Pixel Tennis Changelog

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Character Design
Added human character models Kuro and Lea
Added rackets
Added support for equipment swapping
- Remove character geometry behind equipment to improve performance and prevent clipping
- Move clothing with the players bones
- Adjust equipments depending on other gear (e.g. widen bottom part of a shirt when wearing a skirt, increase character height based on shoe sole thickness, ...)
- Adjust eye color
Added 6 hair styles
Added shirt, shorts, skirt, jeans, shoes!
Added support for facial expressions
Added "anime"-shader with cell shading and outline support
Added support for equipment variations (different materials and textures)
Added simplified models (LOD) which are used, when the camera is far away to improve performance

Animation
Added custom character animations "Idle", "Run", "Stroke", "Lob", "Smash/Serve", "Miss", "Knockback", "Dive", "GuardBreak"
Animate eye blinking
Custom weight painting for better joint animation
Characters look at the ball (head movement)
Knockback sliding progresses more natural

Visuals
Switched renderer to Universal Render Pipeline
Improved lighting of all courts
Added custom skyboxes
Improved shadow quality/resolution for highest setting
Allow setting custom render resolution (0.5x - 2.0x) for better performance
Support for "AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution" for the highest quality setting

UI
Replaced local player glow with player circle in team color
Added/Improved some UI animations
Added more random loading screen messages
Added consent for logging ip address and device id
Updated credits

Gameplay
Increased hit air hit stun
Dive knockback now overrides smash knockback due to its higher stun time

Network Gameserver
Doubled server capacity/performance
Improved logging

Misc
Updated to Unity 2021.3 LTS
Removed unused assets

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Character Design
Added slight smile to neutral pose
Added support for clothing color variations
Added support for hair color variations
Added support for left-handed characters

Visuals
Improved character model performance
Improved court lighting
Added soft shadow support
Added more details to Court Arena pillars
Added water shader to Court Isle
Improved antialiasing performance
Fixed changing graphics quality during match did not set post processing

Added awesome Dragon Racket by Milov

Pixel Tennis Dragon Racket Screenshot.jpg (22.3 KiB) Viewed 44214 times

Gameplay
Added boundaries to Court Isle
Moved Court Isle Palm trees further out to not block the ball path on doubles matches
Removed colliders of court marks as they could slightly slow down player movement

Network Gameserver
Simplified database access
Added support to automatically update database schema from files
Fixed using a "Character Slot" item does not require logging off and on again
Fixed crash with malformed admin command

Shop
Added way to handle obsolete items. Purchased items that will not be valid in the next update (e.g. pill faces) will be automatically sold for a higher rate compared to manually selling the item.

Android
Fixed ball prediction not working

Misc
Improved handling of the internal item catalog

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Visuals
Greatly improved character equipment loading performance
Improved ambient court lighting performance
Improved effect pooling performance
Added custom ball model (if you have not noticed yet, the current tennis ball is just a plain yellow sphere ^^)
Added new smash, guard break and special shot hit effects
Added camera shake on special shot return
Added racket charge animation
Added light to special shots
Fixed charge animation not cleared after special shot

Item System
Updated item handling to potentially allow for individual item leveling/refining
Set default equipment color to grey
Removed "Invisible" property from rackets

Network Gameserver
Fixed character creation and attributes set error
Fixed database query error on initialization
Log device id

UI
Added permanent version overlay

Gameplay
Reverted diminishing returns for main attributes

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Audio
Added individual music for each court

UI
Concept for new UI

Misc
Successfully run 16 player gameplay/stability test with new character models and rendering pipeline
Updated Unity release due to issues with Visual Studio 2022

Rebuilding the UI is the main priority right now. Why? Because it will allow for easier changes and additions in the future

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Visuals
Fixed court basic net shadow
Fixed court isle plant artifacts
Adjusted lightmap resolutions for ground objects

UI
Added workflow for new ui system
Rebuild main ui
Rebuild popup messages
Rebuild login menu
Rebuild settings menu
Rebuild custom progress bar logic
Rebuild character select menu
Rebuild character menu
Rebuild lobby menu
Rebuild room settings menu
Rebuild ui localization
Added more ui animations
Added custom ui scaling logic to better handle exotic screen aspect ratios
Added handling for phone's notch area (true fullscreen with some shifted menu elements)
Improved rendering of custom fonts
Added several workarounds for bugs and replacements for missing features of the new ui system x.x

