Post news Report RSS Round Two

Part II of our death defying, hiatus smashing, reconciliatory update!

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Hello again from HSI. We're proud to bring you part II of our hiatus dissolving update. In it we focus on several graphical and game improvements that will expand the possibilities of Homeworld 2 far beyond it's intended limits. So without further ado, enjoy!

Atmosphere

With help from the Blue Planet development team, we've successfully managed to implement a layered volumetric atmosphere effect around full sized worlds. The layers are based upon the relative densities of air around the earth decreasing from ground level and extending roughly 100km into space. It's still in its early stages but when descending down to the surface the sky gets increasingly bluer and less star filled like how you might expect:

Photobucket
Photobucket

Heavy Metal

Yeah, that's right, 3D, animated bullets with smoke trails. We of course intend to implement this effect wherever possible. Please note that the Covenant ships in these screenshots are temporary placeholders and will not be included in the final version.

Photobucket Photobucket

CCS Battlecruiser

The fearsome Covenant Capital Ship in the works. We're leaning towards the original Halo CE design mixed with elements from the following titles (primarily Halo 3). The model itself is partially textured at the current so expect a complete version soon!



That's all for this installment. Just as a preemptive reminder to all you collegiates out there, finals week is fast approaching so we please ask you again to be patient in the coming weeks as we too must brave the gamut of testing. Be sure to catch us later, we promise to have some extra special goodies in store.

Also, if you missed the first part of the update, you can check it out here.

Peace,
HSI Dev Team

Post comment Comments
CanadaMan7
CanadaMan7

Wow, those shaders and effects look incredible.

And nice to see you're starting on the Covenant as well.

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Bluedrake42
Bluedrake42

for real I thought those were concept artworks at first, good job gentlemen

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Captain_Perfect
Captain_Perfect

Argh!.. my brain cannot handle this much awesome all at once...

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Nathanius
Nathanius

Very clever with the volumetric atmospheres! Not many games would be able to make use of the transition but it sits perfectly in the Haloverse. Nice :)

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RINGLEADER Author
RINGLEADER

Thanks, I had help from the Blue Planet mod. It took quite a long time of tweaking just to get the layers at the right opacity and height but I am quite pleased with the result.

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Syrtees
Syrtees

That's ****ing impressive (please excuse my intentionally bleeped out language that I never intended to un-bleep in the first place anyway). Actually the good thing about finals is that it lets us know that you'll have a lot of extra free time in the somewhere near immediate future. Keep up the amazing good job and, for all intents and purposes, don't die!

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Blackmamba321
Blackmamba321

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooow (sorry for my over excitment but...) That looks shhhwwweeeeeet, I love every single screen shot hell i'd play the game with the ships not finished and the planet everything guys looks amazing take your time in making it because i don't want you guys rushing lol keep up the outstanding work. =)

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TheBlackGhost
TheBlackGhost

I have to say, this looks like it will be the best mod ever made for Homeworld 2. I hope you can get out a basic version soon so I can get my hands on one of the those Covenant ships!

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