- An update on the future of Microcosm - 30 June 2022
(Pic related: One of my stress testing worlds running on iOS. Each voxel is one cubic inch; this world doesn't really fit in my house!) The Steam version of Microcosm hasn't been updated in a few years. In retrospect, releasing a VR game right before moving into a van for two years probably wasn't my most brilliant idea. However, during that time, I've been at work on a rewritten voxel engine and application with support for tons of new features, like: "Infinite" worlds! Copy/paste Undo/redo Export to OBJ+MTL or PLY Rotate the world Scale the world Full control over voxel opacity Flood fill (paint bucket) LUA scripting support …and more! So, here's the plan: The Steam version will be made free on July 11th, 2022 (without a feature update). The new version of Microcosm will be coming to iOS first, and will be free with in-app purchases for some of the new functionality (such as Lua scrip…
- Bugfix update: 0.1.6 - 1 August 2017
I just released Microcosm 0.1.6. The only change in this update is a fix for a bug that could cause lights to be saved and loaded in the wrong position.
- Bugfix update: 0.1.6 - 1 August 2017
I just released Microcosm 0.1.6. The only change in this update is a fix for a bug that could cause lights to be saved and loaded in the wrong position.
- Microcosm 0.1.5 Release Notes - 31 July 2017
Hey folks! It’s been longer than I would have liked since my last update. Things are very hectic in my life right now. My day job is on the verge of a big launch, and I’m also preparing for an upcoming house move. I’m still dedicated to improving Microcosm and adding lots of new features, it just isn’t moving quite as quickly as I’d originally hoped. That being said, I’m very happy to release 0.1.5. The biggest addition is Oculus support! I wasn’t originally planning to add Oculus support so soon, but the folks at Facebook ended up sending me a Rift + Touch development kit, and I couldn’t resist adding it right away. A big shoutout to VRTK and the folks in the VRTK Slack, which helped make adding Rift + Touch support incredibly simple. The other main change in this release is a slightly increased base voxel size. Microcosm voxels are now 0.024 cubic meters, instead of 0.018. Any game sa…
- Microcosm 0.1.5 Release Notes - 31 July 2017
Hey folks! It’s been longer than I would have liked since my last update. Things are very hectic in my life right now. My day job is on the verge of a big launch, and I’m also preparing for an upcoming house move. I’m still dedicated to improving Microcosm and adding lots of new features, it just isn’t moving quite as quickly as I’d originally hoped. That being said, I’m very happy to release 0.1.5. The biggest addition is Oculus support! I wasn’t originally planning to add Oculus support so soon, but the folks at Facebook ended up sending me a Rift + Touch development kit, and I couldn’t resist adding it right away. A big shoutout to VRTK and the folks in the VRTK Slack, which helped make adding Rift + Touch support incredibly simple. The other main change in this release is a slightly increased base voxel size. Microcosm voxels are now 0.024 cubic meters, instead of 0.018. Any game sa…
- Microcosm 0.1.4 Release - Notice for Folks With Saved Games! - 14 June 2017
Hey everyone! Microcosm 0.1.4 is out, with a few changes. The most important thing to note in this update is the introduction of a versioning system to Microcosm's .cosm save file format. This will allow savefiles to automatically be upgraded to the latest version when you load them in a newer version of Microcosm than the one they were created in. Please note that there will still probably be breaking changes to the savefile format in the future, but this versioning system should make those breaking changes less frequent. If you have saved worlds you'd like to continue working on in future versions of Microcosm, make sure to re-save them using this release! The next version of Microcosm will be taking advantage of the versioning system. There are two other additions. The first is dynamic render scaling, which helps to significantly improve framerate stability in large scenes. Secondly,…
- Microcosm 0.1.4 Release - Notice for Folks With Saved Games! - 14 June 2017
Hey everyone! Microcosm 0.1.4 is out, with a few changes. The most important thing to note in this update is the introduction of a versioning system to Microcosm's .cosm save file format. This will allow savefiles to automatically be upgraded to the latest version when you load them in a newer version of Microcosm than the one they were created in. Please note that there will still probably be breaking changes to the savefile format in the future, but this versioning system should make those breaking changes less frequent. If you have saved worlds you'd like to continue working on in future versions of Microcosm, make sure to re-save them using this release! The next version of Microcosm will be taking advantage of the versioning system. There are two other additions. The first is dynamic render scaling, which helps to significantly improve framerate stability in large scenes. Secondly,…
