Build Mode Extravaganza: Bug Fixes, Polish and Tweaks

Hello everyone! Jérémie here with this week’s Patreon post. We got back to working on the live mode now but I wanted to share a few extra build mode features and tweaks we’ve put into the game in the previous months. Everyone has contributed so  I’ll mostly take the back seat and leave the team to talk about what they’ve done! As usual, this post is for patrons only, so you know what you should and shouldn’t do with it!

🐞Jérémie: Mostly bug fixes!

With the help of Charlotte, or resident Quality Assurance Expert, I’ve fixed bug after bug after bug. Resolving bugs is an ongoing process and I’ll probably be talking about it up until the game release, but the number of these little critters left to squash is relatively manageable. As you can see here, we have 414 currently closed bugs. I wonder how many we’ll have when the game launches in early access next year? Please chime in in the comments below! The person that gets the closest to the real number will win a mustache man body pillow (not a real contest, sorry!)

 It’s fun to fix bugs! The goal is to have as few as possible and I’m sure we’ll get there in time :)

Anna: Flipping Wall Items

During our playtests, one of the most requested features was the ability to change the facing sides of doors and windows. Previously, they could only be placed automatically facing the camera, which was sometimes frustrating. With this latest update, players can now manually switch the orientation thanks to a button in the selected interface, or with a keyboard shortcut!

Richard: Level Of Details Optimization

To improve performance on older computers, I have added a Level of Details (LOD) system. The system will show a high-quality model when you are close to an item. As you get far away, the system will switch to simpler models. At one point, the item is too small and is hidden by the system. We have yet to do any simpler models, it will likely be done on trees first since they are some of the most complex items we have.

 If you turn down the quality setting in the options menu, small items won’t be shown when you are far from them.

Alejandro: Color Swatch Improvements and Painting Surfaces

Something that we planned to do for a while was the color swatch system rework. We wanted the whole swatch system to work with our modding tools. There were a lot of tweaks and quality of life improvements on the swatch creation’s flow, as well as the workflow for our artists to integrate the swatches on each object of the game.

Players can select premade color swatches for each object or create their own. If you’re wondering, the extra icons on the menus are tools for our artists and future modders so they can manage groups of swatches and pick the number of colors shown on the thumbnail of each swatch.

Another feature I worked on was the ability for the players to change the textures on different parts of an object. This can be done in two ways: by using the paint tool we already use to paint walls and floors or when creating new swatches for an object.

Painting the roof object's side wall with the same texture as the wall using the painting tools

This even works on any object (not just those with walls) if you hold the alt key!

 A couch made of bricks, anyone?

In the swatch creation menu, players can change the colors of different parts of an object as well as their textures. Here, for example, we can change the texture of the countertop from our selection of wood surfaces, or any of the other material types like masonry, fabric, metal and more.

Alex: Time Of Day Slider

I added a slider that lets players change the lighting according to different times of the day when in build mode. It’s very useful to see what your house looks like in different lighting conditions!

For those wondering: the characters are moving even in build mode because in Paralives, you can build without necessarily pausing the time. Players who want the game to automatically pause in build mode can choose so in the options menu.

Thanks again for supporting us! I hope you had a good time looking through some build mode features that we haven’t talked about previously. We’re still going strong on live mode and we can’t wait to share our progress with you!

Have a great weekend!

Jérémie