A Lil Bit More (sub stuff)

just got shadow effect working... what a pain that was...



the shadow follows the contours of the terrain and you only see a shadow when the view is within a certain range, and it starts to appear only when the sub is a certain height above the terrain (it's expensive resource wise, so these help keep shadowing objects to a minmum)...

also, the closer you get to the terrain, the darker the shadow gets... kinda neat :) i'm basically satisfied with it, though i've gotta redo the shadow image and get rid of the white border surrounding the mask...

the implementation is based on the 'Flexible Towel Shadows' code contributions in the archives by Rob Cummings...

thx also to jfk and Liberator for their quick and generous advice and help on the forums, and to Rossc and jfk (again) for the code library stuff for masking out other colors besides 0,0,0...



--Mike

Hehehe, very nice man! Looking better every time i see it.

That is looking *very* nice.

thx guys... i'm tryin :)

--Mike

Looks much better (compared to one you posted in the gallery). I also like the ones with the sub diving and the particle effects.

In the actual game how is it played? There are a lot of shots from the exterior of the sub.

i'l post a few interior shots soon... a lot of that is constructed, but the code is incomplete, and the animated crew and the instruments are not done... so i use the external view cam for most of my shots...

in the game, you are primarily a first person view participant, either a captain or jr. officer... and the sub requires you to operate controls which will determine what it does from inside the sub, in the control room...

i'm really not a big devotee of external views being part of a submarine simulation... after all, the whole point of being inside a sub is the confined, claustrophobic immersion that it presents... that's the real goal here, to try and virtually give this presence to the player...

to me, external views in a submarine sim is just like being inside a car, and seeing yourself driving by... unles there's a really big mirror on the side of the road, it just aint gonna happen...

but, as a concession to the virtuality of the simulation, and to the desires of the target audience, i'm spending all this time and effort trying to make half way decent looking external visuals...

ahhhh, it's all good though... i'll wind up using this stuff again in another context.

to me, the real fun is being inside the sub... navigating a world that is sight unseen, using only the instrumentation available to guide your way and help you track and destroy, and also evade an enemy force :)

--Mike

well done! go on with this baby!!

Looks fantastic! absolutely pro.

thx for the comments guys...
sorry for the delay in responding... had to get some actual sleep last night (as opposed to the 1 hour compressed trances i've been doing lately)...

i went to bed at about 8PM and slept all the way through till 4 this morning... watched the tv for about an hour... then went back to sleep for another 3 hours...

i'm just hoping i can keep making it look a lil better with each new 'feature', and not wind up bogging down Blitz too much before i get it finished...

--Mike

Just gets better and better!