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Work on Overgrowth for the previous two weeks

Add Comment! By David Rosen on December 31st, 9999

Beta 3 kept us super busy these last two weeks, so this update came after two weeks instead of one. On the plus side, that means it's twice as big!

Here's all the things we've done in the last two weeks for the game (and some up to a week earlier than that):

Change log: * Released Beta 3 (improvements here not all in Beta 3) * Worked on defining the proposed scope and timeline for Beta 4 (faster than the last one!) * Fix for bug with invisible characters on ATI video cards when GPU Skinning is disabled * Fix for Intel HD 4000 #DRY 0:71 ';' syntax error * Many many small fixes and quality of life improvements on new UI (many got into Beta 3) * Fix sound prioritization issue for music * Added support for overbright decals * Built new (post Beta 3) mods UI to allow display of more mods at once, and to display more info per mod * Added prototypes of SSAO support and volume shadows as check boxes in debug menu * Removed detail objects from shadow pass to improve perf * Added ability to configure perferred audio device * Added ability to toggle display of any debug text * Made bug particles receive shadows * Started some experiments on a new inline tutorial system * Started out a test on ledge auto-grab behavior * Made it easier to fall off "balance" flagged objects * Added several idle animations and a few others (not hooked up yet), and improved some of the new walking animations * Improved detail objects/textures on several assets * Improved perf on some tree prefabs by combining them into a single object * Added several recently added assets to the spawner * Fixed some bugs with black sky textures (seemed to be triggered by using jpg instead of tga) * Fix problems with saving object tint weights * Improvements to snow shaders * Worked on improved path handling to try to resolve cache invalidation issues (w/ mods, etc) * Fixed some graphical glitches caused by water caustics * Did some experiments with geometry tesselation to add more detail to some objects * Improvements to swamp water visuals * Did some gameplay prototyping of challenging encounters * Added firefly visuals * Did some hacking on super secret [redacted] prototype * Some fixes to new collision painting system * Worked on some rendering and CPU perf improvements * Switch to using file change notifications to detect files for live update (Windows only) * Fix dupe messages bugs after switching levels with TCP/IP scripting support * Support tree-based UI for scenegraph, toggable to flat list * Started some work on supporting true prefabs instead of just group "macros" that get pasted in levels Work specifically on new campaign levels: * Did a detail art pass on Level 1 * Added new ambient sounds to a lot of levels * Integrated several new music tracks into new campaign * Rebuilt the platforms on level one of the new campaign to make the path clearer * Added new watery cave prototype level for the new campaign * Added improved environmental blob shadows to several levels new the new campaign * Added more detail object variety to the second level and farm level * Worked on a proposed remake of the "rude awakening" pit combat level * Did collision painting on a few levels * Updated lighting on beach level * Made obstacles taller in in rat HQ level to allow more stealth opportunities * Gameplay improvements/bug fixes in night time slaver camp level * Small updates to ice cliffs level * Several tweaks and improvements to volcano level * Updates to watchtower level