Release Raptor:Pre-Early-Access Release Notes

Pre-EA Demo 9

(This isn't done yet, we're still working on it.)

• Paper box light can now be destroyed by the raptor.
  • Same with Small Shelf Trio
  • And floor chalkboard
  • And all the end-tables, tv table, and coffee tables (except the low one that wouldn't make sense).

• All of the wall paintings now use the sort of chip-away logic that glass does, which is super fun.

• Fixed a number of things that were not able to sit flush with the floor, and added code that should prevent it in the future:
  • Shower Glass Nice
  • Kitchen Chair Elegant
  • Kitchen Chair Elegant 2
  • Kitchen Set Granite (all four)
  • Oven
  • Metal Folding Chair
  • Pantry Fake Door
  • Stool Modern
  • Tacky Cheap Kitchen Chair
  • Tall Counter Chair
  • Computer Chair Ribbed

• Same deal with some props:
  • Toilet Paper
  • Book
  • All three closet props
  • Condiment Shaker
  • Squeeze Condiment
  • Plastic Cup
  • Chalk

• A variety of improvements to the object vetting automated process to find new kinds of issues.

• The vetting process now finds and fixes non-convex mesh colliders.
  • A variety of objects now have had this fixed -- something on the order of 5.

Hotfix

(Released July 26th, 2016)

NOTE: This version goes ahead and catches up the osx and linux builds even though there's not new gameplay content for them yet. It's an additional 700MB of download per platform since they were last updated, so it's good to go ahead and get that prepped.

• Fixed a bug that was causing all of the non-half-meter scale objects to be offset some relative to the half-meter object. Because Chris can't even -- he can only odd, apparently. Note to self that modulus 2 == 0 means EVEN, not odd. This is not exactly news, but it's the sort of boolean inversion that leads to some really strange results. And now all the levels are offset by an extra 0.25 for all the 0.5m objects, meaning that I had to correct for that in the other grid scales by just adding 0.25 to each of them and then whatever else they may or may not need (based on mod 2 != 0, in those, grr).
  • So the TLDR is that an older math mistake caused newer good math to act funny, so now there are compensation values in there to fix that. It will offset most of the furniture slightly in a wrong way, though, unfortunately. >:(

• Now fixing prop scales...
  • 90%
    • Mirror Standing Small
    • Toilet Paper 3
  • 80%:
    • TV Dinner Tray
    • 6 Corn Flakes
    • 2 pizza boxes
    • Sugar Bags
    • tea box
    • 2 dinner plates
    • kettle
    • knife steak
    • Computer Tower 2
  • 70%:
    • Coffee Machine
    • dish soap
    • paper towels
    • Toaster
    • Trash Can (Kitchen)
    • shovel
    • Umbrella Closed
    • Flower Pot
    • most of the sports equipment
    • Curtain Single (except x axis was left alone)
    • Briefcase
  • 60%:
    • Deoderant 2
    • Hand Towel Rack
    • Towel Rack 3
    • Journal Book (also rotated, sorry)
    • 2 dog bowls
    • Plastic Cup
    • Water Cooler
    • Abacus
    • Computer Monitor
    • Computer Tower
    • Eraser
  • 50%:
    • Hand Soap 2
    • Toilet Paper 2 (also rotated, sorry)
    • 25 books and book sets
    • 3 chinese takeout
    • 3 coffee
    • tray
    • Giant Traditional Wall Clock
    • the soccer and volley balls
    • Breaker Box (Home - Disable Lights)
    • power outlet and light switch
    • pen
    • Pen And Books
  • 40%:
    • Lotion
    • All the tapered bottles.
    • rolled hand towel.
    • plunger
    • Nightlight
    • teddy bear
    • Flashlight
    • Trophy
  • 25%:
    • globe

• Props removed:
  • Broom (push) and broomstick. (proportions were just too wrong)
  • Coffe Cup Empty and Coffe Cup Filled (quality just too low)
  • Cookie Jar (quality just too low)
  • Fork 2 (quality low)
  • Knife (quality low)
  • Spoon (quality low)
  • Teacups Tray (quality low)
  • Tray Plastic 1 and 2 (quality low)

• Props rearranged:
  • TV dinner tray moved to entertainment, and the otherwise-empty living room category removed.
  • Dog food bowls moved to food, and pets category removed.
  • Large brown vase and umbrella moved to misc category, and vases and halls categories removed.
  • Giant Traditional Wall Clock moved to misc category, and wall clocks category removed.
  • Pillows moved to misc, and the pillows category removed.
  • Flashlight and shovel moved to misc, and the hardware category removed.

