Heat haze
March 17th, 2006
I adapted the distortion system to allow for heat haze from convection in really hot environments, such as this desert:
Depth of Field
March 17th, 2006
I added depth of field effects that can be used for cutscenes. The camera can focus on any particular distance plane, and everything is blurred based on distance from this focal plane. This lets us focus on a nearby object and blur distant ones, and vice versa, to add another depth cue and draw attention to different areas.
Screen-space distortion
March 12th, 2006
We can now apply distortion effects to anything; in this screenshot I applied a basic refraction shader to the player model! Screen-space distortion is much faster than cube map distortion, because we do not have to render the scene extra times. This effect will be used for heat haze, water refraction, fire distortion, and so on.
Water surface effects
March 6th, 2006
Today I added initial water surface reflection and refraction effects. I haven't started on underwater effects yet, but that is next!
HDR and Motion Blur
March 3rd, 2006
I just added fast approximations of motion blur and high-dynamic-range lighting. Motion blur blurs the camera image appropriately in response to really fast movements; this is not the same video echo effect used in Lugaru 1 for slow-motion. High-dynamic-range lighting lets us have pixels that are brighter than pure white, so that they 'bloom' onto surrounding pixels.
Model skinning
February 19th, 2006
Models can now be attached to flexible physics objects, so that they can bend and twist correctly. This means that I can apply the rabbit model to the physics-based animation skeleton! We can also have cloth, carrots with floppy leafy ends, bendy pieces of meat, flexible rope and so on. These screenshots are from an animation demo in which Turner ...
Complex Rigid Body Dynamics
January 5th, 2006
The physics models from the editor now can be synchronized with complex visible models, which means we can simulate physics on detailed objects very efficiently. I got video recording working properly again too: Yes I know it is hovering slightly above the ground, but it only does that in the editor (because the shadow helps manipulate points on the x-z ...