PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Damocles]

You know the A16 terrain engine did this already by raising the level of the surrounding land to the ground level of the POI before placing it?

As I've said, not the best solution for certain POIs.

A manual raise will always look better (can create a custom base layer) than an automatic one.

Adding a layer is quickly done, and I wonder why this is not a design requirement from the start.

But having the POIs float is a nogo. Especially since they disintegrate due to the stability calculations.

 

[MedDivine]

Is it possible to rework the Lighting System? When it gets so dark you dont see anything, i have to gear the gamma up, so that i can see something, but this takes the Nightime Feeling :/ And the the zombies can crush any wall out of stone so easily, in the early game it is harder than it should be, later on i dont care but for the starting experience it should be a little easier to build a home who withstand some zombies (if day 7 arrives it could crush you im fine with that) Just for one or two zombies alone to crush your base i think its too hard for beginners :/ And Zombie Looting would be nice to have to come back. Just minor things, but it should you give a small reward to kill the zombies. Doesnt have to be something big just one water bottle or such little things Anyway it is a great game so hopefully it gets better (and it does)

 

[The Gronk]

As I've said, not the best solution for certain POIs.A manual raise will always look better (can create a custom base layer) than an automatic one.

Adding a layer is quickly done, and I wonder why this is not a design requirement from the start.

But having the POIs float is a nogo. Especially since they disintegrate due to the stability calculations.

Fix a single POI and you've fixed one problem out of hundreds. Fix the terrain engine and you've fixed all problems by solving one.

Never do more work than you have to

I should be able to create a simple POI of a football field a single block of dirt thick and not have to worry about the underlying terrain. If the terrain engine cannot place that correctly that's the fault of the terrain engine, not the POI.

 

[Pille]

MadMole,
we do not have access to every texture in the game for painting. maybe in 17.3, but in 17.2 there are fewer paintable textures than 16

Objectively, no. We have 167 textures in A16 and 173 textures in A17. Two of those textures cannot be selected directly in the R menu but they can be copied to the brush (yet another unfixed bug).

Many of the new textures look fugly though. Either due to terrible scaling (thanks to the new texture array where all textures seem to have the same size) or because they are too bright/pale. A lot of the nice and clean looking stuff from A16 has been replaced by worn out-looking versions. So subjectively, I have to agree.^^

 

[stasis78]

Objectively, no. We have 167 textures in A16 and 173 textures in A17. Two of those textures cannot be selected directly in the R menu but they can be copied to the brush (yet another unfixed bug).
Many of the new textures look fugly though. Either due to terrible scaling (thanks to the new texture array where all textures seem to have the same size) or because they are too bright/pale. A lot of the nice and clean looking stuff from A16 has been replaced by worn out-looking versions. So subjectively, I have to agree.^^

Well better yet. Just make it moddable

But must require inner circle only

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Objectively, no. We have 167 textures in A16 and 173 textures in A17. Two of those textures cannot be selected directly in the R menu but they can be copied to the brush (yet another unfixed bug).
Many of the new textures look fugly though. Either due to terrible scaling (thanks to the new texture array where all textures seem to have the same size) or because they are too bright/pale. A lot of the nice and clean looking stuff from A16 has been replaced by worn out-looking versions. So subjectively, I have to agree.^^

The texture array is actually better when it comes to tiling. Atlases have problems that array's dont.

All textures are now 1K instead of the majority being 512 or lower. Lowest in 16 was 128x128.

As for the rest, there are reasons as to why they appear the way they do, but overall the texture quality is miles better than 16 was.

 

[Pille]

The texture array is actually better when it comes to tiling. Atlases have problems that array's dont.All textures are now 1K instead of the majority being 512 or lower. Lowest in 16 was 128x128.

As for the rest, there are reasons as to why they appear the way they do, but overall the texture quality is miles better than 16 was.

Maybe from a technical point of view. I was talking about the aesthetics though. Just have a look at these screenshots:

Superbright flagstone:

Well better yet. Just make it moddable
But must require inner circle only

Hmm no.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Maybe from a technical point of view. I was talking about the aesthetics though. Just have a look at these screenshots:

That type of problem is one of creation. I spent much time trying to avoid that as much as possible, but it's very hard in a voxel world.

Superbright flagstone:

Its not actually that bright by itself. Other elements effect lighting/colour/brightness of the textures.

 

[Pille]

That type of problem is one of creation. I spent much time trying to avoid that as much as possible, but it's very hard in a voxel world.

Ok but why was it far less terrible in A16?^^ I mean all textures extend over only one square meter / block. That doesn't look intended to me.

Its not actually that bright by itself. Other elements effect lighting/colour/brightness of the textures.

