Trees
April 24th, 2006
I am working on in-engine tree and plant growth based on terrain nutrients, water, and sunlight, and it is still in very early stages, but starting to come together. It is focused more on gameplay applications (climbing, breaking,etc.) than on graphics, but will look good too once shadows and lighting are working on the leaves.
Still more water!
April 24th, 2006
I have updated the water again, with a focus on underwater effects!
Water refraction and volume fog
March 17th, 2006
The water now dynamically refracts objects submerged in it, and is full of floating dust so that light cannot penetrate it very far.
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!