Release Raptor:Pre-Early-Access Release Notes

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Release Raptor:Early Access Release Notes

Pre-EA Demo 13a Hotfix

(Released August 24th, 2016)

• Our fix to the screenshot quality issue that existed two versions back was to use SMAA. That in turn created a ton of excessive RAM usage it turned out, though, and also an incredible lag when switching between first and third person.
  • This was surprising, given that we were only using SMAA during actual screenshots, but it apparently does not turn off well. So we've wound up removing it entirely, unfortunately.

• KEY POINT: We're having to update the system requirements to include a provision for 64bit, though, because we've been pushing up against the edge of that limit for a while now, and that's only going to become more of a thing as we add more to the game. I thought we might be able to get away with keeping a 32bit version of the game, but that looks like not the case. Thus updating this prior to us actually selling it seemed rather wise, heh.
  • Based on the Steam hardware survey, this looks like it will impact appreciably 0% of linux and OSX users, and about 10% of windows users. That said, for most of the impacted windows users there is a good chance that they would not meet the other system requirements anyhow, so hopefully this doesn't have a true impact on anyone.
  • That said, if this is preventing you from playing the game, I sincerely apologize. There's a good reason we did this BEFORE we started selling it -- just in case.

Pre-EA Demo 13

(Released August 23rd, 2016)

• Suppressor turrets are now able to fire at you a half second after noticing you, rather than a second and a half after.
  • Aggressor turrets have also had their time reduced, down to only 1, as they are a lot more dangerous but were still too easy to run full-frontal on.
  • Thanks to Misery for inspiring these changes.

• The game now properly logs "checkpoints" of sorts as you go through doors for the first time. When you fall in a pit you go back to the last one you visited rather than the start of the level.

• Fixed a longstanding issue where if an enemy had their weapon right up against an obstacle, they could shoot through that obstacle.
  • Thanks to Misery for reporting the latest case.

• Built-in unity shadows have now been disabled in the game. These were just too huge of a performance hit for too many people, and the visual difference was pretty negligible.
  • Having these removed lets us optimize around the other path anyhow, and so some things like volumetric lights now work properly without shadows, whereas they did not before. So some of the shift in quality that was there before has actually gone away now.
  • This even lets us make our frustrum culling more efficient!
  • The funny thing is it still looks like there are shadows in many cases -- to the general eye, that's what it is, frankly. But it's using ambient occlusion, not shadow maps. Even I was surprised and thought the shadows were still on for a second at one bit.
  • That said, we may have some new light bleed problems, and if that's the case we'll need to resolve those on a case by case basis, which is going to be more time-consuming than we have time to deal with right now unfortunately. That will be a project for the next few days.
  • Ultimately that slight bit of visual unpleasantry in the short term is worth the huge benefit to performance. Well over half the performance load of the game was in shadows alone.

• Fixed a bug with a misaligned doorframe in one of the apartments.
  • Thanks to YoukaiCountry, River, Pepisolo, and Cinth for reporting.

• Lights and windows are being gradually updated to have better light cookies on them so that they will be able to avoid bleeding through walls when they are reasonably placed in levels. This has the side effect of also making it look prettier.

• Cicadabots now spawn in threes, rather than singles. They also only take one hit to destroy rather than two, though.

• Cicadabots actually seed in procgen maps now.

• Cicadabots no longer power the shields for Father Brain. So even if they are way out of reach of you, this is just fine.
  • This lets them be a fun threat that you can snipe if you can, and they are a force multiplier for other enemies, but in and of themselves they are not final guards.

• The message at the top of the screen is a lot clearer about what is going on now; why you must destroy some bots and not others, etc.

• The number of things that can fracture at once has been further gated, because it was causing lag issues for some folks.

• The baseline camera sensitivity in the third person view has been increased again, to something between what it was two days ago versus now.
  • Thanks to Misery for suggesting.