Misc
Updated Unity version
Updated anime style shader
Added more framerate options

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

UI
Ditched Unity's new ui system, because of missing features and wacky workarounds
Added custom ui controls and graphics
Rebuild existing ui with reusable elements
Improved text rendering performance
Improved performance of showing 3D objects in 2D ui
Improved text translation logic
Improved ui sprite performance
Added custom ui scaling logic (again)
Added more ui animations
Added always visible menu title
Make chat available in all menus

Pixel Tennis 2023 UI Preview.png (39.71 KiB) Viewed 42788 times

Network Gameserver
Added custom network compression

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

UI
Added more custom ui controls and graphics
Added localization option of fixed values (court names, game modes,...)
Added rotating character models in previews
Added fixed color palette for visual consistency
Added custom ui scaling based on aspect ratio
Improved progress bar animation logic
Improved menu handling stability
Updated character menu
Updated settings menu
Updated input menu
Updated inventory menu
Updated shop menu
Updated singleplayer menu
Updated singleplayer details menu
Updated credits menu
Updated lobby menu
Updated ranking menu
Updated room menu and slots
Updated character online list menu
Updated match menu
Updated exit menu
Updated global overlays
Fixed "Level Up" dialog could be shown after switching characters

Misc
Updated to Unity 2022.2
Removed requirement for a pixeltennis.de account to play online

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Visuals
Improved bloom performance

Network Gameserver
Greatly improved player position sync efficiency by ~60%
Fixed player position jitter on MatchRoundStart
Improved general stability on high load
Fixed a bug that could allow players to log in when authentication server is down

UI
Fixed "Esc" press only working once after exit confirmation prompt

Misc
Working on anti-cheat measurements
- Added internal replay system
- Start merging game logic code with server code for server side match validation
- Rebuilding match handling logic
- Added some form of client side protection

As there is no online activity for a long time now, I am allowing the server to rest a bit. You will be able to download and play Pixel Tennis again, when the new version is released!

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Visuals
Replaced camera with Cinemachine
Added smooth transitions from/to special shot view
Disabled AMD FSR if no scaling is required to improve performance
Added custom handling to improve image performance on bright objects in potato quality mode
Playing around with volumetric lighting and raytraced reflections

Gameplay
Fixed shot direction not correctly synced
Fixed cpu player could double hit/fault during serve

Audio
Added voice audio setting
Added referee/announcer voice [Sample]
- Voices for scores, match points, game points, aces

Network Gameserver
Moved more game logic to server side to prevent manipulation
Fixed other players teleporting back and forth when a new match round starts

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Gameplay
Added mutator support
Allow setting up unranked matches (specific mutators will automatically disable ranking)

Pixel Tennis Mutator Settings.png (8.33 KiB) Viewed 41652 times

Network Gameserver
Share more gameplay logic between client and server
Added partial shot validation on server side
Added special meter validation on server side
Added expiration date for account bans
Fixed user authentication failure due to php debug messages invalidating expected response
Added administration REST api

UI
Added option to view current room settings as non room master
Added an additional "language"

Audio
Added more voice clips for match completion, draw and disconnect
Fixed "Game set and match" voice played twice

Misc
Project restructuring
Update of game engine and 3rd party libraries
Updated game server runtime/compatibility from Mono to .NET Core

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Networking Gameplay
Smoothed out player position synchronization over network

Gameplay
Added a bit of sliding when starting a charged shot while running

Animation
Tweak running animation to also support sliding

Item System
Allow merging two items of the same type. Use the attributes of one item and the visual appearance of the other one!

UI
Allow accessing most menus from within a room
- You can now change equipment or go shopping while staying in a room
- You can see the room chat in all menus
Added indicator of unread messages, when chat is hidden
Ask player to automatically equip item, after it was bought
Added chat keyboard shortcut hint during matches

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Item System
Added item refinement system
Added voucher system

UI
Added "Got Item" dialog to show newly "obtained" items
Updated settings menu
Fixed some more cases where stacked dialogs could lock up the UI
Make level up notification more fancy

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Item System
Published Pixel Tennis Character Preview tool
Added item refinement system. You can merge duplicate items to make it stronger!
Added voucher system (I heard, there is already a voucher somewhere hidden...)

