BlastZone 2 News

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.31.1.1) This update primarily improves texture filtering in a number of scenarios, fixing graininess and moire effects in HUD textures and menu borders when running resolutions below 1080p. This also improves performance at lower resolutions, matching asset pixel density to each display resolution. This doesn’t affect resolutions at or above 1080p, as those already use the highest quality assets.

This update also changes the planet edge atmosphere design in the outer space environment. The render process for this effect has been changed from 2 passes to a single pass, improving performance. This required the asset to be rebuilt, so the design was improved as well.

Here is an image illustrating texture improvements in this update at lower resolutions. The HUD texture takes the worst case scenario in previous versions, running at 1024x768 resolution, and the same texture at the same resolution with the latest version. It also shows the updated atmosphere effect. Take a look:


Here are the full release notes for v1.31.1.1:

• Improved HUD textures when using lower resolutions
  -Only affects screen resolutions lower than 1080p
  -All HUD textures now use lower res versions when a lower screen resolution is used to match detail
  -Graininess and moire effects have been cleaned up for lower resolutions
  -Performance has been slightly improved for lower resolutions
  
• Changed the atmosphere glow design around the planet in the outer space environment
  -Also changed how it is rendered to improve performance
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.31.1.1” or above. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.31.1.0) This includes a significant improvement to the B1/B2 ship primary weapon, making it more effective in long range combat. The “Burst Shot” still has a high damage close range spread of bullets, but the center bullet now continues moving across the rest of the gameplay area, allowing it to hit long range enemies. However, the long range bullet is less effective than from other ships, moving slower and doing less damage over time. This is better than having no long range component at all and keeps the ship balance and intended gameplay style intact. This especially makes bosses more fun to play against. Previously, the only long range attack option was to rapidly tap the Fire2 button, which can be tiresome.

This update also includes descriptions for each ship in the single player ship selection screen. This helps show the play style of each ship to help newer players decide which is the most fun.

A big part of this update is optimizations across many areas of the game engine. On the GPU side, this includes vertex processing speed improvements across the board and lighting optimizations. On the CPU side, a significant chunk of rendering calculations have been offloaded from the rendering thread to the update thread, better balancing the multithreading workload. Combined, these optimizations have up to a 20% performance improvement depending on the situation and hardware used.

For more details, check out the full release notes for v1.31.1.0 below:

• Updated the "Burst Shot" main weapon for the B1 and B2 ships to be more viable for long range
  -Now, the center bullet for each burst shot no longer disappears, allowing it to hit long range targets
  --This is especially useful for bosses
  -Previously, the only long range option was the low charge Fire2 shot, but that required rapidly tapping the Fire2 button
  --This is still available now, just as a secondary option
  -However, the B1/B2 ships still aren't as effective long range as other ships
  --Long range bullet DPS is lower than other ships by about 25%
  --Long range bullets travel slower, making it more difficult to hit fast moving targets
  --This is to balance out the very high short range damage they have
  
• Added a short description for each ship for the single player ship selection screen
  -Helps newer players get an idea of the type of gameplay each ship has
  
• Optimized vertex throughput on the GPU side for all shaders in the game
  -Results in a 10-20% performance boost in all situations
  
• Optimized lighting calculations for all Normal Mapped and Vertex Lit objects in the game
  -Boosts performance by up to 5-10% when many lit objects are on screen
  
• Built a new set of 2 light shaders to greatly improve performance in some situations
  -Previously, a set of shaders were built for when 1 light or 3 lights are active, and used 3 light calculations when only 2 were active
  -Now, when only 2 lights are active, the shader workload is reduced by 33% per object rendered
  -For reference, the 3 types of lights used are:
  --Camera light (always on)
  --Hyper mode glow light
  --Beam light
  
• Optimized the shader management system to eliminate unnecessary shader setup in some situations
  
• Offloaded many CPU-side rendering calculations from the render thread to the update thread to better balance the workload
  -Results in up to a 10% performance gain when many enemies and bullets are on screen
  -Client side rendering performance for online multiplayer increases by up to 15% when many objects are on screen
  
• Fixed a shader bug that would occasionally render item drop models incorrectly for some systems
  
• Fixed a few rare graphic glitches in enemies and the home world terrain for some systems
  

A new maintenance update has been released for BlastZone 2(v1.31.0.3). This makes a few improvements to the game startup loader, including slightly faster model loading and better progress feedback. In previous versions, when using VeryHigh/Extreme quality terrain, the loading bar would appear to “hang” while loading, but this is no longer the case.

The particle system has improved vertex streaming as well, resulting in up to 20% better performance in some situations.

Here are the full release notes for v1.31.0.3:

• Optimized the startup model loader
  -Reduces game startup time by about 3-5%
  -Makes the biggest difference for VeryHigh and Extreme quality terrain settings
  
• Frame rate and runtime statistics displays are now multithreaded, reducing the performance impact of running them
  
• Improved terrain model loading progress feedback when starting the game
  -The startup loading bar no longer appears to stall when loading high detail terrain
  -It now continuously fills the bar for all assets
  
• Improved particle system performance by up to 20%
  

Some of you may have noticed the recent focus on technical improvements for BlastZone 2. This is because a new project was started a while back that uses the same game engine. All engine improvements are brought into BlastZone 2 as well so everyone can benefit from them. An official announcement is coming soon, so watch for it!

A few new updates have been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.31.0.1 - v1.31.0.2) This includes a new “High” detail setting for all terrain. This serves as a balance, having more detail than normal, but without the high system requirements of VeryHigh/Extreme. Also, this is available as part of the base game, no additional DLC downloads are required.

This also replaces all Cave terrain except Normal detail. This is because Normal detail had a different cave design from the other detail levels, so now they are all consistent. Higher and lower detail levels now look more rocky and jagged, which looks better without affecting performance.

