Overgrowth fan art spotlight - Ylvali
November 18th, 2009
Today it is my pleasure to share more wonderful works from the fan art thread. The pieces featured below were created by Ami (aka Ylvali). We were fortunate enough to hear first-hand tidbits of what inspired her to create these works: My name is Ami. Girl, filmmaker, mother of two, lives in Sweden, likes cheese. I draw in my free ...
Xtreme plant optimization
November 15th, 2009
A lot of people have mentioned the plants as an area we could improve in Overgrowth. For this reason, I made a point of trying out games that have great plants, such as Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Hunter, and Battlefield 1943. I stared at the plants to figure out how they were built. We even ...
Wolfire IRC channel
November 14th, 2009
Mibbit is a small web startup that provides a web-standards-based widget to interface with IRC channels. Sort of like the recently-mentioned Meebo, but for IRC chat rooms instead of AIM, MSN, etc. A couple of days ago, they launched a premium version of their widget which lets you disable ads for a small fee (the cost of 1.6 Overgrowth ...
Character shadows
November 13th, 2009
The existing Overgrowth shadows worked well for static shadows and ambient occlusion, but didn't have the detail required for character shadows. To achieve high-quality character shadows, we needed a new hybrid system. Here's a picture of the new shadows in action! Some might complain that this is a waste of time at this point, but I need shadows ...
Why we are not using Euphoria
November 11th, 2009
Whenever we post about physics or animation technology, people always ask why we don't use Euphoria. Instead of replying to all of these comments individually, I decided to just write this post where everyone can see it, and link to it in the future whenever it comes up again. So what is Euphoria? In 2006 a company called NaturalMotion ...
Ragdoll Update
November 11th, 2009
Better-looking ragdolls were recently spotted in Overgrowth. Some say this is because the rigging editor has allowed the physics engine to befriend the graphics engine. Others suspect foul play...
Libertarian Paternalism and The Fun Theory
November 9th, 2009
In case you don't recall Phillip's tool design post, libertarian paternalism states that the best system leaves people free to make their own choices yet nudges them towards the best choices. As demonstrated by the The Fun Theory video below, making an activity more fun, is a great way to coax more people to do it. When the ...