Hello there !
Guess which day it is ? Haha, yes, it's May the 4th, and in France, Thursday is called "Jeudi" (Jedi ! Got that one ? Haha ! Yes, each week I do that joke in my head. Sorry for that).
Well !
Here's a new update for the demo of Star Wars - Redemption, bringing new areas to visit, new assets, adjusted enemies (with a new addition to the collection ;)), new rules, and improved gamefeel. Please find all details on changes, at the end of this post ;) But first ! Let's see major improvements =D It's live, you can update the same way as usual =)
I have to say I'm a lot more in blueprint than before and it's freakin' cool how much this expands the vision one can have when crafting an asset. I'm also more relieved on this project, I rush less, and I appreciate more what I do (not sure if these are the best word to express how I feel about the project, it's simply better for my health in general haha ^^)
The "Clean armor", needed some dirt, to fit the art direction I established for this project. Objects needs to look like they've endured combats, they should look worn, used, scratched, and all of this by hand (don't use a smartmaterial for that, you'll always make a better job yourself ;) These usage marks can tell stories themselves if you place them well =))
Mevenn in all her glory ! =) I really like this idle Thomas did, he made an hommage to Ahsoka and another one to Obi-Wan iconic stances, Mevenn looks terrific like this =)
New Haircut for the Phoenix armor skin (first image is a quick render of the sculpt version in marmoset, second on is the finished asset with textures)
I've also used various posing from idles, some of them makes Mevenn shine more than others =) With this new haircut, the goal was to shift out of the really blocky look of the existing haircuts, ideally, I'd like to rework them all this way. We'll see if I find the time (and motivation ^^), but in the same time keep the stylized look of it. I don't want Mevenn to look like anything realistic, I'm not comfortable with that and I prefer these shapes languages =) I've added two tiny elements (blue metal objects near the shaved part), at first these were there mostly to play with the shape of the shaved part, and the Lumberian Tatoos, but I'm thinking these would perhaps prove useful later for gameplay, or maybe some important parts of the story. Like a lot of things I do, I create the visuals first, then I find what would be cool to do with it (that's probably why I rarely throw or redo an asset, I hate wasting things even in 3D ^^)
The UI has been refined to be clearer to read, it was notably issued when displayed over bright areas. Internally, the code has been slightly optimized and how UI is managed is better organized.
Main Menu (I've adjusted the lighting of the main menu and Mevenn's posing. She looks cooler holding her helmet) :
Audio Settings :
Now you can mute any channel at a single click. Settings saved at any modification, so when you restart, if there's no music, then there's no music ;)
Options (during pause in a level) :
There you can see 2 new settings : the "Renforts" (stands for "Reinforcements" in French). First one allows you to modulate the number of allies, second is for enemies. Allies stands only for Jedi Knights, and they are actually more performance hungry than enemies AI, so use it carefully. It's affecting the game once you've collected 250 ForceGhosts. On most cases, you'll need to restart level to apply new settings
And this, paired with spawn dales, can makes a really solid training for our Jedi (spoiler : I did not pass this trial, too hard for me, but maybe you'll succeed !). As always, please be reasonable, if your PC starts lagging at a certain point, don't generate more units and make a good use of these sliders, as it saves performance to have less units to manage
Oh and of course you can decide to remove enemies if you just want to explore the levels peaceuly =)
New clone ARC troopers units are coming up ! Please welcome the "Z-6" troopers =D (Well, sorry for that name. I didn't find a better one ^^")
The dash has been improved with a subtle FOV modulation through distance. This gives a smoother feeling on it. Also, depending on how many ForceGhosts you captured, the dash goes more or less further, once you've got them all, Mevenn is almost like a death eater =D
And you can also choose to remove the jetpack or not, giving Mevenn a thinner silhouette. Please note that you no longer need to remove the helm if you change outfit, the choice is now kept across changes =)
New areas to visit on Lumberia - Temple :
Near the edge of the map, after the circle of stones, lies an old tomb...and more Clones Troopers to kill ;)
Then, if you observe the temple from the outside, you may notice that a new path has been added for you to reach a new floor
TorchFlames now have a more stylized look :
Also new to explore in Geonosian Caves :
There's new corridors, a small arena, Jedi knights that can support your efforts against more BattleDroids ! These corridors were a great way to try and mix up different areas, the cold corridors of the Lucrehulk with the warm sand of Geonosis. This idea is not new of course, and is a little tribute to the great Republic Commando oppening level where you get to dive inside Geonosis canyons, so much you barely see any sunlight. I loved the experience back then, so, yeah, another tribute to other great projects !