UI
Fixed a bug, that could prevent closing windows, when multiple dialogs should be shown at the same time
Added "Item Got" dialog after purchasing, refining or style changing an item
Make level up notification look more fancy
Added shadow casting to character previews in the menu

Character Design
Increased length of Lea's skirt
Improved equipment model handling for better accuracy and potential physics based hair/clothing support

Audio
Added footstep sounds
Fixed voice volume setting not applied on start
Make music more intense on final match point

Network Gameserver
Allow more mutator combinations in ranked matches

Database
Created tooling to automatically update database schema on startup

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Gameplay
Fixed special shot meter raising without having a special shot racket equipped

Network Gameserver
Moved more game logic to server side to prevent manipulation
Fixed double used message id doing funny things when typing
Fixed ball hitting outside of court scored twice (once for each bounce)
Fixed serve throw could score based on the shot of the last match point

UI
Refining or model swapping an item now has a progress indicator
Added a virtual cursor to control the whole UI via gamepad (no mouse, keyboard or touchscreen needed, except for typing)
Remapping buttons now show gamepad specific icons

Misc
Replaced old input system
- Added Dual Shock (Playstation) gamepad support
- Added D-Pad support

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Gameplay
Added match logic for an in game tutorial
Fixed incorrect ball hitbox on shot prediction
Fixed empty player hitbox on cpu shot prediction
Fixed wrong court boundary generation
Fixed knockback ignoring collision, which could glitch players outside of the court boundaries
Added support for non-player ball server
Added support for projectiles (other than the ball...)

UI
Fixed ui not reverting to last menu after playing a match
Added new nostalgic setting

Misc
Update Unity runtime, networking library and 3rd party assets
Fixed shader collection bug in Unity - now, compiling only requires to evaluate 8.000 shader variants instead of 19.000.000 ...
Reorganizing project structure

Network Gameserver
Added logging of outgoing messages
Added logging of match messages
Fixed player position was echoed back to sending peer
Fixed network player position not correctly applied on high lag/packet loss situations
Fixed a potential multi-threading deadlock
Fixed error in API for returning active matches
Fixed room does not get cleared, when a player disconnects while in a singleplayer match
Singleplayer matches now are also logged as regular matches

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Gameplay
Added tutorial
- added tutorial recommendation for new players
- tutorial can be selected from singleplayer menu
- added tutorial mission description
- added input hints for gamepad and keyboard

Pixel Tennis Tutorial Mode Mission.png (158.63 KiB) Viewed 33534 times

Fixed shot validation error when player serves the ball within 1 second
Fixed wrong MatchScoreState, if team blue has advantage
Decrease wait time for lower level cpu player to serve

Character Design
Reprocessed all character and equipment models
Streamlined model conversion with custom python scripts in Blender
Added support for different eye colors
Added angel wings for supporters <3
Fixed wrong racket rotation on shot animation

Gameserver
Added support for server selection list

Misc
Dynamically disable render features in potato quality setting to improve performance
Fixed error when loading languages on Linux
Fixed oversized mouse cursor on Linux
Updated third party addons
Added special menu

Website
Users need to be activated manually after registration because of automated forum spam

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Website / Forum
Migrated to pixeltennis.com (previously pixeltennis.de) in order to have a more international representation

Gameplay
Players cannot do special shots, when they are in dive distance (too far away from the ball)
Allow blocking special shots and guard breaks with perfect timing

UI
Added player information (hp/special) to the left side of the match ui

Pixel Tennis Player Preview.png (99.1 KiB) Viewed 31215 times

Added item thumbnails to shop and inventory

Pixel Tennis Item Preview Screenshot.png (36.46 KiB) Viewed 31215 times

Added item preview for "style change", "refine" and "item got" menu
Added support for loading news from url as image, text or video
Allow news to be hidden until new news are available
Added support for *** on screen keyboard
Hide hint to toggle chat with ENTER or CTRL, when platform is mobile or ***
Overhauled match ui
Updated player name tag and slot icon
Replaced font for Receiver and Miss indicator.
Reverted to player glow instead of colorized directional circle
Make Miss indicator shake more

