So we're finally getting an update out. Luckily we've been able to complete a lot within the few days of December. Although December is half through its end, we're not really sure we're going to be done.
We wrote: Like we said before, we're terrible with Dates, so to be on the safe side I'd say it's going to be out before 2018
Jokes aside, we're moving at a Decent rate here, hopefully if we keep it up, we'll see some even more Major process later this month near Xmas.
We've finally been able to set up a decent SVN for the entire team this month, and thanks to that we've been able to actually work on more things at once without the hassle. We were without one for a good three months or so due to one of our Old pc's kicking the Bucket. Aside that, we've been working more closely with the shadowing system, analyzing the one in L4D, and tweaking ours continually.
On that front we've taken some notes from Valve's slightly tweaked system into ours. Hopefully the L4D Shadowing system will be out later this Year, but of course we're not counting on it, so I wouldn't worry too much.In the few days that have already past, we've added:
A quick Comparison:
We used our buddy to demonstrate. The top represents the current shadows in use of L4D and EP2. While the bottom, is the newer shadows. This was a little extra code to chuck in, and by doing so, we now have shadows that cast correctly based on the flashlights position. Another nice thing is all this code that effects the flashlight also effects the Projector Lights from our last update.
A better comparison:
It would be a little easier to show via a video, but alas we we're too lazy to make one.Also we've been playing around with SSbumpmaps, and its tedious design process. Why replace these with the standard bumpmaps?
Yet again a video would be nice, so we're now considering actually making one. Lastly we worked on some of the Menu things such as adding a logo to replace the current standard one, and redoing some of the HUD.
You can view the Rest of our New Media in the art Section of the site.
Lastly for the Lolz:
"We used our buddy to demonstrate. The Right represents the current shadows in use of L4D and EP2. While the right, is the newer shadows."
What? Your shadow comparison makes no sense.
if you hover over the picture the tool tip shows which one is the new one. For me it was the bottom picture ;)
Whoops, thats an excert from our formatting, it's fixed now.
cool!
Nice work! But I don't understand that with the bumpmaps? Whats with them?
EDIT: Nevermind, I have read the wiki article!
The shadows look amazing, nice update!
Interesting shadows. You made them transparent/weakened them, or did you simulate light reflection? Haha! That isn't so much a question as a statement of curiosity (You would have jobs before you could say "Yo" if you had simulated light reflection without dropping framerates below playability). Still, nice work.
Yeah simulating light reflection with the flashlight is Not possible. The flashlight isn't a real source of lighting for Radiosity. Instead it's more a less a texture projected, with the shadows being a mask overlaying the base texture.
nice work lads
OMG this will be awesome. :)
As a source developer, I'm EXCEEDINGLY curious as to how you are able to mess with the shadow code. I'm going to venture a guess that you didn't write a whole new rendering pipeline, so how did you get the dynamic shadows on more than one light? (i thought that was hidden from us modders).
A related question: not that you should freely give up your hard work without credit, but does your team have any interest in helping the rest of the community by giving out the secrets, or snippets, or tutorials of what you've done to make your mod show more graphical prowess?
We plan to give Everything away. Although it's been quite a lot of coding, we don't mind sharing it at all.
Aside that, we used some of the existing code for allowing more than 1 Dynamic Light per map. However all of the other code we've transcribed is all our edits to the base shadowing code, all within the env_projected.cpp.
in my above comment when i called myself a source developer, i should have said "source mod developer" ... that's what i get for not previewing.
Also I forgot to mention that you can look up the code in the Valve dev wiki page for the Projected entity.