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.

Hey guys, we are going to be trying something new: weekly alphas! No exceptions.

Every week, we are going to release a new build to SPF. Whether it's ready or not. We feel that this open development is a great way to smooth out compatibility issues early on, get feedback to make the game as good as possible, and let fans build mods and other content before the game is even publicly available!

Sure, some of the builds are going to be rough, but that's expected in an alpha. We are going to release "blessed" builds every once in a while that are particularly polished and noteworthy, so that the hardcore fans can play the cutting edge, while everyone else can wait for blessed releases.

Oh yeah, this is starting immediately:

The build has been posted in the secret preorder forum!

As always, see you guys on the forums and in IRC.
-Jeff

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 Cafpress 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.