• The baseline turn speed of the raptor is now what it was a few days ago rather than what it was reduced to recently. The turn speed when walking is slightly higher than in last version, but not too much in order to maintain control of the raptor when walking.
  • Thanks to Misery for suggesting.

• A number of new things are now disabled by the occlusion system, leading to yet more speed boosts.

• The "enable crosshairs" settings option now mentions "in first-person mode," because that helps people know that option even exists as well as knowing why it doesn't work in third person mode (it would have no meaning there).

• Fixed some instances of Father Brain talking to you when he should not have been, heh.

• The "How to Play" screen has had a number of updates explaining things ranging from third vs first person modes to claw swipes hitting high objects easier, and so on.
  • Thanks to ChronosCast, Pepisolo, and Misery for suggesting.

• The projectiles fired by spiderbots and cicadabots now have less of an overwhelming glow around them, making them look better as well as being easier to see.

• Screenshots now come out more crisp than in the prior version, when they were very dithered by accident.

• The lights of the spiderbots have been notably toned down -- they had gotten excessive in recent weeks as various lighting and post processing evolved.

Pre-EA Demo 12

(Released August 23rd, 2016)

• OSX fullscreen mode updated to no longer include the menu bar and dock.

• Internally we want some messages to go to your message log for debugging purposes in case you need to tell us about some issue, but these aren't important enough to show on the screen. However because of the way we're also catching general unity errors and telling you about those, we have to have a way to find those messages. Now any message that starts with "^^" won't be bubble to the interface but will still go to your log.

• Fixed things up so that you now start always in an outdoor setting in an airdropped-in crate that has Raptor Co. markings on it.
  • This solves a whole lot of problems.
    • Firstly, you always start in a position where you're not up against a door or wall, since we know the size of the crate and put you in an appropriate spot.
    • Secondly, we can better control this first room and ensure that definitely no enemies in there... and that in fact enemies that would be in nearby rooms still aren't in place to ambush you immediately.
    • Plus some smaller cosmetic issues, and this is generally a lot more grounding in terms of a way to start the game thematically -- it's less "in media res."
  • Thanks to ChronosCast, Pepisolo, garpu, and medgno for reporting.

• New level-pieces:
  • One new starting airdrop location (with a new container for the airdrop).
  • Four new apartments.
  • One new industrial construction site.
  • Three new sewers.

• Fixed an issue where if you ever DID fall out of the level and had not passed through a door previously, it would spawn you in the middle of nowhere in an endlessly falling fashion. Now it properly logs your start position in the level.
  • Thanks to many reports of related things helping me find this.

• Fixed an error that could happen during mapgen that would lead to invalid maps and the player falling infinitely.
  • For one thing, fixed the direct error, and for another made it so that even if it does have an error like that in the future it should keep on trucking and generate another map while logging the error.
  • Thanks to Junber and Pepisolo for reporting.

• Made one adjustment to the industrial demo so that you no longer fight the cicadabot over a pit.
  • Thanks to chemical_art and Cinth for complaining. ;)

• Doors now do a better job of opening when you get near them from the back.
  • Thanks to Pepisolo for reporting.

• Adjusted the camera rotation code to be in update rather than fixedupdate, to make it hopefully more resilient to lag.
  • Thanks to medgno and garpu for reporting.

• In third-person view, the lunge always goes toward the front of the raptor, now. The ability to control it via looking around (added yesterday) was awkward, and the higher jumps (also added yesterday) make that moot.
  • Thanks to Misery for reporting.

• Lowering the texture quality should no longer affect the HUD (wow that looked bad before).
  • If you see any spots where it still is affecting the hud, please let us know!

Pre-EA Demo 11

(Released August 22nd, 2016)

• Various prep work for the procgen levels.

• The rate at which the raptor turns in third person has been adjusted so that she turns slower when you are walking compared to running, giving substantially more control especially with the mouse and keyboard (and requiring less analog finesse from you on the gamepad, too).
  • This makes exploration of small spaces substantially more fluid, while not wrecking your ability to maneuver during combat or in large spaces.

• The raptor no longer gives the breathing sounds of running if you are holding the running button down but not actually moving anywhere, heh.

• The raptor is now able to jump substantially higher (about 1.8x) if you continue to hold down the button. The ability to hop small distances is unaffected by this, however.
  • This gives you a larger range of how high you can reach, and makes a number of just-out-of-reach areas from levels that were built to a reasonable scale no longer out of reach.

• Fixed an issue with looping audio sources changing pitch when you went out of range of them and then came back in.
  • Thanks to Craig for reporting.

• Fixed another exception that could happen during fracturing objects in some cases.

• Doors that open now do not do so until you are far closer to them, because it was so maddening having the fly open all over the place prior to that.
  • This may not seem like a high priority before release, but trust me it was. ;)

• Doors now open extremely quietly with a more stealthy sound when the raptor opens them (assuming you don't choose to break them), while for robots the doors open with the louder sounds. This helps cut down on the annoying repetition of door sounds as you explore certain kinds of places, and also gives you a good audio hint about robots that might be following you or otherwise emerging.

• The mouse sensitivity has been substantially reduced in terms of the defaults for the third person view. The amount that you can adjust it up or down in settings has been increased to go along with that.

• Yet more performance improvements based on some more profiling. Chris was getting some dips into the 40s in a few areas. No more!

• Taking screenshots now uses the proper antialiasing to have that look better (versus temporal used during gameplay which is better for motion).
  • It also hides the FPS counter any any log messages, to keep the screen clearer.

• Fixed a bug where death effects for things like beetlecleft could happen more than once and thus spawn too many new sub-beetleclefts.

• Father Brain is now fully added to the game, with his visuals, mechanics, force field, victory condition, and all that jazz.

• Father Brain now has full voice acting relating to the state of his shields, and your actions relating to him and/or his shields. It's actually kind of disturbing when he begs you not to kill him as you... do anyway.

• Fixed the death floors not working properly -- sometimes.
  • Thanks to Cinth for reporting.

• The main menu has been updated to reflect the current state of the game and have a way to launch the procedurally-assembled levels!

Hotfix

(Released August 21st, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since the only reason it's being pushed out at present is as a hotfix to a windows-only issue. Next build will have everything for all the platforms.

• A wide variety of performance improvements for large scenes in the game, ranging from the area of occlusion to the stealth shadows detection for the raptor.

• Fixed it up so that the new turrets can actually be placed in the level editor.

• All of the levels for the procgen part of the game have been updated to no longer have obstructions that make the physics go wild on load, heh.

• The structures section of the roof palette section has been removed, since it was too low-quality to work with the rest of the style.

• Drastically sped up the rendering of the game (in procgen) by fixing up a bunch of objects to not needlessly render shadows. The objects in question were ones that in most games would not render shadows anyhow, and ambient occlusion makes them actually seem to have shadows in the first place, heh.

• Fixed some lag spikes that were introduced into the prior (interim windows) version of the game due the FPS display updating. If you didn't have the FPS display on this would not have affected you.

• Fixed a bug in the prior interim build (windows only) that was causing parts of the demo levels to become invisible after a moment. Oops. We were focused in procgen, which did not have the problem.
  • Thanks to mrhanman for reporting.

• Fixed a bug in the prior versions (last two at least, but possibly more) where you could very intermittently get crashes due occluder removal logic after fractures and whatnot.
  • This was possibly made more frequent two versions ago.

Interim Revision

(Released August 21st, 2016)

NOTE: This version has been released as windows-only since we're doing this for internal purposes and only need it on windows. These changes will be rolled forward into the OSX and linux builds next version. There are some benefits for that crowd, and once released we won't do that anymore -- but right now it saves us 30 minutes or so, and there will be another build later in the day that is much better for everyone, anyhow.

• Fixed a bug in the prior version where testing of levels in the level editor would cause them to disappear after a bit thanks to the occluder system not registering the leel editor tester right.

• Fixed a number of minor issues with certain rooms in procgen from prior versions.