• Other prop changes:
  • Computer Monitor 2-4 and Laptop rotated so you can see their screen in the previews.

• Fixed issues with shelf wall (thick wood) 1 and 2 being affected by gravity rather than anchored to the wall. Facepalm.

• Fixed Shelf Coat Hangars not being destructible.

Hotfix

(Released July 26th, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• The scale of many of the new things had to be corrected:
  • 135% of before:
    • Computer Desk (this one also is rotated, sorry)
    • Computer Desk L 2 (this one also is rotated, sorry)
  • 120% of before:
    • Bathtub (argh it was too small since the start).
    • Kitchen Set Granite Cabinet Left (this one also is rotated, sorry)
    • Kitchen Set Granite Cabinet Right (this one also is rotated, sorry)
    • Kitchen Set Granite Cabinet Middle (rotated AND made wider compared to before!)
  • 110% of before:
    • Tacky Cheap Kitchen Chair
  • 94% of before:
    • Shower Glass Nice (except this was also made taller)
  • 90% of before:
    • Metal Folding Chair
    • Endtable Glass
    • Writing Desk
    • Writing Desk 2
  • 80% of before:
    • Wall Sink Cheap
    • Dresser And Shelf (Kids)
    • Wardrobe Empty 1
    • Wardrobe Empty 2
    • Dinner Table Simple Wood
    • Tall Counter Chair
    • Stool Modern
    • Computer Desk L
    • Work Desk
  • 70% of before:
    • Bathroom Counter Granite
    • Bunk Beds
    • Toilet 2
    • Mirror Standing
    • Bench Leather
    • Corner Shelving
    • Kitchen Chair Elegant
    • Kitchen Chair Elegant 2
    • Refrigerator
    • Pantry Fake Door
    • Table Small Square
    • Couch Four Seater
    • Couch Loveseat
    • Couch Single Seater
    • End Table Round Wood
    • Endtable Elegant
    • Endtable Elegant 2
    • Footrest
    • Footrest 2
    • Large Cushion Chair
    • Modern Round Armchair
    • Chalkboard (Floor)
    • Shelf Coat Hangars
  • 60% of before:
    • Wall Cabinet Bathroom (this one also is rotated, sorry)
    • Bed King Size
    • Nightstand Elegant
    • Nightstand Tapered
    • Coffee Table Nice Wood
  • 54% of before:
    • Bed Single 2
  • 50% of before:
    • Shelf Wall (Thick Wood)
  • 44% of before:
    • Shelf Wall (Thick Wood) 2

• Things removed for quality reasons:
  • Kitchen Counter Island (dimension ratios were just too wrong)
  • Kitchen Counter Set (dimension ratios were just too wrong)
  • Kitchen Counter Set 2 (dimension ratios were just too wrong)

• Things just rotated only:
  • Oven
  • Refrigerator Cheap

Interim Content Batch

(Released July 26th, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• Fixed an issue in the past couple of versions where if you were using objects with a scale defined for them that was not 0.5m, and they had an odd number of tiles high, wide, or deep, then they would be offset a bit strangely and thus either clip into walls/floors or hover above them.
  • It's possible that a few of them were working okay and are now offset strangely in levels. The new way is still better, but they'll just have to have their positions tweaked in the levels.

• New props:
  • 17 food
  • 20 study
  • 13 kitchen
  • 3 bathroom
  • 3 magazines (in books section -- easter eggs here!)
  • 1 cleaning
  • 2 entertainment
  • 3 misc
  • 1 picture
  • 4 potted plants

• The enemies section of the level editor palette has been removed. There won't be direct enemy placement (for the most part), and what there is will be under the Meta section in the (near) future.

