Category: General

Hi,
there is new beta branch build available.

Change log:
Running backwards is enabled

Game engine is updated by one generation. So it’s important to check if everything is working as before. Please let me know if you would find something strange.

Vegetation rendering was replaced with new system in each map which uses instanced rendering and it will help eliminate
hiccups when building grass patches around player.

There are new graphics options for Grass Density, Vegetation Distance, Additional Tree Distance, Additional Billboard Distance. Which are adjusted automaticlaly with graphics preset slider. But you can still override them manually.

Grass Density
You can now adjust grass density dynamically. 100 is really only for ultra settings.
75 is nice and peformant. But if you have lower graphics you can lower it down to get much better performance.

Vegetation Distance
Is the visible range for grass and trees.

Additional Tree Distance
Is added to the Vegetation Distance. It will render Trees as meshes in this additional Range.

Additional Billboard Range
Is distance on top of the additional tree distance. In this range billboards of trees will be rendererd.

You can access this beta branch if you perform these steps.
1. Right click on Virtual-O in Steam library. Choose Properties -> Betas
2. Pick beta branch in beta dropdown
3. New build will start to download

Hi,

I would like to inform you about near future of Virtual-O.

I have decided that some things needs to be changed in Virtual-O development.

I have fallen into an ineffective development cycle where I’m trying to deliver new maps. Simply because everyone want new maps.

But this results in hindered development of Virtual-O and even more importantly. It stops development of improvements which could be made to OCAD converter itself.

So in fact, creating of new maps is blocking creation of maps… 🙂

But you know, people have paid for Virtual-O and I wanted to be sure to deliver them enough value for their money. And this was that safest way how to achieve it.

But I think that it’s right time to stop this. We have five maps. Many tens of hours of possible gameplay, which is not that bad.

Now I would like to develop new features for Virtual-O. Improve game itself, improve OCAD converter to make it easier to convert new maps, which opens possibilities for better Virtual-O future.

And who will be creating new maps? Well I hope that this fantastic community will take care of it.

I would like to start to open Virtual-O maps conversion to people from this community. It won’t be straightforward process. Probably, at least for some time, I would still need to participate in this process, but I would like to improve this with time.

It wouldn’t be open for anyone, people will need to get their hands dirty with Unity etc.

But I’m pretty sure that they will be able to create better maps than I. Stay tuned for more news. And of course let me know what you think about this change!

Best regards
Peter

Just finishing a new cliff converter. It’s fully automatic and hopefully much better than before. And I will update existing scandinavian maps with new cliffs.

I released beta build with new cliffs on Landvetter Landehof map.

You can compare old cliffs with new on screenshots

Thanks to Puresive Films for this great video with Simone Niggli and Virtual-O!