This version of Blacktrace is mostly about optimization. To get the game ready for more objects, I need to make sure rendering is as fast as possible. To do this I started converting all the textures into a single MCR Texture. Since the game is black and white, I only need one channel for the color. The same applies to  metalness and roughness so this fits perfectly into a single texture. I made a custom shader for  these objects to unpack this information. 

The second way I tried to optimize rendering is the use of Occlusion Instances. These are placed inside walls to make sure the objects behind it are not rendered. This has improved performance and will allow me to add more detail objects in the future.

I have started adding new assets to test the new MCR texture workflow. These are smaller objects like a phone, keys and metal cans. This will give the levels a more lived in feeling. The levels now also have more decals and crumpled paper in them.  These details will start to add up, and make it look like a real game!

Changes:

• Moved from Godot 4.0 to 4.0.1.
• Combined the textures into a single Colormap, Roughnessmap and Metalnessmap.
• Moved the clouds shader from a QuadMesh to the skybox and tweaked it to make it look even better.
• Fixed weapons and balaclava moving around when the character is moving.
• Fixed boundary not pushing the character back into the level.
• Fixed jumping out of the window in the office not killing the player.
• Added occluders to all the levels to stop rendering objects behind walls.
• Made tiles and wooden panels use box colliders instead of convex for better performance.
• Combined some of the meshes in weapons to reduce draw calls.
• Gave the baseball cap back to the store clerk.
• Added more decals to make walls look more grimy and dirty.
• Added a bunch more environmental assets.
• Forcing player character to look in attack direction when in first person mode.
• Added obstruction check when using a controller that skips auto aiming when enemy is behind a wall.
• Made finishing the level work from both elevators in office.
• Added crumpled paper assets for more garbage looking levels.
• A bunch more smaller tweaks and fixes.