Networking
Fixed velocity based knockback should not be synced to non-local clients

Gameserver
Fixed api shutdown not working, if nobody was connected

Item System
Added supporter wings to item catalog

Animation
Play charge animation during special shot time freeze

Audio
Added more announcer voice clips
Added sound for ItemGot menu
Added sound for running over the tutorial floor markers

Character Design
Look more towards the front when charging
Fixed eqipment positions not correct for the first frame

Misc
Fixed memory leak on profile picture generation
Fixed post processing antialiasing settings inverted
Added MSAA 2x to best quality setting
Fixed new installs preselect Potato quality setting
Set default render scale to 1/2 for high dpi mobile devices.
Fixed resolution stretched on android after changing settings

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

3D Modeling
Updated racket model to support multiple color variations
Added hair color and style variations

Character Design
Improved character shading and outlines

UI
Increased brightness for 3d object in main menu
Fixed match character portrait sometimes missing
Fixed overlapping match character portraits
Improved ui blocking logic
Fixed error when exiting menus in certain conditions

Gameplay
Reduce serve and receive repeats for tutorial mode

Item System
Added optional description text to items
Added "important" indicator for items that cannot be sold/destroyed

Misc
Created a gameplay trailer
Use individual post processing settings for courts
Increased bloom
Added volumetric lights to Arena
Fixed timing inaccuracy, when game was running for multiple days
Fixed errors when delayed actions were executed during scene changes
Semi-automated release build process

Database
Allow linking Pixel Tennis account with a third party account

Network Gameserver
Improved polling logic for less cpu usage and better performance
Fixed reloading a room should not unready all players

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Gameplay
Make special bar fill faster on hit
Slightly reduce charge to special ratio
Fixed wrong player rotation for spectators
Added hidden missions that reward items on completion
Reduced required charge level for tutorial mode
When playing a match, there is a chance to be rewarded with an item, which can not be purchased from the shop

Character Design
Added 4 special shirt designs, which can not be purchased from the shop
Added 2 special hair styles, which can not be purchased from the shop

Animation
Fixed miss running animation not synced to clients, when player was standing still
Updated special shot trail
Disable trail effects, when ball stopped bouncing
Added smash shockwave below hitting player
Added impact mark on the ground where a smash or special shot landed
Added visual effect and audio if special meter is full

Item System
Added material item category
Added gold bits (material) which can be sold for the original price

UI
Fixed third party keyboard overlay opened up in the wrong position
Fixed ItemGot dialog could be overlayed by another menu
Added translator names to language files
Added translation guide

Misc
Rename currency from Pixel to Gold, as Pixel(s) will be used for something else later
Make special shots sound like smashes instead of normal ball hits
Increased water render distance for court isle
Added basic speedhack protection
New players start with 0 gold. But they can get 500 gold by playing the tutorial

Network Gameserver
Fixed spectator could not leave ongoing match
Automatically end match, if score calculation failed multiple times.
Added encryption to admin API

[WongKit]

Released on 20.04.2024

Character Design
Disabled back face culling for clothing
Adjusted skin outline

Item System
Reduce price for item style change
Added minimum level requirement to use "Wing of Memory"
Renamed "Wing of Memory"

Gameplay
Weakened banana shot curve
Improved detection of afk grinding
Slightly Increase exp requirement per level. As a result, a free attribute reset is applied to all characters
Slightly adjusted maximum exp reward
Added daily and weekly reward for playing matches

UI
Fixed use/equip from item got dialog not working correctly
Fixed white square in item got menu, when item has no preview
Fixed error when joining a room through the online player list
Added Romanian translation by Milov
Updated French translation by faller-magie
Updated German translation
Added item previews for all materials and consumable items
Added item previews for eye colors
Added room indicator, if player browses other menus while also waiting in a room
Removed lose count in singleplayer stats

Misc
Removed third party library reference in updater to fix Android builds
Removed some debug coding from release builds
Updated client and api version
Prepared posts/site updates for release
Created release builds

Gameserver
Fixed invalid character name validation for names containing the word "admin"

This is post 100 and the final changelog before the new public release of Pixel Tennis.