- Microcosm Post-Launch Update! - 7 June 2017
(TLDR: weekly updates starting soon, plus a list of big planned features at the bottom!) Hey everyone. Thanks so much to those of you who have already purchased Microcosm! Your support and feedback so far have been lovely. I just wanted to post a quick update to let folks know a bit about my future plans for Microcosm. I've spent a good bit of time since EA release figuring out which bugs, features, and changes should be tackled first, and how to best go about that. I believe I've gotten this down to a pretty good list of things I would like to add to the game. My plan is to start releasing an update each week, starting next week. Right now, I'm thinking those will go live on Thursdays or Fridays, but I may just stay flexible about that part. As development continues, I'll continue to reevaluate whether the weekly release schedule is working, or needs to be changed up. Below is my curre…
- Microcosm is out now! (Plus release giveaway details) - 2 June 2017
Hey everyone! The first fully-public version of Microcosm is live now on Steam and itch! I'm so excited to get it into some folks' hands and start working on new features and improvements. If you'd like a chance to win a free copy of Microcosm, just comment on the /r/vive giveaway post! I'll update this post and the comment in that thread when the winners are announced later tonight (2017/06/06).
- Microcosm is out now! (Plus release giveaway details) - 2 June 2017
Hey everyone! The first fully-public version of Microcosm is live now on Steam and itch! I'm so excited to get it into some folks' hands and start working on new features and improvements. If you'd like a chance to win a free copy of Microcosm, just comment on the /r/vive giveaway post! I'll update this post and the comment in that thread when the winners are announced later tonight (2017/06/06).
- Very first build submitted to Steam for review! - 1 June 2017
(If you haven't seen it yet, make sure to check out the Microcosm release trailer!) I just added Microcosm 0.1.2 to the Steam review queue. Hopefully this can be very close to the initial build that goes out (I'm shooting for early next week at this point). Assuming no major issues come back from Steam review, all my Micocosm time until release will be focused on bugfixes, performance improvements, and UI/overall polish! This is getting so close! -paul
- Very first build submitted to Steam for review! - 1 June 2017
(If you haven't seen it yet, make sure to check out the Microcosm release trailer!) I just added Microcosm 0.1.2 to the Steam review queue. Hopefully this can be very close to the initial build that goes out (I'm shooting for early next week at this point). Assuming no major issues come back from Steam review, all my Micocosm time until release will be focused on bugfixes, performance improvements, and UI/overall polish! This is getting so close! -paul
- First progress update, save/load complete! - 12 May 2017
Hey everyone, I just realized I should probably be posting updates to Steam, so here goes with the first one. I've been making great progress on Microcosm over the last couple weeks, and I'm currently still planning to start Early Access somewhere around the end of this month or beginning of June. One huge hurdle I just got past is getting save/load system working. Here's a quick video of that in action, for anyone interested (pardon the Twitter quality): https://twitter.com/paulstraw/status/862976806185385984 For anyone who doesn't know, the reason that video is in "lens-mode" is because the virtual camera used for saving and loading also controls what's output to the primary display. This is super useful for making time-lapses, and also works as a nice "steadicam-like" device for pan shots. Next up for me is a bunch of stress-testing, bug-fixing, performance-improving, color-palette-c…
- First progress update, save/load complete! - 12 May 2017
Hey everyone, I just realized I should probably be posting updates to Steam, so here goes with the first one. I've been making great progress on Microcosm over the last couple weeks, and I'm currently still planning to start Early Access somewhere around the end of this month or beginning of June. One huge hurdle I just got past is getting save/load system working. Here's a quick video of that in action, for anyone interested (pardon the Twitter quality): https://twitter.com/paulstraw/status/862976806185385984 For anyone who doesn't know, the reason that video is in "lens-mode" is because the virtual camera used for saving and loading also controls what's output to the primary display. This is super useful for making time-lapses, and also works as a nice "steadicam-like" device for pan shots. Next up for me is a bunch of stress-testing, bug-fixing, performance-improving, color-palette-c…
