Alpha Update 5: February 4th 2020

News Patch Notes
1

Highlights

  • Two new API functions,CoreObject:GetCustomProperties() and SmartObject:GetSmartProperties().
  • A lot of bug fixes.

About Deprecations during Alpha

We will sometimes need to deprecate code during the course of development.
Games using deprecated features will continue to work for the near future, but may produce deprecation warnings. Deprecated features may be removed entirely down the line; we recommend affected games eventually remove the feature/code!

New Features

API

  • Added CoreObject:GetCustomProperties() and SmartObject:GetSmartProperties(), which return a table containing all of the object's custom properties or smart properties, respectively. Both functions are also shown in the script debugger.
  • Events.BroadcastToServer, Events.BroadcastToAllPlayers, and Events.BroadcastToPlayer will now print warning messages in the Event Log when the broadcast fails.

Editor

  • You can now enable/disable autosaves from the preferences menu.
  • Added more information to the "General" settings category.
  • Added a "Stop VFX" button to effect properties in edit mode.

Core Content

  • Rocket Trail VFX: Now supports lower alpha values. Smoke or Fire can now be independently controlled.
  • Added Portal VFX: Portals can be used for linking to other games or can be used in game mechanics. Supports location capture as well as live location capture.

Changes

API

  • Deprecate Game.abilitySpawnedEvent. It never fired and was left over after a previous change.

Editor

  • You can no longer interact with the world while the options screen is open.
  • Updated the settings menu to only display tabs related to your current game mode.
  • Terrain Updates:
    • Upgrade to a much newer version of terrain / voxel libraries (late January 2020 version.)
    • Terrain brushes / editing has improved performance.
    • Significant memory improvements when storing and manipulating terrain.
    • New terrain edit cursor provides accurate preview of what will be sculpted (including showing falloff / brush sharpness.).
    • Fix for some incorrect warning messages, including about invalid terrain parameters.
    • Known issues:
      • Level tool is currently not functional.
      • Painting is currently not functional.

Core Content

  • Emissive Cutoff Liquid: Surface orientation and bubble direction values are now vectors instead of colors.

Fixes

API

  • Fix CoreObject events missing from Ability instances. (Reported by RaMo)

Editor

  • Fixed a bug with the "New Project" dialog not closing when navigating away from the "Create" tab.
  • Fixed publishing flow so that tags are correctly capped at 30 characters.
  • The text preview of a selected script now updates when changes to the script are saved.
  • Improved performance when selecting many objects at once.

Core Content

  • Attachments on the left prop when in "unarmed" stance should no longer pop when idling, relaxed or transitioning from ability animations.
  • Underwater volume: Volume physics now properly respects the enabled flag.
  • Underwater volume: No longer enables hidden environment fog when exiting volume.
  • Corrected CORE Content asset name typos:
    • "Ambient Rain SFX" to "Ambient Rain 01 SFX"
    • "Japanese Moonlight Music Construction Kit (Layers) 01" to "Japanese Moonlight Music Construction Kit (Sections) 01"