So much has happened

since my last update. We have finally brought on a dedicated and skilled 3d artist by the name of Jonathan Viejou. the engine continues to progress. the game's design is further taking shape. we have basic audio in the game now. we have the beginnings of cpu multi-threading.

we have a full-fledged particle system which is linked to our toolset. more info will be given in detail soon. for now here's some very recent screenshots:

progress report

Didn't get alot done today.

* some small optimizations to the post-processing stage
* rebuilt the DOF pass to utilize a half-rez downsampled screen texture. this not only yields a performance boost but also gives a meatier blur. still have to fix that fucking foreground leaking...

Progress Update

I am going to post daily progress updates so I can track my productivity starting today. Here's what I worked on/accomplished today.

* Optimized the render pipeline a bit. Engine runs much faster now. This was a major victory.
* Worked on the .obj file loader system. almost done
* worked on improving the DOF feature. could run faster and also the foreground leaks MUST be fixed.

A long period between updates

which is odd because the gap between updates has seen the engine progress more so than ever.

I don't feel like posting about all of what i've been working on just yet. so in the meantime here's a screenshot.

BLOOM BITCHES!

The engine now has bloom lighting, and also the beginnings of HDR!
Much rejoicing in the streets!

with Bloom:



In other news, I'm currently working on the World-builder tools. You can see it in it's infancy in that shot, with sloped dynamic terrain. Each segment of terrain can be a different texture, have different decorations (like grass, rocks, cacti, etc), and a different surface (which is two-pronged: it will affect gameplay physics like friction, and visually it will trigger different shaders)

A look at a more finalized "Spirit form" shader

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been busy working on the world-builder for the game, and other more practical, non-renderer work. Also tax-time has forced me to work on other projects to keep afloat... doh!

Here's a look at the "spirit form" shader.

Damage Shader

The shader that tells the player "you're almost dead, moron". Finished.

Basically it takes whatever pixels are the on left and right side of the screen, blurs them based on X position, then over-exposes the red value of the pixel, resulting in this fully-conceived version of the "death haze" shader I posted earlier. Next on the shader to-do list is bump-mapping. At some point I'll be adding displacement (warping) effects as well. If it's possible I'd really like to have a full HDR lighting pipeline for the game too... but that might be pushing it. Totally possible if we end up adding 1 or 2 other programmers to the team. At this point it's just me, about 3 artists, and a writer/co-designer :)