Voidnex Windows, Mac game

0 comments by voidnex on Mar 26th, 2013

News Update

Trailer

Continuing work on creating on the trailer, so far we have finished most of the footage needed and have contracted a talented musician to create music which should add to the effect of the trailer.

UI work

We have started on a UI overhaul, the Hexagons based UI we first used is being replaced by something more sleek and attractive while maintaining functionality and reducing the cluttered feel the hexagons gave off, an example of which can be seen below.

Turrets and Lasers

Following on from the previous post about projectiles, we've kept chipping away at creating an extensible and modular weapon / turret system.  This allows us a lot of flexibility and provides a simple interface that essentially boils down to 'fire at this target'; with everything being handled by a weapon_controller class that is tagged onto each NPC in the game.  

In fact, the whole process is based on the UML 'Factory method pattern' - with the weapon controller being akin to the factory and the turret being the product.  This helps with creating a procedural weapon system, where each component of a turret, from the barrel model, to paint scheme to stats can be randomised.  The screen below shows some of the turrets in action , along with an improved grid material (still further to go) and a w.i.p radar effect.

"Let's get physical, physical.  I wanna get physical". 

No, don't worry... we haven't asked Olivia Newton to provide the soundtrack for Voidnex! However, there are some other physical things we can talk about; namely the rendering setup and lighting models used in Voidnex.  Up until now, we have been utilising the standard MLM_Phong that comes as the default with UDK; a factor that in part contributed to the often 'plasticy' look and feel of some earlier UE3 based games.  

Recently, however, some games companies have begun to turn away from this light model and with Voidnex we will be doing the same. Our materials and shaders are now based on 'physical based rendering' using a combination of Cook-Torrance and Oren-Nayar models.  This results in a more realistic and accurate interpretation of how a surface reacts to light and improves the visual fidelity of a surface's specular (shinyiness); most notably in metal and rougher surfaces.

The image below demonstrates the 'roughness' parameter of the Cook-Torrance model in action; allowing control over the size and level of specularity of the surface but without creating a large 'white blob' effect.

You can take a look at some presentations explaining more of the math and theory behind these types of lighting models here:

SIGGRAPH 2012 Shading course:
Blog.selfshadow.com
 
Physically based rendering in Call of Duty: Black Ops:
Advances.realtimerendering.com

Demonstration Texture credits:
PK02 Quake IV texture set by Philip Klevestav
www.philipk.net | philipk@philipk.net