Icarus Week 171 Update | Massive FPS improvements with Distance Field Shadows

Week 171 features a substantial performance improvement, with large changes to light sources, shadows and light radius.

These changes are described in detail below, along with examples, so you can jump in and learn how you can implement these changes into your game to get large FPS (frames per second) boosts (based on our testing).

We’ve also got a massive breakdown of the three new bosses coming with Great Hunts, including some lore, combat insights, and what you can expect when facing these goliaths.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:

• Added 40% elemental damage resistance to all tamed creatures; this ensures they take the same damage from physical and elemental damage
  
• QuickMove now prioritizes Processor inventories, notably on the Electronic Food Trough Ctrl-Click will go where needed
  
• All Pistol and Rifle ammunition icons redesigned

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This Week: FPS Improvements
What’s the TL;DR?

• 'Light Shadows' are now significantly cheaper to run
  
• Lights have an increased radius

Light Shadows As many gamers will already be aware, rendering shadows can be frustratingly expensive, and lowering your Shadow Quality setting in most heavy-hitting games will likely net you a big performance increase. Icarus is no different in this aspect, but we’ve also tried since the very beginning not to take the simple route many other games take and just turn shadows off.

We want to continue to leave the power in the hands of our players as much as possible, while still being responsible game devs and knowing where/when to draw the line and ensure that all players are being given the best chance of a good experience when playing our games.

So, with that in mind, we’ve meticulously gone through over 100 of our light-emitting deployables (most of which cast shadows) and done a pass over the settings to ensure they’re as optimized as possible. One particular setting we’ve opted for is to use Distance Field Shadows[dev.epicgames.com] instead of the traditional, more expensive, default shadows.

In this small test scene below (which has about six active shadow-casting lights), we can see a direct comparison between ‘Default Shadows’ on the left and ‘Distance Field Shadows’ on the right. Even with just six lights, there is very little visual difference but almost double the frame rate in this scene.



How Does It Work?
Shadow Rendering cost is directly related to the number of triangles within the radius of the light, and many of Icarus' meshes contain a significant number of triangles to get to the high level of detail Icarus is known for.



The problem with this is that it makes rendering default shadows from lights extremely expensive for the GPU. Luckily for us, there is an alternative method of rendering shadows via a simplified version of the mesh that is automatically generated by Unreal, called a “Distance Field Mesh”. This is a simple approximation of the mesh, and while that may sound like a degradation of shadow quality, it is usually the opposite, with the mesh now casting much softer shadows. This lends itself to a more realistic representation of light as it bounces and scatters throughout a room.



Expectations
To ensure we’re not setting up the wrong expectations, we want to be clear that this change will only affect you if you have your “Light Shadows” turned on in your settings. However, now might be a good time to turn it on and try it out to see how your performance fares with this latest change, if you haven’t been using it so far. Additionally, Light Shadows will only be visible if you have your “Shadows” quality set to High or Epic. It's also worth noting this is set to 'ON' by default, so it's worth checking out your settings when you load up.



Light Radius Increases
In addition to FPS improvements for shadows, this week's update also includes another substantial improvement for most light-emitting sources: increases in light radius.

We initially kept this radius value very small in order to help with performance costs, to the point where some of the lights were actually pretty much useless. Now (with the significant cost reduction generated from our shadow changes), we’ve been able to increase this radius much larger to make the lights more usable and to affect a larger area.

You may find that your base is much brighter now, so it is also a chance to remove some light sources you no longer need, saving you power and giving you even more performance improvements.



Going Forward
As with all things, this is a balance between costs and visuals. We do have some decent control over the visual quality by tweaking the “resolution” of the Distance Field Mesh; however, doing this increases the memory consumption of the mesh exponentially and will also increase the cost of shadow rendering. So, we’ll be keeping an eye out (and an ear out for your feedback) for egregious meshes that need an increase in quality. In general, we’re expecting the quality at present to be the baseline for this change to remain meaningful.

