Plan for Peter Khojasteh

Exileworks Continues work on Poacher. New shadow mapping technology implemented in torque. Screenshots and Videos inside showing the new effects and features.

Exileworks has been very busy over the last few weeks. The team has been working in full tilt towards our goal of creating a very enjoyable game through Poacher. It's almost customary for me to thank my team and I won't hesitate this time because these guys are really inspirational to work with. All of the long nights and "insane no sleep" 3 day work LAN's are starting to pay off.

This time around, our principle programmer Ryan Mcfall has implemented some new graphical wizardry into torque. Ryan developed a brand new method for the creation of real time shadow maps. This technology goes beyond what you've seen in Far Cry, and is a testament to Ryan's ingenuity. Along with Associate programmer Justin Boswell they've created some really spectacular effects. As it stands, the engine is hardly recognizable as torque. it was a massive undertaking to change so much of the underlying code, but Justin and Ryan have really shown they're above par. My thanks go out to them. The images below show the new shadow mapping Ryan has created as seen in the savannah environment created by our lead level designer, Nick Wojtowycz.

This new method has fully dynamic shadows that not only cast on the ground, but on any DTS objects such as an animal or a player's weapon. The image below shows how the shadows are accurate even with alpha mapped objects such as Speedtree generated trees.



This image shows how objects self shadow in real-time to create a spectacular effect. Not only do they cast realistic shadows on themselves, but also each other.



You'll notice that these shadows are indeed soft shadows as seen in the recent video from the unreal 3 engine. Ryan has developed a brand new method for creating this soft shadow effect that goes well beyond conventional anti-alaising. The performance is still rock solid at 40-45 fps. It should be noted that the implementation of these effects are not for the faint of heart, its some seriously advanced coding here. My hats off to Ryan for his amazing contribution. Also notice that we have a new HUD. This HUD is not your normal run of the mill HUD. Justin has created some very interesting code that will make the health meter flow down naturally. Justin and I worked together closely to make this effect come off naturally.





This last image shows more of the real time shading capability, but also shows off the normal mapping capability currently present. As you can see the bark on the trees is normal mapped to produce a very textured feel. This effect is very apparent as the game is in motion.



In the last few days, Justin tracked down and killed a memory leak that ships with TSE. Plans are underway to release this fix to the community. The problem is in a very obscure section of the code, but apparently its effects are far reaching.

Future plans include replacing the specular map system and implementation of more AI features. I've been working steadily on the artwork and feel that I am making headway. This headway is mostly possible through use of the new showtool. David Wyand's new showtool is a must have for any torque developer and I highly recommend it. Thanks go out to David for his help and wonderful programming.

Small note: yes, torque's alpha mapping is still funky. We've fixed this in our Poacher code and will eventually release it to the community.



Lastly, we have included these videos of Nick's spectacular Savannah environment with the new shadow techniques so you can see them in real-time! Each is a unique video and you will need the divx codec.


Video_1 (18 mb)

Video_2 (6 mb)