Hi all,
A new build is (finally!) released out to the EXPERIMENTAL branch.
Other than whatever issues are raised from you guys checking it out, we believe this will be the end of the major cart racing changes.
That will mean that, next build, we will be looking to ensure the build is stable so that we can put the build onto the default branch.
This will ALSO mean that:
- We will be resetting all race leaderboards
- We will be resetting all the user's individual "best times" for the racers (NOT that you have completed the race)
This is so that the leaderboards will/can reflect achievable times by the new code.
There are a LOT of changes in this new build.
We've taken a bit of time getting it out because we have been testing and fixing issues - but there may well be some issues that have crept in from all the updates. In particular, please let us know if you have any issues with the new graphical updates, such as the improved laser blasts, and the "cheap" adaptive brightness.
We have had the occasional load crash accessing a file - haven't been able to reliably reproduce that at the moment though - so please let us know any issues you have!
Now… to the changes since the last build!
ART
AUDIO
- New sounds for cart racing (bumps and hits, engine sounds, skid sounds, rolling on the road sounds, smashing in to things)
- New sounds for footsteps, TY being punched, lasers, some environmental audio
- New sounds for splashes
- New sounds for battle bunyip attacks
- New sounds and sound updates for Patchy
- Fixed up some audio clipping of the fourbie engine sounds in the intro cutscene to the game
- Added Kart VO system, for the racers to use for overtaking, hitting the player with a weapon, or bumping into the player
- Ensured environmental effects don't play on music
- Set up the trigger to stop the reverb from effecting audio when exiting the sewers in town, when completing Ranger Ken's croc mission
- Stop audio effects when quitting to the main menu
- Stop audio effects when on the pause menu
- Fixed music cross fading so that the NEW music track fades in while the old one fades out, and adjusted fade time
- Changed bilby and platinum cog to play their pickup sounds as SFX not music, to fix music reversion issue
- Fixed Bilby, platinum cog and kromium orb SFX to not use environmental effects
- Fix for the incorrect music playing when exiting a Birrel and Squeaver mission area (by entering the fourbie) before the mission is complete
- Added new sounds to all the boomerangs
- they have multiple throw sounds now (impact and looping sounds)
- Added "successful bite" hit sound
- Fix for sounds using the Audio Fader to ignore the volume setting defined in the audio configuration file (was always playing at full volume previously). Example - TY's swimming sounds
- Tweaks to chopper sounds
- Changes to enemy death sounds for some enemies (croc, frill, generic enemy death)
CAMERA
- Many fixes for bunyips and the camera, and pushing out of water volumes, and the camera getting stuck above you
CUSTOMIZATION
- Added skins to TY and the Fourbie. Buy some with platinum cogs, from Trader Bob's. Get awarded some others by "doing stuff" TM
GAMEPLAY
- I wonder what this does? First person to find out, let us know! :)
- Added give and complete mission position markers for the maps for Haunted Hassle
- Racing: Large changes to cart racing position calculation during shortcuts, AI route selection (shortcuts, catchup) etc, based off feedback and QA testing
- Racing: Fixes for speedups not working
- Racing: make the spins even out when you're facing forwards-ish
- Racing: fix crash when AI takes a specific route type
- Racing: added pitch smoothing to the camera
- Racing: Increased the maximum allowed speed now that the pitch smoothing of the camera is working
- Racing: Fixed icons on the pause map not displaying
- Racing: Fixed current lap number being incorrect on restart of a race
- Racing: Fixed 8th place appearing with "default" text if you finished in 1st to 3rd when playing races single player from inside Chockers' shops.
- Added 4 x more achievements
- "Complete all Birrel and Squeaver Missions", "Buy all Mopoke's Maps", "Buy all Skins" and a hidden achievement.
GRAPHICS
- Fix shadow settings in Outback Dash race
- Fixed lens flare not rendering
- SSAO shaders now work with fog
- Dynamic brightness changed to use average brightness instead of max; so that areas of flame don't make the entire room dark, like seen previously in the Oil Rig
- Underwater wobble effect added, if Bloom is enabled
- Fixes to grass reflections drawing below-water grass in the reflection
- Added plankton underwater effect
- Fixes to the road shader to solve shader compile crashes
- Removed cross hatch glow from the loading gate's light objects and replaced with a diffuse glow
- Added cubemap support and changed road shader to use the cubemap
- Added a cheap brightness shader for when bloom is disabled, so that adaptive brightness works on a min-spec machine.
- Added GPU particle effects to the lasers for the critters, Shazza's laser weapon and the shadow bunyip's pew pew laser
- Fixes to the skid mark textures to be visible
- Fixes for shadow settings for Burramudgee and Sourthern Rivers
MISC
- Multiple memory leak fixes
- Fix for crash when using "Next Track" UI option for "All Tracks" cart racing from the main menu
- Fix for occassional camera weirdness (and potential crash) on restarting a race
- Crash fixes
- Fix for chunk queuing issue in Southern Rivers while driving the fourbie
- Fix for crash caused by uninitialised controller last device
- Stop crashes caused by crazy camera velocity when teleporting camera
UI
- Sped up the scrolling button group some more. Made switching to previous do a "one ahead" like switching to next does, so that you can see what's coming up on the list.
- Reduced cart scale to 3.3 and moved them downwards in order to try and lessen how much of some characters heads are obscured by the name text.
- New UI icons for Main Menu race track selection
- Update race results UI. In game version now uses the same as the frontend version (with the racer models).
- Pause menu "zoomed in" so that it fills more of the screen and less of the PDA is visible.
- Added "change skin" UI to the pause menu
- Added Rang count to game totals screen display, as it contributes to the 100% complete