Oh yes boys and girls, I had distractions coming out my ears, but I have managed to box them all off and start my cascade of uploads before midnight. This means I can gracefully slide back into the Reloaded world and get the objects moving about in the real time light mapper.
Moving Objects
I want to test two things this evening, getting objects to update their lighting when you move them. I will start with uniform size objects. The light detection must ultimately handle scales of magnitude the original did not have to deal with but we will get to that later. For example, what if someone imports a whole building with rooms and details in one go, how or should I have that? Great question. Answer unknown.
An Aside : Ultimate Coder Latest
Great feedback from the judges of the Ultimate Coder Challenge so far, who seem to like my 'rough as sawdust' 3D rendering of the depth data. I have some new art come in for the project, and I am very keen to wrap up the functional core of the app by week four so that it can be used as an actual communication program. Grafting third party audio conferencing code into an existing app is never easy, but I feel more confident doing that than writing my own from zero. For more information on the Ultimate Coder Challenge, the site is updated every few days so check it out:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/ultimatecoder2
First, Eat
It's one of those 4PM start style days, so my tea was lunch and so forth. I think I will grab a bite to eat before finishing the light mapping prototype as I have the time at only 12:35AM. I don't anticipate the two tasks for today to be tremendously difficult, just want it in there before moving on.
02:56AM : Now That's Fast
I added the object mover so the light map would respond to a moved object, and I just light mapped the object on it's own and it came back at just 65ms for the light mapping process. It's really weird seeing what is effectively light map baking at real-time speeds - spooky!
I can't stop there of course, the object inevitably casts a shadow from any light sources near it, so it will influence lots of other objects, but I wanted to share that revelation.
04:14AM : Sorted
I now have both 'light moving' and 'object moving' calculations for real time light mapping, which means when you are editing, and you move an entity or light, it triggers the system to start light mapping while you carry on working. Only when you stop moving things for more than a few seconds will the new light mapping render manifest itself. Here is a quick video of the latest prototype with first object moving, then the light.
Signing Off
The next step will be to go back to the editor and organise the object system to use our new per-object scene building system, with the new light mapping at the heart of it. The theory also is that even as you start playing the test level, the light mapping is STILL working, so you really don't have to wait at all for any intense light mapping work to finish, you can drop in, test some entity or logic, then back out and carry on editing, all the while the light mapping is working hard trying to melt all the cores in your PC.
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