This week in the Blue Sky Aces dev log I cover progress made towards preparing a demo build for release later this year. While trying to work out how I could simplify the process of building demo builds on demand, I stumbled across a method of doing custom builds within the Unity editor with a tiny amount of script, and the best part is that I can run it any time with a click of a menu button.

I also added code obfuscation using a package I've used previously at work, the dev has a free version available on the asset store here: Obfuscator Free. The same dev also has an anti-cheat package which I've used to help prevent memory hacks.

In addition to the technical items I've also been focusing on polishing the environment by adding ground cover plants and crop fields using a novel approach - particle systems. My plant models are all low poly and use the same palette texture so they're perfect candidates for instance rendering on the GPU. Rather than build a system myself I've leveraged the particle system to do the work for me, all I needed to do was create a couple of small scripts to generate the particle positions within the editor, and then save these positions on a component. At runtime I spawn the particles at the saved positions. I've also added a simple distance check on the runtime component to disable the renderer when the camera is too ensure that I'm only ever rendering a few particle system  groups at a time.

You can view the full dev log below