• The font of the debug text has been improved from being just boring ol' arial (yuck).

• The FPS counter now has a stroke and drop shadow and gives some extra data which is useful for us debugging performance (with or without player help) in procgen levels.
  • It also no longer updates quite so frequently, so it doesn't jerk around like crazy.

• Shelving cubes are no longer fracturable, for the sake of performance when those are around.

• A wide variety of performance improvements have been made to the occlusion manager when there are large numbers of things to occlude.

• Fixed a bug that was leading to an infinite loop in the case of some procedurally-generated levels.

• Dynamic objects were causing immense slowdown on the load of new levels because they were starting out colliding into one another a lot of the time and then went spewing out and caused a lot of immediate physics thrashing as well as some very strange arrangements where things could disappear through walls, etc.
  • This is still possible, but the level editor now warns about obstructed stuff.

• The various tables (kitchen and otherwise) are now all kinematic. They can still be destroyed, but they won't move around on their own (gravity, getting knocked over while intact, etc).
  • This also applies to the night stands, coffee tables, and some of the smaller shelving.
  • Also the entertainment speakers, the microwaves, and the trash cans and recycle bin.
  • This immediately solves a number of self-collisions during level generation, and allows us to place things in some specific ways that otherwise would glitch out.

Pre-EA Demo 10

(Released August 19th, 2016)

• Fixed a bug with certain type of skin applying, that was causing exceptions to be thrown when loading Blue_Laboratory_003.

• The procedural map generation now uses combined xml files instead of raw ones. This lets us add and remove at will, and also makes it so that things don't accidentally go live unless we use the compile function that is in the unity editor (not the release build). We thought about encrypting this, but you'd just decrypt it anyway if you wanted to cheat, so eh why bother. ;)

• The aggressive turret now has all new audio and visuals. Frankly Chris at least was incredibly sick of the old one, and the new one is a lot more pleasing all around.

• The aggressive turret now has its voice acting in place, and there is also now a 1.5 second delay after it sees you before its starts shooting you. So when you hear it start talking, you had better MOVE!
  • This gives you a chance to actually do so, though, versus it being a cheap shot type of enemy.

• Now when you are seen by enemies, it gives you a text message as well letting you know you've been spotted and by what.

• Blue and Red Spiderbots (the ones with guns) now have their proper voice acting in place.

• The defenseless spiderbot (orange one) now has its voice cues.

• When robots alert each other to your presence, the game now makes a note of that.

• The muzzle flashes for guns on turrets have been completely rewritten so that they are now way better visually and also provide some contextual information about where they are firing that was previously absent.

• A new type of turret has been added: suppressor turrets. These are far less frightening as far as turrets go, but they are able to provide some extra chaos in rooms and in general make certain areas a lot less leisurely.

• The sounds for the turrets rotating are gone, as that was incredibly irritating after a long while with the game.

• The robots and turrets all have new idle sounds for when you're near them.

• Doors between level sections are now destructible. It was incredibly annoying trying to get through them without that. Thanks to Craig for bugging Chris about that until he realized he was right.

• A new enemy, the Beetlecleft, has been added. Full voice, visuals, AI, and all that jazz. I'll let you discover what it does and why it's called that.

• Added the first flying enemy type, called Cicadabot. This one is kind of the "basic" enemy air trooper, in the sense that spiderbots are the basic ground trooper.

• Heavily revamped and extended the occlusion system so that it is better compatible with our new procedural dungeons. More to come on this tomorrow, and for performance boosts in general.

• Procedural levels now fully generate! We're not quite ready to roll them out yet, but we're 98% of the way there with them.

• The raptor is no longer so darn dark. It now has a much more realistic skin tone when not in the darkness in particular.

• When you are pushing forward in the third person view, or standing completely still, the raptor now jumps in the direction of the camera like it does in the first-person view. This makes certain kinds of navigation a lot easier, while maintaining other flexibility.

