Whoops, massive lack of updates

So, many deadlines at work combine with a resurgence of my WoW habit to completely destroy my hobby-code productivity...

With the next expansion looming very near (and a pre-expansion patch apparently within a week), Wowcrack is undergoing some very bizarre changes. I may splurge about the design decisions later, because they're quite interesting even if mostly specific to the online genre.

In the past month I did get a few things done. Some general hackery, a new model to replace the tentacles for general clutter, and a starter particle system (here used to show where the test lights are):



Particles are entirely GPU-side, all the simulation is done in the vertex shader operating on some static random buffers. This means they're only good for simple things, but they're pretty damn quick, entirely deterministic, and quite fun.

'Shrooms need a diffuse texture, and probably a redesign. The problem with things like these familiar mushroom shapes is that from a top-down perspective, they look a great deal like rocks. Bright colours/spots/etc would help with that, but I think a better choice would be to choose a more interesting shape for the fungi and flora. After all, they're present in a vast array of bizarre shapes in real life, so I see no reason to stick with the common toadstool shape in a fantasy cave-world.

With luck, I'll have more time for code and blogging soon. 'Til then, enjoy the minimal sparklies!

Edit: SSAO is turned off in the final composited image at the moment, because it has returned to looking a bit arse. Tricky thing to get right it seems.