A revolution in BAR graphics: remastered textures, effects and lighting

We have just dropped a game-changing graphical update which includes new, more realistic and immersive textures, improved lighting and shading effects, and enhanced terrain and environment visuals. Enjoy!

January 2, 2023

We’re taking it to the next level!

Hi folks! After a bit of media silence, we’re back with an absolutely groundbreaking graphical update for Beyond All Reason (BAR). We’re positive everyone who appreciates the visual side of the game will be thrilled to find out what we’ve been working on for the last couple of months.

This update brings a whole new level of realism and immersion to the game, with stunningly detailed new textures, enhanced lighting and shading effects, and improved terrain and environment visuals. It also pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with the BAR engine and is sure to be a hit with fans of the game. There is a lot to talk about, so without further ado, let's dive into the details!

The bigger the better

The sheer size of our latest update has kept us busy for the last couple of months, and many of the improvements required months of work to implement and polish them up in time for this update. But we’re now ready to take advantage of our new GL4 graphic library, which opens up a world of possibilities. One is the enhancement of many shaders and widgets in terms of looks and performance.

Watch the video below to see a summary of the update.

You can also watch it on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already!

Let us light the way

We’ve implemented a new lighting system —  GL4 deferred lights for the techies out there — that brings major improvements to how BAR renders lights. You’ll now see stunning searchlights, better lighting effects, and even a new night mode that adds a whole new level of realism to the game.

A large number of units also have functional headlights to light the way, which gives you even more immersion as you search through the dark of night. What about my FPS? Don’t worry, the new system is much more optimized than the last, so we can all enjoy the new lighting without a significant drop in FPS. 🙂

We’ll be making more and more use of the new technology as time goes on, so stay tuned! In the coming updates we are planning to implement a night mode in which lights will constitute a real part of the gameplay influencing what you can see and what remains hidden. Don’t forget to give a big thanks to Ivand, Beherith, Floris, and IceXuick for their tremendous work!

A new look for CORTEX

The textures for the CORTEX faction have been completely overhauled to bring you highly detailed units and structures. You’ll notice the enhanced contrast and resolution of the textures, as well as, being able to recognize units more easily. The new textures work especially well with the new lighting system, and by design, now show reflections to make the materials look more realistic.

We couldn't be more thankful to our new team member Zagupi, who made an amazing effort on the new textures and has shown remarkable attention to detail.

Explosions here, some fire there

We’ve got some new tools and have taken full advantage of them to bring you improved special effects and animated textures. So things like explosions, flames, smoke, and other effects will look better than ever. You might say they’ve now got more oomph!

Shout out to IceXuick for the amazing effects you’ll see on a number of explosions and weapons.

Scorch the battlefield

We’ve redesigned the ground scaring system to show more detail when an area is damaged by explosions or other weapons. For example, craters now have added depth, rubble, and scorched ground around them, which makes them look like real craters. Additionally the blood splashes have been improved using the same technology, making the Raptor mode even more brutal.

There’s also a beautiful effect of the ground getting red hot after each impact, which makes it look even more believable and dynamic. The aftermath of a battle will be a real sight to behold!

New explosion craters
Enhanced blood splatters

Let the bodies hit the floor

Continuing on from our 50+ upgraded unit animations… post, we’ve been working hard to create new death animations for each unit, and this update brings you another 20. It’s those small details that make the biggest difference for player immersion and satisfaction, and we’re dedicated to adding more and more of these details for your enjoyment.

There’s also some new idle animations in the game, but we are not going to reveal them here, so let us know when you find these awesome easter eggs! 🙂

Pawn death animation Welder death animation Umbrella death animation

Thanks to PtaQ as we know you’re working hard on these! And also Beherith for preparing the workflow!

It’s looking a bit foggy

Time to make it atmospheric! We’re excited to announce a new fog system — Global Fog GL4  —  is in the works! This will replace the existing cloud system and will bring a whole new cinematic experience to the gameplay.

We can’t wait to show you the final results and to experience it with you. Stay tuned for more updates as development continues. We’re counting on you Beherith!

As green as grass

Yes that’s right, we’ve even improved the grass! The grass looks 10x better and will now be removed when placing structures or when an explosion has happened.  

And we’re just getting started!

This update marks the first big breakthrough since the Spring Engine developers have blessed us with new toys to play with. There’s still a lot of things we can improve on, and we’ll definitely keep delivering the best we can. In a sense, the possibilities are endless!

If you’ve made it this far, then we hope you’ve enjoyed the read, and that you’ll stay tuned for future updates.

You can also find out more about our Steam release by checking out our Steam Release Checklist.

Community updates

We also want to celebrate some news about our community! We have a few new additions to our team since our last update!

  • Hobo Joe - an  awesome graphics/front-end dev interested in helping the development of our new dedicated lobby in a joint effort with Jazcash
  • MrGuBerry - a professional technical writer and copywriter, who will hopefully help us cover BAR news in a more comprehensive and systematic manner.
  • Borg King - a real master of statistical analysis that helped us immensely with gathering and analysing balance data, and figuring out an improved team balancing and player ranking system.
  • Itanthias - a great developer that helps us polish the gameplay on many levels, from fixing unit script issues to testing and improving the balance.
  • Zagupi - an absolute 3D modelling pro who created the enhanced CORTEX textures and helps us with other modelling tasks.
  • Wilkubyk - all-round C++ dev helping us with new widgets and most notably working on the campaign missions API 
  • Okema - a developer helping us to gather data, stress-test and improve crucial parts of our game’s infrastructure.

Kudos to all the new contributors for the amazing job you’re doing! It’s really heartwarming when we see more and more ambitious people taking interest in helping us take BAR to the next level.

It’s over NINE THOUSAND!!!

UPDATE | 28/03/2023:
Actually this is already old news. We're already over 13.500 members on Discord. Recent influx by the awesome work done by multiple (very) kind streamers and youtubers has led to a major growth-rate increase.

We’re thrilled to announce that our Discord community has reached an exciting milestone, we now have over 9000 members! We’re grateful for each and every one of you, and we’re so glad to have such a wonderful, supportive, and engaged group of people to share experiences and ideas with. Thank you for being a part of this amazing community. Here's to many more great conversations and connections in the future!

We’re taking it to the next level!

Hi folks! After a bit of media silence, we’re back with an absolutely groundbreaking graphical update for Beyond All Reason (BAR). We’re positive everyone who appreciates the visual side of the game will be thrilled to find out what we’ve been working on for the last couple of months.

This update brings a whole new level of realism and immersion to the game, with stunningly detailed new textures, enhanced lighting and shading effects, and improved terrain and environment visuals. It also pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with the BAR engine and is sure to be a hit with fans of the game. There is a lot to talk about, so without further ado, let's dive into the details!

The bigger the better

The sheer size of our latest update has kept us busy for the last couple of months, and many of the improvements required months of work to implement and polish them up in time for this update. But we’re now ready to take advantage of our new GL4 graphic library, which opens up a world of possibilities. One is the enhancement of many shaders and widgets in terms of looks and performance.

Watch the video below to see a summary of the update.

You can also watch it on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already!

Let us light the way

We’ve implemented a new lighting system —  GL4 deferred lights for the techies out there — that brings major improvements to how BAR renders lights. You’ll now see stunning searchlights, better lighting effects, and even a new night mode that adds a whole new level of realism to the game.

A large number of units also have functional headlights to light the way, which gives you even more immersion as you search through the dark of night. What about my FPS? Don’t worry, the new system is much more optimized than the last, so we can all enjoy the new lighting without a significant drop in FPS. 🙂

We’ll be making more and more use of the new technology as time goes on, so stay tuned! In the coming updates we are planning to implement a night mode in which lights will constitute a real part of the gameplay influencing what you can see and what remains hidden. Don’t forget to give a big thanks to Ivand, Beherith, Floris, and IceXuick for their tremendous work!

A new look for CORTEX

The textures for the CORTEX faction have been completely overhauled to bring you highly detailed units and structures. You’ll notice the enhanced contrast and resolution of the textures, as well as, being able to recognize units more easily. The new textures work especially well with the new lighting system, and by design, now show reflections to make the materials look more realistic.

