Tower Unite News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for July 27th, 2020, detailing all the changes that have happened since July 20th, 2020. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]Update 0.10.2.0[/h2]
Last week, we released Update 0.10.2.0, which contained Workshop Vehicle support for Accelerate, Track 2 of Bedzoom, the return of Global Chat, a new Main Menu, and an integrated crash reporter. Additionally, we released Hotfix 0.10.2.1 which fixed some minor crashes and other issues found in the initial 0.10.2.0 release. You can read more about Update 0.10.2.0 and Hotfix 0.10.2.1 using these links.

[h2]Update 0.10.3.0[/h2]
We've started work on Update 0.10.3.0, which will contain the new Accelerate map Sunrise Isles along with Accelerate leaving the Alpha state, bringing with it leaderboards, milestones, and achievements. There are still more features and fixes being added to this update, which you can follow here.

[h2]Accelerate Progress[/h2]
Johanna finished the map design for Sunrise Isles, and is working this week on getting the map completely playable.

macdguy started working on milestones, achievements, and leaderboards for Accelerate, as well as working on nodes and the minimap for Sunrise Isles.

Sketchman started working on achievement icons for Accelerate.

Wheezwer continued working on concept art for NightCity.

Will worked on music for Sunrise Isles.

[h3]Accelerate: NightCity Concept Art WIP[/h3]


[h3]Accelerate: Achievement Icon Background WIP[/h3]


[h2]Updated Customize Menu[/h2]
In addition to the new Main Menu, macdguy worked on an updated Customize Menu which includes the ability to preview and equip items for Game Worlds and Plaza Activities, without having to be in one. The new appearance menu also gives you the ability to change your look while in a Game World. This feature was released in Hotfix 0.10.2.1.

Both the main menu and customize menu will still be further developed.

[h3]Updated Customize Menu[/h3]


[h2]Miscellany[/h2]
Caboose700 worked on optimizing the backend system for the in-game crash reporter.

Johanna continued working on the next Plaza update.

JJosh continued working on the character model for one of the Arcade NPCs.

Lifeless started working on a lighting update for the Virus map, Desertion.

macdguy continued working on the continuous gameplay system and workshop condos.

Sketchman investigated and fixed several crashes obtained from the in-game crash reporter, fixed some issues with time synchronization, and continued working on the grouping system.

Wheezwer started working on concept art for the upgraded Stray store.

[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since July 20th, 2020 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

This update directly addresses various crashes and Workshop issues.


In this hot fix, we cleaned up the look and feel of the appearance menu and added Accelerate appearance settings so you can browse Accelerate workshop content within the menu and pause menu freely. You can also now change your appearance while in a Game World!


Changes

• New appearance menu
  
• Added Accelerate appearance editing in the appearance menu
  
• You can now adjust your appearance while in a Game World
  
• Added clearer workshop player model block buttons to player profiles. You can now block workshop player models while in Game Worlds
  
• Menu: Resized Global Chat to be a little larger on the main menu
  
• Menu: Added support for escape key to go back a menu
  
• Menu: You must click to enter a sub menu in Condo and Game World menus to prevent accidental hovering leaving the current menu you are on
  

Bug Fixes

• Regression fix: Fixed canvas surface data not saving properly when set
  
• Arcade: Fixed some machines taking double tokens
  
• Accelerate - Bedzoom: Added a missing death volume
  
• Accelerate - Bedzoom: Fixed some spots where players could get stuck
  
• Accelerate: Fixed workshop vehicle metadata sometimes not being applied
  
• Accelerate: Fixed "hidden player" workshop metadata feature not hiding wearables
  
• Accelerate: Fixed removing workshop kart causing preview cart to have old metadata applied
  
• Accelerate: Fixed "ready set go" sound playing during track 2 intro
  
• Accelerate: Fixed "hidden player" workshop metadata feature toggling player back on when going first person to third person
  
• Accelerate: Fixed some workshop models causing collision issues with boosts and items
  
• Accelerate: Fixed player scale workshop metadata resetting and not applying in-game
  
• Accelerate: Fixed player offset rotation workshop metadata being incorrectly displayed in-game
  
• Fixed canvas pyramid collision
  
• Fixed opening Condo from pause menu going to the default Condo always
  
• Fixed workshop browser not showing subscribed tab
  
• Fixed menu appearance cameras being offset
  
• Fixed workshop tooltip info drawing under the player profile
  
• Menu: Fixed back button being always active/hovered state after returning back to main menu
  
• Crash fix: Canvas crash
  
• Crash fix: Misc crash
  
• Crash fix: Rich presence crash
  
• Crash fix: Workshop crash
  
• Crash fix: Workshop crash #2
  
• Crash fix: Workshop crash #3
  
• Crash fix: Workshop crash #4
  
• Crash fix: Crash on exit
  

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

We plan to add a second track to each Accelerate map. The first second track is for Bedzoom!




You can now create custom vehicles and share them on Steam Workshop! We've added new vehicle types: bike, scooter, and hover. You'll be able to customize the tire offsets, handlebar position, leg positions, and more.

You can get started by reading our SDK documentation here: https://towerunite.com/sdk/creating-vehicles




We've redesigned and decluttered the menu UI in order to accommodate for upcoming options.

Global Chat is back in this update, enabling players to connect with others more easily.







Changes

• Accelerate Workshop Vehicle Support: Create custom vehicles!
  
• Accelerate: Bedzoom Track 2 added!
  
• New menu
  
• Return of Global Chat
  
• New crash handler: Now upload crash dumps directly to us!
  
