Friday 5 December 2014

Picture Blog Day

Been a great week and some very necessary fixes, including some performance gains and cleaner memory code.  I promised screenshots today so here they are:

 Above is the old V1.007 screenshot from the ESCAPE level

 Here is the new V1.009 screenshot tweaked with lower values to match above lighting

Don't worry about the FPS, I am using the HIGHEST terrain shader as the older one used normal maps for MEDIUM but the latest build does not.  As you can see, the HUD weapon is more defined, we now have shadows, the bloom is not as intense and it's a little more colorful.


Here you can see a level we are working on to test a larger world with more action, to ensure that our drive for performance never ends and we maintain a course which allows many types of FPS game to be created.  Still more polish in the game play and smaller items, but the level is definitely taking shape nicely!

Currently spent most of the day getting the F9 live terrain editing to work again, as consolidating the terrain physics geometry had the nasty side effect that I could not quickly swap in a new piece of terrain floor, I had to build the whole combination meshes again.  Currently battling with retaining my performance gain with ensuring F9 functionality remains in tact.  This evening I plan to make a build but I have a few issues to resolve before then including the restoration of shadows from trees and other transparent entities, and once the build is done I plan to spent my Friday night with some fun multi-core physics experiments. The single core system current takes about 11% of the overall game spend, which is not too bad I think, and there is always an overhead from adding n-core solutions, but really there is only one way to know for sure, and that's to break out the code and see what works best!

I am also pleased to report that the FPSC legend Mr Blosser has kindly conceded to help with some additional art work, and the first target for us will be the building.


As you can see, he has already started with some improved specular and normal maps, now looking at texture seams and other geometry based concerns.  It will also be the entity to help trial a new OCCLUSIONMESH system which should allow the occluder to process this entire building with just a few polygons for the whole shape.

Probably need to eat at some point today, but I have my second wind now so will crack on and see if I can put on task properly to bed so I can think clearly about the very important weekend build.  Have a great weekend and thanks again for your patience - I hope my blogs are making it at least bearable (and dare I say it, educational) :)

8 comments:

  1. Amazing work, loving the screenshots! Seriously, well done! 1.009 is gonna be more than worth the wait :D
    I love the third screenshot the most, the lighting and fog is really well balanced. The one of the new version of The Escape does look really good too - I'm gonna be honest though, and say I think the mountains in the distance looked slightly better in the old screenshot, really sorry! In the 1.007 screenshot, their tone and the way they blend into the background looks much more natural, but in the 1.009 one they look slightly too colourful and bright. Great improvement apart from that though!
    Hope you have a relaxing weekend :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, looking good, but I agree with the terrain. It has suffered quite a bit of late and looks to be no better in this version. The new fog helps by the looks of the new escape demo, but fog doesn't always suit a scene to that degree of course. Great for moody scenes, but a bright sunlit day is not likely to have much fog.
    Still keep up the good work and we will soon see!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Patiently waiting ? ? As one buzzard said to another, patience h_ll, I'm gonna kill something!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am hoping after this release new features will come thick and fast.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Correct me if I am wrong, but, in the third screenshot, it looks though the base is inside the walled off area (at the end of the bridge furthest from the camera)? If that is the case, the barbed wire fence is the wrong way round. It would only function to keep people from getting out, not getting in. The overhang needs to point in the direction of the people you are trying to keep out. Good looking screenshot, but, I would ask WOI to look into that. If I am wrong and that isn't the base, then, sorry, but, I notice little details like that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It could well be a prison compound of some sort, in which case you'd actually want to keep people in.

      Delete
  6. Looking forward to the Weekly News...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I haven't read your blog posts for some time (quite a few weeks actually - I've decided I prefer to not read them for ages and then read heaps in one go and be excited about how far Reloaded's come :P), but I've gotta say, that screenshot (third from the top) is looking SPECTACULAR! Extremely well-balanced lighting and fog!

    ReplyDelete