GE Demo Videos And Pics

Thanks guys, been working on it hard for over a year now. Starting to come together finally

In honor of the 2 year anniversary of the game’s development cycle, I present a new version of what’s being done in the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyccKWv0uw4&feature=plcp

Actually this video is in preparation for the next release. I am in the process of adding in the mission related stuff and building the foundation for the empire related items (HQs, miners, living quarters, populations, etc) so it will most likely be at least another 2 weeks to a month before I post it for download. Also it will be a simple ‘play with it’ type of game, there is no save or load features added since the game is constantly evolving. I had that at one point but it no longer works since so much has changed, this includes even the server code. Once the code has stabilized I will go back and revamp that part of the game.

Well nice thing is there is plenty of moddability to the game. I didn’t pack away the ini’s in an encrypted format even though that is possible with the script reader. Also I have nearly completed the construction code after 2 days of working on it. Just a few more things to add to it and it will be working the way I want it to.

I am also looking into adding a day/night cycle for the planetary maps. If I do add it then most likely it will be an excellent addition to the weather system. Especially if I go with the procedurally generated skybox method.

I will be offering for download soon a .bip file (Max biped file) for those whom wish to make their own characters. All you will need is a pre-rigged char model to attach it to. This file has all of the in-game char animations in it so you can use the pre-existing charanim.ini settings to add your own chars. Changing which char model the player starts with is as simple as editing the config.ini file.

I have been working on implementing soft shadows into the game and here is the result of 4 days work…as always, click the image for a full size view.

New city scape model

Thanks guys, that one was a pain to convert. The UV map didn’t hold properly when converted even though it looked fine in the modeller. Since I already have UV tiling built-in to the engine, it was simply a matter of finding the right values. BTW anti-aliasing is turned on thru the NVidia panel. Since I use render targets it can’t be turned on thru DX. What I see rendered doesn’t have any jaggies but it seems Fraps captures the pics before it’s applied (FXAA)…

For the tool pack, here is one by Alex

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10971457/Freelancer/Digital Brilliance backup.tar.gz

I thought you did it thru the use of a post processing filter? I worked on trying to get MSAA to work but I ran across some info on the MS site that said it doesn’t work with render targets. Once I turned it off the render targets worked properly. Unfortunately this is the main issue with doing deferred rendering. I just haven’t gotten around to adding a smoothing effect since FXAA is working good, the jaggies only show up when its being captured. I may do it once I implement SSAO since I already have a depth and normal render targets implemented. Haven’t decided which type of blur yet, I would use a guassian type but it’s a bandwidth hungry format. It’s what the shadow map uses. It’s based loosely off of this page…

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-programming-and-theory/soft-edged-shadows-r2193

And here is another shot of that cityscape

I haven’t really studied the different forms of filtering yet. I had heard the same that SMAA was better though. What other types of effects did you add to your render engine?