Welcome starchasers! It’s summer and life is good, which means lots of new things and new news to showcase! [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35321791/12e05f6fd3691ecb443e7a88ba4c2fb74b848542.png[/img] The biggest bit of news is that demo 2.20 is now out! This is our largest demo release in… well, quite a while, perhaps even ever. There’s a lot of overhauls, some serious quality of life improvements, and of course models in interiors. You can check out and play the demo yourself, or read on to see all the new things that are in said demo that we added last month! Either way, be sure to [url=https://pastaspace.itch.io/underspace]check it out[/url], as well as [url=https://discord.gg/34NbWxKkKh]join our Discor[/url]d for more immediate updates! [h1]Interiors Redone[/h1] As promised, a major amount of work has been done modeling out the REAL interior models! This includes texturing, modeling, UVing, you name. The point is, these things are in game and ready to be explored. I’d have more to say here but I’d rather just show it all off. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35321791/661c4edd821a0e2908a1fa848cc94c4215a781d1.jpg[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35321791/575758ffb872239e943d4a51e1b2088d6042e528.jpg[/img] [previewyoutube=i2W17CYpnbo;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=rz6RbwHPJ3I;full][/previewyoutube] It took a lot of new background tech being added in to really get these things to pop. In addition to some new shadow rendering tricks room interiors can also control clip distance, 3D skyboxes, fog, ambient light intensity (useful during some cutscenes) and more. [previewyoutube=MfhmmZ4vviE;full][/previewyoutube] Cutscenes during the main quest have also been redone a bit, to fit these interiors. [previewyoutube=0zv_kTaJUUM;full][/previewyoutube] Right now we’ve currently modeled interiors for one racial style and what I call “generics” (interior styles made to just go anywhere). You can see them for yourself in the demo, but as the months roll on we’ll have the three other styles made as well as the remaining interiors for planets. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//35321791/2c4fe2b0bfdb347c4be67a800b816f7527a6a21f.jpg[/img] [h1]Engine Rendering[/h1] That’s rendering on engines like ship thruster engines, not redoing the rendering of our game engine. We’ve switched over from them being particles, to them being shader based. These are much more internally efficient, and allows for a wider variety of things to happen to them, including new animations. [previewyoutube=6Zc-ypO-OP4;full][/previewyoutube] Don’t worry though, you can still fully customize engines how you see fit, and even control the intensity of the color! [previewyoutube=2swMlm4-GZ4;full][/previewyoutube] These engines are on all ships in the game, so you can see it for yourself. [previewyoutube=jrSPXrjt24E;full][/previewyoutube] [h1]AI Improvements[/h1] While most of this month was focused on interior work, I did get some time to fix up and improve NPC AI. First off, factions have a bunch of extra override settings for AI that are conditional. That’s a mouthful but basically: NPCs in the game world can change their combat styles based on things you’ve done. Maybe one particular faction gets REALLY mad if you fly a certain color, or NPCs fight harder if they know you’re carrying better loot. There’s fun stuff here. [previewyoutube=sHIp73hGW0A;full][/previewyoutube] The AI has some new moves now too! It could dodge, but now it can dodge with a ton of new settings to keep you on your toes. [previewyoutube=PyZjaqAJ4mc;full][/previewyoutube] Finally, heavy attacks are now possible for the AI now, along with allowing for heavy equipment to have different more AI appropriate behavior if it’s wielding one (as heavy equipment might be fun to use but not always fun to fight). [previewyoutube=QwEQqlR75FE;full][/previewyoutube] And that’s all for this month! Our big focus for the next few weeks is on testing out campaign and vignette stuff, to make sure it all works for release as well as our testers. See you next month!