This update contains features and changes that have major impact on the final product. This update includes internal game engine changes,major bug fixes, small quality of life touches, new or temporary game assets, UI control changes and other improvements that increase product quality.
And that's not all... Engine 618 Summer Texture Splash Update contains a few visual hints of things to come even though the current playable map is mostly empty.
Game Features, Additions and Changes -------------------------------------------- *Major Revisions to base building. *Build Mode Object placement improved drastically. *Added: Buildable Small Hut / Hab. *Added: Buildable Doorway Wall. *Added: Buildable Thin Wall 4x3h *Added: Buildable Thin Roof 4x4 *Added: Buildable Thin Door 4x3h *Added: Buildable Research Desk *Added: Many Placeholder Assets. Such as, Hydro Tank, Furnace, and Research Desk.
*When using Build mode, press UP or DOWN for texture selection. *Base Floor construction placement improved. *Floor Placement favors Terrain Height+1 before player location. *Construction mode Object Placement improved.
UIX Control Changes: -------------------------- Press T for Tools and Technology Crafting: Press V for Vehicle Construction: Press B for Base Building: Press M to place Map Objects.
Vehicles: *Scout Vehicle mesh revised to suggest a more functional scout theme. *Scout Vehicle parts positioned and revised to appear more sturdy. *Wheeled Vehicles do NOT have spinning wheels.(Not yet Implemented) *Wheeled Vehicles currently function just like hover vehicles
Engine Features and Changes ------------------------------- *Small adjustments to Sphere Frustum Culling. *Frequent Mouse Cursor Status polling removed. *Mouse Cursor Visibility toggle has been improved drastically and previous annoyances were caused by poor status tracking of ShowCursor calls. *Mouse Cursor toggle is now listed among runtime stats. *Maximum Scene Objects increased to 300(Hard Coded limit for now) *Revisions to how rotation is defined internally.(Quaternion stuff) *Object rotation may not work correctly on all objects.(dev stuff) *OpenGL Window Creation adjusted and improved. *Font loading now occurs before intro startup. * Text Messages can now appear during intro.
Major Bug fixes ----------------- *Bug in Pixel format selecting and OpenGL window creation code may have cause severe performance issues or prevented the game from starting on some systems. *Bug in rarely used Mouse Cursor info poll function may have caused crashes. The troubled method for Mouse Cursor info was removed completely.
Serious bugfix for Update v0.0.3.9
This is a serious patch for a nasty bug lurking in Shader Error Logging for the core rendering system. This bug was discovered while testing with AMD Firepro W5000 2gb workstation card.
Changes: ----------
Shader Errors should appear in the top left console stats area. This will allow supporters and developers to better track problems.
Shader Errors errors also save to a GAME_ERROR_LOG.txt in the the medusa frontier install directory.
Update V 0.0.3.9 The 4x Bigger Map
Update V 0.0.3.9 ------------------- Now that hover vehicles are working, a bigger map makes them fun and useful. This patch increases the size of the current world map making it 4x bigger, thus making the explorable game world 4k units in size. Previous explorable game area was only 1k mostly for development purposes and vehicle travel was expected to impact the balance of world size vs visual quality and activity.
Changes & Fixes ____________ Explorable Game Map now extends to 4096 world units. It's a lot of open desert. Player Spawns at 2030, 2030. Hover Vehicle "jitter" reduced. RGB Crystals near spawn point cannot be harvested. Terrain Chunk Frustum Culling is more aggressive during mouse input.
Basic Hover Craft flight control has been implemented.
Press E near a vehicle to enter and exit the vehicle.
Hover vehicles will slowly rise off the ground.
Hover Vehicles acceleration is now implemented.
Hover vechicle movement is bound to WASD keys and mouse x axis.
A potential bug was found in the core gameloop and corrected.
Update v0.0.3.7 Dune Buggy Update.
Update Version 0.0.3.7 --------------------------- TOdays update features improved OpenGL error checking & the first vehicle with wheels. The new Prototype Dune Buggy will function as a development asset and functional game asset that plays a critical role in core gamplay. (Wheels do NOT currently animate when driving the dune buggy)
Changes. --------------------------------- Added New Vehicle Mesh: Prototype Dune Buggy. Dune Buggy is the base prototype for all wheeled vehicles.