Several updates have been made to the in-game Config screen as well. This includes improving the renderer selection to detect the OpenGL versions supported by the current hardware and drivers. This previously only showed the maximum OpenGL versions supported by each renderer. Terrain Detail and DrawCallType options have been added as well, these used to only be available in the external config program. The menu has also been reorganized to fit the new options and make it easier to follow.

This update includes a few bug fixes as well. Here are the full release notes:

v1.31.0.1:

• Added a new "High" detail level for all terrain
  -Works as a balance with higher detail than normal without the high system requirements of "VeryHigh" and "Extreme"
  -This has double the detail of Normal, while VeryHigh has 10x detail
  -This can only be changed with the external config tool, not in game
  -This detail level has been added to the base game, no DLC is required
  
• Replaced all detail levels of the Cave terrain except "Normal" to maintain consistent design between them
  -Previously, "Normal" detail used a different cave design than the others
  -Now, all Cave terrain detail levels use a more rocky and jagged design that looks better without affecting performance
  
• The config menu now shows OpenGL versions detected from the display driver
  -When selecting a renderer in the config menu, the max OpenGL version supported by the driver for each renderer is now displayed
  -Previously, it would only show the max OpenGL version supported by each renderer, regardless of the current hardware and drivers
  -For example, if the maximum OpenGL version supported by the driver is 4.3, the config option will correctly show 1.5, 3.0, and 4.3 renderers, not 4.6
  
• The config menu now locks out unsupported renderers by the current driver
  -For example, if the current driver only supports OpenGL 2.0, the 4.X renderer will be unselectable
  

V1.31.0.2:

• Added in game option for Terrain Detail
  -Has the same detail options previously only available in the external config program:
  -Low
  -Normal
  -High
  -VeryHigh
  -Extreme
  -Detects if the free DLC has been downloaded or not for VeryHigh and Extreme options
  -Shows warning for VeryHigh and Extreme options as having high system requirements
  
• Added in game option and DrawCall Type
  -Has the same options previously only available in the external config program
  -VBO
  -DisplayList
  -Shows warning for DisplayList that it only works with the GL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers
  
• Reorganized the options menu layout and spacing
  
• Improved general stability
  
• Fixed glitched background environment when starting a new game after previously playing through an addon pack
  

Here are some screenshots showing the updated cave design for Extreme detail. Enjoy!

A big new update has been released for BlastZone 2 (v1.31.0.0), adding a new OpenGL 4.6 renderer! Much of the engine was overhauled to make this possible, and it was done without breaking compatibility with the existing OpenGL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers. In fact, these engine upgrades improve performance by around 5-10% across all renderers. This new renderer doesn’t require OpenGL 4.6 hardware and drivers to work either, it is backward compatible down to OpenGL 3.1. Hardware older than that will fall back to the GL 3.0 renderer.

The GL 4.6 renderer currently doesn’t look any different from OpenGL 3.0, but it uses the latest standards and approaches for running everything under the hood. This opens the possibility of implementing new effects in the future made possible by GL 4.X without being held back by compatibility with older hardware.

The GL 4.6 renderer is the new default as well. Everyone upgrading from a previous version of the game that was set to GL 2.0/3.0 will automatically be switched to the new renderer if the hardware and drivers support it. The only drawback of the GL 4.6 renderer is the simple model set is not compatible with it. Switching back to the GL 3.0 renderer will allow them to work again if needed.

A few bug fixes have been included as well. Here are the full release notes for v1.31.0.0:

• A new OpenGL 4.6 renderer has been added to the game
  -Uses the OpenGL 4.6 Core profile rendering context to ensure compliance with the latest OpenGL standard
  -Upgraded large portions of the rendering engine to use the latest OpenGL standards
  -Maintains backward compatibility with hardware and drivers going back to OpenGL 3.1
  -Going below this will switch to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer
  
• This new renderer does not support the "Simple" model set, or "Display List" code path
  -These use older technologies that can no longer be used in modern OpenGL
  -These options are still available when using the OpenGL 1.5 or 3.0 renderer
  -The "Simple" model set would require a complete rebuild from scratch to work with GL 4.6
  
• The OpenGL 3.0 renderer now uses an explicit OpenGL 3.0 Core rendering context
  -This gives the graphics driver specific information on the intention of this renderer
  -This has the potential of improving compatibility, performance, or memory characteristics
  
• Upgraded the VBO draw call code path so all objects in the game use VBOs
  -This was done to establish compliance with the OpenGL 4.6 Core context
  -This improves performance by up to 10% for all 3 renderers, OpenGL 1.5, 3.0, and 4.6
  -Many areas of static geometry are now loaded into graphics memory instead of streamed every frame
  -The text system in particular has been greatly optimized for this code path
  
• Slightly optimized the DisplayList draw call code path
  -More areas using static geometry are now compiled into graphics memory
  -This improves general performance by about 2-3%
  
• Renamed the "OpenGL 2.0/3.0" renderer to just "OpenGL 3.0" to maintain naming consistency with the other renderers
  -Now, the name of each renderer represents the maximum feature level it takes advantage of, but maintains backward compatibility with lower versions
  
• Updated the external configuration program to add the new OpenGL 4.6 renderer option
  
• Improved the Leaderboard score uploading progress bar design
  
• Fixed an object distance culling bug when starting the game with low view distance, then changing it to high
  
• Fixed a blank loading screen bug when using the OpenGL 1.5 renderer with Antialiasing turned Off
  
• Fixed changing the number of AA samples in game not taking effect for some NVidia graphics cards
  

People may have noticed the last few updates to BlastZone 2 have focused on technical improvements and bug fixes, not content additions. There is a very good reason for this, and a related announcement is coming soon. Stay tuned!