Weekly Report - 54
It’s week fifty four of the Vizaris weekly updates. This time we’ve finally improved an issue we’ve had for a long time, which is the handling of interior-exterior transitions. Because of the seamless nature of Vizaris we’ve always had some issues getting the lighting to work right during transitions from inside to outside and vice versa. With this week’s update we’ve been able to largely solve this issue, and put us in a good position to improve it even further in the future.
This week's additions
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Improved: Interior-Exterior Transitions - The transition between interiors and exteriors now has some visual effects and lighting transitions. The end result of this is better and consistent lighting in interiors, without compromising exterior shadow quality.
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Improved: Cave Models - Cave models were also notably improved. They now have smoother geometry and less texture stretching, and should no longer have issues with lighting around twilight hours. All existing caves received the new models. It’s also worth noting that all existing caves will be overhauled like the rest of the landscape in a few weeks.
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Improved: Cave Entrances - While we were setting up the transitions for each cave, we also took the time to improve some messy geometry and holes around the cave entrances. It should now be easier to walk into caves without needing to jump as well.
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Improved: Torches - Because caves are now much more realistically lit, torches received a significant increase in their lighting range. They also produce a significantly less orange light, making it less straining on the eyes. Happy spelunking!
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Resolutions below 1280×720 are no longer selectable - Vizaris was never designed to go below 1280×720. If it does, you receive significant user interface issues, as there simply isn’t enough pixels to display all the information on screen, and much of it ends up getting clipped off. Previously, you could adjust the resolution so low that you would lose the ability to click the buttons to revert resolution. This is no longer possible.
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Better handling of attack animations - We now handle attack animations more intelligently, which should reduce the chances of some infrequent bugs which could occur when multiple animations are attempting to play, such as being staggered while attacking.
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Camera FOV no longer changes on Barter - The camera field of view no longer changes while bartering with an NPC, removing a previously disjointed and barfy shift when opening the bartering menu.
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Fixed: Placing items into containers - Fixed a major bug that was preventing the player from putting items into containers under certain circumstances.
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Fixed: Overburdened slowdown not applying when weapons readied - Fixed another major bug which would allow the player to run at full speed while overburdened with items, simply by pulling out their weapon.
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Fixed: AI states potentially getting stuck - Fixed a bug which could cause NPCs on occasion to get stuck in a certain combat states, such as blocking, taunting, or fleeing.
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Backend: Loose Items Improvements - We added some extra code to better handle placing loose items in the game world. Loose items are items such as fluid (water, oil) or particles (salt, grain) that require the player to have a container to collect them. The village has several dozen items which act as containers for these items, and the village itself has many containers with these items in them located around the main world.
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Backend: Guard Functionality - Guards, and their reaction to stealing were also finalized this week with some additional functionality. Guards will now confiscate the players stolen items if the player surrenders to them, or the guard kills the player. Confiscated items will be placed in a specific container at the guard post, giving the player a possible chance to recover the items which they’ve lost. Other improvements were made as well, such as the money the player loses on death being subtracted from their bounty, if they’re killed by a guard; and general improvements to the players ability to surrender to the guard, and how those situations are handled.
The work on transitions, while added to the game this week for caves, was actually developed out of necessity for the village, which has dozens of interior-exterior transitions, including large, cave like transitions. Most of the various code changes were also focused on improving functionality for guards, stealing, and so on. There will be plenty more to come! See you next week!
–Luke
Vizaris is an open world, fantasy roleplaying game, with singleplayer and 6 player co-op multiplayer. Vizaris focuses on player choice and freedom. New updates at the start of every week!
You can play Vizaris right now by going to www.VizarisGame.com/play , Every dollar goes to supporting the development of the game, meaning more content at a faster rate. It's like our Kickstarter or Patreon, but you get instant access to the game! Free press access available! Questions, comments, help, and feedback welcome!
