In preparation for the t-shirts we need to give out for the Lugaru video contest, we are bringing back the Wolfire Cafepress T-Shirt Store! We set the prices as low as we can on Cafepress. People will compliment you on your FireFox t-shirt but make sure to tell them it’s Wolfire!
To honor this occasion, I asked some classmates of mine to model them for us! Phillip took the pictures and they turned out pretty well! We posted an album on the Overgrowth Facebook Page. Make sure to join the page, and you can view the pictures here: View Album.
There are some rumors that some more pictures are going to be released later… So be sure to become a Facebook Fan so you don’t miss them!
Hey guys! Just a note to let you know that the last video entries will be accepted on midnight, Dec 3rd (PST) which is about a week away!
All you have to do is record a video and upload it to WeGame.com using WeGame’s free client or using other software like Fraps or Snapz Pro. The winner - the person who gets the most “Likes” on their video will win a $50 gift certificate to the Wolfire Tshirt store and a copy of Overgrowth, however, there will be many runner up and subjective prizes, so don’t worry about not getting tons of “Likes”! Just enter your video and see what happens.
While working on the initial procedural movement animation, I took breaks every now and then to record videos of each stage. I started out just blocking out the movement controls and then added layers of complexity. The final animation in Overgrowth is going to look much better than the last scene in this video!
Aubrey just created an amazing Joshua tree model! My plant rendering shaders are not good enough yet to do it justice, but I think this is a nice screenshot all the same.
Direct light and shadows from the sun are only half of the lighting system in Overgrowth. The other half is indirect light from the rest of the sky. To make the indirect light look realistic, we also have to calculate indirect light shadows! I thought this looked cool, so here is a screenshot of the indirect shadows on the desert terrain, with drastically increased contrast.
Here is what the terrain looks like with the combined sun lighting and ambient shadows!
The shadow rendering is now much more optimized, and has no limit on resolution! Here is a screenshot of the same terrain as before at a higher detail level. Since all of the lighting is pre-computed in the texture, the increase in quality has no affect on the framerate!
I just got terrain self-shadowing working! I also started optimizing rendering by automatically baking all of the sky and sun lighting into a single texture, so the real-time shader can be drastically simplified. The texture in this screenshot is low-resolution just to test out the technique, I will have some high-res shots soon.
It is my great honor to announce Wolfire’s first official Lugaru competition.
The rules are simple:
1. Submit your best Lugaru videos to WeGame. You can use the nifty WeGame widget mentioned in Jeff’s previous WeGame post (if you use Windows). Or you can use your favorite games recording software and then upload your vid to WeGame. Snapz Pro for Mac OS X or Fraps for Windows are great, but unfortunately not free. Check the forum for more suggestions.
2. In two weeks time (Wednesday, the 3rd at 11:59 PM PST) we will close the contest and have a voting period for three days. The player who has submitted the Lugaru video that has received the most WeGame “likes” wins! We will have some runner up prizes as well.
3. Feel free to use debug mode (I recently saw a ridiculous wolf-on-fire video), your own custom levels, mods, or skins (I remember seeing Turner line dancing in a tux somewhere). A Lugaru trailer video would be particularly awesome, but again, anything goes! Even a simple fight!
Note: when using debug mode, you should turn the debug HUD off (instructions are in the forums) to remove the various debug text from your awesome video.
The winner will receive a free copy of Overgrowth, a $50 gift certificate to the soon-to-be-announced Cafépress Wolfire T-Shirt Store, and mad respect from his fellow gamers. We will also be giving out copies of Overgrowth to select runner ups (or tshirts if they have already purchased Overgrowth) based on subjective feedback!
To help seed this competition I have uploaded my greatest recorded Lugaru fight of all time:
I know you guys can do much better than this anyway but rest assured all my videos (vids submitted to WeGame by spacemarine1) are automatically disqualified.
John’s Tips for Success:
- Show no fear: Fights tend to look best when you take on multiple enemies at the same. Even if you don’t win the whole fight, you will at least create some “Holy Crap I can’t believe I’m still fighting” moments. You can splice these into a highlight reel.
- Set the mood: Why not play some tunes in the background for your video capture program to record? A little music can add a lot to the drama of a fight.
- Post links to your vid in high traffic zones: How can you get people to like your video if no one is looking at it? A good start is in the official competition thread on the Wolfire Forum, in these comments, and in Wolfire IRC. WeGame makes it very easy to embed your video all over the place.
Everyone can claim to be a great fighter, but not everyone can prove it. I wish you brave warriors the best of luck in the battles to come. May your kicks be swift and your reversals true.
Here is a desert environment for Overgrowth. In addition to using real world data, we are using a program called World Machine 2 (WM2) to add erosion details and other small scale features. WM2 allow for fast, high quality results and lots of unique detail with less effort. The program is also free for non-commercial use, so people should be able to use it for their own mods once the game is out.
WeGame is basically the awesome combination of video capturing software like Fraps and online video sites like YouTube. And the best part is that it’s free! There are a ton of threads on the Wolfire forums asking about how to record video in Lugaru and they often result in disappointment. Well, now Lugaru fans have access to the best video game recording solution and it’s totally free!
Unfortunately, it’s Windows only at the moment, so Mac and Linux fans are out of luck for now.
We are going to be working closely with WeGame for Overgrowth and will announce some really exciting stuff we are going to be doing soon.
Finally, we are going to announce a Lugaru video contest pretty soon, so get familiar with WeGame (or your favorite screen capturing alternative)!