The final thing worth mentioning is we’re aware that Distance Field Shadows don’t cast shadows off skeletal meshes, so things like player characters, creatures/mounts/pets, and any animated Deployables won’t cast shadows. There are some things we can do here regarding using hidden dummy meshes and capsule shadows, which we’re investigating, but in the interest of getting this optimization out to players as quickly as possible, we’ve elected to skip this part for now and introduce further updates later on.

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Next Week: New SMG Craftable Firearm
Next week, we’ll introduce a new craftable SMG (Submachine Gun), as we talked about previously before they were delayed to undergo some more changes.

This week’s new bullet icons are a sneak peek of the style we will use for ammunition going forward. Next week, we’ll reveal more of the arsenal.

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Coming Soon: Meet the new Great Hunts Bosses
This week, we’re introducing you to the three new bosses you’ll be encountering in the Great Hunts Campaigns.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315290/Icarus_Great_Hunts_Campaigns/

Rimetusk


Rimetusks are incredibly strong, with thick ice-like armor covering their vulnerable areas. They live in harmony with Vespers and will often summon them to help in a fight. Their stomp is a powerful attack that should always be avoided if you want to walk away with your life. The Rimetusk is an example of what happens when the scientific protocol is ignored. An apprentice was tasked with researching chemical interactions with local flora and fauna within the Prometheus region. He instead chose to conduct his own enzyme research. This did not end well for him, or his team.

Garganutan


Thanks to their chemically enlarged hippocampus, garganutans often use their surroundings to their advantage in a fight. Because of their enhanced intellect, most prospectors will abandon any conflict or interaction with these creatures out of fear for their safety. The Garganutan is the direct result of unsanctioned experimentation conducted on the surface of Icarus. Researchers were trying to gather data on the effect of exotics on the brain and whether it could increase the capability of some animals to learn faster or to a greater extent.

Quarrite


Quarrites have a rather remarkable skill: They consume entire mineral deposits to strengthen and replenish their armor-like coating. They then use this armor to trample or roll over their prey to great effect. Believed to be native to Icarus, the Quarrite is a peculiar creature that, upon first glance, appears to be made of rocks. This is its armor, which must first be removed in order to damage the creature. It can often be found in arid, rocky terrain, which helps it to blend in with its surroundings.

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Your support makes these updates possible.
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/50440/Icarus_Spring_Sale_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

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Changelog v2.2.46.134262
New Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• All shadow casting lights now use Distance Field which massively increases performance
  
• Most lights receive radius increase due to performance increase from DF shadows
  
• Add missing Fill lights where needed
  
• 'Basic' lights temperature decreased 5k to 4k to differentiate them from the others
  
• Added emissive texture for Brutalist lights
  
• Fixed some incorrect DM references
  
• Increased DFAO resolution for Wood Floors fixing heavy light leakage
  
• Add cheat function to change radius of Deployable lights for testing
  
• Update VFX for Sandworm trophy fires
  
• Fixed incorrectly sized/positioned FireSettingCapsule on serveral deployables
  
• Set Max ViewDistances for VFX to ensure they're being distance culled
  
• Cleaned up BPs, removed dead/unnecessary logic
  
• Matched each type of Geode light brightness closer to the other (color was influencing brightness heavily, so offset via Intensity)
  
• Disabled Shadows on Candle lights because their radius/intensity isn't enough to justify the cost
  
• Change BrutalistCandle2 to use correct 'B' mesh, was using 'C' / '3' mesh
  
• Corrected some 'on/off' material swaps
  
• Socketed Lights properly to Player Landing pad
  
• Change Mobility on LightElectricBase class to be Movable to ensure no additional memory is allocated for Static/Stationary lighting
  
• Add test level with every light-related Deployable placed and configured to 'on' state for visual inspection/comparison
  
• Machining Bench cleanup. Removed duplicate material suggesting its emissive when its not. Clean out dud references in other materials
  
• Tweaked Charging Station light materials to be less blown out. Delete unused textures
  
• Additional check for Active Processor component before toggling on Active VFX on T4 Carpentry Bench and Electric Furnace, fixing undesired behaviour of effects toggling. Fixing bad logic on Kitchen Stove light active effects and distance culling on VFX
  
• Add DTvalidation for items without icons to be flagged for setting to Development feature level. Additional DTvalidation for ItemsStatic rows set to Development where their ItemTemplate row doesn't match
  
• Foundry updates: Fixed deployable not updating Active effects properly due to it being gated behind Enery flow being changed.
  
