S24 Build 3745 (Pre Alpha 0.3)

 

S24 Viewer — Pre‑Alpha 0.3 Update

Another weekend, another snapshot. The 0.3 pre‑alpha build is now live, and it marks the point where the old OpenGL infrastructure finally gives way to the new DirectX‑driven engine. From here on, the viewer is no longer straddling two worlds. The GL era is fading, and the DX future is takes shape.

Atmospherics: 2.5D Windlight & New Night Skies

One of the headline additions in 0.3 is the early implementation of 2.5D Windlight. In simple terms, this adds depth and variation to the sky and atmospheric effects — clouds feel less “painted on,” lighting has more dimensionality, and the world looks prettier for little to no FPS cost.

Night skies have also had a makeover:

• Procedurally generated shooting stars

• Nebulae with soft volumetric depth

• Real constellations mapped into the sky (WIP)

• Star colour variation from cool red dwarfs to blazing blue giants

Static screenshots don’t do it justice — the motion and subtlety only really land when you see it live.

Rendering Fixes & Pipeline Improvements

A lot of work this cycle has been about stability, correctness, and clearing out legacy behaviour:

• Mirrors and PBR rendering fixed

• Correct face ordering on PBR textures

• Main loop stabilisation to prevent VRAM eviction from fighting the renderer

• Gentle multithreading for non‑avatar systems

• A swath of bug fixes across the pipeline

The viewer is now approaching — and in some cases exceeding — OpenGL parity. A thousand lines of old pipeline code have been removed, and the render pools are being replaced with cleaner, DX equivalents.

Performance & Quality of Life Improvements

Several long‑standing issues have been addressed:

• Japanese font rendering fixed

• Memory leaks eliminated

• Avatar hair and alpha blending improved

• First shaders moved into the new shader cache

  • After your first run, the viewer should reload significantly faster

This is the beginning of a proper caching system more shaders will land in it once stabilised.

Why 0.3 Differs

This release is a turning point. The old GL‑based infrastructure is now broken by design — intentionally. Each new pass removes more legacy code and replaces it with DX‑native systems.

The sheer number of tiny hooks, hidden dependencies, and ancient assumptions is astonishing, but each build chips away at them. Progress is steady, and the direction is clear.

Expect one or two more pre‑alpha builds before we declare a proper alpha. That timeline depends entirely on how many more gremlins crawl out of the woodwork — and trust me, there are plenty.

Try the New Skies, Water & Starfields

If you want to experiment:

1. Open Preferences

2. Go to the Core tab

3. Hit the S24 Engine button

Inside you’ll find the “toybox” — a collection of early features and toggles for poking, prodding, and generally seeing what breaks.

Much Love, KL