We couldn't be more thankful to our new team member Zagupi, who made an amazing effort on the new textures and has shown remarkable attention to detail.

Explosions here, some fire there

We’ve got some new tools and have taken full advantage of them to bring you improved special effects and animated textures. So things like explosions, flames, smoke, and other effects will look better than ever. You might say they’ve now got more oomph!

Shout out to IceXuick for the amazing effects you’ll see on a number of explosions and weapons.

Scorch the battlefield

We’ve redesigned the ground scaring system to show more detail when an area is damaged by explosions or other weapons. For example, craters now have added depth, rubble, and scorched ground around them, which makes them look like real craters. Additionally the blood splashes have been improved using the same technology, making the Raptor mode even more brutal.

There’s also a beautiful effect of the ground getting red hot after each impact, which makes it look even more believable and dynamic. The aftermath of a battle will be a real sight to behold!

New explosion craters
Enhanced blood splatters

Let the bodies hit the floor

Continuing on from our 50+ upgraded unit animations… post, we’ve been working hard to create new death animations for each unit, and this update brings you another 20. It’s those small details that make the biggest difference for player immersion and satisfaction, and we’re dedicated to adding more and more of these details for your enjoyment.

There’s also some new idle animations in the game, but we are not going to reveal them here, so let us know when you find these awesome easter eggs! 🙂

Pawn death animation Welder death animation Umbrella death animation

Thanks to PtaQ as we know you’re working hard on these! And also Beherith for preparing the workflow!

It’s looking a bit foggy

Time to make it atmospheric! We’re excited to announce a new fog system — Global Fog GL4  —  is in the works! This will replace the existing cloud system and will bring a whole new cinematic experience to the gameplay.

We can’t wait to show you the final results and to experience it with you. Stay tuned for more updates as development continues. We’re counting on you Beherith!

As green as grass

Yes that’s right, we’ve even improved the grass! The grass looks 10x better and will now be removed when placing structures or when an explosion has happened.  

And we’re just getting started!

This update marks the first big breakthrough since the Spring Engine developers have blessed us with new toys to play with. There’s still a lot of things we can improve on, and we’ll definitely keep delivering the best we can. In a sense, the possibilities are endless!

If you’ve made it this far, then we hope you’ve enjoyed the read, and that you’ll stay tuned for future updates.

You can also find out more about our Steam release by checking out our Steam Release Checklist.

Community updates

We also want to celebrate some news about our community! We have a few new additions to our team since our last update!

  • Hobo Joe - an  awesome graphics/front-end dev interested in helping the development of our new dedicated lobby in a joint effort with Jazcash
  • MrGuBerry - a professional technical writer and copywriter, who will hopefully help us cover BAR news in a more comprehensive and systematic manner.
  • Borg King - a real master of statistical analysis that helped us immensely with gathering and analysing balance data, and figuring out an improved team balancing and player ranking system.
  • Itanthias - a great developer that helps us polish the gameplay on many levels, from fixing unit script issues to testing and improving the balance.
  • Zagupi - an absolute 3D modelling pro who created the enhanced CORTEX textures and helps us with other modelling tasks.
  • Wilkubyk - all-round C++ dev helping us with new widgets and most notably working on the campaign missions API 
  • Okema - a developer helping us to gather data, stress-test and improve crucial parts of our game’s infrastructure.

Kudos to all the new contributors for the amazing job you’re doing! It’s really heartwarming when we see more and more ambitious people taking interest in helping us take BAR to the next level.

It’s over NINE THOUSAND!!!

UPDATE | 28/03/2023:
Actually this is already old news. We're already over 13.500 members on Discord. Recent influx by the awesome work done by multiple (very) kind streamers and youtubers has led to a major growth-rate increase.

We’re thrilled to announce that our Discord community has reached an exciting milestone, we now have over 9000 members! We’re grateful for each and every one of you, and we’re so glad to have such a wonderful, supportive, and engaged group of people to share experiences and ideas with. Thank you for being a part of this amazing community. Here's to many more great conversations and connections in the future!

Some images

Mentionable team members

Intel received from

More news

Scavenger feed