These are actually the last progress shots I have for the semester. While my memory on why is a little hazy, I’m going to claim that it was an intense semester for me and finishing all of my other classes and getting things implemented in the graphics engine was enough work without having to remember to take new progress shots. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
So, there isn’t necessarily any big new features being documented in these image captures. My artists and producer wanted new progress shots so I took some that showed overall progress rather than any individual feature. What I can claim here is that shadow mapping was cleaned up a lot to provide better, crisper shadowing. Also, I had just tracked down a bug in my asset caching system; the system worked perfectly until it tried to cache mesh data between frames. Something about what DirectX does while state changing between render frames caused bizarre vertex deformation when I tried to cache between frames. While the bug had presented in multiple ways that weren’t obvious for months, I had finally tracked it down and solved it simply by forcing a recache at the start of each frame. I was simultaneously pleased that I had solved it and angry that it had taken me so long to figure out the root issue.
Also, most of these images don’t do a great job of capturing the state of the graphics engine. One makes it look like the scuttle casts no shadow and one is a goofy capture of what happens when you toggle wireframe mode with glow outlines active. But, here they are anyway.
These images were taken on 10/25/12.
GoodGraphics17.png, a good progress shot of the graphics engine.
GoodGraphics17_2.png, wireframing glow outlines.
GoodGraphics17_3.png, this is a goofy picture of nonsense.
GoodGraphics17_4.png, good self shadowing on the scuttle.