• New furniture:
  • Much better glass shower -- use this!
  • third toilet variant
  • cheap wall sink (for use in public bathrooms mainly?)
  • cheap fridge
  • kitchen set granite counters and sink
  • office style kitchen table
  • oven
  • armchair
  • 2 coffee tables
  • end table
  • 2 couches
  • 2 tv stands
  • 2 computer desks
  • small shelf trio

• Other new stuff:
  • Two new rugs.
  • One new ceiling panel that passively glows using emissive textures, and thus does not incur full lighting costs. Cheap on the GPU!
  • 13 new pictures and photos for walls.
  • 1 new task board for the study

Hotfix

(Released July 25th, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• Because of some of the code changes to allow for better handling of prefabs with children that needed changes, some of the prefab links in the editor were cleared. Fortunately this is just the sort of thing our indirect approach to prefabs is meant to be able to recover from. Unfortunately the vetting code was not properly detecting this specific error case previously, so it was letting us release in a buggy state in the editor. Fortunately that is no longer the case and all is linked back up properly.

Interim Content Batch

(Released July 25th, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• The game now handles blank (abandoned) level-piece files properly, so that we can rename files and leave empty ones in their wake without causing issues on the client side.

• Re-textured some crates that were from the industrial level kit after seeing them in a horrible Greenlight game and getting rather sick by association... :(

• A _ton_ of improvements have been made to Chris's internal tools for making objects for the level editor. A lot of repetitive mind-numbing actions are now condensed down to a single button-press, which is a big help for his sanity and stamina.

• Four new floor-based worklights have been added to the game, giving some options that are industrial as WELL as some options that are contextually able to be used pretty much anywhere, really.

• All of the existing floor, ceiling, and wall lamps can now be moved on a 0.25m grid rather than being stuck to 0.5m. This does not affect their existing positions.

• All of the table lamps are now more precisely sized, and can be moved on a 0.1m grid. Because of the size changes here, these ones will be offset slightly wrong in any places they were used.

• The edge columns can now be moved on a 0.25m grid, which allows a variety of interesting new options for these pieces. This does not affect their existing positions.

• Most other objects are now able to be placed on a bit better of grids, unless they are very large. It's varied based on the nature of the object so that there is a good mixture of flexibility.

• "Circular White Floor Lamp" shadows should now be much better.

• 6 new wall paintings, all from Stars Beyond Reach, have been added under General Props, Pictures. :)

• A new orchid potted plant has been added to the general props category.

• Fixed some issues with object-vetting into children that was not working entirely properly in the internal level editor palettes.

• Fixed a ton of objects that were excessive in their rigidbody heaviness on the CPU, and/or excessive with colliders. An easier way for fracturing is in place that doesn't require that!

• There is a new Cheap Bench piece of hallway furniture with a few skins.

• New furniture:
  • Shelving Cubes
  • Shelf Wall Mount
  • Coffee Table Four Split
  • Computer Chair Ribbed
  • Computer Chair Captain's
  • Desk Cheap U
  • Nightstand Cheap O
  • Sofa
  • Toilet
  • Towel Rack (two variants)
  • Wardrobes (four variants)

• Old props removed:
  • Towel Pile (felt odd with them moving as one)

• New props:
  • 24 different books, book groups, open books, etc.
  • 4 new bathroom objects
  • 2 new bedroom objects
  • 4 new cleaning objects
  • 2 new entertainment objects
  • 6 new food objects
  • 1 new halls object
  • 1 new hardware object
  • 1 new kids object
  • 1 new living room object
  • 1 new potted plant object
  • 3 new misc objects
  • 2 new pillows objects
  • 9 new sports objects
  • 9 new study objects
  • 13 new kitchen objects
  • 3 new cardboard boxes (these went to industrial crates, but all the others are in general)

• New furniture:
  • 3 single wall-shelves.
  • 3 bathroom items
  • 9 bedroom items
  • 1 hall item
  • 5 office items
  • 12 living room items
  • 13 kitchen items

• New props:
  • 2 kitchen
  • 7 bathroom
  • 2 rugs
  • 1 hardware
  • 4 pictures
  • 1 kids
  • 1 study
  • 4 structural
  • 2 entertainment

Hotfix

(Released July 24th, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• Re-eanbled unity's camera occlusion culling system, since it no longer conflicts with our own. Much savings on the GPU was had.

