New leaf…

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted something on the blog… the reason is the usual one: I don’t have the time because of my DayJob™, and when I finally get some time, I’m trying to compensate the work I’ve not done!

No more!

I’ve decided to try something new to keep me more into the development work and keep you all informed: I’m going to try to work on the game and post something every single day… It might not be much, but it’s something… This way I won’t try to do big updates on the blog, while keeping myself motivated to work on the game even though I’m blindingly tired!

I’ll also try to post the most interesting link I’ve seen all day, so even in the days where there’s not much work, you won’t waste the trip here completely!

So, to start this new chapter, here’s something I did today: better alpha system on the voxels!

Before:

After:

The problem was that the system would draw everything in a single draw call, which meant that voxels with alpha would fill up the Z-buffer and stop objects behind them of being rendered (a normal problem with alpha blending)… What I did is to introduce the concept of “channels” on the materials… Most opaque materials will draw on channel 0, alpha materials will draw on channel 1, and they will be properly drawn in their own pass this way… This can be extended to add a channel for glowy objects (for post-processing), and channel for weird shader materials, etc…

This was bugging me for ages now, so it’s good to see this fixed, and it only took me one hour!

Now playing: Grand Theft Auto 5 (yes, I know this is old, but I haven’t been able to keep up with gaming!)

Now listening: “Mana” by “Nemesea”

Link of the Day: Big Earth found… This excites me a lot: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/02/monster-planet-godzilla-earths-kepler-10c

Cya tomorrow!