Patch 2.2.8 — Antialiasing, lighting and shadows that finally do what they were

Patch 2.2.8 — Antialiasing, lighting and shadows that finally do what they were told

Most of this patch is not new work. It is settings and systems that were already in the game, already switched on, and never actually reached the screen.

Antialiasing

• The antialiasing option never applied. The menu stored the position you picked in the list and handed that number straight to the renderer as a sample count, so "2x" asked for a count that means "off", and the default "8x" asked for one no graphics card supports. Every setting, including the default, ended up with no antialiasing at all — which is why a game made almost entirely of hard polygon edges drew every one of them as stair-steps. It works now, and 8x really is 8x.

Lighting and shadows

• Post-processing never ran during a match. Ambient occlusion, colour grading and the hit feedback flash were all being applied to a camera that gets switched off the moment you spawn. Geometry now has contact shadows and the maps have their intended colour.
• The weapon in your hands had nothing lighting it on purpose. Step into a building's shadow and it became the darkest object on screen. It now carries its own light and stays readable wherever you are.
• That weapon was also casting a shadow into the world from 40cm in front of the camera, which is the gun-shaped black smear that followed you around on the ground. Gone.
• Desert Arena shipped with eight leftover cameras from the demo scene it was built from, and was drawing the entire map nine times every frame. It also had two suns casting shadows in different directions, which flattened everything. One sun now, one camera.

Impacts

• Bullet holes were roughly three times too big and drawn as a flat black disc. They are now a puncture with chipped material around it, in the colour of whatever you shot, and they no longer line up identically on a wall.
• The muzzle flash light was set to a priority that let the sun take its slot, so it lit almost nothing. It lights properly now.

Also in this build

• Everything from 2.2.7, which went out without an announcement: settings in the pause menu, a readable kill feed, team colours on the score bar, corrected menu panel colours, and bots that advance on the smaller maps.