• There are now three distinct brick-tile-style coordinate systems in the level editor, depending on the scale of objects.
  • Most of them still use the half-meter scale that we've used up until now, but some smaller objects will be moving to quarter-meter or tenth-meter grid scales instead so that they can be placed more precisely.
  • Basically this gives us the best of both worlds: most bigger things can still be placed with larger-scale snapping precision as the goal, whereas small objects can be placed with a non-griddy-feeling type of micro-precision instead.

• Decals have been removed from the level editor. There was only one thus far anyway, which was a vent. It didn't look as good as we wanted, and had issues clipping into walls anyway. Much better ventilation ducts are coming anyway, so this was redundant.

• Put in some error handling to prevent potential problems that mysteriously could happen in the editor. These aren't actually a fix, but it should prevent whatever the problem is with this from borking the rest of the program.

• Absolutely ravaged the internals of the level editor selection logic and adjustment logic to allow for the multiple tile scales. You can only modify the position of groups of objects with the same grid scale now (which makes a fair bit of sense, because otherwise things go flying around in pretty unpredictable fashions.

• Adjusted the brick box bounding scales on some of the smaller objects. This gives them the ability to rotate more precisely, but it also means that they are now going to be misaligned in levels they were already placed in. Usually not by a huge amount (a half a foot at most), and in most cases probably it is nice to place those more precisely now anyhow. This pretty much applies to things like the new cardboard boxes.

• Fixed a longstanding bug in the editor where the undo function actually was broken for translation (move) operations!

Interim Content Batch

(Released July 23rd, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• A new "Industrial Props" set added for the level editor, with 27 objects in it so far.
  • These props are all from the two existing demo levels so far, although these are the only 27 we'll pull into the pre-EA general industrial set, most likely. A lot of the others are too overtly sci-fi for general industrial, and instead need to go in more specific sets for future levels.

• 3 different EU-style exit signs have been added to the object palette under industrial.

• 10 different fire-safety wall-mounted objects have been added.
  • One of them is a fire switch, which later if it gets broken will alert robots in the vicinity and let out an alarm. Not yet, though!

• 3 floor fire-safety objects have been added.
  • These various fire-safety and signs objects are in the industrial section, but really they have applicability in tons of human environments.

• 8 various dark green utility lockers have been added.

• Added three small barriers that you can kick around (traffic cone, slippery when wet, etc). Always lots of fun. :)

• 25 new warning signs of various sorts have been added to the industrial props.

• Added a new ventilation system decal from the lab demo. Decals basically sit against walls and look like something they are not. ;)

• Added 17 new little crates and boxes that are mostly cardboard, wood, and plastic, with some specific utility styles. These are mostly props to go on shelves, not the floor.

• Four new utility plywood shelving pieces have been added. Note that if you place props above a shelf in the level editor, they will fall down onto the shelf properly at runtime. With this level of tile grid, things won't line up perfectly, and that's okay.

• Five new animated fans have been added to the game, each with both a light (from shining outside) variant and a dark variant.
  • These are in the industrial section.

Interim Content Batch

(Released July 22nd, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• Fixed an editor exception that could apparently happen after deleting objects and then trying to T-select them.

• Fixed an exception that was being thrown in the prior version of the game when you clicked the save button in the editor. Since a lot of us use Ctrl+S instead, we hadn't caught that...

• Put in code to help find malformed skin data for objects in the editor, and to also prevent those from crashing things during a save.

• Added a new very large-scale chandelier for huge spaces.
  • This is now used in Brandon's first corridor, since it fits the space better than the fluorescent lights, and can be used in half the numbers and thus avoids causing the extreme slowdown -- while still looking really cool!

• Really substantial improvements to how compound objects can fracture, making much more satisfying results there and with less setup work required.

• All in all added 12 new chandeliers, with 2 variants each of 6 types (a super bright and large version for huge spaces, and a smaller version for smaller spaces). Credit to 10th Planet for awesome assets.
  • All of the huge variants do NOT cast shadows, by the way, so will cut through walls if present. Done in the name of efficiency on the GPU, so these really are only for large spaces. The smaller versions are plenty bright for anywhere else, and are much less heavy, and use shadows.

