Update 40 for cyubeVR is live! Engine Update to latest Unreal Engine, and more!

Hey everyone, Update 40 for cyubeVR is live!

This update brings an engine update to the latest Unreal Engine version (4.25.3), significantly improved performance, visual improvements, bugfixes and more!

Let's take a look at the list of changes first, and after that, let's get into more detail for some of the changes!

• Updated the engine version to Unreal Engine 4.25.3
  
• The dark wood texture has been replaced with a better looking texture
  
• New design for 6 spheres around block item
  
• Improved the bow. The bow now is larger, and the bow also has twice the power, so the arrows fly twice as fast and twice as far.
  
• Better looking, more gradual snow/rain occlusion on the ground
  
• Made it easier to move the full stack of an item from a chest to the inventory
  
• Added buttons for roadmap and patreon to main menu
  
• Significant GPU performance optimizations
  
• Significant CPU performance optimizations
  
• Increased distance at which trees switch to lowest detail LOD
  
• Added INI setting for using different control scheme on Vive Controllers
  
• Added the new Nvidia GPUs to list of GPUs for high default graphics settings
  
• Added more delay to first weather change after world load
  
• Fixed low flying birds all flying in straight line above player (they're more spread out now across the whole view distance)
  
• Fixed game crashing when run with Vulkan
  
• Fixed not being able to destroy wood scaffolding with an arrow
  
• Fixed multiple crashes
  

The last engine update of cyubeVR was roughly a year ago, and once a year is a good schedule to update the engine version, so it became time for another engine update! cyubeVR now runs on Unreal Engine 4.25.3. This will likely the last engine update before moving to Unreal Engine 5 at the end of next year.

An engine update always is a big change, with many millions of lines of code changed. It usually brings very significant performance optimizations, as UE4 constantly is getting optimized further. It also leads to better DX12/Vulkan support. You can run UE4 with DX12 or Vulkan by adding -dx12 or -vulkan as a launch argument.

The engine update was also required to allow support for raytracing in a future update.

Additionally to the performance optimizations by the engine update, the cyubeVR code has been optimized even further. In general, you should see significantly better performance with Update 40 compared to Update 39!



Everything in cyubeVR is super high-res and detailed, and that's what cyubeVR is known for! The old dark wood texture did not fit those requirements though, it was relatively low res, and didn't fit the rest of the game too well. There now is a new wood texture, made by the awesome community member Tino, who you might know from all the awesome blocks he has published on the cyubeVR Steam Workshop!



A new INI setting has been added called UseKnucklesControlSchemeOnViveControllers. cyubeVR has 4 different control schemes, individually adapted to work best with the 4 different popular controller designs (Oculus Touch, Vive, Index, WMR). The Vive Controller control scheme is quite different from the control scheme of the other controllers, as Vive controllers have quite a different button layout than all the other controllers. By default, the game detects which controller you use, and changes some control logic based on that. That means it's not possible to just use the SteamVR input system to use button actions designed for Index/Touch/WMR controllers and apply them to Vive controller buttons.

Someone wished for that to be possible, so that he could build a completely different Vive Controller control scheme for the game, that's why this new INI setting has been added. If you set UseKnucklesControlSchemeOnViveControllers=1 in the INI, then the game will treat Vive Controllers more similar to Index/Touch/WMR controllers, and the buttons actions designed for those new controllers will also work on Vive Controllers.



Recently, more awesome new custom mod blocks were added to the workshop! Let's mention some of them here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2193759416&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2193728056&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2186455660&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2186454007&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2162386124&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154169215&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154168913&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2153551588&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2152910551&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2152883779&searchtext=

Make sure to regularly browse through the Steam Workshop and subscribe to anything you find useful for building in cyubeVR!

If you're also interested now in creating custom mod blocks for cyubeVR, here you can find a tutorial about how to create custom mod blocks for cyubeVR - as long as you are familiar with using any image editing software, it's a really easy process! https://steamcommunity.com/app/619500/discussions/3/1640917625019543783/





In case you have not seen it yet, you can now support development of the game through Patreon! Patreon rewards are being mentioned in the credits of the game, getting a special colored name in the official cyubeVR Discord, and physical items like a sticker, mug, or t-shirt with cyubeVR designs.

https://www.patreon.com/stonebrickstudios

For more info, see this announcement post:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/619500/announcements/detail/5382318210056194671



As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 13 separate beta builds! If you want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!

That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a positive review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 1200 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)

There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!

Also, don't forget there's an official roadmap with voting features.

Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)

Cheers!