Progress Update 7 news - Shadows (PC/PSM)

Hello everyone! I am truly sorry for the long wait. If you do not already know, I am actually just a sophomore in High School. School, and many other responsibilities have been stalling development and will probably continue to. I am sorry. This doesn't mean that the game is canceled or anything, but this does mean that there may be times when some updates come faster, while others come not so fast. Sorry if this is not what you expected but I can assure you that I am trying my best to get the game finished.

Engine

I've been working on the PC version of my engine a lot lately (because I'm re-writing it, lol, couldn't resist) I currently have three rendering techniques implemented (Forward, Deferred Shading, and Light Pre-Pass). It all started with the addition of deferred shading. After implementing it, bursting with excitement, I went ahead and implemented Light Pre-Pass (aka. Deferred Lighting).

Deferred Shading & Light Pre-Pass are exclusive to the PC version of my engine due to PlayStation Mobile's lack of support for MRT (Multiple Render Targets). While this is still possible on PlayStation Mobile, this would require me to draw geometry each time I need to output an attribute (depth, normals, etc). To achieve something like the image above on PlayStation Mobile, I'd need to render scene geometry three times. That is very costly, especially on mobile devices.

I will be releasing some screenshots of the PC version of Shadows soon.

PlayStation Mobile

So I am actually doing a total re-write of the PSM version as well. I'm currently working on a brand new level for the game. I will be releasing some footage sometime in the next few months. As you probably saw over on the Images page, I am working on a new weapon/item system. I have health potions set up as well as a couple other ones ;) . I have a three of the weapons setup but not with models. Hands, a Knife, and a newly added... Grappling Hook! It is still very buggy and sometimes doesn't work because of how BEPUPhysics handles StaticMeshes (meshes the player can stand on or collide with that don't move) so I may be creating my own level format soon instead of just a scene format and letting BEPU create a StaticMesh from the base model. I will figure it out, maybe I'll port the BEPU's CharacterController class over to PSM. This would help a lot with player collisions. Sometimes the player can run through walls so it's pretty weird. Actually, I think I may go ahead and port it over. It would save me craploads of time. LOL :D The knife currently works. Hands, I am still working on NPCs so choking will be implemented after the NPC System is finished. Although, you can do an invisible punch! (invisible because I don't have a hand model or a punching animation yet, haha). The knife Plus, the scene system is working pretty good so far. I have been able to move from one level to another and to another through doors without problems. So it looks like this (forget the name though, lol a name generator bought that up)

>>>To a little loading screen>>>

>>>Then BOOM! The Level is Loaded! >>>

"Viscera" is not the new level lol, it was just made for a test and will not be in the actual game. I would never name a level after internal organs. Haha, anyways, as you can see, the health bar is now green. It changes colors as it goes down, with green meaning you're healthy, yellow meaning you're hurt, and red meaning you're close to death. To heal, you would use a health potion (obviously lol) and as you can see, I currently only have three. Five will most likely be the max amount of health potions you can have a one time. I have improved the options menu. There are brightness, contrast, and Field Of View sliders now as well as a way to contact me about bugs directly from the game.

Future Plans

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I may be splitting Shadows apart into two games, with the PSM version being more of a sub-story and the PC version being the main story due to some technical limitations and some features that I would like to try out that aren't currently possible on PlayStation Mobile. Though, this has not been written in pen yet. Eventually after release, I'd like to create a version of my engine that uses AMD's Mantle (hopefully the SDK is released by that time) rather than DirectX. For those who are not sure what this means, it means that anyone using an AMD GCN GPU (HD 7000/R7/R9 series) will receive a performance boost. It did wonders for me in Battlefield 4 LOL. I have an i7 2600k, 16GB of 1600MHZ Ram, and a 2GB XFX HD 7850, but I'm currently running at 1366x768 so I get over 60 FPS constantly maxed out with no AA. I will try to release updates more frequently.

Once Again, I am truly sorry for the wait. Sorry if this update was not as long or what you expected to be. I will be releasing some footage or screenshots sometime between the next couple weeks to the next couple months. Thank you for understanding, and I hope to be in touch more.

Take Care,
Kam :)