So, what are you working on right now?

[Goldwell 2477]

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 219]

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 1603]

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 1065]

Looks great

[nbohr1more 2163]

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 1603]

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 50]

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 1603]

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 482]

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 1265]

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

[Goldwell 2477]

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 1603]

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 334]

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 1603]

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

[peter_spy 1603]

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

[grayman 2974]

Nicely done!

Availability?

[Geep 266]

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

 

[peter_spy 1603]

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 334]

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 1603]

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 2477]