http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news Subscribe to the Mod DB Overgrowth Game news feed, and get the latest updates as they are posted. en-us Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:28:37 -0600 Copyright 2009, DesuraNET Pty Ltd Articles 180 http://static.moddb.com/cutoff/images/logos/rss.png http://www.moddb.com/ 120 90 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/what-is-overgrowth-hd-video Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:41:27 -0600 People that follow Wolfire regularly already know what Overgrowth is. However, many people who stumble across our videos end up confused by what they are watching. Given that we needed a new video for the IGF submission, I thought it would be a great time to tackle the issue head on. articles45687 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/open-development-vs-spoiling-the-story Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:54:47 -0500 We've explained the virtues of open development in depth, but it's not obvious how this development strategy should apply to the Overgrowth story. I've already seen brief discussions about this occur in IRC, and given the 92 comment reaction to Aubrey's storyboard post, I think people may have some strong opinions on this issue. articles45524 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/animation-mixing-ui-hd-video Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:28:45 -0500 A couple of days ago, David asked me to add a new feature to the animation editor UI - animation mixing. Here's a video of how the UI works! articles45396 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/initial-rigging-and-animation-tech-demo-hd-video Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:35:20 -0500 It's been a little while since we've done a tech demo, and I've heard some clamoring on IRC and elsewhere for an explanation of how our new features work. So without further ado, here is an initial rigging and animation editor tutorial. articles45280 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/soft-normal-maps-for-fur Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:10:57 -0500 The rim lighting shader went a long way towards making the fur look soft when lit from behind, but it still looked hard when lit from the side. This problem is so prevalent in modern games that I've started referring to it as "plaster-hair syndrome" -- when hair or fur is sculpted with great detail, but lit as if carved from plaster. articles45133 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/transparent-shadows-using-stippling Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:41:05 -0500 Most modern games use a form of depth-map shadow mapping, because it's efficient on modern graphics cards, and simple to implement. However, it doesn't easily support transparent surfaces. This leads to some inappropriately harsh shadows on materials that are meant to look softer, such as leaves in trees. articles45096 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/overgrowth-icons Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:02:01 -0500 When we made the first Overgrowth alpha a long time ago, we needed an icon. Aubrey quickly whipped up a stylized Overgrowth "O". This was, of course, a rough draft. articles44944 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/character-normal-maps Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:20:52 -0500 We've discussed a lot of the subtle techniques we're using to make the Overgrowth characters look realistic, but we still haven't explained the most important graphics technique in modern games: normal mapping. You probably know that normal mapping lets us render detailed models very efficiently. But what is it actually doing? articles44831 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/overgrowth-auto-updater-ui Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:12:30 -0500 Each week we release a new Overgrowth alpha. Since there is no incremental update system in place, those ~500 megabyte zip files really add up. We use a content distribution network, so the download speeds are always super fast around the world, but still, this is not ideal. Namely, it's inconvenient for people, it costs us a lot of money to host these files, and some people have aggressive download caps or slower internet connections. articles44695 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/how-saving-mechanics-affect-fun Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:11:34 -0500 Game saving feels like a fairly benign topic at first. However, if you stop to reflect on the issue, the mechanics of progress saving have a dramatic impact on your gaming experience. articles44624