• Added seven distinctive new floor lamps to the game, in a new floor lamps category. Lighting possibilities is getting so much more varied tonight!

• A new warm set of wall lamps that are a different kind of decorative have been added.

• 10 new industrial lights have been added.
  • Two of them are colored warning lamps, one for the ceiling and one for the wall. These have a number of options, different between the two.
  • Three of them are bright white wall lights of various distances and shapes.
  • Four of them are hanging industrial chandelier type lights with different colors and ranges like the other chandeliers are.
  • And then there's one on the wall that is a kind of industrial brownish light for dim accent areas.

• Another 22 lamps have been added to the game. These are mostly modern in style, and there is a mixture of wall, ceiling, floor, and table amongst them.

Hotfix

(Released July 22nd, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• Fixed another bug in the prior version that was putting the save textbox in the save as menu partially under the save button. Sigh. ;)

• Fixed a bug where the code for duplicating an object that did not have a skin explicitly chosen was throwing an error in the last two versions.

• Fixed an issue where the interior slashed walls were not matching up to other walls positionally.

• If you try to R-click or Shift+R-click something that doesn't use skins, previously it was selecting a TON of extra stuff. Now it selects by type instead.

• Fixed an issue where R-clicking objects without a skin set (aside from the default) would cause them to select way too many things.

• Fixed up the paper box light, which was incredibly too bright before.

• You can now see the name of the skin of single objects you have selected, or of all the objects you have selected if they all share a skin. Note that un-set skins don't show.

• The editor no longer shows the messages when autosaves are happening. They are so frequent as to be distracting, as well as being unclear when actual saves have happened.

• The editor now makes a lot better efforts to be SURE your content is saved before you go into the testing mode.

• Fixed an issue where skins from duplicated objects were not saving properly.

• Added the first apartment by Craig!

• 21 new "rocky concrete rubble" objects have been added inside of a new Debris palette.
  • For information about how to use the rubble: https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Release_Raptor:Level_Editor_Basics#Rubble.2FDebris_Is_Misaligned_On_The_Tile_Grid.21

Hotfix

(Released July 22nd, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since it only has benefits for the level editor crowd, and they are all presently on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version.

• Fixed a bug that could cause an exception to pop up at random times when switching between the editor and the playtest mode.
  • Actually, two.

• Updated Amplify Color.

• Updated the in-editor highlighting of objects to be a bit less harsh.

• Fixed a bug where the save as menu was not providing a place to actually type a name!

• Fixed a bug where the door textures were sliding across them as they moved.

• Stairs now reach properly to the top of the next floor, and now fit in 2'5 spaces, which they did not before. This will likely mess with existing levels a bit, since now the number of tiles in these is smaller (5 wide instead of 6). Sorry about that -- seemed like the least-destructive thing to do overall, in the end, still.

• Fixed the head of the double beds not being properly aligned to the top of their tile cells, meaning they would either be distant from the wall or clip into it. Most likely existing beds are placed wrong and need to be adjusted.
  • Same deal with the single beds, actually.

• The bathroom counters have been adjusted in their tiles so that they are now naturally the right height above the floor if the tile bounds are placed at the bottom.

• The shower stalls are now properly aligned at their back left corner of their tile cell. Note that they will only line up against walls in that orientation, but they will properly line up when in that orientation.

• The intensity of the editor lights has been cut in half, so that they are no longer blinding on light-colored surfaces. They still help you see just fine.

• Fixed some very strange issues that could cause all sorts of UI issues in the level editor in the prior version.

Pre-EA Demo 8

(Released July 21st, 2016)

• Fixed a rare error that could happen during fracturing some objects.

• The way that the raptor reacts to obstacles when it gets near to them is now more physically accurate, which keeps it from the old version having issues going through small doors because the player was misaligned visually vs physics.

• Tons of new corridors and apartments from Blue, Brandon, and Misery.

Level Editor Updates

• The code for fixing the location of doors in the level editor is now back in place, so that it automatically jumps doors to the appropriate location relative to the occlusion bounds whenever you hit save. This helps folks find errors in their levels whenever they hit save, rather than it being something that is discovered much later.

