Icarus Week 229 Update | Atmospheric Update

Welcome to Week 229.

In this week's "Atmospheric Update", we have improved several areas that help piece together the world of Icarus. First, we updated our Waterfall shader to give a more realistic and consistent visual whilst also improving performance thanks to tessellation LODing and shader optimization. Next, we re-enabled the "Storm Wall", an enormous visual object which can appear in various weather events and gives a daunting look at the impending storm, and finally, we've re-enabled landscape wisp visual effects which help sell the on-going harsh conditions of the Arctic and Desert regions.

Notable Improvements:

• Waterfall visuals have been revamped resulting in both improved visuals and performance.
• Texture optimization on several hundred textures, saving around 1.5GB of memory whilst still retaining the high quality that you've come to expect from Icarus.
• Storm Wall effects have been re-enabled and iterated on to improve visual quality.
• Environmental 'wisp' effects in the arctic and desert have been re-enabled.
• New Uranium Node Spawn Location in Elysiums Mushroom Swamp
• Fixes to Mo and Theo so they Leave Eden correctly during various quests
• Updated the Snow Wolf base skin removing the yellow tint
• Added the 'Raw Meat' Tag to Raw Bacon so it can be used in tag based query recipes
• Reduced Komodo spawns in the OMPHALOS quest by halving manual spawners and slowing spawn rates for better pacing.
• Adjusted the Hammerhead Slug boss fight so nearby wild creatures are no longer drawn in.
• Fixed an issue where stacking modifiers and auras were not properly cleared when players moved out of range.

This Week: Waterfalls

Updating our waterfall visuals is something we've wanted to tackle for a while now but we often struggled to justify spending time on just making it look better. So we prioritized two things, making it look better and making it run better.

Badette, one of our Senior Artists, had the following to say about the change:

The main goal of updating the Waterfalls is visual improvement:

• By adjusting the contrast of details, not just all white
• Making the glossiness, reflection and refraction noticeable
• Near and far away distance of the waterfall color details consistency

By using single layer water material, the challenge was to add in color/albedo details without losing the absorption/scattering color of water. The approach the helped find balance of that was utilizing mask texture of the waterfall where the white mask adds in the color details and the other is to keep the absorption color.Setting up customization for artists - by exposing some controls in the blueprint, this allowed environment artist/world builder adjust details depending on the biome or scale of the waterfall in our map.Reducing shader instruction - RVT is an essential part of the waterfall shader that helps seamless transition of the waterfall that connects on rivers but this adds a significant cost on the shader. Since the usage of RVT is to act as a mask, we took advantage of the vertex interpolator to reduce base pass shader and volumetric lightmap instructions.Tessellation transition is another optimization changes for the waterfall where player being at a certain distance away from the player, adaptive tessellation goes back to 0 (default mesh count) thus reducing rendering of lighting/shadow

This Week: Storm Walls and Wisp Effects

Storm Wall

Back in 2024 we decided to disable the Storm Wall actor because it wasn't meeting our quality standard. There were several issues with it from both a visual quality aspect as well as functionally, and while we wanted to keep it and fix those issues, we made the call to hold off until we had the time to do it properly and make it much better.

Currently the storm wall will appear in both the Arctic and Desert biomes with potentially more expansion in that area to come in the future. We've fixed the functional issues and we're now happy with the visuals, and hope you agree that this absolutely enormous object (which literally stretches across the entire map) really sells the danger and dread of what the weather in Icarus can bring.

Wisp Effects

Continuing with the trend of reviving long-forgotten technology, we also re-enabled the wisp effect which can appear in the Arctic and Desert biomes. This effect only plays when there's no active weather event running and is used to portray the harsh, windy conditions of these less forgiving biomes. We've done some optimization on the effect and you'll need to have your Effects Quality set above 'Low' to see them.

Next Week: Boar Breeding, Phenotypes & The Cleaver

Next week we are introducing the ability to breed wild boars and new tamed boar phenotypes. We are also introducing a brand new item - the Cleaver which will help facilitate the removal of unwanted animal companions.