Please find below a list of all the updated/fixed/added features of the 2.6
[Level - Main Menu] :
- Restored TwiLek (disappeared in latest 2.5 update for some reason)
- Adjusted animation (Mevenn)
- Adjusted composition & lighting
[Level - Training Room] :
- Changed how spawner works : now you can chose between 1, 2, 3, or 4 enemies to spawn, depending on the glowing dale you walk (please keep being aware of your PC capabilities : don't spawn a lot of droïds if your PC can't handle it, you should gradually see this of course, just keep an eye on your framerate ;))
- Added visual feedback on spawn dale and where a Battledroid gets spawned, also they now appear folded, then deploy to get into their previous animation logic, like in the Phantom Menace.
- Internally optimized the code logic so we can quickly decide how many units to spawn per dale
- Adjusted spawn positions on training room spawn in order to reduce crowd clusters and let units find their path more easily
[Level - Geonosis Canyon] :
- Adjusted default outfit to Clean armor
- Doubled up Jedi & B1 BattleDroids on start area
- Added an elevator just after the BattleDroids vs Jedi intense fighting place, so you can now traverse back and forth the whole level
[Level - Lucrehulk] :
- Adjusted default outfit to 414th armor
[Level - Lumberia Temple] :
- Added new spawn points in the Temple's first floor, some in the forest around too, near new areas to visit. Currently how the spawn works makes the area where you drop fully safe, but this may change in the future
- Added new staircases models notably in the first level inside of the Temple
- Adjusted fog color (was too purple-ish and didn't match well the mood)
- Added new paintings for Lumberia canvas you may find inside old temple areas
- Fixed major drawcalls issues on Lumberia Temple, especially visible when in Ultra graphic settings
- Added new areas to visit in Ancient Temple of Lumberia (you'll have to climb on a hidden pathway)
- Added a lot more Forceghosts on Lumberia Temple, as new areas were added to explore
- Added cobwebs
- Added big degradation to some parts of the temple (mainly pillars), where we now have growing trees. This ages the Temple a bit more, since it's supposed to be a very, very ancient place
[BONUS Level - Lumberian Dungeon] :
- Added cobwebs
- Adjusted Jedi spawn
- Started the addition of a new zone, which will explore paths one level down
[BONUS Level - Geonosian Caves]
- Added new rooms to explore, with a Lucrehulk blend & a new little arena with a few Jedi Knights against many droïds
[Mevenn] :
- Fixed logic behind Helmet/Hood toggle on/off. Now, if you turn it off, then switch to another outfit, the helm/hood won't show back magicaly. Also if visibility is on and you decide to switch to off, you will no longer need to hit the shortcut twice.
- Fixed a logic routine that didn't always switch off light if lightsaber was off
- Changed where that auto-light/sound routine runs in code, as well as saber impacts, so it no longer runs on event tick but on a separate loop logic fired when necessary (this was too much hungry on resources)
- Fixed how increase/decrease lighting works so it also consider light attenuation radius
- Optimized how often "Depth of Field" blur was called (was on tick, now the routine is called once and just regularly tested in paralell)
- Changed Mevenn's half-shaved hairstyle for a more natural/elegant/detailed one
- Changed Max. critical chance up to 90%
- Changed rule to unlock all the bonus levels, now if you have captured up to 150 Forceghosts, you'll unlock these levels
- Changed rule to unlock the "Reinforcements" multiplier bonus, now if you have captured up to 250 Forceghosts, you'll unlock this bonus. This affects both enemies & allies and can now be adjusted in options (restart level to apply new settings)
- Changed rule to unlock the "random start spawn" bonus, now if you have captured up to 350 Forceghosts, you'll unlock this feature
- Added a new rule to increase base damage (from 2 to 10), and critical damage (from 10 to 40) based on total captured ForceGhosts. You can collect up to 501 of them. Please note that there's a strange display bug that doesn't always keep up with the exact current count, in case of any doubt, just restart the level ; this will refresh the counter
- Based on this new rule, a Dash distance multiplier is applied (from 0.5 to 1.5)
- Added new variant for the Jedi outfit : Novice (Numpad 5)
- Added a shortcut to shot/hide Jetpack when in clone outfit (Numpad 7)
- Added a slight FOV change when dashing, to immerse more into the action
- Adjusted the surfacing look of the "Clean Armor" suit, to get the same level of dirtiness than what we have on basic Clone Troopers
- Adjusted Helmet LOD, as it appeared lowpoly too fast
- Raised Life (Easy=1500 (was 1000);Normal=45(was 30);Hard=20(was 10))
[Jedi Knights] :
- Optimized animations
- Added lights to lightsabers, matching their actual blade color. This makes Them more visible in dark areas (Archives, Dungeon...etc)
- Reduced blade lengths
- Added a HealOrb drop if the Jedi was a strong one (they last longer and has a slightly greater light radius)
[Clone Troopers Phase I] :
- Optimized animations
- Updated idle animations, notably on Geonosis
[Clone Troopers Phase II] :
- Optimized animations
- Added a new logic to add a backpack or a Jetpack or nothing at all in order to bring more diversity to ARC troopers
- Added a new Clone ARC Trooper class, the "RotaryBlaster Z-6". These are the most difficult to overcome, but also a rare unit at first spawn. Once killed, they won't randomly respawn as any clone unit, meaning a group of clones that respawns will gain more of these through each respawns and make the game more and more difficult if you stay in the same area for too long. They shot much faster but with less accurate precision and they have a lot more bullets per load, meaning they won't enter in a breakpoint of reloading as often as other kind of ARC troopers. Only an ARC trooper can respawn as a Rotary Blaster one.
