Warbots Update - Nearing the finishline - Lots of Screens

Hey guys,

I've been working on this vehicle combat game Warbots Online for about 6 months now, and I can see the light :-D. I'm going for a sort of 'counter-strike but with vehicles' feel for the game. It supports up to 64 players per multiplayer server. I have 2-4 items left on my todo-list, expect to be done soon... I've been contacting a few publishers and will start a larger/more exhaustive search in the coming days/weeks. I've been running nonstop on this for like the last 5 days :-o wowow is all I can say 3:?
I've been tweaking nearly every aspect of the game from redoing the entire custom shadow/lighting system [ I only use a single 2048 texture for all lighting/shadowing, free filtering, but it only 'works' on terrains, its a sort of how Source engine does shadowing, but I can do different objects @ different resolutions, and I have one channel left for the lighting ].

I've made the maps smaller [ which blew up a lot of stuff ;-o ] but this is to sort of promote the more action oriented play that I want to achieve.

Anyways since the last update I've COMPLETED... (off the top of my head) -
- weapons working 100% again
- added envinment props [ Wind turbine, powerlines, radar station, warehoues, etc.]
- added night vision
- added Depth of Field post-process
- Cleaned up maps
- (WIP) working on replugging all AI functionality
- Added new set of rocks/bushes/trees for each of the 3 environment types
- Made maps 4X smaller
- Added collision detection on convex and concave meshes in the environment
- Added the scoreboard
- Finalized Havok physics system
- Wrote an abstracted Havok physics wrapper for the vehicle construction system
- Fixed all the things with the 3 different environment types [ rock, snow, grassland ]
- Fixed bugs with the bases/spawns
- Wrote a custom control/physics system for the tank (hovercraft still needs work)
- Added headlights to the vehicles
- Fixed wheels penetrating the ground.
- Got the 24 hour cycle working
- Added self shadowing to the normal maps on the terrain
- Added smooothed ground/road under all environment props

I've got about 2 things left, and some small things...I want to be done with a 'Alpha build near BETA' ready to send out.

Blah, my fingers hurt...I'll just post up a bunch of screenshots like I always do XD


Latest Screens from the builds in the last few days -
NOTE, Yea the sky is kinda, whiteish...I'm working on that now...it's a combo of the HDR/Tonemapping/DOF/God Rays...I will make each of those effects togglable.


New Tree/Rock/Bush models on a snow map -


New Tree/Rock/Bush models on a grasslands map -


Catching some air...the game is paused and you can fly through the dust/etc...it's pretty sweet -


Creepin up on an installation -


Landing a little toooo hard lol, I broke mah carz ;-/ I still think this looks cool, it shows the headlight system and the dust effects which only come out @ each wheel if that wheel is on the ground, I can modify it per-material as well as add small dirt/debris effects -


Some pics of me tear-ass-in around the maps...



Scoreboard


Building interiors with their own shader...


Assorted images of the new environment assets,etc...








Debug visualization of the imposters/imposter types...this is the system running at 1-2% capacity, I've tested with up to 1,000,000 imposters


Debug of the vehicle self shadowing


My work machine died on my, I had to throw a 3rd HD in there to fix everything and setup a dual boot so I could transition to the new main work HD. Everything went seamless, back up to 100% in 2-3 days, no loss of any data...and a MUCH better work experience...



Thats all for now...should be able to post more frequent updates now as things should start wrapping up.

- Dan