The work continues.
Continuum 2.1
As many of you hopefully noticed, we finally got Continuum 2.1 Beta launched last month. Despite the issues we encountered leading up to launch, it went mostly smoothly. We did however get a few bug reports, which we got to work on quickly after launch, as well as continuing to work on AMD compatibility for 2.1 Beta.
The immediately reported bugs include; Lens Flares not working on MC 1.17.1 specifically, and varying levels of artifacting/crashing on Focal 1.0.5 when resizing the game window and/or crashes. We have already patched up the Lens Flare bug, and we believe we have the resize issue minimized to the point where it should no longer be a major issue (it may still lead to issues with SSR, but they should be able to be corrected by a quick shader reload with F3 and R; without crashes).
We also found a few issues with Build 13’s Specular, one of which was caused by us leaving a debug setting enabled with the shipped shader (oops), as well as a few smaller issues that were throwing Specular off a bit. These issues have been fixed and will arrive with the next Beta build as well.
In addition, we took action on some feedback/suggestions from a few users this month, specifically a request to add more values to the Morning Fog Altitude slider.
And finally, we are currently at a point where we believe AMD support is almost dialed in, at least on the 5700XT and RX 480 we have access to. We will be testing a bit more thoroughly though, as well as continuing to fix other reported issues before we package a new build of 2.1.
Before we move on, we wanted to mention something we accidentally left out of the last blog; now that Continuum 2.1 is in Beta, all Legacy Continuum Tier 2 users can now access the first Beta build, build 13, from within Focal. So if that’s you, don’t forget to give it and future Beta builds a try!
Focal Engine and Continuum RT
Focal Engine will be getting another small update with the next Build of Continuum 2.1 Beta, at the very least to fix the aforementioned issues with resizing the game window, and maybe with a new supported game version or two (if things line up that is, if not those will come in another update down the line). And as mentioned in the previous blog, once AMD is sorted out, dot will be begin working in earnest on the Vulkan version of Focal, which we cannot wait to share more info about with you all.
As for Continuum RT, we still have plans to have Jake and Robo work on a potential Build 16 in their downtime between 2.1 Beta bug fixing and polish, but we have yet to work through all the most pressing post launch issues on Focal and 2.1’s side, so I have no progress to report on this front just yet.
Stratum
This months Stratum update not only added the final remaining Ore textures (Emerald), but also included Rails and an initial pass on the Minecart! We are quite proud of what we were able to do with the Rails, especially without the use of a complicated custom model. They also handle POM quite well and are quite detailed (as you can see in the screenshots below). The Minecart was a bit more tricky to adapt to Stratums high resolution/realistic style though, and we did not have time to finalize the design before the end of the month. Because of this, you can expect some fairly big changes for the Minecart, and maybe some minor tweaks to the Rails in next months update.
Stratum Build 30 Changelog
Added
- Emerald Ore
- Deepslate Emerald Ore
- Rails
- Minecart V1
Tweaked
- Fixed diamond ore normalmap bit depth
- Slight diamond ore base texture tweak
Click an image to enlarge and enable gallery view
We’re all very excited to have Continuum 2.1 Beta out and in your hands, and are equally excited to continue to push updated builds out in the coming months, getting the shader closer and closer to a full release! Thank you all for enabling us to do what we love!
