Mega Updates : Part 1

Hey all! Soon we will be releasing a new addition to allow creating your own gradient puzzles, but before finishing that I decided it was time to work on some fixes I've been putting off for awhile. There's a good reason I've been avoiding them as some of these issues took months of work to solve (the new bevel GPU calculations alone is something I didn't even know was possible but I kept plugging away until it worked!).

The Mega Updates will be broken up into two parts with this first part having more major changes, and the second part mainly a list of bug fixes and tweaks.

I'm glad it's finally done and will be great to move forward on a more solid ground with more additions in the future. Enjoy!

Room Lighting Updated!

After weeks spent wrestling with Unreal Engine's volumetric lighting and adding blocking volumes we've fixed most of the issues with an overhauled lighting design. Puzzles pieces now correctly match the area they are in and wall hangings no longer "glow" from outside light.

More Places to Hang Puzzles

While knee deep in wall hanging code I decided to fix another pet peeve of mine, room collision areas preventing puzzles from being placed in certain areas. You can now place puzzles on other walls, windows, railings, ceilings and more. Plus there's a new interface that changes to an icon notifying you if it can be placed or not.

Game Install Size Reduced by 2GB

When uploading Unreal Engine games to Steam one of the issues is Steam is unable to read regular compressed files to apply updates. With the number of very high resolution puzzle images we have this has always been an annoyance. However we recently found a way to compress the install in a way Steam can still read it and have reduced the install size by over 2GB!

Vastly Improved Puzzle Bevel (Mega Bevel)

While working on the upcoming Gradient Puzzle update I didn't like how the current bevel was looking on solid colors. This has been a long time coming but I finally ditched the old system and came up with a new way to generate the beveled edge for all the custom pieces.
I present The Mega Bevel!

High resolution tiled mip mapped textures are scaled to the puzzle size created fully on the GPU in a fraction of the time it took before. You don't want to know the hours spent learning new maths for this, but the end result was well worth it:

(Click images to view full)

Not only does it look better, it solves a lot of issues compared to the old method, including better memory management, faster loading, and ability to hang more puzzles on the wall before your graphics card starts complaining!

Also no need to cache normal maps as these can now be generated in real time which leads us to...

Custom Puzzles on Walls Synced in Multiplayer

Now that puzzle bevels can be created without needing a long load time I decided it was time to look into another long running issue. Syncing custom and dlc puzzles on the wall in multiplayer.

Custom puzzles displayed on your wall will now be automatically downloaded for all your friends to see.

Note that puzzles need to be uploaded to the Steam Workshop for this to happen.

This feature can be disabled in the main settings area.

Added pagination to wall hangings

Not only is this much easier to navigate your completed puzzles for decorating, those with lots of completed puzzles will load into the customize room interface much much faster.

I'll be adding pagination to custom and saved puzzle areas as well in the next patch.

New Video Settings

Many new performance options have been added for the textures of the new bevel generation, as well as for the puzzles images themselves (both for active puzzles, and puzzles hung on the wall). We also added a new option to remove the puzzle bevel for those that would prefer that.

These options can be found in Settings > Video Settings

The default settings should already perform (and look better) than our previous build, however we left plenty of room to push things further for those with high end systems, or to scale things back a bit for those looking for extra performance.

Esc Key now toggles going into the room

For those booting the game up to play around with stickers and decorate your room, you now no longer need to load a puzzle to start!

Better File Management

The graphic settings have been moved to it's own file to avoid unwanted steam syncing and to make it easier to reset back to defaults. This will make for a better experience especially for those switching between different computers.

Note: This change will cause your graphic settings to be reset to defaults the first time you load this update.

Full Patch Notes:

• Room lighting updated - more accurate lighting of active puzzles and puzzles on walls, removes overly bright 'glow' that could occur
• More places in room to hang completed puzzles, and new UI to let you know if a placement is invalid
• Game install size reduced by 2GB
• Vastly improved puzzle bevel textures
• Custom Workshop puzzles on walls now sync and auto-download in multiplayer (options to disable this in Settings area)
• Added pagination to wall hanging list of completed puzzles in Customize Room UI
• New visual quality settings for puzzle images and the new puzzle bevel (in Video Settings)
• Esc key now toggles going into the room
• Better file management (graphic settings separated into it's own file, avoids syncing)
• Mystery puzzles are no longer hidden once completed
• Fixed issue when grabbing sticker at the same time as puzzle piece
• Fixed rotation issue when grabbing both sticker and puzzle piece
• Fixed sync issue when player grabs sticker while holding preview image (would get permanently stuck in the players hand!)
• Fixed bug when selecting sticker while holding wall hanging
• Fixed issue where sticker would collide with puzzle pieces (For those of you who still want to use this glitch it will still happen when holding a sticker+puzzle piece)
• Fixed lag issue when resizing preview image in multiplayer with shift+mouse wheel
• Fixed issue where sticker unlock sound would ignore volume setting (Sorry for the jump scare!)
• Fixed issue where sticker music did not change volume once started
• Fixed issue where wall hangings would spawn in the floor
• Fixed connection issue with more than 16 players trying to join game
• Fixed issue causing uploads of very tall images to Steam Workshop to fail
• Fixed issue with preview image starting downstairs when puzzle location is upstairs
• Fixed issue where with rotation off, upstairs puzzle started with pieces rotated in the wrong direction
• Fixed issue where locked pieces mode could be activated while typing in chat box
• Esc key now cancels out of placing wall hanging

If you enjoy this game please support further updates by buying the sticker supporter pack!

Place stickers in multiplayer with friends.

Sticker challenges with thousands more stickers to unlock.

Customizable cursor trails.

and more!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2763190/Jigsaw_Puzzle_Dreams_Stickers_Challenges_and_More/?snr=1_5_9__405

Happy Puzzling!