Build Mode Extravaganza: Bug Fixes, Polish and Tweaks
Hello everyone! Jérémie here with this week’s Patreon post. We got back to working on the live mode now but I wanted to share a few extra build mode features and tweaks we’ve put into the game in the previous months. Everyone has contributed so I’ll mostly take the back seat and leave the team to talk about what they’ve done! As usual, this post is for patrons only, so you know what you should and shouldn’t do with it!
🐞Jérémie: Mostly bug fixes!
With the help of Charlotte, or resident Quality Assurance Expert, I’ve fixed bug after bug after bug. Resolving bugs is an ongoing process and I’ll probably be talking about it up until the game release, but the number of these little critters left to squash is relatively manageable. As you can see here, we have 414 currently closed bugs. I wonder how many we’ll have when the game launches in early access next year? Please chime in in the comments below! The person that gets the closest to the real number will win a mustache man body pillow (not a real contest, sorry!)
Anna: Flipping Wall Items
During our playtests, one of the most requested features was the ability to change the facing sides of doors and windows. Previously, they could only be placed automatically facing the camera, which was sometimes frustrating. With this latest update, players can now manually switch the orientation thanks to a button in the selected interface, or with a keyboard shortcut!
Richard: Level Of Details Optimization
To improve performance on older computers, I have added a Level of Details (LOD) system. The system will show a high-quality model when you are close to an item. As you get far away, the system will switch to simpler models. At one point, the item is too small and is hidden by the system. We have yet to do any simpler models, it will likely be done on trees first since they are some of the most complex items we have.
Alejandro: Color Swatch Improvements and Painting Surfaces
Something that we planned to do for a while was the color swatch system rework. We wanted the whole swatch system to work with our modding tools. There were a lot of tweaks and quality of life improvements on the swatch creation’s flow, as well as the workflow for our artists to integrate the swatches on each object of the game.
Another feature I worked on was the ability for the players to change the textures on different parts of an object. This can be done in two ways: by using the paint tool we already use to paint walls and floors or when creating new swatches for an object.
Alex: Time Of Day Slider
I added a slider that lets players change the lighting according to different times of the day when in build mode. It’s very useful to see what your house looks like in different lighting conditions!
Thanks again for supporting us! I hope you had a good time looking through some build mode features that we haven’t talked about previously. We’re still going strong on live mode and we can’t wait to share our progress with you!
Have a great weekend!
Jérémie
Comments (66)
Ooh my gosh! These features are amazing!! Also, always have to give props for bug fixes and optimizations! Very appreciated!
It’s looking so beautiful!
Is exterior lighting always on full blast? It’s weird for the exterior to affect interior lighting as if their wasn’t a ceiling. If their wasn’t a ceiling in the video shown than I get it, but if their was, than the lighting is a little weird.
As a test engineer, I’m jealous of your stats!
OMG I haven't checked in for a while. This looks sooo good!!
You are incredible! <3 <3
awesome
Q
That sunset light is cool 🌇
I'm excited for the gameplay, but as someone who really likes to build and decorate, it already looks like a dream! T_T Well done team!
Absolutely love seeing time spent on polishes and fixes that just make the game /feel/ better. Can’t wait to play!
This game looks fascinating so far! I also loved the video by Andrei, who used dollar store items to make sounds for the game.
Im blown away by the adding texture to objects feature 😭 I never thought we’d get anything this close to TS3 Create A Style
Yes, this is one thing I’m looking forward to the most! It actually makes me excited to build and decorate again.
Will there be a way to change the direction of textures in the tools? Like in the brick couch it'd be cool to swap which way the bricks were laying on the surface 💖
That's not possible at the moment, no. We might come back to that later in the future, but right now we're focusing on live mode, so we'll see! Thank you!
always makes my day better
🫶🏽✊🏽💜🙂↔️
Building without pausing the game OMG <3
😍😍😍
Looking forward to making more hidden entrances with this tool. Will doors be lockable for specific people/groups?
That's something we'll tackle as we go through live mode features! Thank you for the question!
Oh my gosh, every time I see an update, it looks fantastic!!! If I can suggest something small? For the time of day slider, adding visual notches for like morning, noon, evening, midnight? That way you don't have to search as much, and it's a quick reference.
That's a neat suggestion, will forward that to the team :)
I love that we don't have to pause the game to be in build mode. Aaaghh I can't wait until release but please take your time! 😁
Incredible stuff as always! That last bit about being able to build without pausing the live mode made me say WOW! out loud. Its just such a cool idea and allows so much more freedom of gameplay types, which is what I always see from yalls ideas and I absolutely love it.
Exciting!!! I love the endless customization this will ultimately bring to the game. Can’t wait to see what else is in store 💕
Cool
The Time of Day Slider is such a neat idea, that’s gonna be so useful! I really really love how much freedom you’re gonna give to the players. From the textures to modding, absolutely love it ❤️
The paintbrush to paint different parts of an object instead of having to change the colors on the menu to figure out which is which is GENIUS! I love these QOL implementations.
Just one small criticism if that's ok? Usually on kitchen floor units, the top surface overhangs the cupboard doors by some way to stop drips and crumbs running into the cupboard. Is it possible to make the cabinet a little more slender front to back to create a visible overhang for the top? Only it kind of stood out to me.
