Controlled Intersections
May 16th, 2008
I have been working on ways to improve the intersections between different objects. The examples shown here demonstrate automatic ambient occlusion and weathering effects as well as one kind of geometry deformation.
Real skeletal animation
April 29th, 2008
I extended the physics engine to support ligament and muscle constraints, and then attached them to a skeleton model to demonstrate how the shoulder joint works. Link to youtube video.
Fan-made Lugaru Campaigns
April 17th, 2008
There are two excellent single-player campaigns for Lugaru made by forum users Silb and Jendraz. They are both longer and more in-depth than the original Lugaru campaign, and use a lot of engine features in innovative ways that I hadn't thought of. Click on these links to try the Empire and Temple campaigns!
Rigid body physics integration
March 25th, 2008
The point-stick-triangle physics described in the previous post is very good for quickly defining articulated bodies, but it is not appropriate for simulating large numbers of colliding rigid bodies. I am experimenting with different methods to handle these cases: here is a screenshot of a standard box collision test using ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) integration. We can use our old ...
Physics Engine
January 16th, 2008
I managed to combine my Wolfire work with Swarthmore class work by improving my physics engine and creating a small web page about how it works. You can find it here if you are interested; it has screenshots and videos of it in action.
New sky shader
July 19th, 2007
I was tired of my old sky dome, so I replaced it with a single quad with a pixel shader that handles shifting backlit and normal-mapped clouds, 'god' rays, and atmospheric scattering. It actually has a lower impact on framerate than the old sky because it is all drawn at the same time.
Iterative parallax mapping
July 10th, 2007
I started to revisit the terrain surface shading today, and implemented parallax mapping to give a greater feeling of depth to the ground.