This week we've got a few things to talk about.
We've published a patch to the Engine Test and tools which will be available on Steam later today. One of the more visible changes in this update is the addition of an "ambient" light type in the Editor. This light type will fill an area with even lighting and can be used to inexpensively boost the brightness of a large room. To prevent surfaces from appearing flat when using this type of light, you can alter the color that's coming from each of the 6 primary directions. This can be used to mimic the effects of global illumination where light bounces off walls, ceiling and the floor.
Here's the complete change list for this update:
Build 148
- Added support for ambient lights
- Added support for level cinematics in-game
- Added support for lag compensation when processing client commands on the server
- Changed the game to continue to render when it doesn't have focus in windowed mode
- Fixed bug where Decoda prompting for a registration key
- Fixed hitching when loading a particle effect (happened when the rifle was fired)
- Fixed occasional crash when deleting edges in the Editor
- Fixed Run Launch Pad... option in Steam
This week we also want to show you the Jetpack in NS2. The Jetpack is a late game marine upgrade that allows players to fly for short distances, get into vents and stay off the ground, away from snapping jaws. It is researched at Advanced Armory which then has a "prototype module" attached to it (tier 3). Once researched, players will be able to buy jetpacks from any armory they visit.
As you can see in the concept, the side thrusters pop out when launching, and retract back in when on the ground to give it a more compact profile. Here are some renders of the finished in-game model:
Finally, we have a Natural Selection 2 themed diorama that showed up on Brendan Mauro's desk one day. Brendan (BreadMan) is one of the mappers on the NS2 team and you might remember him as the soothing voice behind the Spark Editor video tutorials.
Brendan is also the artist behind the award-winning indie game Cogs. You can check out some of Brendan's other Lego creations here.
This Friday we're releasing a patch to the Natural Selection 2 toolset and engine test. As we mentioned last week, this build includes a special version of Decoda that can be used to debug Lua scripts in Natural Selection 2. This is the same tool that we use to program NS2 (and that we've licensed to some of the biggest game companies in the industry!).
We've also included our Cinematic Editor tool in this release. This tool is used to create particle effects, in-game cinematics (like the main menu) and 3D sky boxes that can be assigned in the Editor. We also use the Cinematic Editor to create promotional videos like the teaser video and the April Fools' Day reveal.
All of the tools can be accessed by right clicking on "Natural Selection 2" and selecting "Run Launch Pad...". With these two tools the entire Spark toolset is now available to everyone that's pre-ordered.
In addition to the new tools, we've included some enhancements to the Editor, Viewer and COLLADA exporter:
- Added layer functionality to work with edges and vertices of faces
- Added group functionality for selection and categorization by name
- Added the ability to manipulate rag dolls in the Viewer
- Fixed layer support to work properly beyond 32 layers
- Fixed issues when multiple rigid bodies in a COLLADA file had the same name
- Fixed networking prediction errors due to the time being out of sync on the server and client
Here's a teaser video of the rag doll manipulation in the Viewer. The rag doll-able Skulk isn't included in this release (hence the tease!), but will be available soon:
The new build will be available shortly on Steam to everyone that's pre-ordered. It will automatically one the patch online. If you haven't pre-ordered and would like to, you can do so here!
Update: The build is now live
Those of you that are diligent in checking for updates on our website may have noticed that we just released an update to our Lua debugger Decoda. It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since the last update -- time certainly goes by fast when you have your head down working on Natural Selection 2!
The reason that we're mentioning this in our Friday update is that one of the more significant changes in this patch is a fix for debugging LuaJIT-based applications. LuaJIT is a rewrite of Lua that's designed to use just-in-time compilation to gain additional performance. Right before we released the Engine Test we switched Natural Selection 2 over from vanilla Lua to LuaJIT to make sure script code is executing as fast as possible.
So, if you are a proud owner of Natural Selection 2 and Decoda, not only are you an amazing person but you will also now be able to debug Lua mod code more effectively. If you don't own Decoda but are interested in working on mods, don't worry! We're happy to announce that we will be including a special version of Decoda with Natural Selection 2. This version of Decoda will be shipping along with all of the other tools in a Steam update next week.
As we get close to the Natural Selection 2 alpha release, we're switching to distributing all of the updates to the tools and engine through Steam.
If you've already pre-ordered Natural Selection 2, you should be receiving an e-mail shortly with the key that you need to activate NS2 on Steam. If you really can't wait to start downloading through Steam, you can retrieve your key through this web page.
We're not currently selling pre-orders for the game through the Steam store. The only way to get access to the current pre-alpha release is through our pre-order page.
In this release we've activated the server browser, fixed restoring the graphics device when you alt-tab in and out of the game, shored up some visual differences between spot lights in the editor and the game, and added the preliminary documentation on the engine's scripting API. We've also added some additional error checking and compatibility fixes based on the initial feedback from the Engine Test. Please use the "Feedback" tab on the side of the website to let us know of any problems that you have.
If you've already installed the previous release of the Spark SDK and Engine Test, you can uninstall it now so that you don't have two copies taking up space on your hard drive.
Releasing on Steam is another big milestone for us, so we hope you're as excited about it as we are!