Determinant
Devlog 50: Assault Rifle
Devlog 49: Handgun and bullet holes
I finally added guns after so many years! Being a survival game, shooting stuff isn't really the focus but it sure adds lots of fun to it. Resources are scarce and you will need to spend a lot of effort crafting it, so you can't just go around shooting everything.
Also had to implement two-handed grab modes for this. Some heavy items require both hands to grab, but it's optional for things like guns. However using both hands increases stability and accuracy.
Devlog 48: Solar still
A solar still distills water using sunlight, desalinating and purifying it in the process. This is an actual real-world survival gear and commonly equipped on life rafts. The process is slow, often taking an entire day just for a bottle of water.
Devlog 47: Bottle of water
Realistic wobbles and sloshes for maximum hydration!
The water is a lie. There is actually no water in the bottle. It's all drawn in the shader using the bottle mesh only. The splashes and all are also fake.
Mass and center of gravity are dynamically calculated based on the amount of water contained. A partially filled 1 L, 100 g bottle is most stable when filled to exactly 231.662 ml.
Devlog 46: Ancient Ruins
Destroyed buildings that you can explore. These are the last remnants of human civilization when it was destroyed 1000 years ago. Scavenge for resources like metals, plastics, oil, tools and weapons. To ensure humanity's survival, YOU need to survive!
These buildings are crafted individually by hand and not procedurally generated. Things like large holes, floor collapses, and piles of rubble and debris show the absolutely devastating aftermath of destruction.
Concrete also naturally decays when exposed to the elements. Water infiltration causes the rebar within to rust and cause cracks, eventually leading to the building collapsing. Stone, glass, bones, metals and plastics are all that remain.
Determinant Trailer 2024
I've updated the trailer to reflect all the latest content and features. This Youtube video supports HDR, best experienced on a HDR TV, monitor or your iPhone.
The previous trailer was made in 2022, and since then the game has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of graphics, content and features. Currently in the 4th year of development, there is still a long way to go with many more things to be added.
Devlog 45: Snow
The temperate biome turns into a winter wonderland at higher altitudes!
I added snow features into my vegetation shader. It's just a simple layering of a snow texture on top. Trees, rocks and some objects all get a nice and soft fluffy topping. The amount of snow is adjustable so the transition is gradual as you ascend the mountain, from light patches of snow to fully covered.
But be careful while having fun in the snow... the cold will get to you and then you die. Cold weather mechanics coming next.
Devlog 44: Temperate Vegetation
New temperate biome has been added for higher altitude areas. The weather's getting chillier!
This biome contains coniferous trees, mountain grass, clovers and shrubs. The vegetation is also less dense, a stark contrast to the lush tropical rainforest at lower altitudes.
There will be more biomes added later. Snow, desert, lava and etc. It's a really lively world full of variety!
Devlog 43: Occlusion Culling
Vegetation is divided into cells and each cell is assigned a unique colour. This serves to identify the cell in renders.
The entire world is then divided into culling cells and for each cell, six cameras are rendered, each corresponding to the cell faces. The colour info is the read back through a compute shader and the vegetation cells that are visible can then be determined. This is a very slow process, but it only needs to be done once and the subsequent runtime lookup is extremely fast, O(1) fast!
Once all the occlusion culling is baked, the terrain now obscures vegetation cells. Green lines indicate visible cells, and lack of lines show that the small hill is occluding quite a lot of cells.
As for the performance gain, haven't measured that yet because it will take a long time to bake the entire world. But there should be definitely some gain since there is near zero runtime cost to this.
Devlog 42: Containers and Crafting
Now you can craft cloth sacks out of plant fiber you harvest from chopping down plants. You now have a crafting bench you can spawn anytime to craft small items. Even comes with nifty drawers to keep stuff in.
Sacks and other containers help you keep things organised. You can directly drop items in or drag them in while in inventory mode. Arrow keys and right-shift let you orient the item horizontally or vertically and rotate it.
Other new improvements include new more detailed tree and plant models. Cross fading has been added so that things don't suddenly pop in. Performance has been optimised a bit more.