Microcosm 
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An update on the future of MicrocosmJun 29, 2022 - Community Announcements(Pic related: One of my stress testing worlds running on iOS. Each voxel is one cubic inch; this world doesn't really fit in my house!) The Steam version of Microcosm hasn't been updated in a few years. In retrospect, releasing a VR game right before moving into a van for two years probably wasn't my most brilliant idea. However, during that time, I've been at work on a rewritten voxel engine and application with support for tons of new features, like: "Infinite" worlds! Copy/paste Undo/redo Export to OBJ+MTL or PLY Rotate the world Scale the world Full control over voxel opacity Flood fill (paint bucket) LUA scripting support …and more! So, here's the plan: The Steam version will be made free on July 11th, 2022 (without a feature update). The new version of Microcosm will be coming to iOS first, and will be free with in-app purchases for some of the new functionality (such as Lua scripting and PLY/OBJ export). I don't have a set release date, but once the iOS version is out, I'll start work on the VR update. When the VR update is released, anyone who purchased Microcosm before July 11th, 2022 will be entitled to a free code granting them access to all new features. Thanks for your patience, and if you're interested in following along with development, I post updates on Instagram! -paulBugfix update: 0.1.6Jul 31, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsI just released Microcosm 0.1.6. The only change in this update is a fix for a bug that could cause lights to be saved and loaded in the wrong position.Bugfix update: 0.1.6Jul 31, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsI just released Microcosm 0.1.6. The only change in this update is a fix for a bug that could cause lights to be saved and loaded in the wrong position.Microcosm 0.1.5 Release NotesJul 30, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/79bdb3d3e402d496bec2917fec0b3f09b594a2c7.png Hey folks! It’s been longer than I would have liked since my last update. Things are very hectic in my life right now. My day job is on the verge of a big launch, and I’m also preparing for an upcoming house move. I’m still dedicated to improving Microcosm and adding lots of new features, it just isn’t moving quite as quickly as I’d originally hoped. That being said, I’m very happy to release 0.1.5. The biggest addition is Oculus support! I wasn’t originally planning to add Oculus support so soon, but the folks at Facebook ended up sending me a Rift + Touch development kit, and I couldn’t resist adding it right away. A big shoutout to VRTK and the folks in the VRTK Slack, which helped make adding Rift + Touch support incredibly simple. The other main change in this release is a slightly increased base voxel size. Microcosm voxels are now 0.024 cubic meters, instead of 0.018. Any game saved in 0.1.4 will be automatically migrated to the new voxel size when opened in 0.1.5 or later. This change makes drawing a bit more forgiving, especially under suboptimal tracking conditions. Steam Cloud support has also been added, so your save files will automatically be backed up and synced between your computers. Beyond that, this release includes lots of behind the scenes tweaks and changes. These changes don’t affect gameplay in most cases (other than things like some additional haptic feedback), but will make it easier for me to keep improving Microcosm going forward. Until next time, -paulMicrocosm 0.1.5 Release NotesJul 30, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/79bdb3d3e402d496bec2917fec0b3f09b594a2c7.png Hey folks! It’s been longer than I would have liked since my last update. Things are very hectic in my life right now. My day job is on the verge of a big launch, and I’m also preparing for an upcoming house move. I’m still dedicated to improving Microcosm and adding lots of new features, it just isn’t moving quite as quickly as I’d originally hoped. That being said, I’m very happy to release 0.1.5. The biggest addition is Oculus support! I wasn’t originally planning to add Oculus support so soon, but the folks at Facebook ended up sending me a Rift + Touch development kit, and I couldn’t resist adding it right away. A big shoutout to VRTK and the folks in the VRTK Slack, which helped make adding Rift + Touch support incredibly simple. The other main change in this release is a slightly increased base voxel size. Microcosm voxels are now 0.024 cubic meters, instead of 0.018. Any game saved in 0.1.4 will be automatically migrated to the new voxel size when opened in 0.1.5 or later. This change makes drawing a bit more forgiving, especially under suboptimal tracking conditions. Steam Cloud support has also been added, so your save files will automatically be backed up and synced between your computers. Beyond that, this release includes lots of behind the scenes tweaks and