Weekly Update #11
Added 2018-04-06 14:12:11 +0000 UTCThe current build live on both the main and the beta builds is working quite well! There is still a "zombie" bug where players die, but don't actually die and get stuck where they are, but I was able to finally reproduce it and fix it for next patch.
The past couple days I have been, somewhat regrettably, stripping out the current 3rd party vegetation management system and implementing a custom solution in it's place. I'm still working on improving the grass, as you can see in the picture. The main reason I went with the 3rd party solution in the first place was actually because the grass looks so much better... But it caused frequent spikes when turning, was difficult to manage, very hard on the GPU (video card), and was really making it difficult to plan a map system that I hope to start working on soon.
We lose our fancy grass (for now), but we gain performance, and above all increased customization options. I can now add sliders for "resource render distance," "grass render distance," etc. Perhaps the most player friendly option this makes easier for me is a magical slider we could implement called the "sparkly render distance." Under the current system sparkly particles are used to show rare resources throughout the game world. We can turn them up as far as we like now, though hopefully the mapping system and some fun town options coming soon will provide more attractive ways to find rare resources than aimless wandering.
It's warmed up to a very nice Spring temperature here in central Japan. I hope everyone is happy and healthy wherever you may be reading this from!
