Paint the Town Red News

Update 0.8.4 is available now and adds support for Custom Music packs for use in Workshop levels as well as a lot of other improvements.

The Music Packs work very similarly to the Texture Packs and can be created from their own menu accessible in the Level Editor sub-menu options in the game's main menu. Packs can include up to 14 songs with a combined maximum size of 100MB and up to 4 packs you have subscribed to on the Workshop can be used in your levels. A new logic prop will allow you to change the music based on triggers in your levels.

A current limitation of the music files used in the packs is that they currently must be either .wav file or .ogg files. This is due to licensing and engine restrictions, but you can easily convert to .ogg files from .mp3 files or other using software like VLC or online converters. This is the site I used in testing to convert MP3 files to OGG files: https://www.onlineconverter.com/mp3-to-ogg

A full changelist is at the bottom of this post, but some of the new changes include:

Collision based damage to enemies From minor damage...

... to major damage on extreme impacts

Shockwave affects props, bodies, etc

Sharp weapons can stick into the environment

... and some can pin enemies to walls

Bullets and liquid will create decals

Many of these new additions will continue to be improved upon in upcoming releases.

Due to the large number of changes in this update there may be some new bugs. Please let us know if you encounter any major new bugs on the Discord server or via email to [email protected].

Version 0.8.4

• Custom Music Packs can now be setup and added to the Workshop
  
• Knocked down/out enemies are now damaged when colliding with the environment
  
• Bullets now move unused weapons they hit
  
• Bullets now break some weapons like bottles
  
• Weak unused weapons can break when hit
  
• Bullets now leave impact decals in the environment
  
• Spilled liquid now leaves decals in the environment
  
• Added some slight variation to blood decal colour
  
• Arterial spray will no longer occur when hitting dead bodies
  
• Enemies voxels now show some burn damage
  
• Shockwave now moves weapons and props
  
• Shockwave now moves dead and unconscious bodies
  
• Sharp thrown weapons can now stick into static environment geometry
  
• Spears and similar weapons can now temporarily pin enemies to walls
  
• Changed block position of guns to actually look like they're blocking
  
• Improved thrown weapon torque
  
• Weapons can now break when thrown or hit into objects depending on weapon type and impact
  
• Level Editor: Custom Music Packs can be used
  
• Level Editor: Added invisible paint
  
• Level Editor: Logic Zones can be set to kill enemies
  
• Level Editor: Logic Zones can be set to kill players
  
• Level Editor: Added optional fall damage for the player
  
• Level Editor: Added new triggerable Logic prop to change Music
  
• Level Editor: Added level setting to disable fall/collision damage for enemies
  
• Level Editor: Added ability to duplicate rooms
  
• Level Editor: Enemies will prioritise targets at the same height as them in multi-story areas
  
• Level Editor: Added checkbox on upload to approve your level for use on other platforms
  
• Level Editor: Fixed enemies that fall outside play area being reset to invalid position
  
• Level Editor: Fixed prop position property being incorrect after creation
  
• Level Editor: Fixed platforms not being included in calculation of navmesh extents
  
• Fixed enemies recovering from KO while in the air
  
• Fixed bullets being destroyed before completing their full damage potential
  
• Fixed cigar box cigars being tethered to box
  
• Fixed enemies recovering from ragdoll upside-down
  

Since the last preview post we've been wrapping up work on the remaining elements of the first 3 areas of Beneath which make up the main branch that leads to the first boss and run end. This included setting up the interface for purchasing permanent upgrades and having those upgrades both work and save both locally and to the Steam Cloud.

Another change in Beneath is that instead of pressing a button to drop weapons, that button will store and swap weapons so that you can hold 2 weapons at a time and swap between them. This will allow you to save more powerful weapons you've purchased or found for when you really need them. This feature, as well as many of the permanent upgrade options, required having an icon for the weapons you'll find in Beneath. To achieve this we have a process that renders every weapon to an texture in white and from a recognisable perspective and places them in particular positions on a texture atlas.

Some of the auto-generated weapon icons

Many of the permanent upgrades are to unlock the ability to find superior weapons in future runs in Beneath. One important element we've considered that we've found to be a negative element of similar upgrades in other Rogue-Lite games is that unlocking more weapons will reduce the likelihood that other powerful weapons you've unlocked will spawn. This is because the range of weapons the procedural level generator can select from has increased. In Beneath we've made sure that every unlockable weapon will always have a consistent random percentage chance to be found in the world and as you unlock more weapons only the lesser weapons of the default range of weapons will then be found more rarely.

Other upgrades include things like permanently improving stats for all classes, upgrades to starting weapons and shields, unlocking additional beneficial unique random encounters or increasing the durability of all weapons.

