Sometimes the little things make a huge difference. A little atmospheric haze gives the world a real sense of depth and a softness that makes the terrain in the previous screenshots look stark and bare. I improved the clouds a little bit, but the main change you’re seeing between the screenshots in this post and the one I made this afternoon is the atmospheric haze. It almost makes it look like a fantasy illustration with the mounting cliffs and stylized clouds (stylized sounds nicer than “unfinished.”)

Generating realistic looking clouds and lighting them properly is an exceptionally complex task. The appearance of a cloud in the real world is a result of the interaction of an incomprehensibly large number of photons with an incomprehensibly large (not as large as the number of photons, but still incomprehensible) number of water/dust globules. No computer in existence could accurately simulate a weather system with that level of detail and even approach real time rendering speeds (you think 2 frames per second is bad, try 2 frames an hour.)

And so, the task of the real time computer graphics programmer becomes: find a way to simulate a system that looks like that hugely complex system but only requires the simulation of a bare minimum of the variables present in the original system.

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I’ve significantly improved the normal mapping code. Mostly I fixed some bugs, but there are a few speed enhancements and more to come. Here’s a shot from the toolset with lighting from the moon (not pictured) and a nearby point light.

If you’re wondering what that big ball with the glowing light coming out of it is, I’ll tell you. It’s a placeholder for a lamp post model which I don’t have yet. I have a (very) part time modeller right now, but I’ll use this space to say, Cutthroat Studios is still in need of artists! If you are a 3d artist, shoot me an email. If you’re an amateur modeller who wants to work on a very cool project (and get a game art credit for your resume) I’m interested in talking with you. If you know a 3d artist, send them a link to this blog.

Since my article on Day/Night Lighting, most of my work has been on parts of the engine that, while critically important, are not very pretty looking. This week I managed to break away from working on the ugly guts of the engine and worked on some pretty things. So, avid readers, what I am telling you, is that this is going to be a screenshot heavy article (hooray!) I even prepared some pretty visual aides to help illustrate a few of my points (also hooray!

Some Background on Sky Simulations in 3D Games

Most 3D games in recent years use skyboxes to simulate realistic skies. A skybox is exactly what it sounds like – a large cube that encloses the game world with six images on the inside faces, cleverly edited so that they appear seamless. This is an easy way to have very good looking, highly detailed skies with clouds, stars, or whatever else you expect to see in the sky. However, image based skyboxes like this are static, since the clouds and other objects in sky are essentially still photos, they cannot move across the sky, or change their colours at different times of day. To give some dynamism to the sky, some skybox systems use several sets of images and blend between them as the time of day or weather changes. This approach can look very good, but it still is not truly dynamic, even if a huge number of sets of images were used, it would be like playing a movie of a sky on a large screen that wraps around the game world. And just like a movie, it would be the same every time. Also, this technique requires a huge amount of art. While the task of displaying and blending between images on the skybox is simple, it pushes the burden onto the artist to generate a large number of image sets that smoothly transition from day to night, for example, or from clear to cloudy and back. As more variables are added (day/night/sunset/sunrise/clear/overcast) the number of smoothly transitioning image sets required by the technique multiplies. Skyboxes are a good, simple solution to the problem of creating good looking skies if a game does not require a wide range of sky situations in the same area. For example, if the player does not spend much game time in each area, you can choose a skybox that fits the time of day that the player is in the area. If they leave quickly and aren’t allowed to freely come back after time has passed, there is no need for a sky that reflects more than that one point in time when the player was there.

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Nothing gives me an appetite for music quite like long hours of coding. Over the last few months that I’ve been working on this project I’ve bought quite a few albums to keep me company while I work. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of the ones that have found their way into regular rotation.

• Little Dragon – Little Dragon – Album – This is a great album. Definitely on the indie/low-fi side of things. Something about the intimate, unpolished feel of the vocals just draws me in.
• Sara Bareilles – Little Voice – Album – Good songs, great singing. I suppose this might run a little poppier than my usual tastes but.. what can I say, I like it.
• Macaco – Ingravitto – Album – I heard about this one on NPR actually, wait wait! It’s not stuffy at all. It might get stuck in the “World Music” genre (which basically means “Anything that isn’t in English”) but it’s more of a “Tight Rhythmic Alt-Pop” If you’ll allow me to make up a new genre.
• Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero – Album – Another great album. A work of dark storytelling, it is very cohesive as a unit. If you check this out, get the album rather than picking off a few songs.
• Nine Inch Nails – Y34RZ3r0r3mix3d – Album – Despite the title (quick, somebody tell Trent Reznor that writing in 1337 isn’t cool anymore), if you liked Year Zero, pick up the remixes. I’m usually disappointed by remix albums. Usually there’s about one that’s worth listening to and the rest either add nothing, or are far worse than the originals. All the remixes on this album either add something to the original or take it in a totally different direction. Especially cool is the remix of Another Version of the Truth, this isn’t really a remix, “cover” would be more appropriate. It is completely re-envisioned by the Kronos Quartet (a non-traditional string quartet for those who are unfamiliar) and Enrique Gonzales Muller.
• Ok Go – Oh No – Album – This isn’t really a new album, but I pop it on when I need something peppy. If you’ve seen that You Tube video with the treadmill dancers, you know Ok Go. Good songs, playful mood.
• TV On the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain – Album – This isn’t a particularly new album either, but it’s found its way back into my rotation. I’m not sure how to describe this music except, the opposite of pop. It took a while for me to get into it, but after I’d heard it half a dozen times I really started to like it and hear things I hadn’t heard before in it. And yes, it has a very silly name.
• Various Artists – Markus Schulz: Amsterdam ’08 – 4 disc set – I first bought this album on iTunes because I felt like listening to some techno and it was $9.99 for the whole 4 disc set. Considering I was trying to get some music to carry me through the rest of the night coding, it was a great buy. Economics aside, it’s a great album for listening to while working on something else. It’s pulsing, ethereal and doesn’t demand my attention away from my work.
• Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV – 4 disc set – Okay, I had to put this one on here too. I was trying to resist so I didn’t come off as a NIN fanatic, which I’m not, I’ve just really liked what he’s been doing lately. This album was sold only through the NIN website, using a distribution model similar to Radiohead’s recent In Rainbows. Just another reason to love it, $5.00 for four discs. Four short discs, the material could have been put on three discs but it was separated for thematic reasons and hey they weren’t actually making very many discs considering that the main distribution method was via download.
• ADELE – Hometown Glory – single – This track was featured as the iTunes song of the week a while back. It’s the only disc by ADELE that iTunes has at the moment unfortunately. I like the B side better than the single.
• Danger – 09/14 2007 – EP – Another iTunes song of the week got me to pick up this disc.