lighting implemented

In addition to the light and shadow generation, I have also implemented multiple textures and four polygon layers (lit non-colliding background, lit colliding foreground, unlit colliding foreground, and unlit non-colliding foreground). I've been able to salvage some code and design from the discontinued PW2 but this map editor is still in the very early stages.

redesign

Driven by my desire to have a recent comments section on the sidebar, I redid the design of my blog. I'm not sure I'm really satisfied with it but I think it's quite an improvement over the old design. I will probably change the header as soon as I come up with a better idea for it.

lighting

Originally I was going to use 3D polygons and DirectX lights, but I changed my mind because 1) working in real 3D, even in a limited way, is a pain, and 2) it's hard to predict the effects of a light on 3D geometry. Instead I'm going to implement a two dimensional method that includes shadows. I used one of VirtualTT's maps to do some testing in Photoshop.

unlit:


red, green, and blue lights overlapping, night:


shadows and light-blocking polygons, sunset:

animation editor

I just started working on the third rewrite of the character/animation editor for my project (C#):



After it's possible to create and save animations I'll be able to start properly implementing my animation system, starting with walking and jumping.

character designs

New sketches of my old RPG characters:



I might colour them sometime (and fix all the little mistakes I've noticed since scanning it).


[edit] Quick colouring, about 1.5 hours:

soldier

Another bit of concept art.

GUI

I restructured my GUI system so it's more modular. I still have to implement check boxes, radio buttons, labels, and some other controls, but I'll do that later. Now I can work on the game itself. 

concept art

Two attempts at creating the effect of depth:



(foreground drawn by Michal, backgrounds by me)

The background will be rendered in full 3D, so it will have an automatic parallax scrolling effect. The foreground layer can also be 3D but it will be rendered with orthogonal projection so it will appear flat. This is because entities like monsters and characters are flat and would look odd rendered on 3D terrain.

wip

 

Changes to the interface include:
- scenery window, waypoints window, colouring options combined into one "tool options" window that shows the options of the current tool
- resizable colour palette with variable number of colours
- more display options
- alpha tool

C#

I started learning C# and so far it's great. For practice I'm re implementing some parts of PolyWorks which will also give me some base code that I can use for future map/character/etc editors. I like how it's possible to derive gui controls from existing ones; I can make all kinds of customized controls this way with a minimal amount of work. Managed DirectX seems to be pretty easy to use as well. If things go really well I might even rewrite PolyWorks in C#. It would be a hell of a lot of work but I keep getting the urge to refactor PolyWorks. This would be a good opportunity for that and there would also be a lot of overlap with future map editors. I'm not sure yet if it's worth the trouble though.