Development Report 5/21/2020 (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

Dev report time.

We’re back here once again. Still with no release date for the next version, but getting really close.

As I mentioned in the past report, we’re working on some stuff you’ll like. And yeah, we’re still working on that because it’s not especially comfortable working this way for this specific stuff, specially when Perforce doesn’t want to work (and with the latest news here in Spain, we’ll be forced to keep -tele-co-working- like this unless until June 7th).

So, apart from this, I’ve been doing some other tasks, like some morphs/blendshapes control checks I forgot to add for the new outfit. Changing the programming behind the unlocking system to adapt it to the new release system we mentioned in the past (don’t worry about this for now, we’ll explain in detail with the release).

As part of this, we also implemented the requirements to unlock the new outfit and the new hairstyle.

Also tried to make some adjustments to some maps (I mean textures) for Julia’s shaders to improve them in terms of roughness and specularity.

I also fixed the majority of problems with the rain and its effects in the Exterior area in Mission 2, while improving some other effects like making the floor in the Mansion’s porch look a bit wet and adding a bit of wetness to all the furniture in there (Yeah, I know I shouldn’t have to lose time in making that to an Area that’s just in there for the Arena -for testing purposes-, but I did because it just took me a few minutes and helped me to create a wetness effect function that will sure help us in the game to get this kind of effect with a cheap impact in performance).

And talking about performance, because we know there’s still some people getting the Fatal Error, but specifically in one area -the Exterior one-, I decided to give it another optimization pass. This time focused on draw distance and culling. Tried to adjust it as much as possible while making it the most unnoticeable as possible as well. Hopefully this will help everyone with this error on this area.

And last but not least, I started with the final task for next release (YES!). This one is a bit programming intensive, but I’m positive about that it won’t take me much time to get it done. So, with this task done and the stuff we’re “tele-co-working” we’ll be ready to test and then release the next version.

And with this I’ll wrap up my part of the report, because I know Mr.Versus has to tell you guys something, related to these Patreon changes, these guys are constantly making and we want and need to inform you about, so make sure you read them.

Hi Patrons Mr. Versus X here!

Long time since I wrote something in a Dev Report. You missed me? I don’t think so… :P

In any case, here is some important info that you need to know (we can say that in some cases it will be ‘bad news’).

We want to be sure that all people are aware of the new VAT rules of Patreon (due to new laws passing in several countries and US states, Patreon will be required to start charging sales tax on some pledges starting July 1st.) that we’ll be seeing which may affect some of your pledges. You have to take into account that the eventual increase in taxes will be directly charged to you.

Whether or not you will be charged sales tax depends on your location, and what is considered taxable there. Not every pledge is taxable, not all benefits are taxable in every location, and sometimes only a fraction of a pledge will be taxable. The money that Patreon collects as a result of these laws are paid directly to local governments.

If you’re in a location where sales tax will be required, you should expect to receive an email from Patreon with more information about this very soon. Alternatively, you can get more info on these links:

• New Sales Tax Requirements, effective July 1st, 2020
• About the New Advanced Sales Tax Settings

If you still have questions, the best place to get an answer is from Patreon’s customer support team, HERE.

And that's all on my side, see you soon and with better news, I hope so...

Meguido is back:

And because this is a lot of text, here I’ll let you take a look at something cool (I won’t tell what this belongs to XD)

Please, make sure to take care and stay safe! <3

See ya in the next report.

Any Question? Check this post! => General Info - MUST READ

-Meguido