So, what are you working on right now?

[Goldwell 2499]

On 12/22/2020 at 5:08 AM, Dragofer said:

Another "riverside" mission (no relation) beginning with a somewhat sturdier ship...

... and a riverside encampment.

Though as with the spiritual ancestor, the main action is further inland (you can just about spot the gatehouse in the background).

A tranquil scene from the more maritime sequel:

 

Oozing with atmosphere and incredible visual work as always Dragofer. You're a master of your craft!

[Spooks 703]

As I leave my crimbo vacation and return to my work duties I can feel that my time may be severely cut for mapping, so I may as well have you guys take a look at what I've been working on (you know, per the thread title and everything):

I really wanna finish this one but RL is a bit volatile atm! Fates be kind!!!

[Jedi_Wannabe 232]

Hard to follow up some of the recent screens people have been posting, but here's a little something for my beta testers to reassure them I've not forgotten about them!

Part of a new area, really going for a natural feel with some pagan vibes, might be hard to notice but I've got some of @STRUNK's new bats flying around and they cast a great shadow in the moonlight as they pass by the cave opening (it's in the screen but looks way better in person!) Ignore the fps counter; I've got a misbehaving VP in the area.

 

Edited January 13 by Jedi_Wannabe

[peter_spy 1615]

Lately, I've been researching mirrors and real-time reflections, as in most missions I've seen them super clear and 100% reflective. It turns out there are better ways to do it.

I wouldn't recommend real-time reflections in general, as there are quite numerous limitations on their use, and they're quite resource-heavy. But there are ways to make them look good. I'll go with the cubemap version, if the model ends up in my FM.

Edited January 16 by peter_spy

[AluminumHaste 1083]

Looks great

[nbohr1more 2237]

2 hours ago, peter_spy said:

Lately, I've been researching mirrors and real-time reflections, as in most missions I've seen them super clear and 100% reflective. It turns out there are better ways to do it.

I wouldn't recommend real-time reflections in general, as there are quite numerous limitations on their use, and they're quite resource-heavy. But there are ways to make them look good. I'll go with the cubemap version, if the model ends up in my FM.

Very cool!

A simple way to offer both options is to use lod_bias :

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=LOD_Bias

Object Detail Low = Static specular, Object Detail Medium = Cubemap, Object Detail High = Real

Or you can use the cubemap version for a far away LOD etc.

[peter_spy 1615]

Yeah, I could use LODs, although the whole subject is more complicated than it looks...

First off, realtime reflections need planar surfaces, you can't do them on convex or concave shapes. In order to circumvent that, I made the RT version with two materials, one for the glass, one for the frame. Also, there's an engine limitation where you can't have more than one RT reflection surface in view. If there are more, they get disabled. This is probably a good thing though, I can imagine all hell breaking loose if there was no limit to these surfaces...

[Edit] Secondly, for the sake of aesthetics, I made the player model invisible. This is a subjective thing, but I find it distracting and immersion-breaking. It's a WIP model I guess, floating with barely any animations. Your can't make him invisible for FM purposes though, as it uses several body parts from other AIs: elite city watch pants, generic npc hands, thief tunic, etc. I can't make these materials invisible, since all other characters will have these parts invisible too.

[Edit] So in the end, a cubemap is a better way to go overall; it's more performance-friendly, has none of the limitations of an RT reflection and it's much easier to work with, especially now, since you can generate cubemaps in-game without changing the resolution.

Edited January 17 by peter_spy

[jonri 72]

I've been working on a small-ish mission that takes place in a warehouse.  I've got pretty much everything blocked out and built up with modules, and I'm currently building out the other gameplay elements such as the main lighting and AI routes.  I took a little detour to dress up this corner of the warehouse for overall feel, but there's plenty more to do...

[peter_spy 1615]

I've been researching transparent glass. It's probably the hardest material I've done so far, but I think I have a solid foundation for any color I like. I can control how dim the glass is, and strength of both specular and cubemap reflection. The most common uses would be the slightly dimmed natural, blueish and green bottle. I did red because I could

Now onto some more fancy object for a video follow-up.

[JackFarmer 526]

On 1/13/2021 at 6:16 PM, Jedi_Wannabe said:

Hard to follow up some of the recent screens people have been posting, but here's a little something for my beta testers to reassure them I've not forgotten about them!

Part of a new area, really going for a natural feel with some pagan vibes, might be hard to notice but I've got some of @STRUNK's new bats flying around and they cast a great shadow in the moonlight as they pass by the cave opening (it's in the screen but looks way better in person!) Ignore the fps counter; I've got a misbehaving VP in the area.

 

@Jedi_WannabeFracking cool! Please, please, send me the latest version; I want to see how you did that!

Jack

[demagogue 1276]

Cobalt blue, uranium green, and amber glassware sets would be really cool to see. I think Victorian style glassware might fit our world.

