Lets recap what we've been doing this June...


Continuum RT

Work has continued on the next RT update. We still don’t want to give any details until it is pretty much ready to go, but it’s still the biggest single thing we have ever attempted, and we cannot wait to release it and share it with you guys…but it has to be ready first. Everyone available has been heads down, hard at work all month working towards it’s release, and we hope to have it out soonโ„ข.

That being said, we want to make it very clear that we completely understand if any active RT subscribers unsubscribe while we are working on this. It’s taking us a fair bit of time to get this done, and not wanting to keep up your subscription during this wait is perfectly reasonable. That said, if you do choose too continue to support us, thank you, and thank you too everyone that has supported us in any way in the past as well. We couldn’t do this without you guys ๐Ÿ™‚

And here’s a few of the best screenshots we’ve taken with Continuum RT build 12 this month because why not (Stratum was used in a few, and the RTX 16x pack in the others):


Continuum 2.1

2.1 Alpha got a decent bit of updates this month, many of which made it into Build 10, which was pushed on June 26th, and a few more that are being prepared for the next build. We now only have one major feature that we are currently working on left to implement (Weather), and a few small things before we push to Beta!

Here’s a list of the most noteworthy updates made this month:

  • Added (and later improved) End Shaders
  • Small tweaks/optimizations to the Nether Shaders
  • Started working on Aerial Perspective (not yet able to be enabled)
  • Minor optimizations to skylight/sunlight
  • Fixed rain rendering through hand
  • Minor optimizations to DOF
  • Improvements to POM shadows and Normals
  • Fixed Caustics when white world is enabled
  • Added Bilinear filtering for normal, specular and heightmaps
  • Small improvements to RSM (Global Illumination)
  • Fixed POM shadows going 0 at grazing angles
  • Added Ray Refinement algorithm to improve the quality of SSR (also sped it up quite a bit as a result)
  • Added some options for Ray Refinement
  • Fixed shadowing on rough reflections
  • Fixed some NaNs on reflections
  • New color grade in ACES
  • Did a lot of background work for Weather
  • Added a speed option for Volumetric Clouds (seperate from internal speed setting for clouds/waving plants/water/etc.)
  • Fixed ambient light under overhangs
  • Fixed some issues with GI accumulation
  • First pass of glowing light sources
  • Improved look of clouds
  • Improved indirect lighting on clouds

Here are some screenshots of some of these updates (click on images to enlarge)


Stratum

Stratum development was business as usual this month, sadly with updates still being manual and a fairly big pain to do, due to the downscaler still not being fully fleshed out. It is getting close though. Hopefully within the next month we will be able to seamlessly convert and downscale from 1.13+ 2048x to all of the 1.12.2 versions. Till then though, it will continue to be manual ๐Ÿ™

What was done this month:

Added

  • Lapis Ore V1
  • Furnace V2, now with more small details and iron doors for the top.
  • New and much improved heightmap for Gravel
  • AO added to Dirt, Spruce leaves and Farmland
  • Redstone Ore V1

Tweaked / Fixed

  • Fixed seam in Dirt (oops)
  • Tweaked Dirt roughness, improved heightmap, and improved accuracy of albedo
  • Re-enabled biome tinting on Spruce leaves, modified base texture to fit and improved specular
  • Improved heightmap and improved accuracy of albedo for Farmland
  • Fixed a few missing/outdated textures in the 1.12.2 versions of Stratum; it should now be at parity with 1.13+ (this should no longer be a possibility when we get the downscaler automation upgrades completed)
  • A few other misc. fixes and tweaks

Here are some screenshots of the additions (click on images to enlarge)


Wrapping up...

Thank you all again for your continued support. We hope you all stay safe and healthy. See you guys next month ๐Ÿ™‚