ICARUS.1 News

Hi there,

Time for another quick update.

So development was progressing slowly due to the constant need to light bake all the shadows. This meant my PC was locked up for hours for things to render and then test. It also meant that everything I moved I'd need to think long and hard about summing up if it was worth the hours spent light baking. As you can imagine, this was a slow process and has been for many months.

Recently I discovered the 'deferred rendering pipeline'.

The what??

With newer graphics cards, within the last 6 years [sic], the deferred rendering mode can be taken advantage of and eliminate the need for light baking, instead all lighting is done in real time! (insert party popper here) There is also a slight increase hit on the CPU but I think will hopefully be nominal.

After some consideration I've decided to go down this route as I (and I'm sure many of you) would like to get ICARUS.1 completed sooner rather than later. The new lighting mode also allows for some exciting new game play features and mood setting. On top of this I've added SSR (Screen space reflections) a new AA filter and have overhauled the Bloom Amorphic lighting effects.

Chapter 4 is half way complete and story writing is being done in parallel.

Thanks for reading, I'll update the Demo of Chapter 1 to the new rendering mode shortly so you can see what I'm so excited about. Here's a few new screen shots in the new rending mode to wet your appetite.

:D

Hi there,

Time for another quick update.

So development was progressing slowly due to the constant need to light bake all the shadows. This meant my PC was locked up for hours for things to render and then test. It also meant that everything I moved I'd need to think long and hard about summing up if it was worth the hours spent light baking. As you can imagine, this was a slow process and has been for many months.

Recently I discovered the 'deferred rendering pipeline'.

The what??

With newer graphics cards, within the last 6 years [sic], the deferred rendering mode can be taken advantage of and eliminate the need for light baking, instead all lighting is done in real time! (insert party popper here) There is also a slight increase hit on the CPU but I think will hopefully be nominal.

After some consideration I've decided to go down this route as I (and I'm sure many of you) would like to get ICARUS.1 completed sooner rather than later. The new lighting mode also allows for some exciting new game play features and mood setting. On top of this I've added SSR (Screen space reflections) a new AA filter and have overhauled the Bloom Amorphic lighting effects.

Chapter 4 is half way complete and story writing is being done in parallel.

Thanks for reading, I'll update the Demo of Chapter 1 to the new rendering mode shortly so you can see what I'm so excited about. Here's a few new screen shots in the new rending mode to wet your appetite.

:D

Hey there!

It's been a while since the last post but much has been happening behind the scenes as I've slowly been chipping away at the remaining chapters. Chapter 3 was finished (shot above is taken from there) and then I've turned my attention back to a few of the core game play elements, namely Journal log systems and how you pick items up.

A good point was mentioned that if you can only carry one item then puzzles will become very linear (which they are at present)

A solution is to introduce a back pack / pocket. You will now be able to pick up and store items. If you are interacting with an item that needs something you are holding, it will automatically be taken out of your pocket and shown as the item you are carrying. This seems to be working well and I'm slowly rolling it out across all the chapters. I'll be updating the demo with this addition.

Another request was a log system that collects together the story fragments from terminals as you collect them. On reflection this is a great idea so I've been working hard to get this into the UI system. As a result I had to come up with a new solution for persistent data which took some time but it's all in place. Again, I'm rolling this out across all the chapters and will update the Demo with this feature.

Oh and finally here's a sneak peek at some concept artwork which you can allways follow on my twitter @16bitsperpx

Hey there!

It's been a while since the last post but much has been happening behind the scenes as I've slowly been chipping away at the remaining chapters. Chapter 3 was finished (shot above is taken from there) and then I've turned my attention back to a few of the core game play elements, namely Journal log systems and how you pick items up.

A good point was mentioned that if you can only carry one item then puzzles will become very linear (which they are at present)

A solution is to introduce a back pack / pocket. You will now be able to pick up and store items. If you are interacting with an item that needs something you are holding, it will automatically be taken out of your pocket and shown as the item you are carrying. This seems to be working well and I'm slowly rolling it out across all the chapters. I'll be updating the demo with this addition.

Another request was a log system that collects together the story fragments from terminals as you collect them. On reflection this is a great idea so I've been working hard to get this into the UI system. As a result I had to come up with a new solution for persistent data which took some time but it's all in place. Again, I'm rolling this out across all the chapters and will update the Demo with this feature.

Oh and finally here's a sneak peek at some concept artwork which you can allways follow on my twitter @16bitsperpx

Hi there!

Here's the latest development progress. Been adding some effects like this cracked visor and something that’s not very visible in this grab, is new atmosphere fog that’s lingering in the air. Its very subtle but effective when it’s all moving. It's not like standard distance fog but a more physical one.

I've been looking into and addressing the controller scripts as some players aren't keen on it’s immediate movement when you press a direction. Working on a subtle ease effect which will hopefully help with these issues. I’ll make this tog-gable in a setting as I’ve got quite used to the direct motion. Adding more settings for players, screen resolution, invert Y mouse, etc.

Oh and Chapter 2 is finished! Moving onto Chapter 3 …