Future Perfect Update 16

Posted by Max at 25-03-2015

Future Perfect Update 16 is now live on Steam! As usual, we update the Steam “beta” branch daily with the latest, and then once a week we push that out to the main branch along with a post summarizing the most interesting bits.

Over the last couple weeks we’ve been focusing on the things we need to get done to bring Future Perfect to a wider audience. The main goal is to allow new players to jump in and start building and playing their creations within a few minutes. Here are some of the things we’ve been working on.

Package Reorganization

 

As we’ve been experimenting and building things in Future Perfect, we’ve been creating a library of different types of objects that can be reused in your own games.…

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Future Perfect Update 15

Posted by Max at 17-03-2015

The weekly update for Future Perfect is now live on Steam! Here are some of the changes in this update.

Improved Thumbnails

 

In the last update we added support the thumbnail images in the asset browser. This week we’ve improved them by adding images for collision, material, and particles assets. We also fixed a few issues with thumbnails; thumbnails will now always use high quality textures, emissive transparent parts are displayed properly, decals in blueprints will be rendered, and the skin selection is taken into account for models.

thumbnails

Player Movement

 

This update includes a few improvements related to player movement. First, we addressed some bugs in the Controller component that made it move erratically near small obstacles like rocks.…

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Future Perfect Update 14

Posted by Max at 10-03-2015

The weekly update for Future Perfect is now live on Steam! Here are some of the changes in this update.

Asset Thumbnails

 

This week we implemented a long planned feature: asset thumbnails. Now when you open the asset browser in the editor you’ll see preview icons:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQW1sF6StEw

Right now we only have thumbnails for models and blueprints (that use models), but we’ll be adding support for texture, material and collision assets as well.

This is part of our continuing effort to improve the usability of the editor interface.

Bow and Arrow

 

The bow and arrow is a new item in Future Perfect. It’s using programmer artwork, but the bow and arrow was a good chance to implement something a bit different than other hand-held objects we’ve implemented so far.…

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Future Perfect Update 13

Posted by Max at 03-03-2015

Weekly Update 13 is now live on Steam. Here’s a summary of the biggest changes.

Black Screen Fix

 

We received a number of reports from users that were experiencing an issue where the game would start up with a black screen. This was caused by the game not being able to load any of the files it needs to execute. The common elements between the reports was Windows 8 and having the game installed to a drive other than C: After a lot of back and forth, we tracked down the issue to Windows reporting the wrong case for the directory the game was installed to.

Based on the exact circumstances, it appears that this issue could have affected users with other versions of Windows or with the game installed on the C: drive, although we didn’t actually see any cases like that.…

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Future Perfect Update 12

Posted by Max at 23-02-2015

Weekly Update 12 is now live on Steam. Here’s a summary of the biggest changes.

Stones

 

There are now two resources the player can build with. Chopping at a tree provides wood. Punching giant boulders provides stones. The stones take longer to harvest but are much stronger and will keep you reasonably* safe from bears. This also required about a day of work to recombobulate the way resources were tracked in the inventory.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hb2S5zJQz0

*not nearly as safe as you would want though

Honey

 

One of the goals this past week was to build out the game loop for the Lumberjack Simulator. We are still working on the details but it was clear that honey was going to be important.…

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Future Perfect Update 11

Posted by Max at 17-02-2015

Weekly Update 11 is now live on Steam. Here’s a summary of the biggest changes.

Revised UI

This week we overhauled the layout of the editor UI. As we’ve developed Future Perfect, we’ve been adding new editor features and concepts as we discovered the need. As a result there wasn’t too much rhyme or reason to the layout. Although we still have more to implement, it feels like we’ve got a pretty good handle on all of the major functional pieces, so it was time to step back and think how they could be better integrated into a single UI.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TehCCCACdM

We’ll be iterating more on the UI, so please let us know what you think.

Although the new UI is primarily just a new organization of the existing one, it did give us the opportunity to add in an entity search feature.…

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Future Perfect Update 10

Posted by Max at 09-02-2015

Future Perfect Update 10 is now live on Steam. New features, bug fixes and other improvements go out to Steam every day in the “beta” branch, and once a week we wrap this progress into a stable update in the “main” branch. Here’s what’s included.

Shadow Improvements

 

In the last update we made some improvements to the shadow filtering quality, but there were still some artifacts left. These artifacts are what is known as shadow “acne” because they show up as spots along the surface. The artwork in Future Perfect is very susceptible to these types of artifacts because of the “clean” art style we’ve chosen and the way that everything is built out of modular pieces. As a result, the techniques we used in Natural Selection 2 didn’t carry over very well.…

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Future Perfect Update 9

Posted by Max at 03-02-2015

Weekly Update 9 is now live on Steam. Here’s a summary of the biggest changes.

Player Movement

 

One long standing issue we tackled in this update is player movement bugs. In earlier versions, trying to walk over a pile of physics objects would cause the player to be shot directly upwards with a huge velocity.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlucIZFTjf8

While this was a pretty fun, it completely broke the game. The bug was caused by the “stair stepping” code that allows a character to step over small obstacles; that stepping motion would translate into a large vertical velocity causing the player to be propelled upwards.

We also fixed another bug that prevented characters from being knocked around by trigger forces until they are pressing movement keys or are in the air.…

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Future Perfect Update 8

Posted by Max at 27-01-2015

Weekly Update 8 is now live on Steam. Here’s a summary of the biggest changes.

If you’d like to see some more detail on all of the changes that went into this update, check out our Trello Board. The board show all of the tasks we have planned, we’re working on and have completed for the next update.

You can help support the project and get access to all this progress by purchasing Future Perfect Architect Edition from our website.

Automator Optimization

 

This week we finished a two-week-long task to optimize the execution of Automators. Automators are a special type of script component that runs inside the editor to help with tasks like placing modular pieces for procedural objects.…

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Future Perfect Update 7

Posted by Max at 20-01-2015

For Update 7 we’ve continued working on the Heist game mode.

Bomb

 

One of the new elements for the Heist game is a bomb. The bomb is a throwable item that counts down before it explodes.

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Like everything we’re making, we designed the artwork for the bomb to be “universal”. The goal is to have a distinctive look, but allow the model to be re-used for other purposes; our bomb has an explosive payload, but you can re-use it in your own game modes in new ways.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6G3-PKm-GQ

Damage Types

 

To support some things we have planned for the robot on the Heist mode, we’ve upgraded our damage code to include multiple types. Now when a player takes damage, you’ll hear a different sound depending the source of the damage.…

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