A new vonBiomes version is out for all Supporters! vonBiomes 22 brings one hand new worlds for you to explore, and also many tweaks and upgrades under the hood — and a new discovery!
👉 Fast Downloads are available on: https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-special-125564974
🔸 Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/441
🔹 Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2808627355
Important note: the asset IDs for all biomes have been overhauled: to be safe, please load not directly into mission with this release and if you encounter any hiccups, travel to a new warzone first, so missions are recreated by the system.
What's new:
vonBiomes Tree Pack:
After testing procedural tree generation for a week or two — with working results, but the impact on mission load times was simply too high, so that got dropped — I have started creating a vonBiomes tree library for adding many new hand-crafted trees to be used across biomes for increased biodiversity. From Beech trees to Oaks, from willows to new stone pines — many new tree species are ready for current and upcoming biomes.
Just some of the new tree species in vonBiomes 22
New bush species & grass species
Furthermore, new grass and bush models have been integrated, improving the grass in some biomes and adding more bush species to the mix.
New biome: Broadleaf Forest (Summer)
One excellent candidate to put the new vonBiomes Tree Pack to use is a new forest biome, which replaces the MW5's (mostly) needle trees with lush broadleaf trees. It is quite a difference, and the new forests in the biome have a fresh and summer-like feel.
New biome: Reed Swamp
A swampy biome was still missing — and here it is! With the experience and workflow developed for making new tree 3D models, I created a new swamp tree set and built a wet-land biome. The towering swamp trees are complimented by new bush species and reed grass, and I have extended the existing ground fog effect with animations.
Maccia biome overhaul (new grass, new bushes)
The Maccia has been overhauled, too — new grass and new bushes species modernize the biome, and the new species included also utilize already the new plant color system by sun class.
Icy Moon overhaul (ground ice shards)
The Icy Moon biome has new jaggy ice shards as an additional element on the ground, giving a more coherent look & feel. I plan to still work more on the Icy Mon biome, to enhance and extend the ice formations — but that for a future update;)
But biomes are not everything:
New major system: sun class type influences plant leaf coloring, e.g. under a blue sun plants can have red leaves (on some biomes for now)
The idea came to my mind when working on the new tree models — wouldn't be the leaf colors of a plant or tree under a different sun-classes be different? For example, under a blue star, the leaves of plants could have a different hue than on Earth due to the different spectrum of the light. So I built a system.
For the new species included (and some priory added grass types) the color of the leaves shifts from standard green to other hues, based on the sun class of the solar system, in which the mission takes place. This adds quite much to the variety and adds tremendous to the vonBiomes core principle that every mission/planet should feel unique. I hope you like it!
(Sidenote: the system relies on the vonBiomes weather & lighting model — if overridden by another lighting mod, the plants will have no unique coloring by sun class type)
Different sun-class types > different vegetation colors in action
vonBiomes 22 - Leaf Colors in an Old Forest (Winter) under a blue sun
Coastal Dunes Biome Overhaul (new lower-poly Pine Trees), adjustments
The Italian Stone Pines on Coastal dunes have been a nice 3D model, but also leaning more on the high-poly side of things. Again with the new tree model workflow, I have made new Stone Pines from scratch, and replaced the old ones for better performance and loading times.
Lighting & Fogs adjustments:
As usual, finetuning is always part of the work, especially for the complex dynamic lighting model, vonBiomes brings for enhanced mission variety and unique looks. The sun glow has been adjusted for volumetric and densities have been slightly increased.
New Mod Option: Reduced impact of planet orbit on lighting toggle
For those of you who do not enjoy the vonBiomes orbit-based dynamic lighting so much, there is a new mod option. The orbit dynamics result in brighter or darker light conditions based on the distance of the planet, the mission takes place on, from the sun. While adding more sci-fi-realism and also diversify the looks of missions dramatically, if you are not a big fan of that, worry no further — there is a new mod option. With a checkbox, you can select a reduced impact of the sub-distance on planet lighting.
Last but not least: there is a new discovery:
It appears that there is — at least for Instant Action — a maximum number of biomes. First, I thought that the Agricultural Fields biome was simply broken and not able to load anymore. For the current version, it has even been removed (for now). But after many tests and rebuilds afterward, it became more clear that simply there is a limit. The good news is that it seems that this only inflicts Instant Action. Additional test biomes I have created while digging deeper into the issue appear normal in career/campaign.
What does that mean? First, I will restructure the biome list a little better, so there is a max number of unique biomes in Instant Action, and also clean all up the test biomes created during the uncertain about what's going on under the hood. Secondly — if the results hold up — it also means that new biomes and worlds are still possible in the future. I am happy that the career/campaign mode still spawns added biomes, since at least an African Savanna-type biome is still on the list, the Agricultural Fields biome can come back, and the Comet biome, moving through space, can be ported over from vonMissions.
Let's keep all fingers crossed!
After the cleanup, I will also build a new public version with the broadleaf forest and the vegetation coloring system, so there is some joy for every Mechwarrior out there. ;)
Connect & be in the Loop!
If you like to follow the developed (and sometimes struggle;) live, please be invited to join the vonMods Discord: https://discord.gg/eaTa8zGbRf if you are not a member already.
You can drop me a short message in one channel there that you come from Patreon and I can add your special role with access to the WIP channel, in which I constantly post screenshots and updates about the ongoing work. See you there! :)
Thank you so much for the coffees, pizza and beers,
your ongoing support of the work is amazing, and I hope you like the new add-ons for your Mechwarrior experience! :)
Cheers!
- Jonathan