Onionman's coding blog

[Onionman77]

I thought I'd just post here on things I was planning on working on next, I know a lot of developers do that.Anyway, I just finished putting occlusion culling in the game, should speed up a lot of things, and make the blooms look better.So I hear the cries of players asking for mouse controls for the ship fighting. It's going to be done, however my current top priority is in adding normal mapping to the game.-Brandon

[Onionman77]

Oh one more thing I'd like to do in the future, is add speech recognition to Ensign-1. Although that will mean more when you actually have a wingman who takes orders

[Onionman77]

I thought I'd post a little pic of what I've been working on.I'm trying to add in shaders to add normal maps and improve the lighting! I'm totally lost but it's exciting because everything is so new. Anyway, here's a picture I've managed to scrounge up, showing off a little rock normal maps I applied to everything . Next I'm trying to learn just how to recreate the basic lighting that opengl does.

[Onionman77]

The patch for normal maps is going to take a bit more time than I thought to put up. In testing, it's really slowing down some of the levels, sorry :/

[Onionman77]

I've got some people asking what my development priority list is.First thing is I'm working on getting the game running faster, especially on mission 2. All those asteroids with the texture switching is slowing things down.Then I'll be working on seperating up the interior levels with sliding doors, so that we can make some bigger levels in FPS.Then after all that I guess I'll work on the mouse and gamepad support.Then it's moving on to bringing money and new ships into the game, as well as journals to read in FPS. Maybe some animated characters and enemies.Then way way later, I'm hoping to finally get back into the multiplayer.

[Onionman77]

Hey,So I'll be taking some time, maybe a couple weeks or so to work on other things/take a vacation. Working on Ensign has left me a bit low. I'll be working on Helena the 3rd a bit, taking a break, Rustybolts may still be cranking out levels in the meantime, you'd have to ask him.

[Onionman77]

Just cleaning some things up. Some bugs and optimizations to make the engine run smoother.Also working on getting co-op in.

[Onionman77]

Amidst watching various E3 streams, I'm working on adding a flashlight to the game, and I must say it's coming along quite nicely. It's going to add a lot of atmosphere to the game I think.-Brandon

[Onionman77]

[Onionman77]

I got the AI working a might bit better. Hopefully it should shoot straight now instead of flailing about wildly.

[Onionman77]

I'm thinking about adding in some wingmen into the game After we add in more ships to buy of course.

[Onionman77]

So the new ensign is really difficult. It's going to be interesting to see how players react, as the enemy fighters have gotten much smarter.

[Onionman77]

Hey guys, if you didn't catch it, Ensign-1 has multiplayer now.