Swapping between 2 weapons



Besides finishing the boss enemies for Beneath which is still to come, we've about wrapped up the last remaining big feature (besides bosses most work from here is related to tweaking/polishing/etc) which was the most complicated enemy in the game, the Giant Mage.

We won't show and spoil too much about this enemy because they have a lot of impressive abilities that will be much more fun to discover in game. The main thing that makes them a complicated enemy to create though is their interaction with other enemies. The class hierarchy will be pretty clear when you encounter a Giant Mage with some other enemies nearby like the Interceptor or Minion. They'll drastically change their usual tactics to protect and augment the abilities of the Mages. If you do encounter a Giant Mage without any protection you'd better act fast because they have the power to summon whatever they need.

That's not to say they aren't more than capable of dealing with you themselves...





Since we've reached a Beneath milestone we're going to spend next week working on the next update that will not only feature the Custom Music Packs for the Workshop, but also a huge number of other improvements. Many of these additions are possible because upgrades required for Beneath can easily transfer to existing systems and the changelist for 0.8.4 is by far the largest we've ever had in an update.

We'll hold off on posting the WIP changelist as it will definitely change over the coming week, but below are some additions you can expect in the update which will be available in a weeks time.

• Custom Music Packs (workshop upload and Level Editor usage)
• Ability to change music in Level Editor with logic triggers
• Liquid Decals
  
  
• Thrown sharp weapons stick into level
  
  
• Some thrown weapons can pin enemies
  
  
• Smite attacks will knock some nearby enemies away
• Shockwave knocks props and weapons away
  
  
• Invisible paint option in Level Editor
• Ability to duplicate rooms in Level Editor
• Bullet hit decals
  
  
• New blood spurt effects
• Blood colour tone variation
• Shooting and hitting some fragile weapons will break them

Apologies for taking a bit longer to get back to the Beneath Preview posts since the recent detour to add custom character texture support to the Level Editor, but since completing those updates we've been continuing to make a lot of progress towards completing Beneath.

Testing both environmental content and combat scenarios had been a bit time consuming since with a Rogue-Lite game with randomly generated levels it can take some time to see certain environment configurations or combat scenarios that you might need to see. One of the first things we worked on after completing the last update was to setup specific testing environments for both Beneath environments and combat. This has greatly accelerated testing and improving the new environmental variety and the enemy AI and stats and different player class powers.

While there are 6 distinct areas in Beneath, only 3 are on the primary path and our focus is on completing everything for those areas so that section of the game is completely playable. We expect this to be complete in around 2 weeks, but we will wait for all of Beneath to be complete before adding it to the build for the first time. With this section of the game complete though we'll be able to show gameplay and content much more easily in these preview posts.



The Teleporter is one of the strongest enemies you'll encounter deeper into Beneath. With powerful ranged and close quarters attacks, the Teleporter is difficult to attack effectively. Like many of the other new enemies in Beneath, their movement also differs significantly from the standard human enemies. Instead of coming towards the player, the Teleporter will try to keep a distance from them. Due to their ability to levitate they can continue to face their target to continue to attack and defend themselves.





Their ultimate power though, as the name implies, is the ability to teleport to somewhere else nearby. If you're fighting other enemies and lose track of a Teleporter's location, you are at great risk of being hit by an unexpected ranged attack.



Of course there are many ways to deal with the enemies in Beneath. If you're a class like the Warlock that is capable of turning enemies against each other you might find the Teleporter is no match for the blast of a Crystal Crab.



Or perhaps you'll play as a Spectre and out-teleport the Teleporter...



The recent updates for Paint the Town Red which added Custom Texture support to the Workshop/Level Editor has been working well and opens an avenue to supporting custom music using similar menus and systems. Since most of the backend work required to support this sort of content is now complete, we'll likely take a couple of days off from working on Beneath to add Custom Music support in an update soon.

Another feature that's often requested for the Level Editor we'll be adding in the next update is the ability to have invisible walls which we'll accommodate with an invisible paint option for rooms and platforms.

Since the last update post we had a number of minor updates primarily focused on bug fixes which are below. The most recent update also included the ability to create 'Prefabs' in the Level Editor so those of you that create elaborate objects using multiple props can now save those for reuse in future levels.



