lot of in-depth testing by beta testers is absolutely invaluable. If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're more than 450 people strong there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :) Upcoming for the next update is support for finger tracking of Knuckles / Valve Index Controllers!
Cheers!
Special Easter Event! You can search for easter eggs in cyubeVR!
Happy Easter everyone!
This easter, there's a special event in cyubeVR: Bunnies have hidden easter eggs all over your world, so you can go looking for easter eggs in VR! Here's a video explaining the feature and where you can find the easter eggs :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P004XLso4q8
This feature had been hidden in Update 29, so you don't need to download any new update for this.
Cheers!
Update 29 is live! Bugfixes, adjusted recipe spawn behavior and new camera smoothing feature!
Hey everyone, Update 29 for cyubeVR is live!
This is an update primarily focused on fixing multiple bugs that have been found and reported in the last few days. The game should always be almost bug-free, so when bugs are found, they are immediately fixed before anything else is worked on. This update also makes it significantly faster to find all the recipes in the game, and adds an awesome new camera smoothing feature to the High-Res Video Capture Mode.
Just 4 days ago, Update 28 was released. If you haven't seen that one yet, you can read through the announcement post here:
As usual, here is a very quick overview of the things changed in Update 29, with some more details below:
Added awesome camera smoothing feature to the high res video capture mode, allowing for very smooth video captures
When collecting a recipe, duplicates will now change the type to a different recipe instead of despawning
Fixed torch sounds sometimes not working
Fixed birds being invisible sometimes due to spawning at incorrect location
Fixed music sometimes not playing
Slightly increased minimum height for high-up flying birds
Fixed weird artifacts that could sometimes happen at various locations on light processed wood texture
Fixed potential double item spawn when destroyed with 2 tools at the exact same time
Fixed saving/loading of day/night length sliders
Fixed bug that sometimes made it impossible to move chairs or chests
Fixed green glow around attached blocks that are valid crafting recipe sometimes disappearing or flickering
Fixed blocks not playing "scale down" animation sometimes when adding to bucket
Smoothing for the High Res Video Capture Mode
There's now an awesome smoothing mode for high res video capture! Two new ini settings have been added to the game:
UseSmoothingForVideoCapture=1
SmoothingSpeed=0.500000
When this new smoothing mode is enabled, the camera on the monitor will not just be where your head is, instead it will smoothly fade towards your head location. This gives it a gimbal-like appearance which is awesome for capturing some nice scenes in the game. The SmoothingSpeed variable allows you to specify how quickly the virtual camera will move.
Here's an example video of a beta tester who used the new smoothing to capture this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM89C980vqI
Adjusted recipe spawn behavior
Previously, if you collected a recipe of some type, all duplicates of that recipe would despawn, which resulted in the chance to find a new recipe greatly decreasing when you almost found all existing recipes already. Now, duplicates will no longer despawn, and instead they are updated to represent a different recipe.
This change makes the time it takes to find a new recipe roughly stay constant, which makes it feel significantly easier to find the last few recipes.
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 4 separate beta builds! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're more than 400 people strong there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord.
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)
Cheers!
Update 28 is live! Rainbow torches, rainbow flowers, alternative control method with snap-turning, a way to change color of existing torches and a huge list of other improvements!
Hey everyone, Update 28 for cyubeVR is live!
As usual, here is a very quick overview of the things changed in this update, with more details below. Actually, the "quick overview" has never been as long as this time, there's a lot of changes!
Added Rainbow Flowers, Rainbow Dye and Rainbow Torches
Added alternative control method with snap-turning, smooth-turning, and touchpad/thumbstick locomotion
Added settings for snap-turning
Added system for changing colors of existing torches
Added way better looking new model for the stick tool
Added preparation for currently still secret feature
Added white dye that can be collected from white flowers
Added text in UI that tells you which world format the chunk you are standing on was generated with
Added in-game setting for screenshot resolution to switch between 4K and 8K
Modified flagstone recipe to now result in 28 flagstone blocks, instead of 16 blocks previously
Added controls for time of day when using the high-res video capture mode
Added new torch models and modified torch placement to make it possible to place torches on the floor/ceiling
Increased radius of dynamic hand-held torchlight by 90%
Added setting for enabling/disabling black fade on teleport, and changed default to disabled
Changed look of preview torches to be more opaque and easier to see
Adjusted arrow trace particles to only stop when the arrow hits something
Adjusted recipe order in crafting recipe overview
Fixed bugs related to controls on oculus touch controllers and WMR controllers
Fixed deer blood being rendered on top of controller models
Fixed aurora speed (was too fast)
Fixed inventory bug that could happen when dragging items into the chest
Fixed bug that could happen when destroying wood scaffolding with an arrow next to a chunk border
Fixed crash that could happen while moving blocks
Fixed potential crash in UI rendering code
Fixed crash that could happen when removing a block on a chunk border next to a torch
There are now rainbow flowers that give you rainbow dye which you can use to craft rainbow torches! The torches do constantly and smoothly switch between all available colors.
