Art Progress
This week, the art team focused on adding more VFX and simple animations to make the world feel alive. The water shader was fixed, and several animated fish were added to the water. We also replaced the final scene’s bamboo forest with its finalized assets and created a floating lantern effect to enhance the ending atmosphere. In addition, we fixed several collision box issues, added a campfire animation at the campsite, and introduced a flock of sheep animation in the grassland to bring more motion and warmth to the environment.
Tech Progress
Time changing：
The team implemented trigger boxes that smoothly transition lighting from day to night, enriching the overall mood of the experience. Both foot trackers are now fully functional — after a recent firmware update from Brilliant Sole, both modules connect without any issues.
In addition, the tech team conducted performance tests comparing scenes with many transparent planes versus high-poly meshes to determine which setup maintains a higher frame rate. The results showed that scenes using high-poly meshes perform better than those relying heavily on transparency. These findings will guide our future optimization and asset design decisions.
Playtest Update
This week, we also invited classmates to playtest the updated version of our scene. Two students had the opportunity to try the VR build using the foot trackers, and they were able to walk through the experience without major issues. And we did notice a small issue where the tracking felt slightly slippery, likely because one student was wearing boots that positioned the trackers higher than usual. However, since only two person was able to try it, we will need more testing data in the future.
We also had classmates test the scene using hand controllers to experience the full environment and the time-of-day transition. During the session, one tester accidentally fell into the water and bypassed the trigger box, causing the time shift not to activate. We have already fixed this issue and added additional collision boxes to prevent players from falling into the water in future playtests.