Your support makes these updates possible.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1648533/Icarus_Dangerous_Horizons_Expansion/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

Changelog 3.0.7.151466-rel-DangerousHorizons

New Content

• Visual improvements for water splash FX WIP
• Applied new waterfall material and blueprint setup on WT_Waterfall
• PROM - waterfall check and tweaks on blue, green, purple quads
• Oly - Waterfall Check and Tweaks on Green/Orange/Blue/Red Quads
• Ely - waterfall check and tweaks on green, orange, purple, yellow quads
• Outposts 002, 004, 005, 006, 007 - Waterfall check and tweaks
• Outpost 012 - Waterfall check and tweaks
• Styx - Waterfall Check and Tweaks on Green/Yellow/Blue/Red Quads
• PROM - additional tweaks to waterfalls in blue and green quads
• Added default custom primitive data on begin play for WT_Waterfall and BP_WaterfallGenerated
• Storm Wall: Refactored positioning logic, will now position itself between 500m and 2000m based on Storm intensity value. Commented and simplified logic
• Disabled initialization of StormWall in InitStorms function when it is already handled on Storm tick logic
• Fixed Sand/Snow drift VFX system not working due to local variable constantly being stomped on tick. Effects are now disabled on Low Effects Quality. Now also disabled when Debris is >0.1 instead of 0.3 as some storms are using low values
• Add genericized slow tick function that updates Effects Quality setting locally
• OLY - reduced falls speed on a few waterfalls in red quad
• Waterfalls material polish to connecting river RVTs

Fixed

• Updated BP_WaterfallGenerated for LavaSpeed not moving on build
• Adding Uranium Node Spawner to the Mushroom Swamp Radiation Area
• Homestead fireplace pieces are now crafted on Decorations bench (not Masonry) and have correct decorations tag.
• Adjusted recipe crafting times and removed Ingot requirement for Chimney cap item.
• Add Homestead tag to homestead kitchen pieces.
• Tag Chair as decorations.
• Blacklist non-craftable set dressing/mission props
• Updated MF_Lava waterfallspeed default setting
• Changed HAB cubemap to Arctic for Ice Shader. Decreased SSS to 1024px for optimization
• Adding prebuilt structure file that spawns audio logs in Eden when completing mission 6
• Fixed Snow Pygmy Lop trophy being set as Wall placement instead of intended Ground placement
• Fixed nuked Biome data for Stronghold biome
• Adding new Audio Log Items for the NPC's in Eden, adjusting UI to allow for the text to be shown and the audio to be played
• Adding prebuilt structure for spawning in the Eden audio logs, these audio logs will now spawn in Eden around the NPC's
• Adding new Quests Flags for Mo & Theo as to when they leave
• Adjusting Logic to check for the quest flag before attempting to spawn Mo & Theo
• Mo now should leave at the start of Mission 4 as intended and will not be present in subsequent missions
• Theo will leave at the end of Mission 5 and will not be present in subsequent missions
• Mo and Theo will now be cleaned up based on state when a new main mission is triggered if the quests flags are present
• Added unique XP data for Mammoth Boss (5x what it was before). Removed unused generic entries. Removed values incorrectly setup in Experience DT and validate for it. Added validation for rows with duplicate XPEvent
• Fixed accidental delegate unplug in firearm controller causing reloading to not auto begin after emptying ammo
• Optimized 29 Axe textures, saving nearly 100MB. Updated PhysicsAssets for several axes so that they collide with objects more accurately. Some LOD tweaks and improvements
• Ely - fixing a couple of waterfalls I missed in last polish pass, orange quad
• Added mesh for Sandwyrm Queen Egg dropped item. Fixed LODs on large wyrm egg
• Adding created anim back in montage to play correct audio for reloading in first person
• Fixed Styx Highrise mission referencing 'Basic' wall lights which were renamed to 'Bunker' lights
• Optimized 28 Pickaxe textures, saving around 75MB. Updated PhysicsAssets for several Pickaxes so that they collide more accurately. Some LOD tweaks and improvements
• Swapping base snow wolf skin to be variation B
• Updated DEP_Nuclear_Centrifuge mesh and textures
• Updated AXE_Obsidian
• Ely - fixed hole in swamp cave that was caused by entrance being disabled, orange quad
• Updated SK_BOW_Crossbow_Lithium
• Optimize VFX textures, saving around 90MB of memory
• Optimized environment textures saving around 640MB of memory. Removed DF setup on Collision meshes
• Optimized Creature textures saving around 150MB of memory
• Optimized Deployable/Buildable textures saving around 230MB of memory
• Optimized Geothermal assets by removing seven 4k normal map textures that are flat. Repath to default normal textures. Saves around 150MB of memory
• Adding the 'Raw Meat' Tag to Raw Bacon so it can be used in tag based query recipes
• Adjusting Farmer Recipes so that the trade can be perform in lower quantities (The ratio is the same)
• Adjusting Farmer NPC Quest so you only need to gather 30 fruit and vegetables
• Removed DangerousHorizons feature level gates
• Reduced Albedo/Normal textures on Quarrite Gun to 2k for optimization
• Hammerhead - Changed relationship type so non player owned creatures wont attack the boss
• Ely - fixed floating cliff on blue quad
• Fixed button hover being white after clicking. Changed hover animation on bestiary unlocks to blink instead of scale
• Removed DNT from Sandworm Tunnels text for Thumper
• Edited item flavor text for clarity and brevity
• Reduced Irradiated Abomination 4k textures down to 2k. Total memory cost for this mesh is reduced from 72MB to 27MB. Updated Tooling to support SK validation. Tweaked LOD screensizes to not hold LOD0 as long

