info and changelog for upcoming update

Hello everyone, hope you're all OK! despite all the madness.

It's been a long time for me working on the upcoming update, and everytime I thought I was close to releasing, I thought of another fine feature I should add, and it went on like that until now, where I think it's close to ready. This is a list of what I worked on in the past months:

Changelog for the upcoming v011:

General:

1) Switched and upgraded the project from Unity5.5 to Unity 2019.4 (that was a little nightmare)

Driving:

2) Switched from CarX to VPP and worked on achieving (or bettering)  the original driving feel/behavior

3) Changed the in-car camera rig to be less bouncy

4) Added proper support for controllers & steering wheel with FFB

Environment:

5) Stitched all terrains/regions together

6) Moved and rotated the big dam for a better more logical terrain transition & moved or remodeled all affected roads

7) Added a new tunnel and roads connecting all regions

8) Upgraded the terrain shader to v4 and modified code to support distance-based tessellation, for better performance

9) Added proper rivers & deep waters with buoyancy

10) Better water splashes when driving through puddles

11) Coded tessellation-based wave & ripple effects when driving through puddles

12) Upgraded all terrain textures to higher quality ones

13) Added proper PBR-lit terrain details (logs, branches, twigs, garbage etc...)

14) Added better-looking grasses with new bending method that supports multiple sources

Atmospherics:

15) Re-made the volumetric fog look and behavior altogether

16) Increased max view distance to 1km everywhere (used to be 400m) and adapted everything in order to not loose performance

VR specific:

17) reduced camera bouncing and added rear-view mirrors that take head rotation into account

18) To improve performance, both mirrors now use only one camera

19) Modified the SSMS post effect (blur based on fog density) so that it's VR capable

20) Modified screen-space reflections for VR & tested alternatives

21) Many tweaks and tests to improve performance

Oh, and the last very thing I just had to add are large greenhouses, which were initially planned for v007:

Thank you all for your patience and support, and apologies for the long waiting. I'm still aiming to release v011 (and v011VR) before December 4th, although I've been sick since a couple days and we've got some confirmed cases of 'rona at school. It's also flu season, so no need to panic :)

Stay safe, and beware!

Ondrej

[Edit 05.12.2021] - Quick heads-up: the whole family has the 'rona, me included. Fortunately nothing catastrophic in our case, just a weird disease that takes its sweet time to leave the body.