Smoke on the Water

Many issues have been fixed in v1.1, although I'm sure there are still plenty more.  In v1.0, I never did like how the water looked, how the underwater scene looked, nor how the distant scene looked.  The biggest problem was that the water wasn't rendering behind the fog.  This created a long attenuated dark and stark trail as the river wound its way off into the foggy distance.  What I wanted was a proper bayou gloominess with the fog hanging above the water.

I thought about diving into shaders and did a little bit, and I learned a little bit.  In the end, i deployed Aquas 2020 from Dogmatic Games which is a brilliant tool.  I was able to get the fog and water to play nice with each other, and the underwater scene look better.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look the same in the build as it does in the editor.  This is a minor fix that I'll work on next.

The opening sequence always felt a bit rushed, and it was too easy for some of the opening exposition to overlap, so I created a cut-scene like opening in which the player begins on a boat ride down the river to the pier by shed that marks the starting location of the game.  Although I need to slow the boat ride down, as it's faster in the build than in the editor, it accomplishes the goal I sought.

Lastly, I hadn't noticed earlier that Dorothie's walk animation was broken and that rather than walk, she would glide through the terrain.  Once noticed, these were easy fixes.  She now walks properly and treats the ground with the respect for its solidity that it deserves.