Future Content

• Adding Boolean to Mounts datatable 'bCanBeSelected' so the variations of a creature are enabled or disabled on a per variation level
• Mesh placement, landscape and decals in RadBoss arena, added custom collision meshes to some webbing meshes, reduced walkable slope on webbing meshes to 20 degrees
• Updated RockFormation_002 Prefab
• Fixed missing border in itemable section in item Field Guide
• Changes to Ammo and Benches Screens in Field Guide
• Fixed Meta Flashlight held rotation in third person. Increase albedo resolution to 1k. Remove duplicate 'On' material. On both Flashlights: Remove texture MIPs from Emissive textures which caused bleeding at a relatively close distance. Remove refraction from glass shader which caused sorting issues and artifacts with emissive. Tweaked emissive amount to be less bloomy
• Adding swq chainsaw wind up - and fire of blades. Also adjustments to pitch and balance of main chainsaw on sound and idle
• Updated RockFormation_001 Prefab
• Adding blue slinker (original) variation setup, currently unobtainable in game
• Changes to Animal parts, ammo, armor, equipment, decoration, ranged Field Guide pages
• Added Drop Ship and Respawn Pod, Outpost 11
• Added art assets for the heavy speeder bike
• Added DEP_Trophy_SandWyrm_Queen_Large
• Setup generated level data for Outpost 11
• Outpost 011 - source art and biome heatmap setup in D_biomes and D_terrains
• Adding audio and event for reloading blade
• Added more animations for the Rad Boss
• Blade fly event cleanup
• Adding chainsaw blade impact event for projectile, flying event and a bunch more fine tunes overall
• Adding Blueprint and Recipe for the Heavy Speeder Bike
• Adding datatable validation exclusion for the heavy speeder bike
• Adding AISetup for the Heavy Speeder bike, basic setup and stats pass, implementing mesh and basic anims, fully rideable
• Setting Hoverframe basic mount name to 'Hoverframe' instead of 'Speeder Bike'
• More Field Guide changes
• Added Heavy Speeder Bike icon
• Added the Flying Rad Bomber and the Rad Broodling art assets to the project
• Updated RockFormation_001 Prefab
• Added system (devlocked for now) which allows player to make a piece of equipped armour look like a different piece of armour (transmog)
• Field Guide Item section Visual Changes, changed fishing guide and bestiary entry button animation
• Legendary Chainsaw - Changed spawning of projectiles to take in sawblades as an ammo and acts as a firearm
• Added dedicated Projectile version of Sawblade mesh with custom collision and DF setup. Added Icon and DNT for Sawblade itemable, increased weight and fixed row name. Removed DF from Chainsaw SMs. Increased damage of Sawblade projectile
• Added Heavy Speederbike to Mounts DT validation exclusion
• Updated pivot on all Drive meshes for Legendary Chainsaw
• Removed Biome Overide for Outpost 11
• Updated RockFormation_001 Prefab
• Blocking out Jungle, Cliff Placement Pass and Manual Cave Pass, Outpost 11
• Field Guide consistency pass: Hover and button animation consistency in Field Guide, Tab and box size consistency for item entries in Field Guide
• Added the art assets for the Rad Boss saddle and the 9 skeletal meshes needed for the setup
• Legendary Saw - Sawblade changes visibility based on if it has ammo. Becomes unusable if waiting on reload
• Adding a bunch of swq sound layers. Reload, duplicates of animations to add correct sounds, removing sniper firearm data, adding first and third perspectives with volume autos, blade pickup etc
• Adding rad boss attack audio and event
• Adjusting Legendary Chainsaw alteration names
• Adjusting Legendary Chainsaw Alterations
• Prefab 003 created
• Adding new blend layer to swq chainsaw at a higher pitch to better match a saw. Normalizing pitch of standard layer as it was feeling unnatural. Blending together. Adding additional start sound
• Updated SK_BLT_Metal and textures
