Howdy! šŸ¤ 

Itā€™s that time again, and as described in the 0.8.7 blog post, we are marking our 0.9.0 release today! While our playtesters may have been on this code for a while, the effort done by the team bringing all of the goodies below deserves to be highlighted!

So without further ado:

Speedy Thing Goes In, Speedy Thing Comes Out

The biggest, most exciting part of this update is Aperture Scienceā€™s very own secret sauce: Portals.

Using the linked_portal_door entity, mappers can now create some mind bending maps, or just seamlessly connect two separate parts of their map. While there are some bugs and limitations, and mappers should still be cognisant of how theyā€™re using them, weā€™re extremely excited for the potential our mappers now have to create unique gameplay.

If youā€™re a mapper with a key, Hex has written a guide on how to use these new portals on our docs site! If youā€™re a mapper without a key, join our Discord server and let Gocnak or Aux know about your skills!

Panoramic View

0.9.0 marks the first release towards implementing our full Panorama UI. With this update, Fingerprince and SlidyBat have implemented a Panorama main menu, settings, and loading screen, with much more on the way!

Up next on the docket is: menu drawer panel, map selector, and of course, the HUD. We will also be implementing more original panels and UX after we finish porting, so stay tuned for those!

Savestates Just Got Moreā€¦ Explosive

Savestates, commonly known as savelocs or checkpoints, have been updated in 0.9.0 to store explosives. Having trouble hitting that quint? Did you fail your super-secret full triple sticky setup? Do you just suck at juggling concs? Have no fear, saved explosives are here!

This is just the start for more work to be done to Savestates. We understand that for mappers and players alike, savestates are the ultimate tool, so we have a lot more planned for Savestates in the future, stay tuned for updates!

What a View (Model)

Our wonderful 3D artist False_ has touched up the Rocket and Sticky launchers, bringing the design more in line with how the 1.0.0 art direction is planned to be. Utilizing PBR to the fullest, these default weapon viewmodels really show how a more modernized rendering pipeline can make the game look better and better!

Rocket launcher:

Sticky Launcher:

Try to Be More Social

Weā€™ve started to expand our social presence as we start to approach our 1.0.0 release.

First off, weā€™ve created a LinkTree with all of the important Momentum Mod links, all in one spot! If thereā€™s any Momentum to bookmark, this would be the one.

For all the zoomers in chat, weā€™ve created accounts on two more platforms and plan to add some quick showcase-style content to:

TikTok
Instagram

While weā€™re testing the waters on these platforms, the main chunk of content will come closer to and well after 1.0.0, so slap that fatass follow button follow us if youā€™d like to!

Help Wanted!

The Momentum Mod team is looking for help! Weā€™re in high need for:

  • Web Developer (Angular, C#)
  • User Interface / Experience Designer (UI/UX)
  • Concept artist (Character)
  • Concept artist (Environment)

But thatā€™s not all! We have more roles in the form below, so check it out and apply if you fit any!

https://forms.gle/SbFqGESQBxYou4Ef7

Even if you donā€™t have experience with the roles, make sure to try to pass the word along to anyone that may be able to help out!

Note: Momentum is worked on by volunteers in their free time. Therefore, all of these positions are unpaid! However, working on the Momentum Mod team is a relaxed environment and an excellent opportunity for team-based development experience!

Full Changelog

Added

  • Mapper-placed Portal entities (linked_portal_door) (Chaos-FGD/pull/70)
  • Panorama stuff - main menu, webm background, settings (& search), loading screen, main menu model, tooltips
  • DX11 support on Linux via DXVK-native
  • Explosives in savestates (issues/1338)
  • $hdrscale parameter for DX11 Modulate shader (issues/585)
  • -nocustommount launch option (issues/1030)
  • -nogamemount launch option, skipping mounts.kv & mounts{} in gameinfo
  • Option to not mount moddir in mounts if ā€œmountmoddirā€ ā€œ0ā€
  • Boot load time optimizations for game mounting (issues/1328)
  • Port zonmaker over to Chaos & add as a pre-vbsp step (issues/1331, Chaos-FGD/pull/68)
  • New trigger for sticking explosives (issues/1365)
  • Absolute velocity for trigger_catapult
  • Hammer: button to disable drawing env_sprites
  • Hammer: new command type to copy a file if and only if it exists
  • Momentum fizzle & sprint sounds by Monolith
  • Tracy profiler - run with -tracy and -tracy_full for instrumentation data!