changes. These changes don’t affect gameplay in most cases (other than things like some additional haptic feedback), but will make it easier for me to keep improving Microcosm going forward. Until next time, -paulMicrocosm 0.1.4 Release - Notice for Folks With Saved Games!Jun 14, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/4ff6225b2aeb70eaf01ec87e9350f880f3b2b5a5.png Hey everyone! Microcosm 0.1.4 is out, with a few changes. The most important thing to note in this update is the introduction of a versioning system to Microcosm's .cosm save file format. This will allow savefiles to automatically be upgraded to the latest version when you load them in a newer version of Microcosm than the one they were created in. Please note that there will still probably be breaking changes to the savefile format in the future, but this versioning system should make those breaking changes less frequent. If you have saved worlds you'd like to continue working on in future versions of Microcosm, make sure to re-save them using this release! The next version of Microcosm will be taking advantage of the versioning system. There are two other additions. The first is dynamic render scaling, which helps to significantly improve framerate stability in large scenes. Secondly, the maximum size of the box drawing mode has been increased from 16^3 to 32^3! Thanks for playing, -paulMicrocosm 0.1.4 Release - Notice for Folks With Saved Games!Jun 14, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/4ff6225b2aeb70eaf01ec87e9350f880f3b2b5a5.png Hey everyone! Microcosm 0.1.4 is out, with a few changes. The most important thing to note in this update is the introduction of a versioning system to Microcosm's .cosm save file format. This will allow savefiles to automatically be upgraded to the latest version when you load them in a newer version of Microcosm than the one they were created in. Please note that there will still probably be breaking changes to the savefile format in the future, but this versioning system should make those breaking changes less frequent. If you have saved worlds you'd like to continue working on in future versions of Microcosm, make sure to re-save them using this release! The next version of Microcosm will be taking advantage of the versioning system. There are two other additions. The first is dynamic render scaling, which helps to significantly improve framerate stability in large scenes. Secondly, the maximum size of the box drawing mode has been increased from 16^3 to 32^3! Thanks for playing, -paulMicrocosm Post-Launch Update!Jun 6, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/5379f1acbf72cb3fc3e439ff0a85eb7eedf785e2.png (TLDR: weekly updates starting soon, plus a list of big planned features at the bottom!) Hey everyone. Thanks so much to those of you who have already purchased Microcosm! Your support and feedback so far have been lovely. I just wanted to post a quick update to let folks know a bit about my future plans for Microcosm. I've spent a good bit of time since EA release figuring out which bugs, features, and changes should be tackled first, and how to best go about that. I believe I've gotten this down to a pretty good list of things I would like to add to the game. My plan is to start releasing an update each week, starting next week. Right now, I'm thinking those will go live on Thursdays or Fridays, but I may just stay flexible about that part. As development continues, I'll continue to reevaluate whether the weekly release schedule is working, or needs to be changed up. Below is my current "big ticket" feature list in no particular order. Alongside these larger features, I'm also planning to add Steam-specific features like cloud saves and achievements, along with lots of smaller features, improvements, and bugfixes! Big Planned Features! PLEASE NOTE: all of these items are pending more research into their technical feasibility. Something may end up just not being realistic for technical reasons, although I don't currently think that'll be the case for any of these items. Export to additional file format(s): I'd love for folks to be able to upload their creations to Sketchfab etc, and share them with people who don't have access to VR equipment yet. Copy/paste: You knew it had to be coming sooner or later, right? There are some big technical hurdles around this that may require a change to the savefile format, but I'm very excited to tackle this challenge. Undo support: Pretty self-explanatory, I think! This should help make experimenting in Microcosm painless. Infinite drawing space: Oh man, this will probably be a bit of a challenge, and will certainly require changes to the savefile format, but I think it will be worth it. Multiplayer support: It would be incredible to build and explore Microcosm worlds with friends, but multiplayer VR isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world to test with one person who owns one headset! Alright, that's