Interim Content Batch

(Released August 17th, 2016)

• Loooots of changes to procedural mapgen. The unity asset store asset DunGen was... questionable in a lot of important areas, particularly for our purposes. So we've been digging down to bedrock and building back up again. The result is procgenned maps that are finally feeling the way we want, minus some remaining bugs.

• Fixed up the two miniboss rooms to have a broken wall connector just in case.

• Fixed up Blue_Chasm_006 to have a regular door connector on the side that previously just had a broken wall connector, and also it now has fixed that interior door to nowhere that it had.

• Fixed Rug Rectangle Blue and Rug Round White, which were inexplicably set to be fracturable and use gravity, but also set such that they would fall through the floor and out into the middle of nowhere.
  • Er... fixed, heh.

• For the floors, there are now a bunch of road and ground options that are suitable for outdoor areas and alleys and so forth.

• Three of the "chasms" that were a part of the building connectors group are now classified as alleys instead, since you walk on the bottom rather than jumping between them.

• Lots of new rooms added to the definitions for mapgen!

• Added a new "player respawn" point to the meta section of the level editor palette. This should be used near any ledges that don't have waypoints near them, so that the player has to pass through the box (press B to edit it in the level editor) and then will respawn there if they fall in the hole rather than all the way back at the start of the level!

• Fixed an issue in the level editor where reverb zones and waypoint zones were drawing with the wrong colors.

• Fixed an issue where using reverb zones, ai blockers, or waypoints in the level editor would cause an exception when running the game.

• Fixed AI waypoints not working properly for the last few weeks apparently. That said, the AIs do pretty darn well by spoor-following anyhow, which is great to see.

• There is a new Strange section for walls, floors, and ceilings: Darkness, Invisible, outdoor light, and outdoor light super bright.
  • Note that using invisible walls is strongly discouraged in games in general, since it is super jarring for players. The tool is there now for any special cases, but it's a really bad idea in most cases...

• All of the chasms and alleys have been updated to use the outdoor light at the top, and then darkness around on the rest of their parts so that they now finally have the appropriate look.

• "Floor of death" has been added, which kills enemies when they touch it, or hurts you and respawns you at the last respawn point.
  • These are now used at the bottom of all the chasm building connectors, so that when you fall down the hole it makes sense what happens.

• Fixed a number of issues with drag-selecting in the level editor, which was just batshot insane broken in a lot of cases before.

• 8 new objects have been added to a "concrete rebar" section of the Debris palette.

• 1 new object has been added to a "metal junk" section of the Debris palette.

• 1 new object has been added to a "scatter" section of the Debris palette.

• 19 new objects have been added to a "wall" section of the Debris palette.

• 2 new small wires have been added to the "cables ceiling" section of the Industrial Props palette.

• 6 new objects have been added to a "catwalk" section of the Industrial Props palette.

• 3 new vending machines have been added to the "machinery" section of the Industrial Props palette.

• 8 new objects have been added to a "power" section of the Industrial Props palette.

• 4 new vending machines have been added to the "vending" section of the Industrial Props palette.

• 4 new objects have been added to a "electronics" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 4 new objects have been added to a "rooftop" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 5 new objects have been added to a "satellite" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 2 new objects have been added to a "signs" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 6 new objects have been added to a "skyscraper" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 3 new objects have been added to a "solar" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 8 new objects have been added to a "structures" section of a new Roofs palette.

• 6 new objects have been added to a "vents" section of a new Roofs palette.

• Vending machines all now have a hum to them, and sinks will sometimes have a drippy faucet sound to them.

Interim Content Batch

(Released August 11th, 2016)

• Discovered that the column rounded thick and thin were not included in the columns palette properly in prior views. Fixed.

• Fixed a bug that was causing exceptions to be thrown when using Flourescent Tube.

• 11 new brick skins have been added for walls and floors.
  • The mossy gray one has been applied to the sewer 1 level piece.

• 14 new objects have been added in a new Ducts section of the industrial props.

• Chandeliers have a new shattering sound.

• Raptor's slope limit is now 50 degrees rather than 40.

