July 2021 Developer's Log and Update

After taking a break on Voyager, shifting focus on school exam prep and other projects, I have decided to continue progress on Voyager. 

Since then, I have made some progress, my first improvement will probably be highly unnoticeable, but my attention to detail has demanded me to work on this and that is about how the player accelerates when moving around. Since my character is not human, but a moving sphere, it accelerates as you move it from rest, and its velocity stabilizes at a certain speed. 

Speaking of velocity, I have realized that the player moves faster if it's moving in between two of the four directions, so for example, the character would move faster if I am moving forward-right than if I am simply just moving forward (in other words, holding down W and D will result in a higher velocity than holding down just W), this problem not only caused undesired speeds, but also problems with collisions as I was able to go through walls with the extra speed I've picked up. To further explain this problem, the character has a 'vertical velocity' and a 'horizontal velocity', if I hold down W or S, it adds or subtracts whatever the speed constant is from vertical velocity, if I hold down A or D, it does the same for horizontal velocity, If I hold down one of each, I would be traveling (insert speed constant here) in both directions, which isn't as intended. So with the power of Pythagoras Theorem, I have managed to fix this.

This 'speed constant' also now increases whenever you're using the jetpack (or 'levitating' if you're not reading this in order). This is mainly due to how I suspect many users will use this to navigate through an environment quicker (and how you wouldn't worry about colliding with anything in the sky so the extra velocity doesn't hurt). 

 Another major change I have made was the changing current player GUI, I have decided to change the font (to NewPortLand, it fits in with the theme a lot better) and various background colors, I am however still experimenting with which looks better, as of right now I am more inclined towards having no background to the text on top, and oh, I've also renamed the whole 'jetpack' system to a 'levitation' system instead as jetpacks did seem to be a little out-of-place.

I have also changed the player texture, it is a minor (and probably a little irrelevant..) change but I have done it. I have also done some work on camera collision, as I was able to see through terrain and 3D models, which obviously isn't ideal. One last tiny thing, I have worked out a way to change update loops, which will be highly useful when dealing with missions or menus. 

That's it for this month! Next up is focusing on certain aspects such as shopping, decorating, minigames, etc.. After that, I will be starting to dive into content!