WEEKLY UPDATE
World changes
We've focused primarly on optimizing and improving the floating islands. There is still work to do with adding new decorative nature elements such as tree stumps, tree trunks that are laying around the island and other eyecandy things. Here is an example of procedurally generated bunch of rocks with generated LOD levels for when being near or far with the camera/player (bear in mind the rocks behind the obvious changed one are static).
Particle effects & critters
Until now, our scene/world was missing those little things that you don't pay attention to, but they make the game experience better. So this week we were preparing various particle effects – some smoke and fire particles and a few dusty wind effects for different biomes. We also intend to add fireflies which will brighten up the night scene a bit.
We also started working on smaller critters that will inhabit the game, starting with a rabbit. The critters are similar to the other animals so far, but will be smaller and have less detail.
Build mode expansion
Recently we updated our build mode elements, but they still lacked windows and doors constructables to make the buildings look complete. The previous week we implemented the missing elements and fixed some bugs. We also made it possible to interract with those, you can open and close them! Like all other elements, these can also be upgraded to higher tiers.
New biome concept
To further extend the world and add some variety, we will add new biomes. One of those will be a really dense and vast forest. To make everything seem diverse we had to come up with a list of unique assets to characterise the biome. Tall trees and lush foilage will populate these islands, and little sunlight will peak through the tree tops. Here's a quick concept sketch:
