Plants, Paths, and why next week's update will be a bit late, but pretty cool!

As anyone who has played the alphas can tell you, one of the shortcomings we've yet to fully address is reactive foliage.  The current, rather primitive system we have in place only affects grass, and when you head into thicker woods, the camera is sometimes obscured by leaves and branches.

Over the past week, we've come upon a workable solution to this issue.  However, as with everything, it is an iterative process.  We got off to a slow start - we're beginning with the grasses, and moving our way upward, in scale.  I figure that within a week, we will not only have the grasses reacting more smoothly, but we'll also have fern leaves and bush branches reacting to the passage of both the Cats & the NPCs.  

We'll be fixing the issue with the camera soon after we get that resolved, ensuring that in the beta, you will never lose sight of your cat!  We also got the Deer set along their proper paths again within the Cathedral Woods - and the Geese have resumed their three island-wide patrols.

I believe on Monday I can find time to add some ambient "floating particles" to the camera.  Those always add an extra layer of realism...

PENDING ANY BIG NEWS, I WILL NOT BE POSTING ANOTHER PATREON UPDATE UNTIL MAY 9TH.

It probably might not come as a surprise to anyone who follows this project that I've not taken a vacation, in over ten years.  Fortunately, I got a refund from my Maine state taxes, so...

While I will be working my usual schedule over the next week, I will be departing on Friday morning for a weekend stay out on one of the islands of Casco Bay.  This will be an interesting experience, because while I have visited the islands hundreds of times - outside of the two times I have been stranded out on the islands (LONG story,) I have never actually stayed out there for any extended period of time.

This will definitely be a working vacation - I don't expect to spend much time in the small cabin we rented, because I'll be taking advantage of this time to take as many reference photos as possible.  I'll also be conducting that tour I mentioned...

So, expect a LOT of new stuff, when we next meet!

Thanks again for your support, patience, and confidence!