Development update - May 9, 2024

Lens flares seem to be ready as well as some better tools to edit terrain-like objects in Level Editor. More critical bug fixes besides that. Some UI animations added and more work towards making game work in offline mode and be generally more lightweight for the server to run while shortening time it will take to load screens that might receive updates independently from game updates later on.

Gameplay

- Improved walking animation for case when character is going uphill (was not rising feet high enough, leg animation speed wasn't in sync with movement speed);

- Increased jumpiness for case when characters were moving with swords out, made feet surface alignment angle more consistent with animation;

- Made it so characters do not aim with a gun in a hand that is used to grab onto ledge (dual pistols case);

- Reworked ladder climbing so characters actually put arms and legs onto appropriate ledges instead of just arms & legs spinning around random centers;

- Added logic for climbing down the ladders, made a short pause for case when player is on the lowest ledge so it is harder to overshoot it unintentionally;

- Removed unstable jumping while climbing up the ladders;

- Reworked ledges so more than one character can grab onto same ledge (perhaps will be more common with team collisions disabled);

- Decreased grappling hook physical rubber band effect after grappling hook attachment was changed from body to arm;

- Fixed an issue causing non-energy based grappling hooks to shrink into one vertex near hand;

- Made it so character arms aren't bouncing as much after increased stiffness in one of previous fixes (related to rubber band effect of grappling hooks). Added stiffness scaling based on how stretched arms are;

- Fixed an issue causing infinite loops when bullets are hitting walls that have inverted or overlapping edges;

- Fixed a bug causing explosions to not damage concave walls in most places;

- Fixed a bug causing explosion-blocking entity parts to not receive explosion damage;

- Made it so sticky grenades are sticking to non-organic entity parts, reworked collision filtering for grenades that would normally detonate on impact;

- Fixed an issue causing sticky grenades to detonate while colliding with flat tires;

- Made it so information about weapons of destroyed entities is hidden;

- Made it so S-entity without weapon doesn't have a random color;

- Fixed a crash as a result of tactical ping on levels without AI players;

- Equalized sound volumes while camera gets zoomed in/out;

- Fixed a bug causing nails to not damage metallic entities, due to preview sticky grenades logic rework;

- Fixed a bug causing some nails to not play impact sounds;

- Fixed an issue causing S-entity to not be destroyed silently on level restart;

- Updated sound engine so it prioritizes sounds that are closer to the camera when running out of channels;

- Fixed an issue causing some weapons to regenerate 1 ammo after cooldown past the magazine capacity limit if shoot cost is 0;

- Fixed a bug causing in-game cursor and lens flares to be delayed by 1 frame;

- Added logic that prevents bodies from being stuck standing vertically;

- Fixed a crash whenever S-entity is being removed in a certain way near lens flares.

Level Editor

- Fixed a bug causing improper interface settings save due to default settings page being empty fix earlier;

- Shadowmap generation optimizations;

- Optimized blueprint mode rendering performance;

- Implemented blueprint geometry update rate limitation for complex levels (can cause temporary artifacts near edges of screen but improves responsiveness greatly);

- Fixed a bug causing default library items to not show up in sources for decorations;

- Added bounds detection consistency for decorations that use default library items;

- Made it so default library items (such as heads that have additive glow layer work) do not get blending effect overridden if decoration has default blending;

- Made it so parts of library items can be also selected as decorations (for example magazine of a rifle, perhaps could be later used to make ammo objects if those won't be implemented natively);

- Fixed a bug that breaks decoration opacity logic if decoration has origin offset;

- Started implementing wall points conversion into objects so they can be moved/deleted/copied multiple at once;

- Made it so points-as-objects have higher priority over the shape they are part of;

- Fixed an issue causing a deletion of accidentally put objects into groups of shapes that are edited-as-points when they leave edit-as-points mode;

- Added shapes dots properties update on map compilation;

- Made it so shapes in edit-as-points mode are not selected whenever any of points is being selected;

- Made it easier to add points to shapes in edit-as-points mode;

- Fixed an issue causing cutting and deletion of points of shapes in edit-as-points mode to not cause shape rebuilding;

- Fixed an issue causing undo of point creation to not call deletion live update callback;

- Made it so edit-as-points mode is turned off when whole shape is moved;

- Fixed a crash whenever shape is moved together with its' point;

- Fixed an issue causing selection in structure view to not be updated on undo/redo;

- Implemented live update calls on points reordering, fixed an issue causing moving point outside of shape to not cause shape update;

- Made it so shape can be reordered in structure view when it is in edit-as-points mode;

- Fixed a crash caused by splitting two shapes in edit-as-points mode due to lack of editor bounds;

