PaleoCalifornia 1.2 (Part 2) Update Notes

 The second quarter is now open! Continue on the time traveling expedition through the coastal prairie and valley oak savanna.

Highlights

• Scene 3, the coastal prairie, is here. It features a herd of animals a few lone standouts too.
• Scene 4, the valley oak savanna, is your next destination! While the savanna sports younger oaks, the scene is dominated by the largest of the animals that will on this ride. In contrast, the dwarf pronghorn peek out from around the buckbushes and purple needle grass.
• The new scenes occupy a new building that tries some new effects: The animals become the visual interest as the horizon opens up compared to the winding corridors of the preceding scenes. The illusion of distance is obtained through forced perspective and the use of differently scaled models and wall decals. (In early testing, a visitor ran right into the wall thinking that the prairie kept going. Mission accomplished!) The multitude of plants is optimized by using linked duplicates in Blender.
• Walking mode works in the new scenes, taking you off the pre-programmed ride path! You can even make a jump to the distant hill, though it may turn out to be closer than it appeared. Info signs and maps are also there (fun fact: there are 2 map objects that warp in to the scene you are occupying).
• Narration for all three audio tracks are re-records with a better mic! I accentuated the differences between the Adventure (fun) and Educational (ASMR) tracks and kept consistency in recording quality from Part 1 to Part 2. The developer track has fewer ‘um’s.
• New button on options panel to start the ride from the beginning or with the new section.
• Using A-Frame 1.7.0 for Apple Vision Pro compatibility.
• Had to manually fix all of the lights since 1.7.0 and its ThreeJS version changed how lights work 😭. [1]
• Hand models were at an odd angle so I removed the hand component in favor of laser-controls.
• Fixed double-hits when selecting buttons in VR.

Known Issues

• The audio tracks may get desynced from the selection in VR but not on desktop for reasons unknown.
• Procedural rocks and plants are out for now as the component that did it no longer works with the version of A-Frame I’m using.

Check it out at www.paleoca.com!