• Added DEP_Crate_Lead_Lined SML and DBL with animations
• You can now skin creatures with the legendary chainsaw
• Adding correct animation montage to swq chainsaw skinning to play the correct audio
• Resaving animation to use with audio for swq chainsaw
• Adjustments to speeder bike heavy to feel more unique
• Adjusting Legendary Chainsaw Alterations
• Adding speeder bike heavy layers and events. Also adding duplicate animations so audio can be applied for legendary chainsaw
• Legendary Chainsaw - Fixed bug where when you skin with the chainsaw it would non stop attack until you cancelled it with another animation. Also changed reload animation to one that suits the model more from the sandworm crossbow
• Adjusting the Fish EUW so that it displays all fish for prometheus and elysium
• Adding Elysium to the Fish EUW
• Adding 'Blinky' the Radioactive Fish Item Setup, added to radioactive spawn zone but its weighting is 0 and is feature locked out
• Blocking out Jungle, Changing Density and Size of Foliage, Outpost 11
• Legendary Chainsaw - Added second pass of tree toppling and ricocheting now spawns a payload when bouncing is set
• First pass rad broodling attack, flinch and spot vocals, events and data table setups
• Added new cubemap and applied to jungle in D_Atmospheres
• Adding new Fishmap for Elysium
• Updated JU_Banyan Trees with darker bark texture and added ivy to the trunk, as well as several other small adjustments
• Setting up and adding Radiation Boss Saddle Item so it works with most creatures
• First pass on jungle atmosphere
• Adding chainsaw fire low end blend layer. Also adding start click into main event to feel more like its being turned on
• Setup Radiation Autonomous Spawner so that it can now be selected as part of spawn groups, added correct player facing name to highlightable and setup to spawn the radiation broodlings and bombers
• Adding Radioactive Emitters to the Radiation Spawners
• Feature locked the Radiation Autonomous Spawner
• Adding a whole bunch of rad boss audio notifys loops and one shots to all movement events
• Adding Radiation Broodling and Bomber Creatures and Datatable Setup
• Adding rad boss idle audio, event, anim notify and data table setup
• Adding WIP curves for jungle atmosphere
• Rad Boss arena setup and first pass audio event
• Added row to D_Atmospheres for new Jungle atmosphere
• Adding Storca skin variations
• Legendary Chainsaw - Added first pass of tree toppling from range if hit with sawblade
• Blocking out Jungle and Cliff Placement Pass, Outpost 11
• Legendary Chainsaw - Fixed ricochet not correctly bouncing off pawns and now bounces off trees nicely. Legendary chainsaw can now cut down trees
• Further volume fine tunes of chainsaw to ensure its not aggressively loud compared with everything else
• Adding first pass rad boss footstep continuous audio loop audio, events and notifys
• Rad Boss Arena - lighting pass, adjusted DF self shadow bias on various web meshes
• Added BP_Rad_Spawner(minion nest) and associated meshes/materials
• Added JU_GiantBamboo with 5 variants, including SMs, FTs, Materials and Textures
• Legendary Chainsaw - Removed default mesh from ballistic, removed unused actionable from chainsaw animations
• Adding radboss roar, audio and event, data table vocalisation setup and ai audio setup
• In world balance pass of both chainsaws to bring them in line. Reducing overall volume of swq chainsaw a smidge so its not louder. slight reduction in charge and fire volumes and distancing of blade fly
• Russian and German description text now fit in Open World Main Menu. Russian and German Description now fit properly in Field Guide widgets
• Swapping Elysium Fish Map back for now to use Prometheus for now
• Weather debug can now be toggled via ToggleWeatherDebug cheat. Weather debug info now only cares about current biome. Combined separated debug strings into single event for layout. Cache WeatherManager ref on beginplay