Magnificent Ships: Volume 1
v1.42 - Small Update
- Fixed mixed-up materials on small Queen Mary.
- Fixed some UV mapping on RMS Queen Mary.
- Moved some portholes on USS Iowa.
- Remote-control ship inputs are now framerate independent. (Ships were faster/slower with high/low framerates before.)
v1.41: Small Update
- To reduce confusion with pre/post-stretch SSN-23, the Seawolf class was re-christened SSN-21 Seawolf.
- Less metallic Seawolf textures.
- Bow steering thrusters now toggle based on forward velocity instead of throttle.
- RMS Queen Mary's lettering is now period-appropriate gold.
- Oculus Quest 2 controllers via Link no longer display misaligned textures.
- Adjusted bikini buoyancy. ;)
RMS Queen Mary's Verandah Grill
I took a break from my current project to put together this little gem: a VR version of RMS Queen Mary's Verandah Grill!
It was fun to play with Unity's new High-Definition Render Pipeline, which as you can see produces some lovely results.
It's a separate download/executable from Magnificent Ships, but I thought it worth mentioning for the fans of her here. You can download it from my website: https://vroom.space/verandahgrill/
Enjoy!
New Feature: Remotely Control Your Ships!
Announcing a new "boating lake" feature!
You can now remotely pilot each ship in "model scale" upon the surface of a physically-responsive lake that reacts to ship movement. I've taken care to ensure each craft physically operates as much like a real-world version would, which was a challenge given current VR-rendering framerate requirements.
The ships are spread around the edges of the lake to keep performance high, and only two are allowed on its surface at once (one per controller). You just grab a ship with a controller (or "tractor-beam" it to your hand from across the lake) and toss it in to begin controlling it using Vive's touchpad or Rift's thumbstick.
I also added a few fun interactive elements on the lake, including a mini-game where you compete against a "ghost ship" to see who can ram the most buoys. Can you get all five?
Be advised: I adjusted a lot of the quality settings and don't have much to test on, so you may want to test which works best on your system. To do so, just press a number keys from 1 to 7. (7=highest, 3=default)
I changed and added a lot of code, and there's only so much testing one person can do, so if you find a bug kindly let me know in the discussion area how to reproduce it and I will fix it ASAP. Thanks!
Here's a full list of changes for this version:
- Added a boating lake, miniaturized all ships, and made them controllable when placed upon it!
- Changed SSN's propulsor model to more-accurately reflect what's publicly available.
- Added bow-spray to Iowa and Queen Mary.
- Reduced polygon count on Queen Mary, Iowa, and ABQAIQ.
- Changed propeller bubbles to better mimic cavitation patterns.
- Reduced flicker and improved shadows, but they are now disabled in "default" quality. (You'll need better than a GTX 970 to use them and maintain 90FPS.)
- Better reflections when viewing underwater.
- Improved numerous materials and textures.
- Reduced size of player collider and limited it to just the camera.
- SSN's hull now gets wet when immersed.
- Added stabilizers to Queen Mary that rotate to counteract roll.
- Made Iowa's radar rotate.
- Adjusted buoyancy of ships to react faster to wave changes.(Works better with larger waves now.)
- Weather changes are now random outside of the six hourly "presets" for each ship.
- Compiled using IL2CPP runtime with Unity v2018.2.14f1.
Sneak Peek: Upcoming Feature
Steam Trading Cards!
I didn't particularly care for Steam's Trading Cards until playing-around with them this weekend. Turns out they're kind of fun!
So, I just had to make some for both volumes of Magnificent Ships!
I'm happy to report that they are now live on Steam! Enjoy!
Added Oculus & Touch Support!
Oculus and Touch are now fully supported (via SteamVR)!
Here's the full list of changes:
- Added Oculus and Touch support.
- Improved galleon model, added mermaid crest to stern, better cloth sails.
- USS Iowa's deck and radar now properly match her World War 2 configuration.
- Slowed USS Iowa turret rotation before and after firing.
- Reduced player momentum when stopping using only one controller.
- Fixed a few geometry and texture details.
- Reduced installation size and loading speed by crunching textures and compressing objects.
- Enabled global fog on the horizon.
Apologies for the delay; real life has a way of interfering with one's hobbies. I'm still hoping to finish the "top secret super cool feature", but am unable to provide an ETA as my financial situation is currently in flux. However, this release brings the code-base between Volumes 1 & 2 into parity, so the feature should be relatively straightforward to add to both at the same time, thereby reducing my workload a fair amount.
Coming Soon: Oculus Touch support and more...
Also, check-out The Mermaid's new billowy sails and improved shader! (Note the shadows and light illuminating the backside of the cloth.)
Update v1.2
- Switched to improved lighting model and shaders.
- Increased time-of-day change-rate.
- Improved buoyancy realism.
- Smoothed controller input; no more shaky hands while holding ships!
- Fixed issue where rotating camera via mouse wasn't aligned properly to the headset.
- Updated code to match MS:V2.
- Better ocean sounds.
- Iowa's radar corrected to match WW2 configuration.
- Increased detail of Iowa's Bofors guns.
- Adjusted smoothing normals on some Zumwalt features.
- ABQAIQ's bow-thrusters no longer obscured.
- The Mermaid's mesh is now much less blocky.
- Desktop mirror fades in/out when headset does.
- Added Oculus audio spatializer.
- Fixed issue with some edges not drawing correctly underwater.
- Camera shake from gunfire now decreases with distance.
- Ships now always appear in front of camera when changing ships.
- Added some missing colliders to QM.
- Added splash-screen while loading.
Celebration Sale!
V2 should be out in the next week or two, with some of its engine improvements being rolled-into a V1-patch soon thereafter.
Happy Spring everybody!