Even in the preview window of the brush it looks so bright... Quite annoying, even if the texture is not that bright by itself.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Ok but why was it far less terrible in A16?^^

It wasnt "far less", really. The more details you add, the more likely that is to occur.

The more resolution you have to play with, the more details you want to add.

Rinse, repeat, redo, catch22.

 

[Pille]

It wasnt "far less", really. The more details you add, the more likely that is to occur.The more resolution you have to play with, the more details you want to add.

Rinse, repeat, redo, catch22.

No the issue is fairly unrelated to the level of detail of the textures. Textures that extended over several blocks in A16 has been squished onto the area of a single block / one square meter in A17. Ofc the level of detail makes it even worse in some cases but imo it's not the main problem. You can easily check the size of the patterns in textures for A16 and A17. The following example is even one of the more benign:

A16:

A17:

The result is that you get far more repetitions within the same area. All textures in the current Alpha seem to use this kind of scaling.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Its not even the same texture.

A16 was a 512 texture with very little main detail over 4 blocks (2w,2h).

A17 is a 1K texture with much more detail over the same area so repeats more.

 

[Pille]

Its not even the same texture.
A16 was a 512 texture with very little main detail over 4 blocks (2w,2h).

A17 is a 1K texture with much more detail over the same area so repeats more.

In A17 it looks like it's over 1 block (1w,1h)? If the A17 texture extends over the same area as the A16 texture why are there 4 repetitions within that area? That's what I mean. There are other examples of identical textures btw. Why can't we have 1K textures over 4 blocks? I don't understand why having more details means that we must have those repetitions...

I really hope that TFP are going to fix this.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

I had a quick look at the blocks. Some mappings are still 1x1. You are correct.

Either intentional (which makes no sense), or weren't adjusted when size was increased from 512/256/128.

Array dictates all maps must be of equal size. I'll go with oversight, benefit of the doubt on TFP's part.

Either way, easy fix really. We could also fix ourselves via UABE if so inclined.

 

[Laz Man]

Don't forget that this is a magical workbench where you can craft auto turrets with friend/foe recognition from a few random parts.

Hell, I dont think they even had that type of recognition software in the aliens movies lol ..

 

[Laz Man]

If I was in charge...

 

[stasis78]

Hmm no.

Don’t worry, TFP isn’t making the game moddable for infidels.

Only for oliphaunts

 

[HeLLKnight]

No the issue is fairly unrelated to the level of detail of the textures. Textures that extended over several blocks in A16 has been squished onto the area of a single block / one square meter in A17. Ofc the level of detail makes it even worse in some cases but imo it's not the main problem. You can easily check the size of the patterns in textures for A16 and A17. The following example is even one of the more benign:
A16:

Spoiler

A17:

Spoiler

The result is that you get far more repetitions within the same area. All textures in the current Alpha seem to use this kind of scaling.

Unity blog introduced a new very interesting free plugin to avoid repetition patterns on tileable textures, called procedural-stochastic-texturing. Hope TFP can start using soon, now that they are working on better terrain for a18:

https://blogs.unity3d.com/es/2019/02/14/procedural-stochastic-texturing-in-unity/

 

[khzmusik]

Unity blog introduced a new very interesting free plugin to avoid repetition patterns on tileable textures, called procedural-stochastic-texturing. Hope TFP can start using soon, now that they are working on better terrain for a18:

That looks pretty sweet, but:

We have some performance comparisons on page 20 of the technical chapter:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QecekuuyWgw68HU9tg6ENfrCTCVIjm6l/view

It is on average 4-5 times slower than simple tiling. Although you can trade performance for memory by using smaller textures than you would normally need to avoid repetition patterns (all of the renders in this post are with 256² textures), which could be a win for some mobile projects.

(From a comment by someone at Unity Labs.)

So, I don't know if TFP will add it (or if they should). They have already had to deal with severe framerate drops when entering a POI, and from what I understand, it's due to the texture handling. Slowing it down more doesn't sound like a good idea.

More than happy to be wrong though.

(Also, I don't think this has anything to do with terrain, not sure why you brought that up?)

 

[SwineDK]

That looks pretty sweet, but:

(From a comment by someone at Unity Labs.)

So, I don't know if TFP will add it (or if they should). They have already had to deal with severe framerate drops when entering a POI, and from what I understand, it's due to the texture handling. Slowing it down more doesn't sound like a good idea.

More than happy to be wrong though.

(Also, I don't think this has anything to do with terrain, not sure why you brought that up?)

Well.. If it adds more processing power, then it's not a priority. As madmole said, he aims to get LESS complaints about performance.. And maaan I'd love to be able to fire up my Pentium II at a whopping 450 MHz and kick ass and chew bubblegum as if it was 1999!!

But I'll settle with a more modest amount of work done to the performance :smile-new: