Update 56 for cyubeVR is live! Much improved trees, huge optimizations and more!

Hey everyone, Update 56 for cyubeVR is live!

This update adds significant VRAM optimizations (over 2 GB less VRAM usage!), RAM optimizations, significant GPU performance optimizations, a much better looking dark tree, new fancy shadows for trees, improved sky colors and a generally much improved sky, plus many more improvements, optimizations and bugfixes!

Let's first take a look at the long list of changes, and after that, let's get into more detail for the biggest changes! Btw, are you in the official cyubeVR Discord yet?

• Significantly optimized the VRAM usage of the game, it now needs over 2 GB less VRAM!
  
• Replaced the dark tree model with a better looking one
  
• Added "voxel shadows" below trees, making the area below trees darker, without any performance impact
  
• Significantly changed the color of the sky, it's now way more blue during daytime
  
• Changed the color of light shafts from the sun, they are now less blue and a bit less strong
  
• Significantly optimized RAM usage of the near-infinite view distance system. On large view distances, the game needs many GBs less RAM now
  
• When launching the game, there now is a "Stonebrick Studios" logo first before you enter the main menu
  
• Added new SSAO setting in the "Visuals" tab of the settings
  
• Improved visuals of the tree trunks near the ground, they fade to a dark green at the bottom now, so the transition from grass to tree looks much smoother
  
• When using LIV mixed reality, the hands are now invisible in the LIV view
  
• Significant GPU performance optimizations, especially during night
  
• Optimized the speed of loading the existing view distance when loading a world, it's significantly faster now
  
• Significantly optimized GPU performance of foliage
  
• Improved visuals of the sky, clouds look more interesting and more detailed now.
  
• Improved foliage LOD transitions, they are less noticeable now
  
• VoxelAPI mods like cyubePainter can now correctly remove grass and flowers
  
• The strength of the snow on grass/flowers now matches the strength of the snow on ground around them much better, making it look much more correct
  
• CPU performance optimization for tree spawning
  
• Modified the furnace recipe video, it now zooms into the center to make it easier to see that there is a gap there
  
• Until the player has opened the briefcase at least once, there is now a floating hint text above the left hand that explains how to open the briefcase
  
• Slightly improved the grip position of the hand on the stick
  
• When selecting a torch in the hand, the preview on the hand is now translucent instead of opaque, to make it more clear that it's just a preview for placing it
  
• Fixed rainbow flowers not being visible
  
• Adjusted texture streaming settings, it should no longer happen now that the bucket texture often looks blurry for half a second after enabling the bucket
  
• Added a voice saying "Objective Completed" when succeeding an objective
  
• After the "green arrow" animation finished playing in the objective UI on the currently succeeded objective, it now automatically moves forward one page to display the new objective
  
• When starting a new world, the first objective visible is now the first "real" objective (Radial Menu) and not the always-succeeded objective to open the briefcase
  
• The "Objectives" button in the briefcase UI is now called "Interactive Tutorial" until the first 20 objectives are done, to make it more clear to a new player that it makes sense to pay attention to it at the beginning of the game
  
• Added new screenshots to community screenshot showcase in the main menu
  
• Adjusted the text for the "Recolor torch" objective to explain how a torch can be recolored
  
• Crafting a copper axe and copper shovel will also unlock the objective for stone axe and stone shovel now
  
• Crafting an iron shovel will also unlock the objective for the stone shovel now
  
• Fixed that the chunk mesh optimization code was disabled
  
• Optimized the general save file format, slightly reducing sizes
  
• At the bottom of the crafting recipe list, the game now tells you how much VRAM in total all the custom blocks use
  
• Fixed block items sometimes incorrectly teleporting up while mining something like coal
  
• Fixed that it was possible that when dying, and then respawning far away, the "dead body inventory" was not being saved
  
• Decreased maximum burn time for all non-fuel block items (e.g. copper) from 25 minutes to 2.5 minutes
  
• When it snows, the ambient sounds during day (birds, wind) are now only 5% the regular volume
  
• Updated C++ compiler to latest version
  
• Small improvement of aurora visuals
  
• Slightly reduced the brightness of the grass side texture
  
• After dying, the red "Respawning..." screen now stays active until the chunk around the respawn location is fully loaded
  
• Fixed that dropping a ghost item from a radial menu slot onto a tool in a regular inventory slot created a ghost tool in the radial menu slot
  
• Fixed that trees would often disappear incorrectly after cutting down more than ~4 trees
  
• Fixed that it's possible to walk into/through the furnace and trees, both with smooth locomotion and teleport
  
• Fixed that trees would sometimes stay on the lowest LOD for way too long when using very high view distances
  
• Fixed crash when teleporting far away while standing close to a cactus
  
• Fixed there being an incorrectly rendered grass below every floating recipe paper
  
• Fixed recipe paper instantly disappearing when releasing it immediately after grabbing it
  
• Fixed a possible crash when unloading a tree before it has become visible
  
• Fixed that it was possible to stick an axe backwards into a tree
  
• Fixed typo in objective (if -> is)
  
• Fixed the main menu background sometimes looking too low res
  
• Fixed that the "Torch Flickering" setting did not have any effect on block items
  
• Some other small CPU and GPU optimizations
  
• Fixed a possible crash
  
  

This is a big optimization!

This is especially impactful because most players use a GPU with 8 GB VRAM and play the game on a Quest 2. Actually, Windows itself often uses ~2 GB VRAM and the Quest 2 requires much more VRAM than using a native SteamVR headset, due to requiring two compositors running at the same time (Oculus + SteamVR) which combined also easily use ~2 GB VRAM for themselves.
So that often just leaves ~4 GB that is left to be used by a game then, which means a 2 GB reduction in how much VRAM the game needs is a major improvement for many players!

The VRAM improvements are also almost independent of the ingame settings, even on the lowest possible settings the game will now use almost 2 GB less VRAM than before, without looking any worse.

Additionally, this update also significantly optimizes the RAM usage of the near-infinite view distance system. On large view distances (100 chunks or more), the game needs many GBs less RAM now!

Those VRAM and RAM improvements together look like this in the case of running the game at high settings (All settings mostly at Max, View Distance 100, Terrain Quality "Ultra"), in a large world, comparing the RAM and VRAM usage between Update 55 and Update 56:

VRAM: 8.6 GB -> 6.2 GB
RAM: 14.2 GB -> 12.6 GB



This update significantly improves the visuals of the sky in multiple different ways.

First, it significantly changes the color of the sky, making it way more blue during daytime. You might think "just a color change?", but it's actually a really major difference to the "average color" you see in the game, since the sky often fills half your view! This change makes the whole game generally feel a bit more happy and uplifting.

Here you can see a Before / After comparison of the sky color:

Before:



After:



The detail of the clouds has also been much improved with this update: Before, the sky often looked a bit boring and blurry, but now, the clouds look way more detailed (not visible on the screenshots above, they both already have the better details active).



The dark tree in the game has been replaced with a completely new, much more detailed model - the previous dark tree didn't quite fulfill the "everything should be super 8K" requirements any more that cyubeVR puts on all it's visuals ;) I think the old dark tree, which has been added to the game in 2016, really would have won the award for the most ugly object in the whole game, so it absolutely was time to replace it with a tree that looks like a proper 2023 high-resolution tree!

Here is a Before / After comparison of the old and new tree:

Update 55 Dark Tree:



Update 56 Dark Tree:



And here's one more Before / After comparison, from a bit further away from the tree:

Update 55 Dark Tree:



Update 56 Dark Tree:



And even though this new tree is way more detailed than the old one, it's actually faster to render than the old one as well! So it's a win-win in every possible way :)

There also is a technical reason for this change: The old tree heavily relied on tessellation to look acceptable, and Unreal Engine 5 actually removes the support for tessellation. So relying on tessellation for visuals is no longer an option once cyubeVR will be updated to Unreal Engine 5, so it's good to start now already with making sure everything looks great with no tessellation.



This update adds "voxel shadows" below trees, making the area below trees darker. These shadows are "free" on the GPU since they are calculated on the CPU as part of the chunk update, so they significantly improve the visuals of the game without requiring any more GPU performance! And the CPU-side is so well optimized that the time it takes to calculate them is completely insignficant.

Here you can see a before/after comparison of how the game looked like before, and how it looks like now with the new shadows!

Before:



After:



Independently from the new shadows, the grounding of the trees has also been improved by fading them to the grass color near the ground, which is also visible on the screenshots above already, but here's a comparison where the new shadows are active in both cases and only the improved grounding is compared to better illustrate that (Thanks Mika for making this GIF):





There generally are many GPU performance optimizations in this update, so you should see cyubeVR run as smoothly and nicely as never before, while also looking better than ever :)

Currently, there is a big focus on optimizations because optimizations are also very beneficial for cyubeVR to run ideally on PSVR2, which will be a great platform for the game: It's the first time that a non-PC platform exists that supports VR and can actually run a very beautiful game like cyubeVR. And cyubeVR should be one of the best looking VR games on PSVR2 as well, just like it is on PC, so it's important that it's as optimized as possible so that the graphics can be set as high as possible!

Of course, PC's with RTX 4090s are still far superior in the performance and visuals they can reach, but not everyone wants to buy such overpriced GPUs, so for many players, the PSVR2 will likely be an ideal platform to play cyubeVR on. A PSVR2 release is planned to happen in 2023! After the PSVR2 release is done, the focus of development will shift from optimizations to more gameplay-oriented features again then.

But here's an interesting statistic that shows that adding more optimizations will always remain important on PC as well: Even now, in the years 2023, over 5.5 years after cyubeVR originally was released on Steam, while the min specs for running the game never significantly increased in all those years, the most often picked reason why people refund cyubeVR on Steam, even if it's overall just a small percentage, is still... that their PC can't run the game with good enough performance. So, let's see how much this big optimization update helps to improve that statistic :)



These new screenshots of very cool builds have been added to the community screenshot showcase in the main menu of the game:

Observation Tower | Built by: ChibiArcher



Church | Built by: ChibiArcher



Pixel Art | Built by: ChibiArcher



Village | Built by: Backofen



Castle Area | Built by: Talsma & Community World







Today is not just the release of Update 56, but also the release of a new video on the official Stonebrick Studios YouTube channel! A video showcasing the amazing reactions from streamers playing cyubeVR. Here's a separate announcement post about the video:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/619500/view/3650784879032982145





A big thanks to everyone for supporting the development of cyubeVR on Patreon! I'm working full-time on cyubeVR, and it's often quite hard to make a living purely off the Steam sales of the game, so any Patreon Supporter is really worth a lot for the continued development of the game. Thanks so much to all the Patreon Supporters (list sorted by total lifetime donation, highest first):


ChibiArcher, Arados, Ethernoctis, @B4nH4mm3r on Discord, Quill, SkgBlaze, Lucanes, ErrorNull, Lynx, Sceptrex, Trevor Berninger, Tom Hörberg, KroyVR, Bhima, Plantmaster, Altair, Al Raw, David R., David O, Albertbz, Eti the Spirit, Shanya / Sabrina, MightyDuck, Saltshine, WillyVR, VenturePopTV, Austin Flores, DiamondHunter_, HeyMika, TallOnTwo, Tiddlez, gunair, Michael Ballard, M1kk3l, WarChi1d, Alphie, Jackerino, Dark Slaughter, Yasha, Talsma, Curzek, Lucas van Leiden, mazzawoollza, wherr, RelativelyQuantum, Netshaman, Dave Pearson, Bucket Codes, Lordoldmanrets, Volpe, Daniel Crawford, texhnobees, TinyMrMan (MB), __mt, AnubisXtreme, Adrian Sawn, Saul2000, joerkig, MurphChops, Connor A, Algiz, nqeron, Solid Hernando, SingingFluffyUK


Patreon rewards are being mentioned in the list of Patreon supporters in the main menu, getting a special colored name in the official cyubeVR discord, and physical items like a sticker, mug, or T-Shirt with cyubeVR designs.





Recently, new awesome custom blocks were added to the cyubeVR Steam Workshop! Let's mention some of them here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015633395&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015077341&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013610902&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013610829&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013604365&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009047028&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009040733&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009038785&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009036682&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3007118234&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3007118070&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006324119&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2990638872&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2990638751&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2968569369&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2959194547&searchtext=

Great new blocks! You can install every one of them with a single button click, and immediately use them for building in the game. Make sure to regularly browse through the Steam Workshop and subscribe to anything you find useful for building in cyubeVR, or easily create your own custom blocks!

And it's also super easy to create your own custom blocks! Did you know there is a super easy to use GUI tool now for creating cyubeVR custom blocks? Everything you need to know about how to create custom blocks you can find here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/619500/discussions/3/1640917625019543783/


And if you want to create more sophisticated mods for the game, that's possible too! Check out this page that explains all the different types of modding possible with cyubeVR: https://github.com/cyubeVR-Modding



As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 25 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 it's simply "good game". Writing a positive review is the easiest way you can support the game because indie devs like me are very dependent on the Steam Algorithm recommending the game to new people to be able to afford to keep working on it!

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 3800 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, please tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in Discord :)

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

You can also follow cyubeVR on X/Twitter or follow cyubeVR on Bluesky (a new Twitter alternative).

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

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

Cheers!