Archive for August, 2009
Skinned Avatar Mesh
Posted by Eric DeBrosse in Graphics on August 30, 2009
I need a skinned mesh with bones, so that I can test the shader that will be used to render the avatars in my game. I’ve been going through the 3ds Max tutorials on biped and physique. I forgot how to do mesh skinning. It’s been a long time since I tried to use the physique modifier on my own. It’s all coming back to me pretty quick though. I’d like to export a skinned mesh with a basic walking animation soon.
Effect System Fallbacks
Posted by Eric DeBrosse in Engine Development on August 22, 2009
I made some changes to the .fx effect file importer for the world builder. Not only can it promote 1.x shaders to version 2.0, it can also automatically compile the legacy 1.x shaders and include them in the effect file as well. This way if the effect system detects that it’s running on legacy hardware, then the older less optimized shaders can be selected. Of course, newer shader models can also be included in the effect file. The best available effect implementation will be chosen, based on the hardware that the engine is currently running on.
I also updated the material editor in the world builder to reflect the changes that were recently made to the effect system. There is a small bug that was introduced with these new changes that I would like to locate and fix before I move on.
Game Servers Finally Online Again
Posted by Eric DeBrosse in Game Development on August 12, 2009
I kept finding bugs in the effect system; they were keeping me from getting the game servers back online. I wanted to at least have something new to show, before introducing a new patch. With the latest fixes, the new skydome looks better than ever! I went ahead and added the skydome to the game demo. It looks awesome! I’m going to leave the game servers up for a while I think.
I need to get back to the character animation system again very soon. It would be cool to update the avatars in the game!
Effect System Progress
Posted by Eric DeBrosse in Engine Development on August 2, 2009
I finally got all of the shader effects working on the sky dome today! It looks pretty sweet! I’ve been getting all of the kinks worked out of the effect system in the engine. There are just a few more small things that I want to take care of this week. Then I would like to integrate the sky dome into the game demo. I would also like to spend a little time updating the material editor in the world builder, to reflect the changes in the effect system.