Interaction Update and new people news - Epsylon

Quite some time since the last update but this had been mostly due to the usual real life besides doing work on the game engine side. While implementing new stuff some cleanup is taking place too since one of the new year resolutions is to get this game engine out of the door this year.

Disort Image Effect

One of the new things is the Distort Image Effect. This is a new post processing filter in the Drag[en]gine providing very easy to handle distortion effects. As the base an image is used where the red channel indicates the distortion in the X direction and the green channel the distortion in the Y direction. Using a multiplier parameter the strength of the effect can be altered. The good thing is that this way you can use normal maps straight away since their red and green channel contain already the data in the right format. It's lighting fast and easy as hell to produce good effects this way. Used normal map scaled down in the corner.

Fake Radiosity

Another addition is the Fake Radiosity system allowing to fake some indirect lighting. It's a crude system but turns the renders more natural. It's though nowhere near real radiosity but fast. The upcoming screenshots and videos contain it already.

Decal System

Also implemented now is the decal system. The chosen definition allows the game developer to use decals in an easy and natural way. Realizing simple damage decals or terrain decals is as easy as producing Doom3-esque screens. The new security keypad demonstrates this decal system well.

Button Panel Interactivity

Besides all this new interactions have been implemented. One of the main ideas behind Epsylon is to give the player a high degree of interaction with the environment. One of the interaction types is "button panel usage". Usually using keypads or other devices pops up a 2D GUI. While functional this breaks immersion. Epsylon provides real-time usage of such devices. The needed code classes are all generic allowing you to easily add your own interactive objects. As examples a security keypad and an elevator has been implemented to showcase the system. Below are two videos for your viewing pleasure.

New Team Member

This is though not all. We also welcome scratch, the new team member taking on the daunting task of doing textures. The screenshot below contains only a little bit of what he already did. Expect more to come from his site in the future.

A lot more is going on right now but more would simply not fit in here. We are up and rambling so count with us in the future.