[h1]Welcome[/h1] Welcome back to another development update! Progress has been significant since the last update and a lot of existing systems have received overhauls. In addition, a few new systems have been added to the game. To start things off, we will discuss the visuals! [h1]Visual Overhaul[/h1] The visuals of LIMINAL have been an iterative process since the beginning of development. As I am primarily a programmer, it has taken me a while to learn many of the things that I now know about the visuals in Unreal Engine. I believe that I am now getting closer to the original vision that I had for the appearance of the game. The shader that creates the retro/VHS look of the game has had a few parts re-written. As this shader does a lot of the heavy lifting, the game now looks a bit different (and better in my opinion). Along with this, a few other effects have been added such as dynamic depth of field. Check out the video below to see what it looks like! [previewyoutube=AhNfrlpQGJY;full][/previewyoutube] [h1]Navigation[/h1] AI navigation has always been a challenge during development. Because the world is procedurally generated and loads/unloads around the player, a lot of traditional techniques for AI pathfinding do not work. Prior to this update, there was a very rudimentary system that allowed AI to traverse the world "for the most part". Collision detection would frequently fail and as a result, AI would get stuck, a lot. I have finally found a way to dynamically update the AI's navigation mesh during chunk loads and unloads. The most important part of this system is that when the navigation mesh needs to be redrawn (ie. a new chunk is loaded), it will only redraw that part of the navigation mesh instead of the entire thing. This effectively means that the navigation mesh around the player will always remain up-to-date and will never have to be redrawn while in view of the player. As an interesting aside, I also did some work on the level generation system in order to get this system to function properly. A cool byproduct of that is the world map! You will now be able to track where you have been and roughly where you are in relation to your starting position. I'm planning to add more systems to this such as markers and waypoints, but those will have to come with time. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43010036/74de498060e689e37561afe7049216298058b00c.png[/img] [h1]Structures[/h1] Structures are an integral aspect of LIMINAL. They are what break up the monotony of the endless environments that you wander. In some ways, they are necessary to advance the "plot" of your playthrough. Because of this, I needed a robust system that would allow for these structures to generate consistently throughout the world in an intentional way. Here's a couple images of some structures from the previous system. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43010036/53f1a8277684c4ede116a0e48c45dac4a2cb5ed3.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43010036/eb504739601da9d9d68c0e2e511494be0732b3e2.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43010036/c5022fdc690ef17b943515fead2d90fc9c463280.png[/img] As you can probably tell, the structures in the old system were not that large, and frankly not that interesting. This is largely because they were bound by the size of a chunk (roughly 40x40 meters). This size was nowhere near enough for what I have planned, so I took on the challenge of rewriting the system so that it could allow for much larger structures. With the majority of the system rewrite now complete, the generation system can technically handle structures of any size. The way that these structures load in was also changed so that now they load with the chunk instead of during their own pass. This effectively removed all hitches related to the structure generation system. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] That's all for this development update. Be sure to check back next week for another one. I hope that you found some of the topics that were discussed interesting! If you would like to stay even more update-to-date, join the[url=https://discord.gg/StWkg9KAGc] [b]Discord[/b] [/url]where I frequently post about development. You can also check out my[url=https://www.twitch.tv/mooselflies_tv] [b]Twitch[/b] [/url]channel where I stream development on the game live at 10:00 AM PST every day!