• Whenever you hit playtest, it will DEFINITELY save your progress now. It is possible that in some edge cases it would not do so before.

• Now when you hit Quit, it will autosave your level to a new Autosaves folder instead of saving over the file you were actually working on. This way if you meant to exit without saving you CAN, but it also won't lose your progress just in case.

• Now when you hit New, it will first autosave your level to that same Autosaves folder. Before you could still hit Undo anyway (I think), but this is more cautious in approach.

• The editor now autosaves you work every 1 minute to that same Autosaves folder, so that even if you've never saved your level you can't completely lose it.

• The save and load file windows are now waaay taller in the level editor.

• There is now waaaay more room in the file editor save and load screen, and it's in two columns, etc.

• A variety of the lights in the level editor have had their levels adjusted to work more appropriately with the new lighting chain, and just in general.

• In the level editor, the raptor that is drawn is now easier to see in light or dark situations.

• In the level editor, the game is now vastly more effective at selecting objects during drag-select.

• The following new selection commands are available in the editor:
  • Hold T + click to select all objects of type.
  • Hold R + click to select all objects sharing skin.
  • Hold shift + R + click to select all objects sharing skin groups.

• Fixed an issue with Window X1 where the light box was slightly peeking through the mesh of the window wall.

• Substantially improved the underlying capabilities of skinning so that more skins can be available for multiple sets of objects, but with colorization and sub-listings for groups of sub-objects to keep them from being too complex to find anything in.
  • One thing this lets us do is remove the explicit rugs that are the same size and function as floors (as opposed to sitting on top of the floors), and wrap all of that up into one skins list. This allows for a bunch of things to happen that previously could not, such as having rugs with holes in them to other floors, etc. It also paves the way for a lot of other content in the near future, but keeping it organized.

• Fixed issues where blankets, pillows, and carpets/rugs sometimes had a slick plastic look, and where rugs in particular did not properly tile with themselves.

New Content

• A new "Wall Pole Double Light Bright" variant has been added, in order to make a version that is substantially brighter and use for in dark halls, versus one that is for use as accent lighting in better-lit apartments.

• There are 8 new "rust metals" available for usage on walls and floors.
  • The setup of these and some other stuff was made vastly easier by some new toolset stuff created internally for the Arcen Object Manager, incidentally.

• Five new "fine wood" options have been added for the floors.

• Brick and stone wall skin options have been added, and a tan rough carpet and wall style.

• A variety of concrete styles have been added, many of them based off of procedural substances that are baked.

More Revisions To Existing Lighting And Related

• Huuuuge numbers of changes to the lighting model once again, but this time mainly in the area of post-processing and ambient light. The end visual effect is pretty different once again, but again getting more refined -- and staying just as performant as the prior version.
  • This also no longer requires the light adaptiveness in dark areas, because that was feeling pretty strange in practice after a while.
  • This has taken pretty much all day, which was a huge pain in the rear. However, it was important to get this done so that the lights in the levels that we're doing can actually be done properly.

• The shader for the raptor is a new completely-custom one created in Shader Forge. This one uses a tiny bit of rim lighting, a generally-specular workflow, and leads to a look that looks good in a variety of kinds of light, although fairly wet in some of them (such is life -- this raptor is apparently pretty wet).

• The base diffuse texture for the raptor has been updated a fair bit to remove some of the unpleasant red highlights that were looking strange in a variety of color/lighting paths, including the new one. It also burns out some of the highlights along its top and back, which gives a better profile combined with the new shader.

• The settings option for disabling beautify is gone, as that is no longer used at all.

• The settings options for editing brightness and contrast are now gone. Instead you can now edit exposure and the "raptor light" brightness. You can also still edit the ambient light amount, which was added in the prior build.

Pre-EA Demo 7

(Released July 15th, 2016)

• There is a new settings option in the main graphics tab called "Ambient Light Boost." This is a much better form of brightness increase, although it's something that can be combined with the other sliders that were already there to get really specific effects for any given monitor.
  • For very high quality monitors with a high brightness range, the defaults give the richest view; for anything with more muted whites, it may seem overly dark, and thus cranking it up by 0.3 or so can get a similar effect to the intended default. Or you can crank it up a huge amount and play in a super bright and colorful game if that's what you want to do.