• Added a new Rusty Dark skin for pipes in general.

• Two new "riveted pipes" have been added to the pipes 2 collection in industrial.

• Added 11 new science objects.

• Added 6 new "tiny bits" in the industrial props section.

• Added a second laptop to the general props study section, and a fourth 4th TV to the entertainment section.

• Added a new railing to the safety section of industrial props.

• Added a new desk, a new reception glass table, and two reception counter pieces, to the office section of home furniture (yeah this isn't exactly home furniture, but...).

• A bunch of pipes and clocks now have ambient looping sounds to them.

Hotfix

(Released August 8th, 2016)

• Toned down some of the utility spotlights some when it came to just how volumetric they were.

• Fixed: "steep ramp" object was missing from the floors section of basic interiors.

• All of the tubes that were added in the prior content drop are now convex and can actually be entered!

• Fixed a bug in the prior build that did not allow for settings saving.

• The fat rusty pipes now have all the same skins as the giant tubes, plus the fat rusty pipe skin that it already had.

Hotfix

(Released August 8th, 2016)

• Fixed an exception that could happen in the prior version when fracturing objects with a sound effect on them.

• Fixed issues with certain objects throwing exceptions when destroyed. Most notably the recyling bins in the lab demo.

• Fixed a bunch of harmless warnings that were being spammed into the console log in the prior build in the two demos.

• Fixed a table used in the lab demo that was filled in on the bottom and thus causing a variety of physics issues in the last build.

• Fixed a bunch of chairs rotated wrong in the lab in the last demo.

• There is now a two-second grace period right at the start of loading a level where nothing fractures. This way a lot of rigidbodies can fall or otherwise settle and be in interesting positions without risk of them breaking if they are slightly off.

• Put in some sensible throttling on the fracturing so that we can't absolutely tank the framerate by being a bull in a china shop (or in this case cafeteria). Objects still go flying in a satisfying way in the physics system, but they don't break in such giant bulk that it causes the framerate to get extremely low.

• Did a few other things to make fractures more efficient in general for most of the smaller objects.

• The three kitchen tables are no longer static and immovable, but now are instead fracturable and interactive like the chairs around them. This feels a lot more natural in those environments.

Interim Content Batch

(Released August 8th, 2016)

• Fixed a bug in the prior version that caused the settings menu to show up when you first entered the lab demo.

• Fixed a couple of errors in the occlusion system that were introduced last build (not the frustrum occlusion, that was fine). The errors were causing more stuff to be drawn than was needed in some cases.

• Added SFX for MachineShortsOut,MetalFurnitureLightweight, WoodAndGlassFurniture and WoodAndMetalFurniture

• When destroying objects, it now also properly stops any point source audio that is coming out of them.

• The industrial fans now use volumetric light coming out of themselves, and also they have sound effects for their blades, which stop when destroyed.

New Level Editor Objects

• There are now 10 new I-beam rafters and columns in the Beams section of the Industrial palette.

• Two new sets of industrial stairs have been added to the industrial palette.

• A new "steep ramp" object has been added to the floors in basic interiors.

• 21 new toys in the Kids section of general props!

• 41 new pipes objects have been added as a subsection of the industrial palette. These are thin pipes that have a few skins and that can be used to make fairly intricate small structures if you so desire.

• Added a new Dark Brown Plaster skin to walls in general.

• Added 2 new rounded columns in the basic interiors set.

• Added 2 new floor skins: Dark Metal Plates and Concrete Patches.

• Added 1 new truss to the industrial set.

• Added 9 fat and 5 thin rusty pipes to a second pipes set in industrial.

• Added 4 tiny ceiling rusty pipes to the cables ceiling set in industrial.

• Added 4 pressure tanks to the new machinery section of the industrial set.

• Added 4 new support posts, and 3 new columns, to the columns section of basic interiors.

• Added Recyle Bin to the Cleaning section of general props.

• Added two new office chairs to the office section of home furniture.

