Mini Map

hi, one of the things that was missing for me in fps game is the way to know where i am, where do i need to go and where the hell is my enemies that keep shooting at me.
so i thought to add this mini map feature which shows you the level (from top), you and the enemies near you, this including orientation so you know where they look at.
for now its just shows you where is the bots in the map (including you) but eventually it will show you:
1. your objectives
2. war zones
3. special items
4. shortcuts
and more, this list is changing from day to day but i think you got the idea :)
here is a screenshot the shows the mini map inside the game (top left)

yellow icon is you, red icons is other bots
note that the detail is not so good because the image compression

Swinging Lights

hi, this time i just added new feature to my articulate figure system that i'm using for ragdolls, the new feature allow me to define any model to be physical so to test it i tried to use it for lights so i could interact with them.
its very simple to define, just one .af script to define the bodies & constraints and one 3d model to attach the .af script to.
here is a small video to show this in action:

Advanced Shadows

hi, last post i talked about the new render system and the improved shadow and lighting system, so here is few screenshots that shows some action:

soft particles with per pixel lighting and shadowing,
notice the green shadows on the wall

this is not projected light effect, this is true shadows generated from the fench

first picture shows some green smoke effect that cast green shadows, this is not precomputed effect or projected video, this is real shadows producing by the particles.
here i show this on particles but it will work perfectly for glass and other translucent materials.
the second picture shows shadows created from semi transparent materials, here i show this on fence but it will work for any semi transparent materials such as trees, grass etc.

i also added some optimizations to point light shadowing by skipping cube face passes by determine if face frustum is not intersecting camera frustum.