[BattleDroid B1]
- Optimized animations
- Adjusted shot pace per unit (B1 Commanders and Security are more aggressive)
- Adjusted respawn as-elite chance, since B1 Commanders are more dangerous
[Additional features] :
- Added "voices" to jumpy mushrooms (First time I'm doing voice acting =P)
- Added a "ghosted" mode (Ctrl+Alt+G), this is mostly just to take environment screenshots without Mevenn (you'll still be visible to enemies so be careful when using this command. Also since it's a persistent mode, don't forget to switch back yourself to normal visibility ;))
- Modified Mushrooms "OnCliff" so they look more alive and reacts when play jumps on them, which gives a better platforming feeling
- Restored the good behavior of flying forceghosts when catched, instead of sticking to Mevenn's torso movements (which resluted as jaggy motionpaths)
- Added new AI spawn logic (simple "doors" that will keep trying to generate new units if below maximum unit count). Also these spawners works only if player is far, so you should rarely see them actually generate their units
- Added a new settings that allows you to modulate the number of ennemies & allies brought in game by global generators (does also affect new spawners/training room spawners, but not space level spawners that currently looks quite balanced as is). You can choose between 0, 1, 2, 3, or even 4. You can change these parameters while playing in a level, in the options sub-menu. And so yes, if you just want to explore without any enemy, now you can =)
- Added Mute buttons in audio settings, near the reset button. This mutes the current channel, but the game saves the fine-tuned setting so when you unmute later, you'll retrieve the same value you setted earlier. Reset button actually resets that "memorized" value to 1 (=100% of the audio channel)
- Added a filter for ship homing missiles to avoid allies starfighters
- Starfighters Generators now have a dynamic spawn limit that changes regularly, in order to vary the density of a battlefield
- Added collisions (and death) in flying mode. Keep out diving inside star destroyer's geometry ! Death is fired if you collide too many times in a row, I've tried to get something still cool to pilot but ending the flight if player does to many bad tricks (spin is still allowed. It's a good one after all !). Pay attention to VFX of damage (bursts of flames), if you can see them, you're about to crash if you keep bumping on surfaces
[General BugFixes] :
- Fixed an issue in flying menu>options that was preventing player to reset value on resolution/gamma sliders
- Fixed a bug where access to Audio settings led to discard any previously changed options
- Fixed some sound issues with concurrency settings
- Fixed an issue on respawn transforms that sometimes could cause unit to use an unwanted orient
- Fixed an issue preventing player to get a healorb if the Orb has already been overlapped by another actor than the player
- Fixed curious glitch issue on mushrooms on cliff by simplifying their shader
[General Improvements/Adjustments] :
- Improved VFX of Torch flames
- Improved VFX of steaming gas
- Raised HealOrbs healing range (Min=9 (was 6);Max=18 (was 12))
- Raised HealSources (healing=1500 (was 1000))
- Adjusted all enemies shot rythm. Most of the Elites shoot a bit faster, normal units shoot slower, most units now have a more random delay between shots
- Each reload delays has been increased, this offers player a better window frame to move and slay enemies
- Adjusted sparks/glowing halo VFX to make them look more volumetric at a cheaper cost
- Adjusted translation ENG/FR to new features
- UI has been slightly adjusted to better handle window scaling to different ratios and be more easy to read over bright levels
- Adjusted UI so if you're playing into a bonus level you no longer see the dragonfly counter in the top left corner
- Optimized how units spawns (no longer a big block of 90 units at once, this saves performance)
- Changed the spawn logic in space battles, now the starfighter you pilot hosts units generators (one for allies, another for enemies), starfighters spawns always near you so you can fight anywhere in space
- Changed respawn logic, it's no longer hosted in enemies dead corpses and resolves several issues (pathfinding, collisions, performance costs...etc)
- Adjusted light spawn distance on projectiles and lightsaber blades to reduce performance costs
- Optimized all Starfighters animations so they are now using only 30 keys per second instead of 50 (up to 60 sometimes)
That's all folks !
Des Bisous ♥ , et que la Force soit avec vous !