• Added 5 machinery racks to a new Science category under industrial, and added the experimental tank and the three reactor components

• Added Sci Fi Pole Industrial Lamp (Expensive on GPU) to the floor lights of the basic interiors. This is actually interior or exterior, but if it's interior it needs to be in huuuuge spaces. These are also ones you want to only use with one of these in an area, generally, for GPU reasons.

• Added 6 slightly-claustrophobic tubes that you can walk through in levels to a new Tubes section of basic interiors. There are 11 skins available for these.
  • Also added two variant sets of the tubes you can go through, one of which is twice the side of the first, and another which is 4x the size of the first. You can really make some cavernous curved areas with the biggest one!

Bugfixes To Level Editor Objects

• Fixed an error in Wall Utility Spotlight.

• Condiment Shaker is now just Salt, because the salt and pepper were using uv maps that caused for the skins to break them, and the pepper got lost for now.

• Shelf Wall (Thick Wood) 1 and 2 no longer fall off the wall.

• Fixed: Wardrobe Open Front and variants sit too far up or to far down. So they're either floating or sinking into the floor.

• Fixed: Toilet Paper 2 falls to the floor.

• Fixed: Phone (House) has a huge collision box.

• Fixed: all of the table lamps except for the paper box lamp floated in the air.

Pre-EA Demo 9

(Released August 2nd, 2016)

• The models and animations for quite a few new robots have been integrated into the project, although they are not used yet.

• The spiderbot meshes have been optimized incredibly heavily. You won't notice a difference in them even if you look closely in-game, but the poly count is around 20% what it was before. This has a number of benefits for animation load as well as just their drawing load.

• Fixed some runtime-build-only errors that were showing up in the prior build.

• Added a few more SFX, AlarmFire, CeramicObjectSmall, Mirror, and the new raptor roar.

• Unity's built-in frustrum-based occluder checking was consistently making some really stupid choices that would hide things that should clearly be visible based on the screen view. Unfortunately it was also helping a lot with performance.
  • We've put in our own frustrum-based occluder code that goes with the rest of our area-based occlusion code, and our results are almost as efficient as what unity produces, but also never giving false negatives (don't show something that should be shown).

• The brand-spanking-new Hx Volumetric Lighting component by Hitbox Team is now added to the game. This provides all sorts of awesome volumetric light capabilities that we're now making use of. This has been tuned for a mixture of performance and speed at the moment, but it's still a moderate performance hit for an advanced visual effect. This is thus something that can be disabled like all the other post-processing effects, of course!

• ALL of the apartments and halls and whatnot by all of the authors have been updated to function with the new doors.

• In the level editor, volumetric lights now only show when the editor lighting is turned off.

• The first pass of volumetric lights in the level editor lights is now in place. Some of these are probably too thick or too thin or have banding or whatever else. But it's a bunch of good first guesses, and we'll refine from there.

• Mirrors now use some shaders and materials that give them a good false-reflective feel that makes them mirror-like without actually being reflective. Yay performance but also with a good visual feel to them.

• A new bathroom mirror has been added to the bathroom furniture set. This was definitely an oversight in terms of things that are needed to flesh out those areas. :)

Interim Revision

(Released July 30th, 2016)

• Fixed an issue that could lead to exceptions for some more of the wall paintings on their destruction.

• Better sound effects for four categories:
  • WoodDoor
  • LightMetalHeavy
  • WoodFurniture
  • Pottery

• Fixed a variety of objects to fracture more efficiently (less CPU load).

• We now have the capability of playing some extra sounds on just the first time an object fractures (if it fractures in multiple generations).

• Removed the Closet category of general props, and the three items in there. Quality too low.

• Fixed: Alarm Clock: Huuuuge collision box. Holy smokes!

• Fixed: Ruining the pillows in play test makes the 'shards' generate a texture of plastic or metal. Kind of weird for a pillow. ;P

• Fixed: Wine Glass: So translucent that it seems like a texture error.

• Fixed: Rug Modern Patches rug clips with the floor. It's too flush.

