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, 21 Nov 2009 16:40:41 -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/xtreme-plant-optimization Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:50:05 -0600 A lot of people have mentioned the plants as an area we could improve in Overgrowth. For this reason, I made a point of trying out games that have great plants, such as Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Hunter, and Battlefield 1943. I stared at the plants to figure out how they were built. articles46321 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/wolfire-irc-channel Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:44:28 -0600 Mibbit is a small web startup that provides a web-standards-based widget to interface with IRC channels. Sort of like the recently-mentioned Meebo, but for IRC chat rooms instead of AIM, MSN, etc. articles46212 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/why-we-are-not-using-euphoria Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:38:08 -0600 Whenever we post about physics or animation technology, people always ask why we don't use Euphoria. Instead of replying to all of these comments individually, I decided to just write this post where everyone can see it, and link to it in the future whenever it comes up again. articles46118 http://www.moddb.com/games/overgrowth/news/building-a-tower Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:19:52 -0600 A few months ago I decided that I could make better environment art but improving in art is hard, and often requires trying something completely different to get the result you want. Since then I have been thinking about how to build some new and improved cat buildings for Overgrowth. Here are some drawings I have made along the way. articles45986 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