v1.38.0.0 - Improved responsiveness, motion smoothing, fixed time distortion

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.0.0)  This update improves motion fluidity for all objects in the game, including the player, enemies, bosses, projectiles, terrain, and more!  This also makes the game feel more snappy and responsive while the frame rate is fluctuating.

The purpose of motion smoothing is to even out position deltas of objects between frames, because when a frame hitch occurs, the larger gap in object positions after the hitch is more noticeable than the frame hitch itself.  Now, the drawbacks of doing this are completely gone!

The time distortion issue of motion smoothing calculations has been fixed, using much tighter timings than before.  This would manifest in slight speedups and slowdowns in object movement during fluctuating frame rates.  Refinements have been made so all object motion is integral-correct as well, improving the accuracy of object velocity and acceleration.  This improves the consistency of object movement and improves control responsiveness.  Also, motion smoothing is now applied at all frame rates, including high refresh rate displays.  It was previously limited to 60fps or below to mitigate side effects.

Here are the full release notes for v1.38.0.0:

• Greatly improved the motion smoothing system, affecting everything in the game

  • This system is used to smooth out the appearance of frame hitches by seamlessly transitioning time deltas between frame updates

  • The time distortion issue for fluctuating frame rates has been resolved by tightening up evaluated frame samples to only neighboring frames

  • Motion smoothing is now applied to all frame rates, including high refresh rate displays

    • Previous versions only supported motion smoothing up to 60fps to prevent worse time distortion issues at high frame rates

  • Refinements have been made to ensure integral-correct time updates, improving the accuracy of object movement, including acceleration and velocity updates

  • Tightens up control responsiveness of the player ship, particularly during fluctuating frame rates

  • Improves motion consistency and fluidity for all objects in the game, including:

    • Player ship(s)

    • Player projectiles

    • Enemy ships

    • Enemy projectiles

    • Bosses

    • Item pickups

    • Terrain movement

    • Water ripple movement

    • All particle movement

    • Camera movement

    • Client side prediction for online multiplayer

• Moved all player ship and boss matrix calculations from the render thread to the update thread

  This significantly improves cpu thread workload balancing, improving overall performance

  A substantial rework of the player ship handling code in particular was required to make this possible

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.0.0” or higher.  Enjoy!