Fixed

  • Fixed paint taking on an incorrect color in lobbies or flicker (issues/229, issues/870)
  • Fixed r_drawdecals 0 still displaying decals on displacements (issues/879)
  • Fixed ā€˜super jumpā€™ in conc (issues/1092)
  • Fixed stickies not shooting when firing at the same time as leaving start zone (issues/1108)
  • DX11 - Fixed some broken transparent textures (issues/1295)
  • DX11 - Fixed overlays with transparency (issues/1296)
  • DX11 - Stickybomb activation ring too large (issues/1297)
  • DX11 - Fixed underwater rendering (issues/1298)
  • DX11 - Fixed some textures not rendering (issues/1316)
  • DX11 - Fixed mat_texture_list 1 not working (issues/1317)
  • DX11 - Fixed some Panorama buttons not rendering (issues/1374)
  • Fixed velocity not correctly resetting in saveloc (issues/1307)
  • Fixed SJ decals not rendering for the player (issues/1308)
  • Fixed speedometer text being covered by damage indicator (issues/1313)
  • Fixed chat commands bypassing sv_cheats (issues/1314)
  • Fixed rockets (and other dynamically spawnable entities) being incorrectly interpreted as static props on spawn (issues/1318)
  • Fixed func_buttonā€™s OnDamage output not firing the first time it is damaged (issues/1325)
  • Fixed certain console errors not printing on a new line (issues/1327)
  • Fixed pistol not having the burst mode draw animation (issues/1329)
  • Fixed stickybomb launcher not having the chargestop animation
  • Fixed mom_release_forward_on_jump (issues/1340)
  • Fixed Discord RPC for Linux (issues/1341)
  • Fixed missing input for func_tracktrain (was renamed) (issues/1346)
  • Prevent concs from spamming collision sound - added cvars to control bounce sounds (issues/1347)
  • Fixed stickybombs bouncing a little before sticking to world geometry (issues/1350)
  • Fixed VGUI lobby panel icons no longer scaling properly (issues/1392)
  • Fixed stickybombs sometimes falling through func_brushā€™s & other dynamic physics objects (issues/1234)
  • Fixed main menu logo spinning too fast on linux (issues/1207)
  • Fixed surf_stonework3 loading the engine cubemap (issues/1251)
  • Fixed toggling playerclip visibility crashing on maps with exactly 1 entity (issues/1266)
  • Fixed VGUI using wrong fonts on linux (issues/1270)
  • Fixed savelocs not saving using -hijack (and most likely other things on shutdown when using -hijack) (issues/1281)
  • Fixed skybox swap causing crash (issues/1285)
  • Fixed crash on surf_stonework3 (issues/1287)
  • Fixed certain skybox textures missing on Linux (issues/1288)
  • Fixed video settings crashing Linux (issues/1291)
  • Fixed smoke rendering (issues/1292)
  • Fixed crash on surf_pantheon (issues/1301)
  • Fixed world light halos not being removed after building cubemaps (Chaos-Source/issues/34)
  • Fixed -multirun launch option to launch multiple source games at once (Chaos-Source/issues/35)
  • Fixed exec command autocompleting mounted cfg files (Chaos-Source/issues/51)
  • Fixed discord rich presence for Linux (Chaos-Source/issues/77)
  • Hammer: Fix sculpt push dialog normal direction dropdown not changing the normal direction (Chaos-Source/issues/78)
  • Hammer: 3D Lightmap Grid view doesn't work correctly (Chaos-Source/issues/93)
  • Hammer: Fix entity window from locking user input (Chaos-Source/issues/133)
  • Hammer: Fix hammer viewport update bug when running under wine/proton
  • Hammer: Add option to disable material browser color sorting
  • Hammer: Fix possible crash on shutdown when discord is disabled
  • Hammer: properly validate instance io
  • Fixed engine errors having their title & description swapped (Chaos-Source/issues/89)
  • Add back model scaling
  • Fixed viewmodel not being affected by projected textures
  • Fixed noborder not being exposed by moving videocfg to cfg/
  • Fixed requested mip count not being respected when loading vtfs
  • Fixed crash related to having a lot of decals on a single map
  • Fixed hud messages from being cut off horizontally when too long
  • Fixed mouse cursor not showing up when opening new vgui panels on Linux
  • Removed all RCON related things due to not needing it + security issues with it
  • Fix crash on surf_zen2
  • Fix crash on surf_sanguine (CSS version)
  • Fix a VBSP crash on exit
  • Fix broken func_conveyor input
  • Destroy conc handhelds on attack2 fizzle and general explosive destroying
  • Fix sv_accelerate (and potentially over cvars) not being set to correct value in surf
  • Fix small crash on exit when discord is closed mid-game
  • Fix Engine Error message boxes not showing up on Linux

Improved

A truly awesome release, made possible by the incredible work of the Momentum Mod team and playtesters. But weā€™re nowhere close to done! Lots of Panorama still to come, weā€™ll be ironing out the kinks in Portals, and expanding savestates even more over the next few updates. I canā€™t wait to share it all with you!

As always, please consider wishlisting us on Steam (or tell your friends if you havenā€™t!), check out our community Discord server to hang out and stay up to date with all things Momentum, and hey, thanks for reading all of this blog post! You rock. :)

Until 0.9.1,
Nick (Gocnak) K.
Momentum Mod Project Lead