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Jan
17

Vendetta Online 1.8.320-321

VO 1.8.320 and 1.8.321 included:

- Added dynamic light sources to many of the "neon-style" floating signs, visible in the prototype DX11 or OpenGL drivers.
- New sound effects: Avalon Torpedo impact/explosions, queen and capship explosions, and special Heavy Assault Cruiser explosion effects.
- Preliminary dynamic lights have been added to the docking and launch bays.
- Fixed the glow effect so it isn't so over-bright.
- Shadowmap cascade levels are consolidated into 1 texture atlas
instead of 4 separate textures.
- Tweaked the shadow cascade transition to be more subtle.
- Tweaked render state changes in the DirectX 11 driver.
- Ice asteroids and solar panels now receive shadows.

Improvements continue to the rendering engine, and the assets to help enable them. Plus, some new sound effects, and you can expect more to appear as well.

It's hard to convey the impact of lighting our signs dynamically, and having them influence their surroundings; it adds a tremendous sense of "presence" to the environment. Our "floating neon" signs flicker on and off, and change colors as they always have, but now they illuminate nearby objects and ships as well. This may seem like a subtle change, and it is, but I'm really enjoying the overall effect: