Update notes for v.038

Please continue to feedback to help us to refine and improve. Here are the patch notes for Release v.038:

Any change with a ‘🌊’ icon in front of change requests/fixes that have been brought to our attention by fellow players & QA. This is a large change so if you have any suggestions or you stumble upon any bugs, please let us know in the Steam forum.

INFORMATION ABOUT SAVE FILES: _____________________________

Please note, if you have any current or old saved data stored then the ongoing build updates will not necessarily translate accurately to your save files, particularly with v.038. It's a little hit and miss - some features will apply to an older save and some will not. In most circumstances, in order for the changes to take effect it may be better to begin a new game and /or save file to ensure that the latest fixes are applied accurately. Apologies for this.

INFORMATION ABOUT ONLINE GHOST MODE LEADERBOARD LEGENDS: ________________________________________________________

Please note, if you have any current saved high score data stored then unfortunately this saved data had to be deleted as a result of the graphic upgrade. A re-engineered ocean, weather and lighting etc system has meant we have needed to recalibrate the online data. Again, apologies for this.

PATCH v.038: ____________

🌊 KNOWN ISSUES ________________

U/WATER FOG GLITCH: Appears when the surfer is perpendicular to the wave on certain angles, u/ water fog allow the player to see through to the bottom. This will be fixed.

SHORELINE WAVE COLLISION: noticeable that the surfer collision / physics does not accurately apply to the shoreline waves currently. This will be fixed.

🌊 CHARACTER CREATOR: "PS5 EDITOR BUG" _______________________________________

FIXED: Fixed an issue where modifying deck-grip and fins for all three boards caused an error

🌊 GRAPHICS: CLOUDS ____________________

R&D Investigate 3rd party packages to in order to replace custom volumetric cloud system R&D Cloud testing: varying cloud lighting and layer tests R&D: Research HDRI sky parameters ADDED: Updated cloud settings, including colour, animation, positioning and intensity RECONNECT: reconnect cloud system ADDED: HDRI sky

🌊 GRAPHICS: LIGHTING ______________________

R&D: Research shadows on the wave and water surface R&D: Research character lighting R&D: Research location lighting, dawn, midday, dusk R&D: Research U/water scene lighting ADDED: Shadows on the wave and water surface ADDED: Real-time Character lighting updates in game ADDED: Real-time Character lighting updates in character select menu ADDED: Character cutscene lighting updates ADDED: Real-time location lighting, dawn, midday, dusk ADDED: U/water scene lighting

🌊 GRAPHICS: OCEAN SHADER _________________________

R&D

Research the wave properly as it rolls across the ocean R&D: Water shader implementation R&D: Wave and water join implementation R&D: World Lighting – experiment with new settings R&D: Water colour – experiment with new settings R&D: Shore-line waves first pass R&D: Surfer spray values and lighting R&D: Wave particle values and lighting R&D: Foam: research the foam trail from the surfer in both paddle and surfing states ADDED: Animate the wave properly as it rolls across the ocean. Requires making sure all the ocean co-ordinates plugged in to the new system properly from the Ocean Profiles FIXED: Glitch at the top of the screen when duck diving FIXED: Fix gaps between water and waves and implement individualized fixes per location FIXED: Re-apply application of the correct wave sizes in the new shader ADDED: Shore-line waves first pass added to each location ADDED: Surfer spray values and lighting ADDED: Wave particle values and lighting ADDED: Foam: research the foam trail from the surfer in both paddle and surfing states ADDED: Water colour settings to each location ADDED: Refraction levels set ADDED: Re-apply screen splashes ADDED: Re-apply particle effect behind the board FIXED: Ocean plane – general jittering needs to be removed / create new mesh for forward filler.

FIXED

SHORELINE WAVES: add shoreline waves to the scene. Andrew to go through each level and add the shoreline prefabs FIXED: Ocean plane – collision issues in which the player passed through the first x 4 waves FIXED: Ocean plane – add missing water sections. Create new mesh for forward filler.

🌊 GRAPHICS PHYSICS UPDATES ____________________________

FIXED

Make sure all floating objects use the new Water System ocean surface height for buoyancy FIXED: PWC height & sinking u/water problem (ongoing)

FIXED

PWC rope & the leash were both broken (stretching out) and needed have their physics reapplied / fixed

🌊 GRAPHICS GAMEPLAY UPDATES _____________________________

FIXED

Rework the Surfers (player and AI) to use the Wave Position Texture Map so the AI can know where the next surfable wave is.

FIXED

leash animation is broken

🌊 PLATFORMS _____________

FIXED: FPS on PC is choppy / low FIXED: PS5 hardware stressed as a result our software setup

ERRORS ______

FIXED

Conditions Screen / Weather Tool: time of day string error FIXED: Various load errors into Manly (initial shoreline test waves)

FIXED

Load loop Jeffrey’s Bay Contender Series > back to the main menu FIXED: First person camera artifacts (shader issues)

FIXED

Margaret River Tour load FIXED: Tokyo load back to the main menu FIXED: Water plane collision problem through the waves FIXED: Water plane – general jittering needs to be removed / create new mesh for forward filler.

FIXED

Weather Tool Fixes FIXED: Snapper and Jeffrey’s Bay waves not rendering the particles in the correct areas on the wave FIXED: Fix wet maps on the characters skin and costumes FIXED: The A.I. jumping erratically on the Tour & Competition modes FIXED: PS5 PWC Tow rope not rendering on that platform FIXED: the error loading back to the main menu from each location (every mode)

FIXED

PS5 Character Creator: adjust lighting in the scene.

FIXED

Challenge - Simulation, edge case where for a broken surf board entering a challenge from the tour would result in a load loop.

FIXED

TOUR CUTSCENE MEMORY ISSUE: issue raised by Jay during tests

OPTIMISATIONS (ONGOING) _______________________

FIXED: VRAM TEXTURES: reduce texture memory from 3G + to under 2G FIXED: .ogg audio files exported to HDRP from new URP project FIXED: VFX Optimisation

REPLAYS _______

FIXED: We need to reimplement the waves during replays. They are now missing with the new water system

🌊 LOCATIONS _____________

FIXED: ALL LOCATIONS (excluding Manly) are missing key pieces of geometry and shader / materials ADDED: U/water geometry and scenes to all locations

CHARACTER MODEL _______________

FIXED: Character costume wet map detection and levels broken FIXED: Character hair wet map detection and blend shapes broken

WEATHER TOOL ____________

R&D: Options Menu: Weather Setting needs clouds & rain re-implementation R&D: Wind direction needs to be reconnected / direction needs to be setup again per previous values FIXED: Options Menu: Weather Setting needs clouds, rain, time of day re-implementation FIXED (FIRST PASS): Wind direction needs to be reconnected / direction needs to be setup again per previous values FIXED: Wind settings (water surface ruffle) – the physics for medium and strong waves need to be adjusted FIXED: WEATHER TOOL DEFAULT SETTINGS (excluding Tour mode) need to be re-applied FIXED: Random weather tool button within Free Surf FIXED: Incorrect information displayed in the UI of the weather tool

CAMERA ______

FIXED: CUTSCENE CAMERA: Default camera updated to new settings per mode FIXED: CINEMACHINE: Tokyo cart camera is no longer working

AUDIO ______

FIXED

10 sec clock countdown audio stopped playing FIXED: Rain / storm audio from the level did not clear at the end of a round and > into main menu.

FIXED

u/water wipeout audio did not clear and would continue to play

TUTORIAL ________

FIXED

Scale down the hang loose hand image and place it correctly above the text.

FIXED

remove sprite black birds from the second wave area in the scene.

CHARACTER CREATOR _________________

(IN PROGRESS)

CHARACTER CREATOR

Re-write FIXED: HDRP RENDER TEXTURE PROBLEM: render texture is broken with our characters.

FIXED

HDRP CHARACTER CREATOR: We have a bunch of errors occurring in the character creator causing old bugs to reappear including: FIXED: TOUR MODE START POSITION: fix the start position into a tour game FIXED: END CUTSCNE TOUR MODE END POSITION: fix the end position into a tour game - Aileen’s particularly bad FIXED: HDRP RENDER TEXTURE PROBLEM: render texture is broken with our characters.

FIXED

ONLINE DATABASE: Fix broken database & Andrew to re-import all of the A.I. again FIXED: PC / PS5 / XBOX: Custom, Pro and the A.I. surfers need their colours adjusted

ANIMATION: _________

ADDED

ANIMATION: running animation – we have had feedback that the running animation is poor. We need to improve the animation to make it look a little more natural / convincing – particularly in the upper body region.

ADDED

ANIMATION: character select scene FIXED: AIR GRABS WIPEOUT: we had a problem where the code for wiping out from air grabs wasn’t being applied

MENU: _____

FIXED

HDRP PHOTO SYSTEM: No or incorrect photos displaying for new characters and default photo image displaying for saved characters.

FIXED

PC / PS5 / XBOX: Tour and Single Session podium scenes not displaying sponsor images FIXED: FREE SURF SCREEN: Contender Series issue where the Manly Free Surf image incorrectly rendered in each scene FIXED: NO TRANSLATION STRING ERROR: We also have a no translation string error that is now appearing on the J-Bay opening globe cutscene.

GHOST MODE FIXED: ONLINE DATABASE: Fix broken database & re-import all of the data FIXED: ONLINE DATABASE: system to handle new wave. Will involve setting up a new upload build

🌊 FIXED: edge case PC specific crash bug for new saves

A.I.: _____

🌊 FIXED: PWC failing to enable the A.I. to head back out to the play area after a single score had occurred

CHARACTER MODEL: ________________

🌊 FIXED: wet map not being applied correctly to 2 piece costumes (tops)

GAME UI (OPTIONS): __________________

FIXED

KPH/MPH not getting set correctly within the Options FIXED: Graphic Settings (resolution and window mode)

FIXED

Game Difficulty for Steam clients failing FIXED: UI: certain UI circular images appear as square images and lost their alpha

CURRENTLY WORKING ON: _____________________

🌊 Memory management: implementation of new character creator code (near competition) 🌊 Adding more variety in the waves in the same heat or even in free-surfing (in progress) 🌊 Adding optimal take-off position for advanced users 🌊 Research adding A.I. to Free-surf along with PWC gameplay considerations (longer term) 🌊 Research adding Fan Hub to allow for custom character and Tour creation (in progress) 🌊 Steam Deck Compatibility UI issues 🌊 Research platform port options 🌊 (IN PROGRESS) PS4: PS4 testing. Set up PS4 settings correctly in order to test different water shaders

That's all for today. The Bungarra team.