[Herald] Test Build 8/13/2023 (Patreon)

Hey folks,

[Test Build] https://mega.nz/file/s1EhTaZQ#hyzp0vgJGcELZ2EYzJ9xGUkhu2wLiY9yGTUodcMrBvAAs promised I have some new updates to share with you all. First, here are the latest release notes:

Expanded the top level of the Sewerage area, located just below the ground of the Dead World.

Introduced foliage to the Sewerage map to enhance its overall look and feel. Note that the foliage isn't animated yet.

Improved performance of the Sewerage map by implementing baked materials.

Incorporated Oasis foliage into the Test Build for testing purposes.

Added GLOBAL ILLUMINATION and REFLECTIONS options to the Video Settings Page.

[Fix] Resolved the issue where the Standing Grab animation was causing characters to fly away. This problem arose after the last update involving collisions and physics.

[Fix] Rectified the highlight feature for viewing characters behind obstacles in Test Builds. This should now function properly.

Now that you've seen the nuts and bolts, let me give you the skinny on what this all means. By optimizing the heck out of the shadow settings, I managed to get a big performance boost in the Oasis map. We're talking a smooth 50-60 fps on my GTX 3090 at full HD resolution!

This wasn't easy - I had to dig into the gritty console commands to squeeze every last drop of optimization out of the shadows. The tradeoff is you might see some minor artifacts up close, but from a normal gameplay view it looks fantastic.

Later we will upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.3 which should also give us a nice speed increase thanks to better handling of the foliage animations. Good times ahead!

Over in the Sewerage, I populated the area with some test foliage to enhance the atmosphere. It's not animated yet, does not look as good as Oasis foliage, but you get the idea. Baked materials (baked into textures) was also implemented here to take some pressure off the GPU.

One tricky issue I uncovered is that dynamic mesh instancing (which helps optimize repetitive meshes) is currently busted in UE5.1. This means more work for the CPU, so that's likely why I'm hitting CPU limits right now. Hopefully the 5.3 update will sort this out.

I'll be releasing a new Nightly build for you all to check out. This has the Oasis map so you can test drive the optimized shadows and foliage.

Give it a whirl on your system and let me know if you have any issues. I'm excited to get your feedback once you've soaked in all that extra FPS goodness!

Also, feel free to share any performance data or screenshots from your test runs. I'm curious what numbers this build pulls on different hardware configs.

In a few days, I'll be putting out the Full build with the updated Sewerage area and new static foliage. So stay tuned for that!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts soon. Rock on! 🤘

Alexandraus