Rainbow flowers are quite rare - rarer than green or blue flowers! Rainbow flowers are now the rarest type of flower in the game. You won't often see them, and if you do, you probably want to pick them up!
The rainbow torches really show how good and versatile the code for the custom voxel lighting in the game is - not only can it do colored torches, which is already something that you don't find in many other voxel games, but even animated rainbow torches work! This is exciting! :)
Alternative control method
There's an alternative control method now that allows for snap-turning, smooth-turning and touchpad/thumbstick locomotion!
In the settings, there's a new setting called "Alternative Move/Turn". This new setting is disabled by default. If you enable it, the left menu button now acts as a switch for switching the left touchpad/thumbstick between the button-functions it has, to acting as a thumbstick/touchpad for turning and movement.
When the left touchpad/thumbstick is in that turn/movement mode, swiping left/right on it will cause snap or smooth turning. Pressing and holding it will cause smooth locomotion.
There's also a new setting added that allows you to switch between 22.5° snap turning, 45° snap turning and smooth turning.
Placing torches on floor and ceiling
It's now possible to place torches on the floor and also the ceiling!
Previously, you could only place torches on the wall - not anymore. It's the same torch item that you place, but torches placed on the ground or ceiling look a bit different than torches placed on the wall. Torches placed on the ground and ceiling look great and are a great way to give your interior a more interesting look.
In-game setting for screenshot resolution
Ever since Update 9, cyubeVR had an awesome 8K screenshot feature that you can trigger by holding both teleport buttons for 2 seconds. You can now choose if screenshots are done in 4K or in 8K resolution! The default is still 8K, same like before, just that now you can decrease it to 4K if you want. When set to 4K, screenshots are obviously at a lower res, but they are also taken pretty much instantly and don't freeze the game for multiple seconds, so it's a bit more convenient. Also, the file size for 4K screenshots is less.
New model for stick tool
The stick tool now looks way better!
I once read the old stick looked too much like a pool noodle, and that probably had some truth. It was indeed not the best looking stick, so it had to change! The new stick tool is an awesome 8K photogrammetry model with crazy detail and significantly more interesting looking than the old one. Enjoy!
White dye
Previously, the white flowers were the only flowers you couldn't collect any dye from - that was a bit hard to understand, so now you can collect white dye too! Crafting a torch with white dye is a valid crafting recipe, but it just results in a regular torch, same as if you would not add the white dye.
Change colors of existing, placed torches
You can now change colors of existing, placed torches by touching the torch with a dye!
So, for example, you can now place a regular torch, grab a rainbow dye, touch the torch with that dye and the regular torch will turn into a rainbow torch. When doing that, the dye disappears. Touching a torch with a white dye turns it into a regular torch.
See chunk generation format in settings UI
When you open the settings and scroll down, after the last setting the game will now tell you which world format the chunk you are standing on was generated with. This is helpful to see if a chunk you are standing on has some new stuff (like ore, or flowers) that was only added in some recent version of the game. For example, rainbow flowers you will only find on chunks that are world format 24 or above.
Time of Day controls for high res video capture mode
In Update 24, a great high-res video capture mode was added to the game:
When the high res video capture mode is enabled, you can now move time of day backward/forward by pressing the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard. This allows you to easily set up the exact shot you want, without having to wait for the sun to move to where you want to have it.
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As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 12 separate beta builds! If you also want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!
The screenshots above are taken in a world of Koi, one of the beta testers, you can follow him playing the game here on his youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM8k4IzB5E0
That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're more than 400 people strong there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord.
There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!
