Performance, Water and Lore (Beta)
Author: Laireon Games,
published 3 months ago,
*[b]This update is on the beta branch only[/b]*
For anyone that isn't familiar with game development, this is how it typically plays out
[previewyoutube=AbSehcT19u0;full][/previewyoutube]
I'm still working towards the Smeltery (and have made progress on it behind the scenes) but I realised that the Lore screen is needed first because the tutorials for the Structure Builder system aren't very clear and the smeltery will use the structure builder to make your first one.
At the same time, I wanted to continue work from the last update on performance and finally get an optimisation in there that is a pretty big change, but doing so worked best with the more advanced water systems. More info below...
[h3]Lore Screen[/h3]
The Lore screen is like an in game Encyclopedia
[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//41141580/d752123c2028312d55a601175c4902b5630696dc.png[/img]
You can now use it to keep track of which plants, animals etc you have found in what biomes so if you are trying to finish some of the achievements or are just trying to find that missing crop you can spot where you have yet to finish exploring.
Now that this screen is ready, crops will now use the Anti-Wiki feature so that they will spawn in different biomes per world. I wanted to do this before but it felt too tedious to keep track of where you found things without it.
*[b]Please Note[/b]*
The lore page wont show information until you gather things again. E.G you might have already found a red berry bush, but it wont show which biome you found it in until you harvest from that bush again.
[h3]Combined Meshes[/h3]
This is an optimisation I started working on a long time ago but could never get into a stable state. What it does is combine chunks together so that there are less things for your graphics card to render at once.
What this means is that if your graphics card was struggling, you will likely see a fairly decent FPS increase and hopefully be able to increase your chunk draw distance.
However what this means is that there are a lot more scenarios for me to track when it comes to updating a chunk and its more likely to see things like the wrong visuals as you are breaking/placing blocks which is why this update is on the beta branch only until I can confirm its working well.
[h3]Water[/h3]
Water was problematic for the combined meshes because it would need to spread to neighbouring chunks each time a chunk loaded. Without combined meshes, this extra cost is fine but with them it introduced a lot of processing work as chunks would combine and then uncombine too often.
So to fix this, I've turned on the more complex water systems and tweaked their performance. This is because these systems handle water meshing separately from the rest of the chunk so it can be safely ignored by the new combined mesh optimisation.
What this means is that water should now flow much more naturally and let you do things like break a hole at the bottom of a lake and it will slowly drain into caves etc.
[h3]Changes[/h3]
[list]
[*] Drastically increased the stats of the Lioness so she is much more dangerous
[*] Increased how much meat cows drop
[*] Added stats for each food item eaten
[*] Added various new buffs that are available for cooked meals
[*] Reduced the specular power of tree leaves so they are less shiny
[*] Fixed the snow rabbit not dropping its specific cooking recipe
[*] Added a minor buff for eating any hot meal. E.G cooked meat
[*] Increased the max health of the Lava Lord
[*] Challenge rewards can now only be claimed if you have enough inventory space (to prevent losing the reward in the world)
[*] Toggled spells no longer earn experience just for being activated
[*] Sprint settings are now under the options screen as well as the controls screen
[/list]
[h3]Performance[/h3]
[list]
[*] Optimised when the Fish jobs run so they are less likely to cost time on the main thread
[*] Reworked how fish send data to the GPU to be more efficient (an optimisation of CPU time)
[*] Fixed greedy meshing not working, this should result in an overall FPS boost
[*] Optimised the time it takes to generate the full screen maps image (its better but still slow for Hugely explored maps)
[/list]
[h3]Dropped Changes[/h3]
I've known about some bugs for a while now about things like falling through steps if there isn't a block below them and if you run up steps really fast you can launch off the top of them.
I did attempt to tackle these issues but it turned into a massive time sink and more complex than expected so they had to be dropped (for now) to prevent further delaying this already overdue release.
[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
[list]
[*] Fixed various issues with check boxes not showing the right value in the settings screen
[*] Fixed animal health bars sometimes sticking around even after they die
[*] Attempted to get the unstuck button to appear/solve scenarios where you have fallen through the world and the safety net fails
[*] Fixed insects not re-spawning all the time after multiple days/nights pass
[*] Fixed custom meshes (like swamp reeds) not swapping to 32 bit meshes gracefully
[*] Fixed fertilised dirt raising into the air slightly when you damage it
[*] Fixed various issues with inventory to prevent corruptions and floating icons
[*] Fixed inverting the mouse Y setting not being saved/loaded
[*] Fixed crafting UI not scrolling to the end properly when you are carrying all wood types
[*] Fixed some UI like furnaces rendering behind objects after chunks reset a bit (E.G after a teleport)
[*] Fixed the Lost Civ WIP message getting stuck on screen until you press Esc
[*] Fixed the Lost Civ destination in the map UI being editable
[*] Fixed the perk for crafting extra arrows increasing how many you get each time you craft any arrow
[*] Fixed the continue button still being shown after it fails to find your last char/world (which happens after deleting files)
[*] Fixed an issue with loading data and parsing negative numbers. Would prevent things like rain from saving/loading properly
[*] Fixed metal chests etc losing their colour whilst damaged, in hand or as a UI preview
[*] Fixed the camera getting stuck at a weird orientation if you cancel getting into a bed
[*] Fixed hunger immunity not saving/loading properly, leading to you wrongly being hunger immune when first loading a world
[/list]