- Fixed a bug causing weird inception of shapes when trying to slice edit-as-points shape vertically and then horizontally;

- Made it so double-clicking shape makes it enter edit-as-points mode;

- Fixed a bugged undo/redo for case of edit-as-points shape being deleted or cut (bug was causing improper order of object in structure view);

- Made sure objects can not be moved in-between shape and its' opening bracket (brackets are hidden objects technically);

- Made it so point creation tool inserts points on the closest edge of selected edit-as-points shape;

- Made it so point creation tool inserts points properly even if other points that are part of edit-as-points shape are selected;

- Disallowed creation of walls that consist out of two or less points (they would have incorrect bullet friction);

- Added points order inversion through context menu for shapes;

- Fixed a saving bug that was causing ditto object information duplication for edit-as-points shapes;

- Implemented live updates whenever edit-as-points shape points are moved;

- Added turning off of edit-as-points mode whenever merging and conversion to simple shape operations are done, tested undo/redo for these cases;

- Fixed an issue causing edit-as-points points of shape to not be removed whenever CORNER_NONE property is selected for shape, fixed undo/redo bug related to this issue;

- Fixed a crash in preview mode for edit-as-points shape having corners property set to CORNER_NONE due to parameters panel trying to set old value;

- Fixed a bug & crash happening after multiple undo/redo cycles after deletion of points of edit-as-points shape and later conversion to rectangular shape (undo/redo copies of structure list order were replaced overtime);

- Made it so triangulation for background walls and simple walls works (fixed an issue causing triangles to be built incorrectly for concave shapes);

- Disabled hints for in-world objects while user us in Level Editor;

- Fixed an issue causing white lines of selection to no longer work due to draw delay;

- Added highlighting of potential selection if Ctrl is held;

- Made it so bounding box is drawn for lights without flare in preview mode;

- Fixed a crash as a result of tactical ping attempt in Level Editor;

- Drawn new lens flare circles, prepared the to be cut;

- Started implementing lens flares in game itself;

- Optimized downloaded lens flare sprite file size by converting all layers after first one into gradients that are created programmatically;

- Made it so camera zoom is handled properly by lens flares;

- Added support for colored lens flares as well as made it so weak lights do not generate lens flares;

- Added lens flare occlusion by walls in-between of lamps and camera;

- Implemented analysis of materials of partially transparent walls so lens flare color is multiplied based on color and blending mode of material;

- Implemented a better occlusion detection by calculating projections of all polygons of walls in-between lamp and camera;

- Allowed flares to be drawn from lamps that lie exactly on the edge of a wall;

- Fixed an issue causing flare occlusion to not work properly if camera is in a wall;

- Implemented progressive appearance of lens flares whenever they are drawn near edges of occluding wall polygon projections, same for lens flares appearing near screen borders;

- Implemented z-depth property for lamps, custom base sphere mesh scaling;

- Implemented lens flare occlusion with entities;

- Made it so lamp bounding box includes z-offset;

- Made it so live update is called for new lamp properties;

- Added extra optimizations for lens flare logic in 2D mode;

- Added support for lamps to be attachable to entities, even when they rotate across Y-axis (can't say that lens flare works perfectly in this case though since occlusion uses 2D collision of entities rather than full geometry);

Interfaces

- Implemented better file caching, especially for offline play;

- Made it so most of files are never re-requested from server if their version hasn't changed;

- Fixed a bug causing caching to not allow files loading in some cases where it should have been allowed;

- Fixed cursor flickering in settings;

- Updated main menu background;

- Fixed an issue causing in-game tooltips to not select closest limb of a same object;

- Fixed an issue causing in-game tooltips to have incorrect offset in 2D mode;

- Create a more visually interesting animation of main menu buttons being clicked;

- Fixed offline caching for a game loading screen image;

- Fixed a permanent loading whenever user tries to open file browser in Level Editor in offline mode yet file browser was never loaded in online mode;

- Implemented caching of previously loaded maps, skins and sounds in offline mode (it should make it possible to re-play same maps in offline mode);

- Added an animation for main menu buttons appearance;

- Visually reworked clan member management button;

- Made it so main menu buttons aren't skipping mouse over animation if cursor moves way too fast;

- Implemented a more visually interesting click animation for the rest out of game buttons;

- Fixed an issue causing click animations to not be played for destroyed buttons;

- Added roundness inheritance from clicked buttons for click animations.

Multiplayer

- Fixed inconsistency of client-side soft zoom morph due to reuse of previous call parameters.

Sounds

- Reworked virus grenade throw/scroll sound effect;

- Made sound for main menu buttons roll.