Plan for Peter

Firstly, my thanks go out to our lead level designer, our lead programmer, Our sound engineer, and all of the other teammates for all of the hard work.

Over the last two months, our team has been extremely busy. Amidst the many struggles inherent in bending an engine to your will, I feel we have succeeded in effecting some various improvements in a rather short time. Although TSE is just around the corner (from what we gather), we still felt that we should push forth with our own graphical optimizations and improvements.
In Lieu of TSE our lead programmer Ryan Mcfall implemented Vertex Shaders (pixel shaders later). I must admit I was hounding him for a general visual boost to Torque's rendering methods and boy did he deliver. I cannot compliment him enough on his efforts and fantastic results. In addition to a general improvement in Torque's renderer, we are experiencing an increase of about 10 FPS, which is even before any serious optimization.
Next is the implementation of SpeedtreeRT. While we were at GDC, we visited the gentleman at IDV Inc. (makers of Speedtree) and also Bionatics (makers of NatFX). Both packages are created to provide purchasers with Tree Libraries and various other utilities for foliage creation. We reviewed each product and received demos at each booth in turn. Although NatFX has several interesting features, Speedtree was the clear victor. Each package has a hefty price tag, with Speedtree weighting in at $6,000 USD. Folks... It's well worth the money. Not only is it a great product, but the staff and support is second to none. I really must take my hats of to the IDV staff for all of their help and quick responses to our concerns. Although many challenges were becoming apparent, our lead Programmer was able to implement Speedtree in about a week. Once the trees were working and rendering properly in-engine, He went to work on developing special functionality for the editor. (Screenshot below)


The trees work with the FX_generators and are otherwise fully functional in the editor. Our Lead level designer went right to work producing some splendid levels with Speedtree and player interaction in mind. His efforts really gave us an understanding of when and how to use Speedtree effectively.

Next is the AI. AI has been a very important topic for us because the animals in Poacher must exhibit very specific and often times complex behaviors. Our lead programmer has implemented some very powerful path finding and motion determination algorithms to help the AI's navigate the dense foliage and complex terrain elements present in Poacher. On top of these efforts, he has created very powerful "emotional state" algorithms for not only the animals but also the wardens. The characters exhibit complex emotional responses to stimuli and act accordingly. This is really a triumph for us because we feel that the AI is a VERY important part of Poacher's gameplay. Again; my hats off to our lead programmer.


On the artistic side, I have been working on developing some of the various vehicles for Poacher. Our efforts are being directed towards creating a visually stimulating environment filled with detailed animals, vehicles, and characters. We've put forth a lot of work to develop fun weapons and items for the player to use. We feel that the Art and Code are working together in a very effective manner on this project.


Our plans for the future are simple. We plan to make the best game in our ability to make. I am very proud of my teammates for all of their hard work and dedication.


- Peter Khojasteh
Exileworks Inc.