Thank you for the comment! I totally see what you mean and I've passed the message on to the team; I'm not sure if we're going to change all our counters so maybe you'll have to bear with this idiosyncrasy, but we'll see! Don't worry about offering criticism, that's very valuable too!
Some amazing new features! I especially love the time of day slider and the ability to build while Paras are actively moving. I love the paint brush icon and the ability to customize textures as well.
Oh my gog, this game's build mode gets better everyday! I didn't think it was possible, but look at this! It's amazing
How will inside lighting be?
Howdy! As things are in the game right now you can see a bit in the last gif how it looks, you can also see a bit more about lighting at the end of this post https://www.patreon.com/posts/113360255 ! Hope this answers your question!
The textures can be changed with the paintbrush ?! That's awesome ! I feel like it's one of those QoL things that Paralives seems to be doing so well. Like changing the time of day, for instance, while building. Or, to take an example from a previous post, like being able to move around upcoming tasks to be performed by a Para. Or having a schedule. All those things add up and make the experience so smooth (...or at least they seem like they will, but of course I haven't tested them myself yet !). I also really like the idea of flipping assets instead of adjusting the angle of the mouse in other games (simulation or otherwise). It's so finicky, especially if you have issues with your hands, while a button for it just makes it MORE ACCESSIBLE ! Or simply if you have a cat on your desk and can't be too precise or else you'll wake him up XD Lastly, I know it can feel like it's overlooked by players (because by definition squashed bugs are invisible to us), but I really appreciate the QA work and the amount of bugs addressed. It's a neverending job, but someone's got to do it ! :P As a sidenote, I had never noticed the wood table that we see here in the LOD-related gif, but it's gorgeous. And instead of being tricky to match, the textures and color wheels will make it very easy to find chairs that go with it ! AKA : technically all of them !
The color wheel, the pattern options, the texture options, the day/night options, omg I'm in heaven. This game knows exactly what I want!
The fact that you can change the texture on ANYTHING is *insane* 😅 And it's so exciting the game doesn't pause when building! (I was actually goingto ask if that was temporary... but never got around to it) The game looks amazing! and all the features sound promising! I can't wait to get my hands on early access❤️ GREAT JOB team😁😁😁 (&How many bugs till EA? wellllll 414 so far and livemode seems more complicated since you have to deal with character AI sooo, I'm expecting abouta 1M :D Lol)
The paint brush and the camera mode look amazing! Great job!😲
Wowwwww 🤩
I love the way that you can change patterns in objects! We can change the orientation of those patterns like we can do for tiles?
Thank you for the kind words! That's not planned at the moment, we're focusing on live mode features right now, so maybe at some point in the far future we could go back on this and ponder it out, but it's not in the game right now!
I really like the progress of everything and I'm so excited. Though I'm wondering if there will be 12 hr clock option?
There's actually an option in the mod system for that! You can choose between 24 or 12 hour mode :) Maybe if it makes sense, we could make that a proper setting hehe :) Thank you for the question!
I LOVE that build mode is live!
I will never get over how you can change each aspect of, for example, a counter, it RULES
This is wonderful. I was wondering if you will be able to keep the detail level high when zooming out for those of us with computers that can handle it
The way things are setup I'm sure there's going to be a way for this to be possible, yes!
Really impressed with the teams commitment to challenge the stats quo in this genre - so excited for the release I know what I'll be booking my holidays for !
Everything's coming together so nicely. Great job, everyone!
Jérémie & Charlotte...to the front, please! Because the patience and determination one must possess to even fathom sending over 400 critters to meet their maker!? My hats off to you bc you continue to show me how much this game means to you by conquering feats like that. Also, I just love the amber peach aura of the sunset in that last clip 😍🌇
Please tell me that the paras will react based off their personality when you move things near them during build mode lol Awesome post! Excited to get my hands on the game!
That could be really cute! But characters will probably already be doing something else and having them interupt to react could get bothersome after a while aha. Still, neat idea :)
Love it! Especially the swatches
That fact that the Paras can still move during build mode is wild. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
That time slider is awesome!! I've seen Sims builders complain way too often that it feels like there's no good lighting options for certain lots, so this would really help find that perfect light angle
Awesome as always, Parateam! Just wish the outside light didn't come into the house when there's a roof🥹
I hear ya! But at the moment we like the doll-house look it gives to buildings; Having the invisible roof block the light makes everything covered in shadows, but we're still working on all that!
One of my favorite updates so far! I love that you can apply the textures to anything - and having time continue when I'm tweaking the build sounds awesome! The level of player-specific customization is just wonderful
So much fun getting to follow the process like this! It looks so good, I’m really excited ❤️
i'm blown away!
I love the idea of the game not automatically pause in build mode, that’s genius!!
I like that the game doesn't have to pause when you're in the build menu. It'll probably make the transition to opening the menu smoother.
These look great! All these swatches and options are just going to make us even more impatient than ever, even though the wisest of us will still say, "Take your time! Make this game into a future classic!" Great stuff! Can't wait to see what's coming up in live mode!
Looks great! Really excited about being able to change the texture of objects