One major change is that I've made some tweaks to the player's movement, primarily intended to make jumping--a central mechanic in the intended traversal challenges--feel more natural and responsive.
Previously, when the player's in-game representation moved suddenly up or down to a significant degree (such as when ascending a step), its maximum speed was reduced. While I forget my original reasons for doing this, I think that it was intended to allow the character to lift or drop at a controlled rate, but without that limitation on vertical speed resulting in the character dipping or rising when ascending or descending stairs, respectively. After all, if the vertical speed is reduced, but the horizontal speed
isn't, one expects the angle at which the character moves to change.
However, it also meant that jumping just after passing the edge of a step--or stone block--resulted in a stunted leap, which really didn't feel good.
I decided that jumping should perhaps be a little more permissive, should enable the player's actions a little better. To that end I removed the reduction in speed, meaning that a leap made just too late should still have full velocity. And indeed, I believe that it feels much better! Furthermore, having tested the new code on a staircase, I'm content that it doesn't feel particularly odd.
As a side-effect, the player's head now bobs rather less when moving up or down stairs, which some players might appreciate!
On a similar note, I reduced the size of the collision object that prevents the player from falling too easily--I felt that it was perhaps a bit large, making it a little too difficult to drop down when one actually intended to do so.
Continuing on the matter of player-movement, I spent a little time adjusting the collision-shapes of the blocks lying before the front-face of the pyramid--the line of ascent that I intend to be most obvious, and easiest. Hopefully the tweaks made will result in movement about the stones being in general a little easier for first-time players.
Another big change is that I've begun work on producing sound effects for the level. I'll confess that I'm not terribly confident when it comes to sound--but nevertheless, I'm forging ahead, striving to make good sound effects for the level, character, and UI.
Part of this has been initial work on the ambient sounds of the level. Specifically, the rustling of the leaves beyond the walls can now be heard when one nears those walls (although I have yet to add the playing of various small sounds--twigs snapping, animals calling, etc.).
As shown above, I've spent a bit more time working on the outer scenery. I really wasn't happy with the appearance of the forest behind the pyramid: the "distant" section didn't look good to my eye, and the "inner", surrounding forest moved too much at its edges, showing all too clearly the interface between the two and undermining the impression of its size.
Improving the former involved a number of tweaks and changes: I repainted the vertex-colours of the model, increased the size and detail of the texture applied, and reworked the way that said texture is applied in the forest section, I believe.
The latter has been fixed by a change to the vertex shader associated with that "forest" object: its outer edges should now be be vertically motionless (or near to) from the perspective on top of the pyramid. This really helps to give an impression of scale and distance to the forest, and helps to "connect" it to the outer section of scenery, I feel. In addition, I adjusted the fading of the forest as it approaches its edges; while I'm not
entirely happy with it, I'm happier than I was, I believe.
Overall, I believe that I'm much happier with the appearance of the distant forest!
I also spent some time attempting to improve the frame-rate of the game, with especial focus on one particular view that seems to consistently have a lower frame-rate than seems usual for the rest of the scene. I don't think that I've made much progress on this front, but I intend to return to it for another attempt.
Finally, I've made several smaller tweaks and changes, most of which are perhaps not worth detailing individually.
That's all for this week! Stay well, and thank you for reading. ^_^