• Updating timing on animation to better match impact with audio and added spark VFX to impact.
  
• Don't play first loop of animation upon deployment.
  
• Add Projection Widget locator to better suit the large mesh
  
• Remove completely flat normal map from T4 Battery glass and more expensive refraction setup from material (doesn't work without normals). Delete unused textures.
  
• Decreased emissive amount on Battery causing color blow out. Remove partially setup Emissive setup from Rack material

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Fixed [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Added 40% elemental damage resistance to all tamed creatures, this ensures they take the same damage from physical and elemental damage
  
• Fixed existing assault rifles being unable to be repaired
  
• Fix repairing of existing assault rifles mentioning it can be repaired on the 'no recipe set' bench
  
• T4 Electronic Food Trough: Improve Texture quality, remove unncessary 6th LOD and adjusted screensize settings.
  
• Modify Backpack QuickMove order to prioritize Processor inventories ahead of General inventories, meaning CTRL+Click will move food into the top inventory and begin processing instead of moving to the bottom storage inventory.
  
• Remove unnecessary Sort and Fillable elements from Inventory UI.
  
• Hooked up Take All button to take all content from the bottom storage inventory
  
• Water no longer adds alterations on items with the 'item.fillable.water.nodrink' tag
  
• Fixed Electronic Food Trough UMG after component was renamed and decided to become a scene component instead of a UMG component
  
• Fix Fortification Spikes overlap box being too small and in some cases preventing hits from happening. Add/Fix ProjectionWidget location for all fortification pieces
  
• Pet Water Bowls now automatically fill during rain storms when unsheltered
  
• Increase Advanced Armor Bench durability from 500 to 1000. Increase Electric Armor Bench durability from 500 to 1500 to represent their increased tiers
  
• Fixed bug where objectives wouldn't properly collapse in list when completed, leading to large empty spaces between remaining objective steps in UI
  
• Fixed cake being able to go into food slot and be instantly consumed
  
• Added an Item.Deployable.Food tag, for items like cake to not be eaten but still go into fridges for example
  
• Change T4 Food Trough progress vars to be replicated so that Clients can see the Omni Feed progress bar update
  
• Fixing issue where low level rain sounded too drippy with puddles for the intensity of the rain. Fixed a few UI volume discrepencies
  
• Fixed a typo in LM armor text

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Future Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Disabled asset-registry resolution of BP class names during recorder reload - should reduce occurrences of misc SuperStruct crashes
  
• Pre-loaded DYN_Lost quest to reduce occurrences of Prebuilt_Base SuperStruct crashes
  
• Removed debug code from SuperStruct crash work
  
• More work tracking down SuperStruct crash
  
• Added potential fix for 'missing SuperStruct' related crashes caused by RecorderComponents not loading BP parent classes
  
• Removed interact from Bird Feeder
  
• Updated Scorpion Rifle to use new reload animations
  
• Update animations on Submachine Gun
  
• Update recipe and repair costs of Submachine Gun and Assault Rifle, including Titanium Plate, repair now costs Titanium Plate but these have dramatically increased durability
  
• Assault Rifle now uses Assault Rifle Rounds
  
• Weapon Rack - Weapon rack now correctly works on clients
  
• Add Assault Rifle Ammo, unlocked Assault Rifle
  
• Update SMG to use Pistol talents and attachments
  
• Added a slight fire rate penalty to the handcannon attachment for Pistol, this should be negligible on the pistol itself but bring the SMG in line when used with this
  
