Looking at the pieces we have and project roadmap. Our game, like football (soccer for American readers), is a game of two halves. Side A and Side B. One campaign is the thinking man's approach; counter insurgency. The other game is the more familiar tank spanker; survival in a high-tech hostile environment against well armed self-sufficient mechanised infantry with air-defence units.
Compounds are anchor points of the campaigns, in groups they form the villages, strategic points you're tasked to provide security for. In the side-B campaign, the role is slightly different but as important.
I'm still a little bothered by LOD and shadow ranges, you can go mad tweaking these to find something that works well for different modes. Maybe I'm stupid but it only occurred to me last night to make the LOD settings dynamic. Which is ironic, as the very very first multiplayer wargame I worked on back in the late 80s used an LOD system based on view height.
In the real world, at ground level the horizon is around 11km away, it's a mathematical function based on your height and the curvature of the earth.
1.17 times the square root of your height of eye = Distance to the horizon in nautical miles
So I'll be experimenting at some stage with adjusting the Leadwerks Engine LODs for shadows and vegetation based on player mode and viewer height.
Just using a depth of field filter on the far horizon seems to greatly improve visual quality, making hills blend a better into the haze, masking the smaller details.
First things first, we have to complete our Apache and it's operational systems. Arming is almost complete.
With breaks for Easter, familiy time and re-writing internal systems for handling weapons THREE times (it got better each time). It's taken a week longer than I said originally. The menu system is in place and the visual manifestation of the ordnance is left to do. Rocket pods will require one click per zone (3 zones or 3 kinds of rockets per pod).
Presently it permits arming in proximity to the Apache which is fine on the base. But we'll have to implement some object, like an ammo truck (hmm, seen that somewhere before), or some invisible object we can attach to any entity via some LUA code (much like player spawn locations).
DOF blending the horizon.
Flex...thats simply amazing. Its crazy how many things You have to take into consideration. Menu looks cool and clear to use. Ground objects looks nice too. Shadows made it look a lot better than on test screenshots! Im thinking about that DOF on distant objects and terrain.....doesnt it require much more proccessing power? Or is it scalable somehow? :-o
ReplyDeleteI toggle DOF with CTRL X, hardly notice any difference in FPS. In a deferred rendering engine you can do multiple post-processing effects without having to re-render anything. Even had god-rays on (can see the sunlight streaming through the trees in that third shot - much more obvious when moving).
ReplyDeleteBut I don't want to get hung up on the pretties or nothing will ever get done. The problem of end user scalability is much in my mind but the game won't force you run with 'n' effects. You can turn them on and off.
OK. Thanks again for quick reply. Thats cool with the effects. The most important is to finish the core of the sim and then You can enjoy some fancy stuff, right? :-) Damn Im starting to be very unpatient. :-D
ReplyDeleteThose two new screenshots are gorgeous. God-rays are very nicely visible on the helicopter pic. Also the horizon is one of the best I have seen in sim. Very soft and I also like that "colour perspective" or how to say it. Must be cool to fly it. :-) Well done.
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