[Goldwell 2499]

Update on Shadows of Northdale: Act 3 and Act 4 are coming along! Slowly but surely. They are both double mission releases, so essentially i'm working on 4 missions at once. It's taking longer to cook in the oven than expected, but hopefully it'll be something very special once both acts are finished! I'm unsure if i'll do a double release or if i'll release Act 3 as soon as it's done and then Act 4 shortly after. As with anything to do with development things change a lot. Just ask poor Dragofer, Moonbo, Skacky, Epifire or Kingsal as they're often victims to my endless design questions

 

Also as a point of reflection, i've been apart of this community for nearly 8 years! And I was looking back at the very first briefing I ever did (with a rather hilarious release date of fall 2013 for the accountant mission). Back when it was a single mission, before it became a campaign which I have since abandoned.

 

But I digress, here is an example of how far my voice acting and briefing video work has come since I first started contributing to this community.

 

How it started in 2013:

 

How it's going in 2020:

 

Anyway, back to work on finishing Shadows of Northdale Act 3!

[peter_spy 1615]

That's definitely a huge leap^, both visual and in terms of delivery!

I'm trying to keep old stuff around to remind myself how far I've come. It's really helpful, when you feel burned out or when you feel like you haven't made much progress. The shot below is from March 2017, those were my first material tests The second one is from mid-2020.

Edited February 4 by peter_spy

[HMart 343]

That looks fantastic peter_spy, but is that floor real geometry? It seems like it to me or is using parallax occlusion mapping?

[peter_spy 1615]

Yup, the floor is geometry, and the engine takes that level of detail surprisingly well.

[peter_spy 1615]

Another bit of virtual carpentry. Should help with presentations for smaller objects.

[grayman 2982]

Nicely done!

Availability?

[Geep 269]

More pix, to celebrate Lunar New Year   - Year of the Ox - and Valentine's Day

 

[peter_spy 1615]

Still experimenting with glass shaders, this time for some more complex shapes. The transparency sorting problem is quite visible here, and even with dark color, the material is too see-through IMO. Going for opaque version and perhaps some sort of glowing crystal a la TDS might be a better option overall.

Edit:  got a small breakthrough with translucent materials this morning. This is heavily reliant on actual lighting, so getting it right will be hard. But this is one step closer towards some nice magic glowing crystal effect

Also, I had no idea you can actually get translucent materials to cast shadows

Edited February 17 by peter_spy

[HMart 343]

13 hours ago, peter_spy said:

...

Also, I had no idea you can actually get translucent materials to cast shadows

On normal idtech 4 you can't, so TDM team changed that, if that is maps, have you tried stencil shadows?

Btw your work looks very nice, you have talent for that stuff.  

About having perfect transparency sorting, afaik there's nothing you can do, unless Order-independent transparency is included or even ray tracing and you know how probable that is. 

[peter_spy 1615]

Thanks! I've been exploring shaders and art pipeline for quite some time now; it's always been the most fun thing to me. I'm really surprised how much you can do with this engine.

Huh, this method it actually works with stencil shadows, and not with shadow maps... Interesting.

1 hour ago, HMart said:

About having perfect transparency sorting, afaik there's nothing you can do, unless Order-independent transparency is included or even ray tracing and you know how probable that is. 

Yeah, but it's no big deal. Let's just pretend these are some weird magic crystals

[Goldwell 2499]

[JackFarmer 526]

The Johannes-Burock caves from the abandoned works thread are fully integrated into "Hidden Hands: The Anomaly" (changed the title, this one is much better fitting). The cave geometry has been preserved (only the outdoor area had to be removed), I even let in a sound effect from Johannes because it adds perfectly to the new ambient sound.

Seemed to be a really nice place, but now nobody wants to go there anymore...and the guy lying next to his shovel is not a drunk for a change!

 

 

 

[jonri 72]

Lots of great looking screenshots this year!  Mine is still very much a WIP, but I've got AI routes and main lighting generally where I want them and now I'm doing initial detail passes.  I'm trying to focus on the areas I expect to be the most performance-intensive first, to minimize any fundamental rework I might have to do.

 

I do need to set this aside for a little while in order to focus on some other projects though, so this is also a self-reminder to pick it back up in June To everyone else, keep up the great work!

Edited March 14 by jonri
screenshot disappeared

[Goldwell 2499]

It's been just over 2 years since I dropped Shadows of Northdale Act 2. Crazy to think how much time flies!

 

Rest assured, I am still plugging away on Act 3. It's taking a lot more time to make than I had expected but hopefully the wait will be worth it in the end.

 

My core focus this time around is on adding extra detail work to the missions and making sure the majority of the sections are of similar quality. While reflecting on previous missions I felt there were varying levels of quality throughout them and so i'm working to try and address that. That does mean my missions are taking longer but it should result in a more cohesive experience in the end. And another big focus has been on my stealth encounters in the mission. Often times in the past I had focussed so much on making a level and then figuring out stealth later that I forget this needs to be a stealth level first, and so while building Act 3 (and act 4) a lot of thought is going into how the gameplay feels from a stealth perspective, making sure it not only fits together and makes sense but also that the stealth encounters are fun and hopefully challenging too.

 

Well enough rambling, time to get back to it. Here's another screenshot from the city hub in Act 3, just outside the players apartment home.