• Sandworm Crossbow - Friendly sandworm now spawns for clients
  
• Implement Submachine Gun assets and balanced slightly
  
• Added option to lock Legendary Weapon purchasing behind DLC package flag row handle
  
• Adding unique slug luancher grenade explosive event and BP addition
  
• Fixed Ape_A mission not showing correct note progress to clients
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Cliff Pass, Landscape Sculpting Pass and Foliage Pass, Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Adding in reworked sandworm crossbow pieces to work better with 3RD person anim set, currently waiting on materiall pass and 2 of the arm pieces otherwise new anims etc all added and working
  
• Fix DMs with invalid material setup
  
• Added missing ST entry for Legendary Weapon 'Buy' button tooltip
  
• Added Rayleigh Scatter curve color and adjusted Sun Intensity for Geothermal D_Atmosphere
  
• Cliff Pass, Landscape Sculpting Pass and Foliage Pass, Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Adding friendly sandwomr pre spit unique event and anim notify update. Also adding emerge sound when friendly sandworm is spawned
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple/Orange Quad, Elysium
  
• Added destructible meshs for the three retaining wall pieces
  
• Tweaking fire animation on the SMG to hide the bullet for now until we move it to a particle based system
  
• Added updated 1st-person fire / ADS fire anims for Submachine Gun
  
• Cleanup Sandworm assets
  
• Adding shell drop eject for scorpion rifle reload
  
• Replacing all dialogue NPC test audio with better processing and balancing. Removed some vocalisations that werent as good. Adjusted priority of some vocals to be more seamless. Added adsr so any cutoff dialogue does so smoothly
  
• Added art assets for the wood retaining walls
  
• Add EDS Ammo icon, renamed EDS round to EDS Ammo to reflect that it is universal (like Crude Ammo)
  
• Ice birds - Enabled avoidance so they will be less likely to clump together
  
• Added a cap (currently 60) of birds that can be spawned at a time
  
• Arena - Removed collision on all rocks that the player had no way of ever touching
  
• Removed rocks entirely behind terrain that there was no way of seeing from any angle
  
• Increase EDS modifier rewards
  
• Stat pass on Sandworm Crossbow, significantly reduced its base damage but increased many of the upgrades. Reduce mobility and critical damage while using by default. Now has its own debuff area applying a seperate debuff
  
• Reduced Slug Launcher ammo usage and tweaked bounciness stat
  
• Add seperate cheese material for audio/effects for decorative cheeses
  
• Added a heavy poison damage to slug grenade, adjusted initial damage
  
• Reduced biomass coss of inhalers, changed Prometheus unlocks to cost Reds to unlock instead of normal exotics. Reorganized positions slightly
  
• Separated wood logs mesh from the othe 2 fireplace meshes
  
• Increase Icy Mammoth bestiary point requirement
  
• Ice Birds - Increased the avoidance weight to make them move more
  
• Added new textures for sandworm crossbow rework and added in extra ARMS meshes that were missing, still waiting on a couple textures otherwise all technically hooked up and working
  
• Final balance pass checking all upgrades for the slug launcher. Audio seems good to go
  
• Increase slug launcher slow
  
• Add new Active effects (emissive material swaps, heat and smoke VFX, etc) for Generator
  
• Fix IM_A base position, IM_B note position and prevent notes respawning indefinitely after being picked up
  
• Friendly sandworm - Fixed bug where friendly sandworm wouldnt retread. Added new animations to allow sandworm animations with caveworm sounds
  
• Final balance pass of legendary flame thrower audio. Subtle differences and reduction in intensity for first and third person for the fireball and AOE burst. Ticket is now done
  
• Added missing BT for RockGolem
  
• Removing behavior that causes the friendly sandworm to play combat music
  
• Adding a more appropriate PM for the cheese so it doesn't seem like bloody cheese. Thats disgusting
  
• Fix tree chop decal overlapping with foliage and updated tags from sickle to axe for the aspen trees
  
• Updated RockGolem entry in D_GOAPSetup
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple/Orange Quad, Elysium
  
