Hey everyone, and welcome back to another devlog for Assembly RTS!
This week, I continued working on the visual department of Assembly RTS. I intend to keep working in this area until I have enough screenshot material to finally publish the Steam page for Assembly RTS.
While this doesn’t get me any closer to finishing the meat and potatoes of the game (code), I’ll finally be able to gather Steam wishlists. Plus I can take a break from programming as an added benefit!
The first thing every gaming enthusiast looks for when stumbling upon a great-looking game is that juicy Steam wishlist button. Not having that button ready to be pressed is a serious waste from a marketing perspective.
It doesn’t matter if a title was wishlisted a long time ago, Steam will notify the wishlistee the day the game is released. Wishlists simply don’t “depreciate”.
The amount of wishlists at launch can also make a huge difference in the promotion by the Steam algorithm. Highly wishlisted games soon to be released are even guaranteed to show up on the Steam start page, under the “Popular Upcoming” section.
The Rendering Pipeline Dilemma
I originally started developing Assembly RTS using the High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP) of Unity. HDRP supports high-end graphics with very realistic visuals. Later I was forced to switch to the Universal Rendering Pipeline (URP) due to the map editor tool I was using at the time.
I’ve since switched to a different map editor tool but continued using URP for the time being. URP has less visual fidelity and because I want to improve the visuals of Assembly RTS all-around, I chose to switch back to HDRP. I spent a few days testing the performance differences between HDRP and URP to see just how bad it is. It turns out that the difference can be quite severe depending on the settings.
HDRP has a base overhead that is strongly noticeable whenever nothing noteworthy is rendered to the screen.
In the main menu URP delivers 1500+ FPS on my main machine. In HDRP it’s around 250 FPS.
Yet, to deliver a similar level of visual fidelity in-game, you sacrifice about 4 Milliseconds compared to URP. I’m not entirely sold on this bargain but admittedly the added level of realism of HDRP is undeniable.
Scene in URP
Scene in HDRP
(Yes, I didn’t match up the post processing, and don’t worry, I’ll get rid of the Mickey Mouse ears on the rail guns)
New peripherals and more re-texturing
To get more consistent 3D visuals I re-textured some of my hovercraft models in Surforge. I also created a brand new weapon asset and the long-awaited hoverpads. I think they turned out great.
That’s it for this devlog. Let me know what you think, there is always room for improvement! Follow me on Twitter and YouTube!