Update #7 (Level 69 rework and 931 build)

Level 69 Environmental Rework!

Highlights:

Level 69:

Huge environmental rework.

Dynamic Rain Material made for street and sidewalk.

New "Power Fault" puzzle. (Video above)

Level 931:

First few rooms designed (Livestream).

Foliage optimized and more weed types added.

Procedural outdoor maze work started.

Coming Up:

• Environment Build Livestream (conditionally set for April 21st)(Official post will come tomorrow with the set time)

• New Level Poll for the next alpha level up for testing (Later Today!)

• Official Website Launch! (April 20th 6:00 pm PST, 9:00 pm EST, 2:00 am UTC) (Link for preview at bottom of post)

• Fluid Simulation possibility for water based levels 

The Details (for nerds):

Level 69: 

Level 69 has felt a bit flat and uninteresting in my opinion so I thought a good environmental rework would suit it nicely. The first and biggest change was the materials for the street and sidewalk. I wanted the materials to be dynamic and tunable for the right amount of puddles, tire tracks, cracks, oil spots, and patches. With that in mind, the material was made starting with the base textures (albedo, normal, and packed ORD) and giving them some basic parameters. Then each effect is added as a separate layer ontop of the base with their own parameters and parameter switch to toggle the effect. Then the material is passed though a macro layer that adds some larger variation for the puddles and oil spots to break up some of the more uniform noise. Finally some noise is added to the dry parts of the normal to add some smaller detail that dirt and dust brings, and also puddle waves are added to the deepest puddles. In addition to the material design, gravel piles, cones, signs, barriers, holes, bigger puddles, have all been added throughout the level to give a much more complete and whole feel to the environment. Slight rain showers have also been added. 

Level 931: 

In total 4 areas have been designed and drafted with Bermuda grass, alliums, daisies, lettuce weed and a few other weeds to saturate the ground and hills and give the feeling of an actual wild flower hill. A 5th area has also started development with a fully outside procedural maze in mind. The design at this point takes the players position in the maze and builds maze paths in random directions up to one turn past the players veiws. Then, once the player walks down a path and sees the wall of the turn the maze has been built up to, a path is extended and generated a turn further to the next turn(s). This makes the generation always one wall outside of the players view and allows the maze that player has already walked through able to be changed and so that your turns and paths can never be traced back.