Bugfix and improvements. ------------------------------- Added more OpenGL Error checking during render time. Bugfix: Removed several redundant or unneeded OPENGL calls. Bugfix: Removed a lingering Legacy OpenGL call that may have hurt performance. Bugfix: Removed a few excess per object draw calls that may not work well
Update Version 0.0.3.6
Update Version 0.0.3.6
------------------------------------ It has been nearly a month since the Engine 512 update and development continues. Most of last weeks effort on art production was not very fruitful but several nice art production ideas have come from the effort.
--------------------------------------------------------- This was actually implemented in yesterdays patch. Drive vehicles by simply Pressing E near a pilot window to Enter and Exit the vehicle. Pressing R still allows players to Auto-Run while walking or in a vehicle.
------------------------------------------------------------ Major Bug Fix: Excess per frame calls for Harvesting and GLReadPixel removed. ------------------------------------------------------------- This bug may have caused various performance issues and game crashes. Since Construction mode and harvesting requires World Space interaction, a pixel depth needs to be fetched in order to calculate a world location. In some cases, the glReadPixel may have caused instability and performance issues. --------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------- Performance Feature Update: Live Object Culling is reactivated --------------------------------------------------------- Live object culling has been restored and culling stats are visible. Object Culling is observable on some objects for development and demonstration. Frustum Culling of Base Floors can be observed when floors are very close to being completely off the left or right edge of the screen. Observable Frustum Culling is intended to be observable during development. Object culling will remain observable until instanced rending is implemented.
Terrain Culling Stats are also listed with the new culling stat information.
--------------------------------------------------------- Internal Featuress --------------------------------------------------------- Update: GLM Math Library in use. A few features from GLM math library will be used during a code clean up phase. Copyright info relating to the MIT license of GLM can be found in the game folder.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harvest Meter should appear at the top center of the screen when harvesting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Start up logo splash screen will no longer attempt to cover the whole screen. The intro logo screens will use power of 2 textures intended to make game engine Initialization and intro screens more stable. ---------------------
Gold Hover temporarily changed to Settler Cargo Hover.
HP, Stamina, and Hydro Meters restored to active.
Gather & Harvest speed set to 1 per second.
Two Harvests per second are possible by holding F & Left Click.
Object and Gathering Radius increased in First Person mode.
Various GL shader adjustments for stability and quality.
Buildable Thick Walls removed and replaced by Test Shelter.
Small update: A few textures.
5_22 update contains a few texture changes. No game code was changed in this build or patch. This patch only contains a few small changes in the texture pak.
Blue Sky Update v 0.0.2.95
Update Version 0.0.2.95 ---------------------------
Changes. Art assets & Textures.
Environment Sky has been brightened to Earth like blue sky
Basic Character starter suit changed to mostly solid Orange.
Basic character suit has metallic pieces. Backpack, supply belt, Visor, etc.
Character Feet changed to Low polygon boots. Currently untextured.
Utility Hover Vehicle now has experimental PBR textures.
Hover Craft height adjusted to reduce clipping with terrain.
Red, Green and Blure resource objects have better metallic textures.
Rendering Engine & Shaders
Cubic Environment Mapping Removed.
Simplified PBR "like" materials have been improved.
Metallic textures and materials have been improved.
Modified Sphere Harmonic lighting has replaced N dot L light.
Sphere Harmonics are now the dominant lighting solution.
Texture Pak data returned to gtexture directory.
Update v0.0.2.70 : Engine 512 update.
Patch Notes: Update v0.0.2.70
Development continues as art direction and art quality is being refined while internal engine features have been improved to increase quality, productivity, compatibility and performance.
Due to the internal rendering engine changes that allow better production and quality, this is considered a significant patch and the update is nicknamed the Engine 512 update because most textures are currently 512x512 and todays date is 5-12.
Engine 512 Update. ------------------- Primary render method now uses Texture Arrays. All Normal maps have been removed. Normal Map detail is approximated using diffuse. Gtexture directory removed. Texture data is now a single data file for swift loading. Nearly all textures used are 512x512. Metallic Materials now have slightly better reflective property or "metalness". Cubic Environment Mapping is currently active.
Art Changes ------- Speeder Hovercraft : ReDesigned as a 1 engine utility craft. Striker Hovercraft : ReDesigned as a 2 engine striker craft.
Test Texture platforms can be found near 0,0 map corner. Texture Test floors are for development testing and troubleshooting. Test Texture floors can be deleted using Shift+Left Click.
