The Lighting Update :: Alpha 3

With version alpha 2 being thoroughly tested by our lovely patrons and other community members, we want to share everything that will be coming and changing in the next release version, version alpha 3.

We'll split the information about the update up into 3 sections: Additions, Changes and Fixes.

Firstly, the following has been added to CBR: Keycards

The next version will see the addition of a new set of items, keycards. They'll be used to open doors that have keycard buttons, another addition to CBR in alpha 3. They're a lot fancier and nicer looking than the old door buttons. The models have already been shared in other posts, thank you to everyone that took part in voting on the poll!

Map Props

The map will see a few changes (more mentioned later on), namely the addition of props like desks and drawers and basic generation of them. They'll be scattered around the hallways and some points of interest. They will also contain some items for you to collect.

Furthermore, the map got some more details added with bins, consoles and other map props being placed around. As seen in a recent X post, bins can be interacted with physically, so you can push them over and all that!

New Items

As mentioned, keycards have been added as a new item type.

Next to that, another new item are batteries for charging flashlights. To charge them, you drag the batteries onto the flashlight inside the inventory. They'll be spawning in the aforementioned map props later on.

Visual Improvements

Alpha 3 will see big improvements in the visual aspect of the game. Since there are so many, we'll split this section up in two parts: General Improvements/Additions and Lighting.

General Improvements:

Both volumetric and distance fog have been added, which will not only look better, but will also help make everything look a bit more eery and horror-like. Some new materials were added as well, like ones for iron and glass surfaces. Next to that, reflection probes for reflective surfaces were also added, so iron, glass and other surfaces will look a lot more realistic and nicer. The shader for glass was also updated. Staying on the topic of eye-candy and making thing look better, global illumination is another addition in the new release version. It'll help tying everything together, while also being a general visual improvement. The last thing we'd like to mention here are new shaders for posters and wind representation. They will tie wall posters into the visual style of the rest of the environment and bring a whole new aspect into the graphics in form of wind.

Lighting:

With global illumination and the new fog types (as mentioned above), the game will see a lot of changes and advances in lighting as well. The lighting has been completely overhauled, with there now being directed lighting, randomly selected lighting setups, standardised lights and much more. Performance should also improve, with a few changes and additions to material loading, shader compilers, hallway culling and much more.

Quality Of Life

Some quality of life additions have been carried out as well. There is now a new settings option for an Epilepsy safe mode which should help against harsh visuals and lighting.

The graphics settings now have a few more options as well, to tinker with some more aspects of the game and tweak it as needed. Items can now be thrown with a new keybind. Items also have updated descriptions.

These changes have been carried out: SCP-173 AI

The AI of SCP-173 was further improved and built upon in version alpha 3. It now has transitions between states, new behaviours and is more complex in general. The only thing to keep in mind, is that it's still been nerfed until the AI is complete.

Hallway Models

The hallway models were updated, with some more variety and details. The pipe models have also been replaced with much more realistic and natural looking ones. Lights have also been added to most of them, which helps with ambience and visuals.

Torch Cookies

The torch cookies got an update as well. The placeholder has been replaced with a more realistic and usable one. We took a few references from other games and other sources.

The following bugs have been fixed:

• Sliding Across Doorways
  • Previously, sliding across doorways sometimes got you stuck and made you unable to move. With alpha 6, this should no longer happen as the issue has been resolved.

Future plans:

Finally, we want to quickly go over some future plans for future updates of Containment Breach Reborn. The biggest focus of Alpha 4 will be sound design. We're hoping to add some voicelines, new sounds for SCP-173 and more. On top of that, we're planning on adding a new SCP that is original to CBR, meaning it wasn't seen in the original game or its respective mods. There will be a smaller visual update in the update, but it won't be shared until it's ready, so see it as a surprise. Some long stretch goals are to finish and polish the SCP-173 AI for the Early Access release and changing player to world interaction in a few ways

You can check out our Trello to keep up with the current steps and plans of development.

If you want some more in-depth information about how the project is going and how it has been for the team working on it, as well as some answers to other frequently asked questions, you can check out the update video here.