all from me for right now. Thanks again for the support so far! -paulMicrocosm is out now! (Plus release giveaway details)Jun 2, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/b839f949ba332c8cbd3821eaea5223891c95f36d.png Hey everyone! The first fully-public version of Microcosm is live now on Steam and itch! I'm so excited to get it into some folks' hands and start working on new features and improvements. If you'd like a chance to win a free copy of Microcosm, just comment on the /r/vive giveaway post! I'll update this post and the comment in that thread when the winners are announced later tonight (2017/06/06).Microcosm is out now! (Plus release giveaway details)Jun 2, 2017 - Community Announcementshttp://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/b839f949ba332c8cbd3821eaea5223891c95f36d.png Hey everyone! The first fully-public version of Microcosm is live now on Steam and itch! I'm so excited to get it into some folks' hands and start working on new features and improvements. If you'd like a chance to win a free copy of Microcosm, just comment on the /r/vive giveaway post! I'll update this post and the comment in that thread when the winners are announced later tonight (2017/06/06).Very first build submitted to Steam for review!Jun 1, 2017 - Community Announcements(If you haven't seen it yet, make sure to check out the Microcosm release trailer!) I just added Microcosm 0.1.2 to the Steam review queue. Hopefully this can be very close to the initial build that goes out (I'm shooting for early next week at this point). http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/44ed53348a6066c2e32d64f1114278210dbda47b.png Assuming no major issues come back from Steam review, all my Micocosm time until release will be focused on bugfixes, performance improvements, and UI/overall polish! This is getting so close! -paul http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/b0bdd34a72a20e0a93d5ade80fe55c402026abfd.pngVery first build submitted to Steam for review!Jun 1, 2017 - Community Announcements(If you haven't seen it yet, make sure to check out the Microcosm release trailer!) I just added Microcosm 0.1.2 to the Steam review queue. Hopefully this can be very close to the initial build that goes out (I'm shooting for early next week at this point). http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/44ed53348a6066c2e32d64f1114278210dbda47b.png Assuming no major issues come back from Steam review, all my Micocosm time until release will be focused on bugfixes, performance improvements, and UI/overall polish! This is getting so close! -paul http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28529395/b0bdd34a72a20e0a93d5ade80fe55c402026abfd.pngFirst progress update, save/load complete!May 12, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsHey everyone, I just realized I should probably be posting updates to Steam, so here goes with the first one. I've been making great progress on Microcosm over the last couple weeks, and I'm currently still planning to start Early Access somewhere around the end of this month or beginning of June. One huge hurdle I just got past is getting save/load system working. Here's a quick video of that in action, for anyone interested (pardon the Twitter quality): https://twitter.com/paulstraw/status/862976806185385984 For anyone who doesn't know, the reason that video is in "lens-mode" is because the virtual camera used for saving and loading also controls what's output to the primary display. This is super useful for making time-lapses, and also works as a nice "steadicam-like" device for pan shots. Next up for me is a bunch of stress-testing, bug-fixing, performance-improving, color-palette-creating fun! I hope you're as excited to try Microcosm as I am to release it. ✨ 📦 Stay boxy! -paulFirst progress update, save/load complete!May 12, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsHey everyone, I just realized I should probably be posting updates to Steam, so here goes with the first one. I've been making great progress on Microcosm over the last couple weeks, and I'm currently still planning to start Early Access somewhere around the end of this month or beginning of June. One huge hurdle I just got past is getting save/load system working. Here's a quick video of that in action, for anyone interested (pardon the Twitter quality): https://twitter.com/paulstraw/status/862976806185385984 For anyone who doesn't know, the reason that video is in "lens-mode" is because the virtual camera used for saving and loading also controls what's output to the primary display. This is super useful for making time-lapses, and also works as a nice "steadicam-like" device for pan shots. Next up for me is a bunch of stress-testing, bug-fixing, performance-improving, color-palette-creating fun! I hope you're as excited to try Microcosm as I am to release it. ✨ 📦 Stay boxy! -paul
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