Lighting, Performance, And Stealth Overhaul

• All of the lights available in the map editor are now MUCH more efficient, and also put off a ton less light. A lot more emphasis is on subtle lighting visuals rather than true illumination of the scene, basically.

• F-stop from 11.89 to 2.57, and then other visual effects have been tuned to make better use of the more sensitive camera lens.

• The first of the stealth mechanics is now in place. It detects when you're in a relatively lit area, and if you are AND you're not currently being seen by a robot that is already aware of you, then a little icon will show that says hidden. While that icon is there, robots that have never been aware of you will not detect you.

• While you are in the middle of an attack, your hidden status goes away. This way you cannot keep yourself stealthy while attacking anything (attempted or actual).

• The ambient lighting is now reactive to light, getting less when you are near other light sources, and getting more so that you can see in areas that would otherwise be dim. This is a lot like your eyes adjusting to the light, and it lets us make a lot of the wall and ceiling lights into something that is more a mix of decorative and gameplay-based versus being responsible for all the illumination of the level.
  • The overall ambient lighting has been reduced since things are so much brighter in general now, and it only adjusts up when the players are in dark areas.

• The raptor's claw swipe now reaches higher, making it easier to hit ceiling lights (or enemies) with it. Before the timing was a bit unforgiving.

• The entire lab demo level has had its lighting completely reworked for the new lens style. The framerate has nearly doubled in many cases.

• All of the enemies have been re-lit, as have their bullets, to work with the new lens. It looks a lot cooler and also is yet again easier on the GPU.

• The industrial demo and all of its lights and effects have been reworked to function properly in the new lens.
  • A ton of lights were removed, because now they are not so required for actually being able to see, and they were a big CPU/GPU hog. The original author was using baked lightmaps that remove that inefficiency, but since we're doing procedural generation elsewhere in the game, in our test scenes (the demos) we've also avoided using baked lightmaps. Makes for a better test that way, and since the demo scenes don't fully work properly with our occlusion system (it works, just not as well as it could), that makes it a better "hopefully closer to worst-case" load scenario, which is also useful.
  • Overall the industrial demo looks a fair bit different now and has less than half as many lights, but the lights that are there are more dramatically used. The overall effect is a more varied progression of a level. The total gain from all the many related changes here is that Chris now gets 90-120FPS steadily whereas before it was 40-80.
  • Also note that in the VERY front hall the lights have been taken out so that you start in a hidden state. This helps to show off the new stealth bits, which is good to have out there right in front.

Level Editor Features And Content

• Ctrl+A now does a select-all in the level editor, so that you can quickly move the orientation of your entire level chunk if you need to. This way if your raptor test starting point is in the wrong location, you can move the level around it. Note that this has absolutely no effect on the actual in-game level chunk when it's being hooked up procedurally into a larger level. Which is good!

• The regular windows now cast shadows again, and so don't cut through walls. They also don't burn with the intensity of a small sun, which makes them not tank the framerate. ;)
  • A more efficient version of the superbright versions that Chris wanted for his hallway are also now in place, also use shadows, and are also vastly more performant than before.

• Fixed a bug in the previous version where you could not properly type in the filename box in the save level window in the level editor.

• The sticking-out white parts of the windows (the lit part) now count as part of the occluder bounds. This prevents them from clipping into other level chunks when procedurally combined.
  • Bear in mind that this _strictly_ enforces the aesthetic rule about not having windows and doors in the same wall. ;)

• The level editor now supports a new function that turns on and off ceilings (and ceiling lights) so that you can edit as if they were not there if you care to do that.

• The editor lights are no longer so blinding when they are on, and the lighting is now fully accurate when they are off (before the ambient light was a bit too high).

• Cornerboards have been added as a new type of wall. You position these at the center of a wall intersection where clipping is otherwise happening -- or where there is light bleed. These block either, and you can select a color for these that nicely accents all of the sides that it sticks through (it is intentionally visible on all sides of the wall). Black often works great!

• The level editor now prevents rotations on invalid axes for doors, to keep them from being placed in wrong ways as easily.

