Greetings, operators. It's been a little while since I posted any updates - that's because I wasn't 100% sure if the current big gamble would pay off, and I didn't want to post excitedly about it then have to chuck the whole thing out.
Today I confirmed that, actually, it is going to pay off, so here's what's coming!
OVRLRD IS UGLY
"No!" I hear you cry, "the low-res aesthetic was redolent of yore! The vibes were impeccable! You can't do this!" I agree, dear operator, the vibes were impeccable. Unfortunately lots of people who should be playing and enjoying OVRLRD right now have been turned off by the dated aesthetic, and it doesn't do one of the main jobs a game's artstyle should do: create and reinforce expectations of gameplay.
OVRLRD is a mech simulator, and part of a simulator's job is to represent the world and the simulated vehicle at a convincing level of fidelity. If the fidelity of the machine does not match the fidelity of the environment it lives in, that's a sticking point for most people. I want as many people to have a cool mech simulator experience as possible, and if that means the game needs to look nicer then that's that.
I'm not a good artist, and I can't afford to pay for one, but I can do the next best thing, which is rip out the terrain engine and replace it with something better.
This is also the reason I haven't pushed any bugfixes in a little while - apologies, I know there's an issue with Q3s controllers in the demo, I'll get on it as soon as I can!
OVRLRD IS NOT AS UGLY
OVRLRD's old terrain engine was specialised for performance, making use of low-resolution meshes, reduced texture samples and weird hacks to make visual tricks work within the confines of VR. Since I started work on that, the state of the art has advanced and some of the old limitations no longer apply. It got to the point where the work required to maintain and expand this terrain system wasn't worth it, so I made the risky decision to throw it out and license a much better terrain system built by a much smarter programmer than me.
Ripping out a substantial chunk of the game's infrastructure is a big task, and it's kept me very busy the last few weeks. Loads of systems have had to be adapted, redesigned or rebuilt from scratch, and I was worried for a while that I wasn't going to be able to hit my performance targets once the whole thing was done. Luckily, today I managed to hit a stable 72fps in the redesigned basic training mission, which means I should be able to overhaul the whole game without sacrificing performance.
Here's some before-and-after shots to give you an idea of the change:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
As you can see, flat textures have been replaced with proper grass and foliage; all textures are improved and higher-resolution; terrain blending is much better; the ugly low-poly clipping roads have been removed entirely; all trees have been replaced with much better trees; weirdly low-res buildings have been replaced with aesthetically coherent versions; and the terrain shape itself is far more naturalistic.
Under the hood I've got access to much better tools that give me greater control over the design of maps, and putting environments together is now about five times faster and has better end results. OVRLRD still isn't winning any beauty contests, but it's much lower down the ranks for the ugly awards.
The new systems also offer greater flexibility in some areas, allowing for nice little interactions and animations like this:
https://i.imgur.com/adaA4EP.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/DHnDni6.mp4
There are other, much bigger gameplay-relevant things that these systems might allow me to do, but I'm not ready to talk about those just yet (in case they blow up in my face).
There's still a lot of work to do before this update arrives. I still need to refactor a few systems and redesign all the existing campaign missions. Then on top of that I need to rebuild the skirmish map generation and figure out how much rebuilding the scenario editor will need. I'm not sure how long this will take, but I'm hoping for a span of only a few more weeks.
I'm still committed to making OVRLRD run on older machines. Some of the visual upgrades will have a performance cost associated with them, but I'm going to try to include robust graphics options that will still allow people to get a decent framerate on mid- or low-end rigs.
That's all I have to share at the moment. There's more that'll be coming when this update drops, but for now I need to get back to work!
Don't forget to head over to the discord to discuss the game or get any specific questions answered.
Thanks again for your patience and support. I hope you like what's coming!
-nige