Astral Terra - Update #2, Tech Updates

Tethys Interactive has posted the second update for Astral Terra that talks about tech updates, and shows off some new screenshots.

Tech Updates, More Screenshots and Initial Press Coverage!

Greetings all of you wonderful backers, you!

It has been a very busy first few days for us here at Tethys Interactive. We had always heard that running a Kickstarter is like a full-time job, but we never really fully understood that statement until we made the decision to start one for ourselves. Despite the struggles we've faced early on, it's been going great so far and we are so happy with the overwhelmingly positive reception Astral Terra has received thus far!

Two of the main things we endeavored to do with these updates are: 1) Deliver them frequently (but not so much that you get annoyed ) and 2) Provide informative and interesting updates. We don't want to just post an update letting you know that we're still here, you already know that! Now, let's get into it...

Technology Updates

Games are amazing works of art, but they're also marvels of modern technology. As such, we are always working to make our game not just look and play better, but run better under the hood. Most of this stuff the average player will be entirely unaware of, but we want to keep you updated on the specifics of our development process none-the-less. Here's the gist of what we've been working on lately:

• Smoother Voxel Transitions: Astral Terra isn't like most procedural games, voxel games, sandbox games, or really any type of game. We have a lot of things at work here and it's very difficult to get it all working in tandem without any hiccups. One of the best new things that we've accomplished that is, admittedly minor and mostly aesthetic, is the transition from one biome to another. Previously, if you were in the forest and transitioned over to a snowy area, then you would notice jagged lines and an overall unfinished look - but now it's nice and smooth! 

• New Memory Optimization: Not too much to say here, the game is being optiomized endlessly to make sure it runs as smooth as possible. Progress is coming along just fine!

• New Triplanar Shader: This means that textures in general are starting to look a lot nicer and sharper across the board. Higher quality textures = overall better looking game. We are extremely proud of the level of visual fidelty we've manage to achieve so far and by the time the game releases, it will be even greater!

• Occlusion Culling Optimization: This really goes a long way to improving how the game runs. Basically it means that the game calculates and displays drawscales a lot more efficiently so your FPS doesn't take as big of a hit, but it still looks great. 

• Climbing plants: You've probably seen in a lot of our videos and screens that we have lots of trees and plants in the Fey areas, as expected, but we've expanded this overall. Stuff like vines and climbing and hanging in areas now and caves have stalagtites! It really adds a lot to the overall immersion.

• Dynamic Multi-Threaded Pathfinding: Unity is a fantastic development tool, but it is known to have some limitations. Basically, we're able to achieve multithread pathfinding in Unity and we wanted to make sure that was clear since it's came up in some discussions. Here is more information on how we've been able to achieve that.