• Wall segments with two door holes in them have been added, joining the wall segments with a door hole just on the left or right.

• Fixed a bug where the gray wallpaper texture was drawing itself in local uv-free space and thus blinking around crazily. Now it is properly set to world coordinate space!

• Nine new apartments from Blue have been added!

• The buttons at the top of the level editor have been rearranged a bit so that the name of the level has a ton more room to display.

• There is now a home furniture section of the level editor which is having the start of the furniture that will be available. Right now it has a bathroom counter, a bathtub, a shower stall, single and double beds, and and L-shaped sofa. There are many skins for each of them.

• The editor now is more sensitive to your dragging motions, making it easier to detail-place objects.

• There is now a slashed wall that you can use inside level chunks to make openings where otherwise there should not be.

• A new single-story staircase has been added, allowing for multi-story apartments.

• At some point scrolling in the load and save windows broke, and is being a real pain to fix. For now it allows for "unrestricted" scrolling that lets you go well beyond the content up or down, but you also have to use the mouse wheel to operate it since the scrollbars were messed up. Will fix in a future version. This at least functions (unless you have no mouse wheel).

Hotfix

(July 13th, 2016)

• Vastly more efficient window lights and sconce wall lights, but a different effect that those have as well visually. This more than doubles the framerate on the corridor by Chris, and reduces draw calls (cached or otherwise) 10x.

• Found a big bunch of uncompressed textures used in the new apartment scenes that were eating up tons of memory bandwidth. Properly compressed them for no quality loss and a dramatic (100x in some cases) drop in GPU bandwidth usage. Good for about 10fps on a really nice rig, and probably a lot more on lower end ones.

• Actually remembered to include the levels parts from Blue and Chris this time!

Pre-EA Demo 6

(Released July 13th, 2016)

• The level editor now has a little dropdown on the right-hand side of the screen that lets you choose skins for specific selected objects.
  • Objects must share the same type of skin for you to be able to multi-edit them, but the objects don't have to be the same type. Aka you can set wall styles on a bunch of different types of walls, but it's highly unlikely you can select a wall and a light and have them share the same skin. ;)
  • Tip: when choosing a skin, the easiest way to tell what the result looks like without selecting and deselecting objects over and over again is to hit Q to go into look mode, which hides all selection highlights. HUGE timesaver!

• Windows now have proper backgrounds rather than being hollow, and act as a light source.

• The lists in the level editor were often not sorted properly, making things quite hard to find in many cases. Fixed.

• Blue's awesome new ceiling and floor holes are now in place instead of Chris's cruddier ones.

• Two new tiny walls (one unit high), and some tiny stairs that are able to go up to them, have been added. These allow for some multi-level parts in rooms.

• Added a new interior buffet window wall, which is well big enough for the raptor to jump though. :)
  • The test apartment from Chris shows off these various new features.

• Six new edge-oriented columns have been added for the purposes of large spaces like the apartment corridors. These are being used in an example context now in Chris's corridor.

Pre-EA Demo 5

(Released July 13th, 2016)

• Fixed a rather horrendous bug in an interim windows build that went live last night. The spiders were self-colliding with their own guns and jittering up out of the level and so forth. In the process of fixing this, their physics were made more efficient, so it's not all bad at least!

• In the third person, swiping the enemy shots now sends them on a reflected arc again, rather than doing the first-person-style aiming. That was causing a LOT of problems for players in the third person who were zoomed back and playing in certain angles.

• Taking multiple hits within 0.9 seconds no longer counts as more than one hit. This way things like the red spiderbot are more likely to make you take a hit, but don't make you take like 12 hits when they get you at close range.

• Fixed an oversight where the GPU-heavy Cinematic Temporal Antialiasing was not properly being turned all the way off when it was disabled. This should help a bit with lower-performance graphics cards.

• Fixed an issue in some recent version (maybe just the last one?) where in the third person view the raptor being in front of the camera too close was triggering the depth of field effect. Yikes!

• Made a number of substantial performance optimizations in various scripts.

• Improved the accuracy of the occlusion system at long distances (doubles the number of raycasts, but in profiling these were a tiny tiny fraction of the performance of each frame anyhow.

Release Raptor Main Page