• Cliff Pass, Landscape Sculpting Pass and Foliage Pass, Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Added wall mounted hitching post DM to the project
  
• Updated ManualAISpawnPoint min/max spawn level param in RockGolem Arena
  
• RockGolem now spawns at level 100 (has same health as previously)
  
• RockGolem will now attempt to destroy walls or deployables blocking it's path when walking around
  
• Fixed bug where RockGolem's heavy walking slam attack wasn't damaging targets more than once
  
• Added art assets for the wall mounted hitching post
  
• Adding test dynamic music audio and event setup for vibe checks
  
• Added cheats to start / re-roll dynamic quests on test levels to make it easier to debug specific ones
  
• Unlocked Submachine Gun row again, as this has been crafted with existing recipes
  
• Increase durability on legendaries
  
• Ape Club now uses Utility slot
  
• Rebalanced Ape Club to attack slower but do much more damage. Reduced effectiveness of some modifiers granted by the club
  
• Sandworm Crossbow - Fixed bug where buttstock would get in players face when jumping. Reenabled ADS now that the model is smaller
  
• Added Bird feeder wall and sewing machine icons
  
• Feature locked SMG, new Assault Rifle and Assault Rifle ammo
  
• Fix Slug Launcher showing you can water plants and give mounts water with it
  
• Adding rock golem punch rock collect ammo type sound to indicate that ammo or a charge is being collected when this action is done
  
• Added TU_Aspen_SML trees with variants, as well as SMs for additional variants of the Aspen saplings, plus made some adjustments to the large Aspen trees, including adding and extra LOD. Still need to finish proper setup for these new trees
  
• Updated textures for DEP_Bench_GreatHunt_Comms
  
• Cliff Pass and Landscape Sculpting Pass, Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Blockout Eden Base Yollow Quad, Elysium
  
• Added decorative cushion art asstes to the project
  
• Hookup new icons for workshop ammunition
  
• fixed vert count for ArtDeco_Railing mesh
  
• Adjusted Black Wolf Revolver bonuses, reducing utility bonuses and increasing power of other bonuses. Shifted Fire damage bonus to Burn Chance, to make elemental bonus a less clear choice paired with that upgrade, and increased elemental bonus damage. Increased on-hit chances to 100%
  
• Increased Black Wolf Revolver base damage and reduced cost of 2nd upgrade
  
• Scorpion Rifle increased energy mechanic bonus, changed bonuses of different ammo capacity upgrades to have clearer pros and cons
  
• Adding audio for when an ape spawner is spawned in world to help give directional feedback to the player to help assist with finding them in missions
  
• Sandworm Crossbow no longer has a movement penalty, will adjust other utility options for movement plate upgrade
  
• Lava Hunter Flamethrower increased fuel storage significantly, rescaled weight and wear upgrades, removed bonus damage from burn upgrade and increased range on range upgrade, and reworded many upgrades
  
• Added DEP_Bench_GreatHunt_Comms with rig and animations
  
• Updated flag and alteration for EDS Round to EDS Ammo
  
• Fixed Icy Mammoth bestiary being tagged as boss, so granting additional kill points
  
• Updated messhes and materials for sandworm Crossbow for new setup
  
• Update icons of pistol, rifle and assault rifle ammo types
  
• Blockout Eden Base Yollow Quad, Elysium
  
• Add fence and wood logs to Art Deco fireplace after they were separated out. Tweak LODs on fence
  
• Added destructible mesh for the roof mounted solar panels
  
• Adjusting right shouldler for when using golem gauntlets which looked like the shoulder was missing. better realism for the animations
  
• Added art assets for the roof mounted solar panels
  
• Adjustment to shoulder while using the golem gauntlet in 3rd person while shooting to make the pose look more natural
  
• Updated homestead item text
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Orange/Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Adjustments to rock golem gauntlet and adding damaged row in item audio. Investigating why these weapons aren't taking damage audio
  
• Adding pre recorded audio assets and events for more convincing female character vocals for potential future use

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