• Accelerate: 1st place will no longer receive the Flavor Melon speed boost
  
• Accelerate: Increased the speed of the Moon Power
  
• Accelerate: Increased the speed of Combustible Cornelius
  
• Accelerate: Slightly reduced the chance of getting a bumper
  
• Accelerate: Slightly increased duration of boost for both the Single and Triple Melons
  
• Accelerate: Spawn system now spawns players in the correct positions in the race grid
  
• Accelerate: Optimized turn networking
  
• Accelerate: Adjusted collisions to improve edge detection
  
• Accelerate: Item pickup collision size increased
  
• Added a cone angle parameter for spot light items
  
• Added some component tag arguments to give additional control over brightness, cone angle, and attenuation radius of different light components within a single item

Bug Fixes

• Bowling memory leak fix
  
• Accelerate: Fixed turning being digital instead of analog for controllers
  
• Accelerate: Fixed issue where All Powerful Sun was never given to last place
  
• Accelerate: Fixed respawn system not respawning you properly to the right location of the track
  
• Accelerate: Fixed bumper desync
  
• Accelerate: Fixed boost not applying when you are not moving forward
  
• Fixed a bunch of light items that did not have their default parameters reflected in the light components, including candles and chandeliers
  
• Fixed the emergency light beacon item turning into a bright point light upon changing any editable parameter
  
• Fixed chat being blurred while playing Poker
  
• Fixed pets showing up in first person
  
• Fixed Canvas surface scales being extremely small for clients
  
• Virus: Fixed Crossbow tracer effects not showing up
  
• Fixed Ice Rink not doing ice effects
  
• Fixed ice movement issues for clients in Condos
  
• Fixed canvas surface editor icons not loading
  
• Little Crusaders: Fixed bird not showing up when picked up
  
• Fixed Plaza 2D map location banners being blurred

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for July 20th, 2020, detailing all the changes that have happened since July 13th, 2020. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]Update 0.10.2.0[/h2]
Work continues on getting Update 0.10.2.0 ready for release. As mentioned last week, this update will feature not only Steam Workshop Vehicle Support and Track 2 of Bedzoom, but will also include an improved Main Menu, the return of Global Chat, a built-in crash reporter, along with a bunch of other bug fixes and improvements. You can read more the contents of this update here.

[h2]New Main Menu[/h2]
macdguy started working on a new Main Menu, in an effort to make the user interface cleaner and less cluttered. The main menu featured in 0.10.2.0 is still in progress, but conveys the general idea that we're going towards.

[h3]New Main Menu WIP[/h3]


[h2]Accelerate Progress[/h2]
Johanna continued working on Sunrise Isles, 99% finishing Track 1. Her next task is working on Track 2 of Pine Valley.

Wheezwer worked on artwork for the start line, checkpoint banners, foliage, and other art for Sunrise Isles. She also started working on concept art for Nightcity.

Will finished the music for Nightcity, and continued working on music for Sunrise Isles.

[h3]Accelerate: Sunrise Isles WIP[/h3]


[h2]Miscellany[/h2]
Caboose700 worked on building and integrating a in-game crash reporter, which will appear in the event of a fatal error, allowing the end user to quickly give a description of what occurred, and upload the crash dumps automagically.

macdguy did some work on Workshop Condos, which would allow a user to upload their condo save data to the workshop for anyone to download. He also worked a bit on co-op condos, and "continuous gameplay", which would allow players to choose a next map without having to go back to the main menu and create a new server.

Madmijk worked on fixing colorable items, rewriting some of the base code to make it more flexible. This involved touching a bunch of items to reflect these changes. He also worked on a fix for Planetary Piano where sometimes notes wouldn't appear.

Sketchman continued working on the player grouping system, and also looking into integrating the new server browser.

[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since July 13th, 2020 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for July 13th, 2020, detailing all the changes that have happened since July 6th, 2020. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]Update 0.10.2.0[/h2]
Work continues on Update 0.10.2.0 which will feature Workshop Vehicle Support and Track 2 of Bedzoom, along with a slew of bug fixes and improvements. You can read more about the update here.

[h2]Accelerate Progress[/h2]

Johanna continued working on Sunrise Isles, working to get the map finished and ready for playtesting.

Lifeless is almost done getting Track 2 of Bedzoom ready for release.

macdguy added a new vehicle type: Bike. He also worked on Workshop Vehicles, which will give users the ability to upload new vehicles to Steam Workshop and use them in Accelerate, similar to how workshop items work. There's features such as vehicle types: normal wheel, bike, scooter, hover wheels. You can also adjust handbar/leg offsets (for bikes), wheel offsets, and more. He also setup the minimap for Bedzoom Track 2, while also fixing several bugs in Accelerate. He also looked into why controllers were inputting as digital and resolved it - giving controllers analog movement.

Will continued working on music for Sunrise Isles and Night City, while also working on new Engine sounds.

[h3]Accelerate: Bedzoom Track 2 WIP[/h3]


[h3]Accelerate: Workshop Vehicles WIP[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Caboose700 upgraded the forum software and did maintenance to it's server, fixed an issue with the Patreon Link software, optimized the OpenTDB to prevent timeouts, and continued working on the OpenTDB rewrite.

Johanna continued working on some improvements to the Plaza.

macdguy continued working on "continuous gameplay", which would allow players to choose a next map without having to go back to the main menu and create a new server.

Madmijk worked on fixing some light issues, and helped debug Workshop crashes.

Sketchman worked on bug fixes and continued working on the player grouping system.

Wheezwer helped test Bedzoom internally, while also working on Steam Trading Cards for Ball Race and Virus.

[h3]Steam Trading Cards: Ball Race WIP[/h3]



[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since July 6th, 2020 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!


Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7