This update comprises of various fixes and quality of life improvements following on from the recent major update which introduced the ability to customize your golf ball with hats. https://steamcommunity.com/games/1914980/announcements/detail/3707070361895144099 You can read about that previous annoucement via the link above.

Ability to skip XP / Leaderboard screen

This is new for sessions and will function similar to how the existing practice mode skip behaves, in that the timer will be reduced down to at most three seconds, leaving enough time to update leaderboards and prepare any data for the scoreboard. Once you press skip in this case you will only be taken to the scoreboard on the next page, where you may skip again if you wish. Skipping this menu will only be available during local or singleplayer sessions. This is because online multiplayer sessions may have players take varying times to sync with leaderboards and for any data required for later menus.

Various HUD scaling improvements

A handful of changes have been made to specifically help with smaller screens or when the screen is divided for split screen. First the quick chat menu has been raised sligthly to help with overlap with the lower spectating widget. The spacers for all widgets are a little more consistent now too.
Another change is when playing in two player split screen the hole out animation will be cropped slightly to show the text more prominently on the screen.

Several bug fixes and other improvements

See the full update notes below for other fixes and small improvements made, if you are aware of any issues not fixed by this update please let me know so I may address them. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

Patch Notes

General

• Fixed an issue where the ball or hat could draw in front of the flag when in the cup.
• Added small improvement to fixed rotation behaviour for ball or hat when resetting. It will now have the correct rotation instantaneously rather than require aligning.
• Added improvements to pixel depth masking in relation to new hats. They should closer match the ball appearance when seen through walls (become semi-transparent).
• Fixed various miss-matches in transparency relating to hats and non-collision states from alternate perspectives.
• Fixed a potentially incorrect opacity issue due to a miss-match in ownership when watching a replay for hats.
• Added some backend applying of hat optimizations. Specifically removing some redundant functions and tidying up.
• Fixed a potential transparency issue with the knight helmet.
• Fixed a potential crash with ES3.1 relating to material velocity.
• Fixed knight helmet lacking metallic properties on low quality material levels.
• Added some improvements to hat rotation for other players and replays.

Environment

• Fixed a rock on all teed up that could cause problems with resetting once entering the water.
• Fixed shadows on ramps of a handful of LOD levels.
• Fixed a normal issue with a half height wall piece.
• Fixed a weird looking wall gap material on Boneyard.
• Fixed a small wall gap on Speed Bump.
• Fixed a quality issue with a pipe exit on Now Where Do I Go.
• Fixed a tiny pipe gap on See you on the other side.

Interface

• Added ability to skip the XP / Leaderboard page of scoreboard in a regular session while playing in single-player or local multiplayer. This will just take you to the next page.
• Added scaling change to holeout animations when playing two player local. The animation is zoomed and cropped a little so text is more prominent.
• Added improvements to various HUD element scalings. As part of this the quick chat prompt has been raised and anchored more vertically centered. This prevents overlap with the 'specating' widget that can appear in the lower center.

Discord Server

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