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Archive for September, 2010

Shadows and Fractals

29 Sep

Video of the first test of deferred rendering with a spotlight casting shadows, through use of a shadowmap with 256 by 256.

This video was taken in debug mode, hence the speed (which is pretty impressive nevertheless).

All light sources in this renderer can be shadowcasters or not, which will take different code paths in the renderer, to minimize DIP calls.

This is for the new game project in which I’m involved (no information on this yet… please be patient, eheheh)…

The ideia is to have a fully fledged deferred renderer to power the game… Currently I’m adding shadow support (through shadowmaps)… I only have spotlight support, but the rest should be done easily now that the hard part is over… Still want to add blurring to simulate soft-shadowing (and to disguise some bad artifacts as you can see in the video).

On another note, check out this extremely amazing video:

Although I’ve done some study of fractals in the past, I have no idea on how to get the third dimension on a Mandelbrot set, to be honest…
But the shading and texturing work give it so much atmosphere… It’s one of the most impressive videos I’ve ever seen on pure computer graphics…

 
 

2d vs 3d: The Final Showdown!

24 Sep

Well, this is not a post about the merits of 2d and 3d…

Nope, I’m just posting an amazing video I saw online:

It’s about the conflict between 2d and 3d gameplay, hence the title… 🙂

Anyway, about my opinion on that (just so I write some more): neither is the superior format, fighting over it is silly… the terms don’t even make sense anymore (most 2d stuff is done with 3d graphics anyway)… Some gameplay types still work better in 2d than in 3d, and I’m sorry there are not enough of those running around these days (graphic adventures, pixel-perfect jumpers)…

That said: 3d is much more fun to program! 🙂

 
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Ludum Dare results are in…

08 Sep

…and “Conquest” placed 9th! This is my better mark ever. There was 172 games in the compo, so this result makes me very happy! 🙂

In specific scores:
Innovation: 12th
Fun: 19th
Theme: 4th
Graphics: 23rd
Audio: 13th
Humor: 30th
Community: 3rd
Coolness: 5th
Overall: 9th

It’s nice to see that my perception of the game (i.e. I think it’s the best I’ve ever done in these competitions) is matched by other people’s perceptions (my best placement ever)…

Apparently everyone thought the game was too slow, which I think was unavoidable (or else people wouldn’t be able to play it, with all the other interface issues I’ve seen on the game)… Balance was off aswell, but it was fully playable, polished, and had a nice concept that I will extend one of these days, when I can find the time for it (hard with my new job).

Anyway, this post comes directly from Appledoorn in the Netherlands, where the HQ of my new company is located (Divitel)… I’m starting a new job now, so I’m setting up (with my partners) the Lisbon office of Divitel, which will be a new company called Divitel Development, focused on Software Development for the telco market… I’ll also be attending the IBC, to get a better understanding of the market we’re moving into.

Hopefully, this new venture will prove better than the last ones… 😉