For the first update of 2023 I wanted to target some quality of life additions including both user interface and graphical improvements. The size of the update at nearly 400 MB is due to the significant number of assets that have been tweaked.

ES3.1 Improvements

First up is some improvements to the ES3.1 graphics mode. This is the graphics rendering you get when you pick ES3.1 (for low end pcs) from the launch options, essentially this is the lowest rendering quality and uses mobile level rendering rather than the typical DirectX or Vulkan, so something like youd find from a game being played on Android for example. The point of this is to make the game playable on really low-end hardware without having to turn regular graphics settings down so low that the game looks terrible. PLEASE NOTE: The following in-game screenshots are of these lowest quality graphics. You may need to view these in a web-browser at larger size to see specific details.

Material based ambient occlusion

For starters Ive improved the material based ambient occlusion previously just on some wall pieces as it will really help with wall definition, especially more noticeably when running on a low-quality graphics preset or in ES3.1 mode. Every wall piece has had its mesh piece reworked to support this, with ones that previously had some shading being redone to a higher standard. Various other items such as fences, bamboo, and pipes have all been updated to feature better shading as well. You will now see some material based ambient occlusion when running regular graphics mode (e.g. DX12/Vulkan) however as the shadows/lighting were already good here you wont notice as significant of an improvement.

Better LOD island quality

All meshes used for walls and for LOD islands you see in the distance have been reworked to feature a much better quality low LOD level that better holds its form and feature material based ambient occlusion. Ive also tweaked the distant islands to get shaded a little darker outside the range of shadows so it appears a little more natural. The reason this occurs at all is because in ES3.1 mode there is essentially no sky lighting and instead the meshes are given emissive values to mimic the effect. When you combine this with shadows only being in the immediate surroundings of the player this would leave the far islands looking a little poor quality.

Water improvements

Because the game uses forward rendering, that means there are no screen space reflections, so water without planar reflections like higher graphics levels feature it would typically have looked underwhelming. ES3.1 came off the worst, but Ive been able to fake the reflections and give water an overhaul for quality in general. The idea being where certain graphical features are lacking Ive faked features to at least visually get it close to how the higher end settings would look. Its a lot better than it was.

Ball shadows

Another improvement is Ive got shadows for the balls working, this was kind-of a resolution related problem but Ive been able to shift things around a bit to get these working properly. Ive also tweaked the shadow bias to make things hold their form as the camera moves further away.

User Interface improvements

Ive also done some user interface improvements specifically to better handle the switching between mouse/keyboard and gamepad mode. One improvement is that the mouse cursor will disappear when you are using the gamepad and will not cause hover/selections to occur. The other change is that Ive added a threshold-based movement detection for the mouse to enter keyboard/mouse mode. This means that instead of having to click somewhere, simply moving the mouse beyond a small amount will show the cursor again as well as keyboard glyphs.

Various other fixes and improvements

Also included are various bug-fixes to issues found or reported which you can see in the full notes below. If you encounter any issues then please let us know so they may be promptly fixed. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

Patch Notes

Environment

• Added improved material based ambient occlusion for most wall meshes. This will improve the all-graphics quality levels but stand out more at lower settings where weaker simpler is used.
• Fixed various small wall gaps.
• Fixed some wall alignment on see you on the other side.
• Fixed a ground alignment on center path.
• Added material ambient occlusion to fences.
• Added improvements to distant islands in ES3.1 mode so they get better shading.
• Added slightly improved water appearance when not using planar reflection.
• Fixed ball shadows not rendering in ES3.1 mode.
• Fixed Shadow bias causing shadows to sometimes end abruptly in lower end settings.
• Fixed some rocks having low LOD levels a little close.
• Fixed a small quality issue with one of the pipes on Speed Bump.
• Added some ambient occlusion to pipes for ES3.1 mode to help give more depth where these appeared very flat due the limited lighting. This was unneeded for regular graphics mode.
• Fixed a slightly overlapping pipe join on Midhole Madness.
• Fixed various rocks clipping through walls such as in Turn Ahead and Goofy Golf.
• Fixed a tiny track gap on Cliffhanger due to incorrect scaling.
• Fixed a poly count inconsistency with a pipe on drop to the left.
• Fixed a wall incorrectly assembled on curve it.
• Fixed a few unnecessary wall pieces below the terrain on What goes around.
• Added a performance optimization to the ramp in go for it.
• Added reworked inside corner wall mesh piece at a higher and consistent quality with other pieces.
• Fixed a pipe alignment on Spin City.
• Added reworked pipe for one of the pipes used on Rock Bottom. Specifically this was the pipe you go through when heading to the left path at the start, not a hole in one route, so wont effect leaderboards in any way.
• Fixed some wall alignment on go for it.
• Added improved lods for all wall meshes.
• Added improved meshes for all LOD islands. The tracks better hold their form over distance and support the material based ambient occlusion.
• Added material ambient occlusion for the bamboo pieces.
• Added memory reductions to all levels by removing excess wall pieces occluded by terrain.

Interface

• Added improvements to mouse/gamepad control switching, by mouse cursor being invisible and unable to interact with UI elements while in gamepad mode.
• Added improvements to glyph mode switching by having a mouse threshold return to keyboard mode rather than have to click or press a specific button.
• Added new thumbnail for level hop and jump.

Discord Server

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.