very inspirational reading, Shishkovtsov is smart guy

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-interview-metro-2033

especially deferred reflections - so simple idea to make reflections in deferred shader! just render reflected attributes (position, normal etc) into Geometry buffer and draw as usual.

also I am thinking about implementation of Exponential Shadow Maps after reading it.

I read the article half of year ago and have rewritten engine significantly after that. Thread pool was added, engine was detached into several parts etc.

Update

Plan for November for Editor development was over-fulfilled. Over 30 tasks was implemented in time.

New features:

• editable scaling
• asset preview for sounds, scripts and textures
• skyboxes (simple, without any dynamic)
• new gizmos for move, rotate, scale entities

Normal texture trick

I found interesting trick for accessing normals from textures.

Capcon's DXT trick - http://code.google.com/p/nvidia-texture-tools/wiki/NormalMapCompression

Shortly, it allows to use DXT1 and DXT5 bump textures with same shaders.

It's important for editor because bump texture in DXT5 will be ready only at the last stage -

game packaging. There will be small difference in object appearance during in-Editor testing because DXT1 is not good for normals, but I think it's acceptable.

Auto-reloading resources

Auto reloading resources are implemented for the Editor. Scripts, textures, models (by background thread, thus not stopping work), shaders are loading automatically after switching from editing application (Photoshop, 3ds max etc) into Editor.

Also - camera manipulation - zoom to selected objects, top, bottom, left, right, front back view of selected objects. UI for edit assets in external application (defined by OS), opening resource location in the Explorer, import from Assets window.

Big face on landscape

During testing new features of the editor, I set landscape texture to random photo. Interesting effect, to walk on gigantic face!

New features are:

• import of 3d models from FBX file by Autodesk FBX SDK
• tracing of landscapes by tracing of heightmaps (faster then tracing actual geometry)
• assigning of materials, scripts, audio files to objects by dragging from Explorer or Assets window
• Scripts - editing by Notepad, assigning to object, removing.
• Depth Pass before Geometry Buffer Pass, for Deferred Shading
• Current insertion position, for cut-copy-paste

Weekly editor image.

Deferred shading restored, shadow maps, landscapes

by clipmaps, translation and rotation of entities by

mouse with restriction by selected axis (x, y, z).

Plan for the next 2 months is prepared, to complete first version

of editor and engine.

editor status

Editor is developing very fast. A lot of things are complete - window layout management, editing of object's type, assets management (drag and drop assets to scene from asset tree, renaming, deleting etc), project save/load etc.

Next week I will prepare video.

I see light at the end of the tunnel ))