• Fixed a toooon of stuff related to object fracturing causing duplicate pieces, wrong-scaled pieces, etc. It wasn't all the time, but now it should be none of the time.

• For the ceiling panel passive lights, there are now 10 different colors for them instead of just white.

Doors, Doors, Doors!

• The doors are all now wider than they were before, making it easier for the raptor to move about and also allowing larger robots to get through.

• Doorjambs are now "Empty Doorjamb," and existing levels that use them will complain and have them disappear. In almost all cases no further action is needed by the level editor, since doors no longer will require separate doorjambs (and in fact should not have them -- they are built-in now). But for the rarer cases where there was a doorjamb being used without a door present, those will have to be re-added, sorry about that.

• The interior doors now actually LOOK like nice interior doors in a house. They also now open and shut as you or enemies approach them, rather than swinging on a hinge. And lastly, they are destructible in one hit now, rather than chipping away at them.

• The level editor now automatically corrects doors (interior and exterior) that were rotated in strange ways (upside-down, etc).

• The level editor now has little yellow guides that show you which way interior doors will open.

• The level editor now corrects the bad offsets that doors could get when oriented at either 90 or 180 degrees, such that now things always line up. This is important since door swing direction matters a lot.

• The existing exterior door has been replaced by a new french-door-style double door called exterior door elegant. It no longer has a Pine skin, but now has Tan and Gray instead. And in general all these skins are created from scratch anyhow.
  • These now show much more clearly if they are open or closed, with a little red or green keypad on them. They also auto-open now like the interior doors do, but unlike interior doors these can NEVER be destroyed. This makes sense in terms of consistency since you can't just destroy unlocked doors of this sort (that made no sense).

• There is a new interior door - metal, which has 6 different skins. It provides a new alternative to the more heavily-themed interior doors that are now home-style. Otherwise we'd have some very strange doors in industrial areas an similar, for instance.

• There are now metal exterior doors which are excellent for industrial areas.

Hotfix

(Released July 27th, 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 issues with the "classic" paintings that caused them to often throw errors when fracturing. They don't have the polygon density needed for the kind of fracturing I was trying to do.

• Gave proper backs to all the paintings that did not have it.

• Added a new shower stall variant to the right that can be used in places where the left-oriented one (which is now named such) can't fit properly.

• Added vetting code that helps find and fix fracturable objects that can't be broken since they lacked rigidbodies. Fixed up a dozen or so objects using this.

• You can now place all the rugs more precisely.

• Two new rugs have been added that will tile together better: Rug 3.5x4 and Rug 3x4. These are both slightly unusual in size so that they help break up the room in ways that people were doing with Long Rug before (but that doesn't stack and will z-fight like nuts with overlap).

Hotfix

(Released July 27th, 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.

• Lining up objects in the level editor is now vastly easier. There are now two guide-lines around the bounding brick box of the object. One is slightly further out than the actual brick box bounds (this was the case before), and the new one is slightly on the inside. When an object is properly lined up right at the edge of something, you'll only see one of the lines. You aren't close enough if you see both, and in almost all cases you are too far if you see neither. But you never have a problem if you see only one remaining.
  • This cuts down on the amount of time you need to spend rotating the camera to be sure that you've lined things up.

• Objects in the editor are now created 2m in front of you rather than 6m, which saves a lot of hassle in terms of being able to actually immediately see objects you create, and position them by setting the camera location and thus not have to move them so much by hand.

• 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).

• New option for helping to control objects in the level editor and make minor adjustments with fewer mouse movements:
  • Hold down either the fourth mouse button or spacebar to enter a mode where WASD+QE nudges the object directly.

• 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.

• Fixed an issue with the skins for the tacky cheap kitchen chair, so that it now has proper color options.

• Unable to duplicate: "Wardrobe Open Front 2 Doesn't change colors when you select a color choice."

• Fixed: "Wardrobe Empty and Wardrobe Empty 2, their backs clip into the wall."

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