devtrackers.gg
Warframe’s Dojo decorators have been troubled by lighting and texture bugs, and we want to update you about what our QA team has discovered with the help of your reports.
First, thank you for your screenshots and for directing us to specific builds in your Dojos. Without those details, we wouldn’t have been able to discover what was wrong.
At this point, we know the cause of each bug. Unfortunately, the fixes aren’t easy. I’ll explain in detail below, bug by bug.
The Polychrome of the room in which a player stands seems to bleed into the adjacent room when the player looks at that room through an open door.
The mechanics of this bug are the same as a bug that affected Operator hair darkness some time ago.
Lighting variance of this nature happens when camera position determines lighting. We were able to change that logic for Operator hair, but if we applied the same fix to Dojos, all of Warframe’s performance would take a significant hit.
Given that this bug does not actually change room colour, only the appearance while the player walks between rooms, we don’t plan to change anything. The available fix would damage performance beyond Dojos, into core Warframe gameplay – open zones, missions, minigames, you name it – which would cause a myriad of new problems. For now, camera position will remain the lighting determinant.
The room’s lighting colours suddenly change from the colours chosen by the decorator.
Spawn points set off this bug. Sometimes, a player spawn will make the game think two polychromes are active at one time. In such cases, the colours of an adjacent room affect the room in which the player stands. We have not yet determined how to separate the code logic that processes polychrome from player location.
The room’s lighting colours change after the player uses a Transporter.
As with the bug described above, the room spawn activated by the transporter makes the game think two polychromes are active at one time. We have not yet determined how to separate the game logic that processes polychrome from player location.
Shadows are aggressive, especially on Nintendo Switch.
Aggressive shadows are a result of engine limitations. This issue isn’t exclusive to Nintendo Switch, but it’s most prevalent there because of the console’s hardware. We have some optimization tricks up our sleeves that we hope will solve the problem.
Metallic reflections seem out of place or reflect nonexistent light.
Metallic reflection issues are peculiar, because they aren’t technically bugged. The reflection changes are a result of changes we made to Orokin tilesets. We recently updated gold textures to make them more, well, gold.
We realized, however, that the improvements we made to Orokin gold hindered darker tilesets, like the Orokin Derelict, for example. The abnormalities in Dojo metallics reflect abnormalities in metallics for all of Warframe. Our team has been working on touch ups to affected textures in the Orokin Derelict. We also might be able to tint Dojo metallics specifically, which would resolve reflections in rooms without light sources. We’re looking into it.
Dojos are an eclectic sandbox of objects, skyboxes, and textures from all of Warframe. Nowhere else in Warframe does every tileset, camera decision, and texture meet. Usually, Dojo bugs are isolated to Dojos themselves, and when that happens, we can find a fix pretty easily. Other times, however, the collision of so many different Warframe elements turns Dojos into a stress case for code logic that wouldn’t otherwise be an issue. The ongoing lighting and texture issues are stress cases of that nature. We will be able to fix most of them, but the risk of damage to core gameplay means we must be careful.
I hope this helps shed some light on why we haven’t discussed these bugs since we first acknowledged your reports. QA is going after these bugs, but not with the vigor and aggression of a person going after a fly with a rolled up newspaper. In these cases, it’s more accurate to picture the delicate care of a surgeon performing heart surgery.