Development Snapshot Video 9/25 - New normal and specular maps. Map, lighting changes and enhancements.

Hi, I have been busy and making progress on Phoenix USC. In this video you can see the recent changes to the map and lighting. I have 32 bots on two teams fighting in base testing Phoenix USC's client and server. This simulated game play gives an excellent view of all the wonderful progress and a glimpse what is to come. Some of the key development progress:

• Small cones removed and replaced with dragons teeth barriers. Other areas of the map redone to improve the overall flow of the ships as they move around. Some ISO tiles have been redone for better lighting and visuals.

• All base areas now use navigation polygons and have been updated to include recent design changes. This allow bots to navigate in all areas in and around the base arena.

• All normal and specular maps are redone. This has improved lighting greatly and reduced specular artifacts to almost zero. It has also has greatly improved the visual clarity with better contrast and highlights. Some static lights have been removed and others have been resized and positioned to reduce the lights used in game.

• Changes to ship lighting for a cleaner brighter look.

• Your player ship is now supports a main dynamic light. This improves the look and works better with real-time shadows. All other lights are static and "do" interact with the map and all ships. All remote player and bot ships are affected by all lights and shadows in game.

• Code changes to attach mode. Development here is ongoing and will mimic current SubSpace / Continuum attach modes. For now I have attach mode working so that you can attach to a player and detach all with a key stoke (F7).

• Networking code improvements.

These are the development highlights for this month. I will be working on attach mode getting it ready for match play and then moving to repel. Once these features are in place I will be working on a simple capture the flag match play system to get us going.

Moore soon...
Vidiot_X