Sorry I've not much to show in terms of screenshots / videos like in the last entry [ http://www.warbotsonline.com to watch the 2 videos of the game ].

I've been putting a lot of work into various GUI elements like the scoreboard display, the end game screens, command point gameplay integration...things of this nature. I also have to spend time on the map selection and robot loadout screens. Lots of tinkering with the 3D sound parms as well.

Ground Illumination Flares
Since it's pitch black on the battlefields [ except tracers etc. ] I decided to make it so players can launch up ground illumination flares to brighten the battlefield for a few seconds...at the disadvantage of giving away their position. These could actually also be used as signal flares I suppose.

The effect itself has two stages, first the 'flare' is represented as a very bright red dot with a dense smoke trail & associated sound effects. After the flare starts to fall, it enters the 2nd stage where it is highly luminous and the smoke trail becomes much more intermittent. The flare also moves around as it sails to the ground illuminating the area.

Also adding a random flicker to the brightness value of the flare adds to the realism.

Here is a screenshot of the 2nd stage of the flare deployment...compared to a reference image I found on the internet...



Robot Self Shadowing
Self shadowing can have a huge impact on the scene imo...it was missing until now, while I decided the best way to do it. Right now I'm going with a filtered floating point shadow map per-object that is within distance [ and always on the player's robot/vehicle ].

Oh...btw...I also edited the texture of the 6 wheeled robot...here is how it looks along with some self shadowing



Here are some screenshots w/out the textures so you can see the shadowing clearer...



Well that's it for now...

I have 4 items left on my to-do list before the game is done and I suppose I will see how many more publishers are interested in the game :-o I need to polish the demo up, create some documents describing the game, the pitch e-mail, etc.

Bah, so much work to do.

- Danny