The Aftermathf.round

Aug
14
TestBuilt's picture
Submitted by TestBuilt on Thu, 08/14/2014 - 18:14

Hello everyone. I'm sorry for taking so long to post some news here. Sadly, there has been a lack of (good) news worthy of mentioning in this section. Everyone following us closely in the #TestBuilt IRC channel received the most detailed and up to date information. Most of which has been concerning blocking issues and fumbling with some of the Unity Pro features.

In the meanwhile we also continued with the 100 minutes of Open Season events every Sunday. A cool tradition alleviating the fact that the "old alpha" version closely resembles a loaf of stale bread. I have been in-game for the reward ceremony and a friendly chat, which was a nice opportunity to elaborate on some of the bigger issues we'd been facing. With that said, I'm very happy to announce that we've managed to overcome the big issues and are back on track testing new features.
 

Now, with our reclaimed ability to make test builds again, there is nothing stopping me from sneaking out some screen shots taken from our latest build. Video is a different story as my laptop drops to 5fps on high quality settings. Oh well, we might not be focused on eye candy too much but it sure does make a difference when things are looking nice.

It's been tough to delay everything as much as it has been, just to work around issues with the engine. After all, we bought a license in the hopes of making our lives easier. The good news is that Unity noticed the issue reported on terrain performance and will be fixing it. I'd like to thank all of you who have been patiently supporting us during all this time and I promise to do more frequent news updates in the days ahead. Before returning to work on the new release I'll just leave you all with this short summary of work done, in progress and to do.

Cheers!

- fixed: A custom Terrain and Tree system to circumvent the issues with the Unity system
- fixed: Working around an Out-of-memory error on builds using asset bundles
- fixed: Several issues caused by the above mentioned fixes

- done: Implementing Unity pro features and optimized (terrain) shaders/textures

- done: Standalone database preparation and (performance) testing.
- wip: Rebake shadows on terrain after shaders/textures changes
- wip: Database implementation and testing in the server build
- wip: UMA Armors / Clothes by participants
 
- todo: Implement and test creatures, areas and npcs

- todo: A fresh website and forum are in preparation