Aexia Early Access on Steam!
Aexia is now free for anyone to download and try!
Starting today, Aexia is available for download directly from the steam store! This is a huge milestone for us that reflects our team's confidence in Aexia's ability to stand on its own two feet. We're so excited to see what happens when more people start trying out Aexia for themselves.
Wait, Early Access?
Aexia is finally ready to leave closed beta behind and enter an early access stage.
We’ve come a long way in the last year, experiencing overwhelming levels of community support. With the help of all of our amazing community members.
We want to give a huge thank you to everyone who's tried out Aexia and provided their feedback so far. Aexia genuinely would not be the same without all of your help, it's been shaped by the community every step of the way and we've managed to build a powerful VR Roleplay platform.
And this is just the start of our early access phase. There's still so much more on the way. For now, visit the Aexia steam store page to download Aexia! Share it with your friends! It's time to step into the role.
What’s next
In the short term, we have two more massive features on the way that will change how you build in Aexia forever: Clone and Undo are coming very soon!
After that, we're going to do an optimization pass to help improve performance across the board for both Steam and Quest Standalone users. These refinements won't just improve framerate now, they will also help make room for bigger and better features later on down the line!
Now, without further ado, let's take a look at what's been added in the latest update:
What’s new
Streamer Tools
“Now everyone can see your beautiful avata- oh god wait, no, go back".
We’ve implemented a suite of camera tools for use in Aexia, allowing dynamic angles for recording and streaming. These tools are only available in PCVR, as they work by altering the desktop mirror that Aexia automatically creates for players on PC.
This should help improve the experience when using popular screen recording tools like OBS to capture your desktop output, or when streaming your Aexia window to friends on Discord.
Select the Stream button on the wrist menu to open the Streamer Tools
Hover puts the camera in front of you and sets it to move with you
Hand sticks the camera to your left-hand
Stay leaves the camera wherever it is on the stage, even if you move away from it
In both Hover and Stay modes, you can grab the camera using your Raycast and move it around
Experiment with dynamic camera angles, try using Hover to create an over-the-shoulder camera or put a Stay camera somewhere you know you’ll be spending a lot of time
Quickly switch between camera modes for even more dynamic camera action
Display toggles the in-game display of the camera output between three positions
Toggle a fourth time to disable the display and a fifth time to re-enable it
GM Layer appears only on Game Masters streamer tools. It toggles whether GM-specific user interface elements like the gizmo or portal connectors are visible in the camera output
Other Additions
Added the option to share the room code of a published stage to Aexia’s Discord Server, allowing others to hop in with you
Added native support for Knuckles, Vive, and HP Reverb controllers
Added a global volume slider to the comms menu, allowing players to adjust Aexia’s overall volume output in-game.
The tutorial video that appears on the first launch/update now has more controls, including an audio slider
What’s changed
Publishing Stages Without Actors
It’s no longer required to place actors on the stage to publish
If your stage has no actors, a Spawn Flag will be created
Move the Spawn Flag to wherever you’d like players to spawn into the stage
When you publish your stage, all actors will be available in the green room for players to choose
placing an actor will remove the spawn flag
Like before, when you publish a stage with any number of actors, only actors that have been placed will be available in the green room
Other Changes
Reverted the main menu and green room terrain to the circular platform
Adjusted audio falloff curves to feel smoother and more natural
You no longer hear someone out of only one ear when they stand directly to your side
Quest users now receive a permission request to share audio when Aexia starts rather than when entering a multiplayer session
Re-enabled player settings while in the main menu
The max height for placing props from the GM Tools has been increased
Sets now appear small when being placed or moved, making them easier to handle
When you use the comms menu to call someone, you can now hear each other regardless of distance
This can also be used to communicate between the stage and the green room
Sets now default to a gray texture that both GM and players can see, rather than being transparent for players
GM move speed now scales with GM size
You will now be notified if the password you entered is too short
Minimum password length increased from 5 to 6
Comfort Vignette is now disabled by default
The wrist menu now tracks to your hand instead of your forearm
The GM no longer forces everyone into the game when hitting “Start Game”.
Instead, once the GM has hit “Start Game”, players are now free to join the game session at their discretion.
Thumbstick scrolling of menus has been removed in favour of click-and-drag
Thumbstick scrolling was interacting poorly with other thumbstick features like GM flight
When de-possessing an NPC, the GM now spawns slightly above their current location
Portal teleportation is now faster, with a brief fade transition
You can now check the room code during a session in the settings menu under stage
Starred out by default to prevent accidentally sharing room codes on stream
Removed two starter templates with layouts confusing for new users
Good Night and Cycles Of Lacrae are still available in the Roleplay Directory on the Aexia Discord Server
You can now select a new character in the green room without first deselecting the previous one
Slightly lowered the keyboard relative to the game deck menu to prevent overlap
The scrollbar now shows up on menus that aren’t scrollable, but maxed out, to communicate that the menu isn’t scrollable
the login menu that appears in create mode when publishing a stage while not logged in now provides success/failure feedback
Added logic and animations to prevent some instances of avatars breaking when their headsets lose tracking
It still breaks when you move too low
Many small adjustments to UI text to make it easier to understand
Bugfixes
GMs will no longer fall endlessly after de-possessing an NPC while jumping
Fixed an issue that caused GMs to get stuck in the loading screen forever after publishing a stage with 0 characters from the main menu
The microphone selection dropdown menu now actually changes to the selected input device
Fixed the comfort vignette enabling itself every time you entered a new scene
Fixed a bug on PCVR where Aexia would stop receiving microphone data when the app was not in focus
The space skybox is now correctly showing in the sky tab again
Fixed users falling off the Green Room platform
Fixed an issue causing voice filters to not apply
Fixed an issue that caused GMs to be unable to rejoin the game as a player unless they first reselected the GM role and then deselected it again
Fixed a bug in the comms menu that prevented the GM from calling someone while possessing an NPC
When de-possessing an NPC, the GM now correctly returns to the same scale they were before possessing the NPC
Mirrors no longer show the reflection slightly offset to the right
Fixed some desynchronization issues when deleting entire sets in multiplayer
Fixed “Recently Published” and “Recently played” stages not appearing in the correct order
The mysterious invisible collider in the center of the main menu scene has been removed
Known Issues
Recentering using the default quest recenter button sometimes forces you into the ground
Fix this by holding the jump button to use Aexias built-in recenter