Heya!

First 0.5 Devlog!

This is the first of a few Devlogs I plan to make until the actual Update releases to keep track of my work, keep you guys engaged and I just feel like doing it.
I made a lot of progress during the last few weeks, as well as before that so Ill try to list most of the important things.

Sounds,Music&Ambiance!

Something that the game has been lacking for a long time is actual sounds in the game! In the last Update I did introduce music and various other sound effects for the main menu but that was it. No walking sounds, no ambiance... just a blank computer generated voice (which will be changed as well)

Now we do have that kind of stuff (well most of it). I added:
-walking sounds (normal, In water and while crouch-walking)
-jumping sound
-a looot of ambiance sounds
-multiple ambiance sounds that play randomly throughout the game

Tho obviously we still need sounds while sliding, at high speeds and various other sounds which I will probably implement at some point.

I sadly cant embed sound files into steam, but at some point there will be a video about the new features.

Lighting,Rendering&Performance

I have once again tweaked the lighting a bit, which makes the game a bit more spooky but also gives it the "destroyed facility" vibe for which Im now going, instead of a more portal like game. The scenes are darker now and the lighting comes from actual game objects like light bulbs instead of some invisible source.
I also tweaked the post processing values a bit so it once again gives more of a "destroyed facility" vibe.

Picture of new lighting&Post processing:


I also added something called "Occlusion Culling" to the game which increases the performance drastically. It basically makes that the game only renders what you can actually see. Meaning that for example a room locked behind a door, is not rendered anymore.
If you dont understand it just look at these pictures:

Before Occlusion Culling:

After Occlusion Culling:

(please note that the scene in the pictures is not an actual finished level, just a testing scene.)

For better performance, I also removed most mesh colliders from the game and replaced them with box colliders because they were dragging the performance down a lot. You may ask yourself what a mesh collider is, and it basically is that the entire actual surface of an object is a collider. This uses a lot of processing power and is not really useful for the game either because you dont interact with the objects a lot. I replaced them with the box colliders which are just a large box around the object, which does not change the gameplay at all. (objects like vents keep their mesh colliders so you can crawl trough them).

And finally, for better performance as well, I limited the Fps of the game so the game does not try to use as many as possible.

Movement&Camera Shake

I once again rewrote some of the movement code so you can now walk while being crouched. I also made the player a bit heavier because the jumping felt off.

Another thing that the game lacked, was camera shake, which I also added.
Currently there are 3 different versions for when you:
jump
walk
and walk while crouching.

but the potential is endless and I will surely use it for other situations as well.

MainMenu animations and other stuff

I have added animations to the Main Menu as well as the scene which comes up when you start the game (which I reworked completely as well). In the Main Menu, there is a level selector now.
There are also a lot of new props and models for the game and I plan to make the game generally way more detailed(like in level 4).
I also rewrote some old buggy scripts and generally re-organised my unity workspace, but this does not really affect you.


I probably forgot some stuff I did a long time ago but I did not publish back then.
I hope to be finished with the new game mechanics in 1-2 weeks so I can start redoing the whole of chapter one.
Ill post another Devlog next week, if you have any questions about the new content ,about any of the code or want to make a suggestion, feel free to write a comment!

-Stefaaan, actually active again.

[ 2022-09-03 16:08:56 CET ] [Original Post]