Version 0.8.357

• Level Editor: Added the ability to create a reusable Prefab from a selection of props
  

Version 0.8.356

• Certain weapons and enemies now knock the player around
  
• Fixed impact animations on enemies not playing
  

Version 0.8.355

• Custom Textures will now show in levels when you have some, but not all packs downloaded
  
• Updating levels will now remove old unused Texture Pack tags from Workshop
  
• Added additional Body Template example texture created by map creator phenom Kersher
  

Version 0.8.354

• Fixed bug with making mug and pot props with liquid static
  
• Fixed not being able to properly remove textures from custom appearances
  
• Fixed not being able to just use custom body textures with fallback heads
  

Version 0.8.353

• Fixed colliding with dead enemies
  
• Fixed arm cut reaction animation not playing
  

Version 0.8.352

• Texture Pack dropdowns in the Level Editor now update to show newly downloaded packs
  
• Allow loading of JPG custom textures
  
• Serialize to JPG instead of PNG if smaller (to allow for smaller texture pack sizes)
  
• Allow 1024x1024 textures for Body and Head textures
  
• Display error information in Texture Pack Creator
  

Version 0.8.351

• Fixed player spawn locations being reset to 0,0,0 in Level Editor
  

If you're not aware there is a community Discord server for Paint the Town Red that is quite active and I try to regularly respond to questions posted in the appropriate channel there. If you're interested in more information on PTTR development and have any questions you can join it here: https://discord.gg/9vug3Tb

The ability to create texture packs with your own character texture replacements is now available. These texture packs can be used by you and other map creators in the Level Editor.

To create a texture pack, select 'Level Editor' > 'Texture Pack Creator' in the main menu. From there you can setup packs with textures you've created. Use the 'Create Example Textures' button and create example and guide textures and view them and a readme file with information on texture requirements by using the 'Open Texture Folder' button.

You can upload texture packs with 1 to 5 heads and 1 to 5 bodies. Note that inappropriate texture packs with offensive content will be removed.



When in the Level Editor in the Settings menu you'll find a 'Setup Custom Textures' button which will bring you to the menu where you can setup up to 12 custom appearances using up to 4 different texture packs you've subscribed to. Custom appearances have a fallback appearance which will be used when players do not have the texture packs downloaded.

If you subscribe to a level that uses texture packs you don't have, they should be automatically subscribed to and downloaded for you. If you're playing a level when the texture pack downloads, the textures will be dynamically changed from the fallback to the custom textures while you're playing.

A full list of changes for this build and the build from late last week focused on fixes is below.

Version 0.8.35

• Ability to upload custom character textures for use in Workshop levels
  
• Level Editor: Custom character textures can be set from Workshop
  
• Level Editor: Increased quality of level preview screenshots
  
• Fixed memory leaks related to Workshop level preview images
  
• Fixed Modifiers from Level Editor testing not being disabled
  

Version 0.8.341

• Fixed animation loop bugs
  
• Fixed not being able to create a full length GIF
  
• Fixed pirate cove chair material issue when static
  
• Fixed Smite counting down before being able to shoot
  
• Fixed Smite camera effects fading in backwards
  
• Fixed right elbow and knee on enemies being rotated incorrectly
  
• Fixed punching bag material error
  
• Fixed mirror ball shader on OpenGL & Vulkan
  

Version 0.8.30 is available now. The main features of this release are focused on the Level Editor.

You can now set weapons to be static props in the Level Editor which also improves load times and performance when using a large number of weapons this way. You can also now edit properties on multiple props and weapons at once. Properties for characters have also increased with options for a vision cone trigger and proximity trigger, as well as the ability to have character move randomly around the environment near their start position before they enter combat.

The other changes are listed below. There have been a large number of backend changes in addition to these as part of development of Beneath, so you might notice other differences. If you notice any change that appears to be a bug please let us know.

Version 0.8.35 will be released shortly with support for custom character textures on the Steam Workshop as well as some other Level Editor changes.

Note: 0.8.30 initially had a bug where bone voxels weren't being destroyed. This is now fixed in 0.8.31.

Version 0.8.32

• Fixed Smite not ending
  

Version 0.8.31

• Fixed bone voxels not getting destroyed
  

Version 0.8.30

• Engine update (DX9 support removed. DX11, OpenGL and Vulkan available)
  
• Level Editor: Added option for weapons to be unusable static props
  
• Level Editor: Added ability to edit some common properties for multiple selected props and weapons
  
• Level Editor: Added vision cone and proximity trigger options for characters
  
• Level Editor: Added option for enemies to randomly move around pre-combat
  
• Level Editor: Added more button props
  
• Large blood particles now only emit when voxels are destroyed
  
• Performance improvements when playing Level Editor levels with lots of small weapons set as static props
  
• Improved distance fog in Pirate Cove and Arena
  
• Fixed ragdoll force when enemies die when body parts explode
  
• Fixed gfycat upload bug
  
• Fixed some bullet damage and impact issues
  
• Fixed Arena Challenge 2 being at night
  
• Fixed lighting issues on Pirate Cove
  
• Tweaked Disco lighting bloom