Quake3World

Wow, long time no see, right? A lot of people probably thought us dead, but like a dirty cock-a-roach we just refuse to do such a silly thing. No, the real reason we have been away so long is simple… Hosting. “What, AGAIN?” I hear you all scream… Yes… Again. See we at Team Blur Games have this awesome tendency to go with hosts who are, well, shit, to be honest. However we opted for a premium package with a new reliable host this time, and while we have lost the old teamblurgames.com URL, we are now based at team-blur-games.com instead, so click the pic below to shoot over:



Hardly a huge difference but I would appreciate it if you could update your favourites, spread the word, and get everybody back onto the forums. Right, that’s enough of an update about the site, I’ll get down to the juicy bits.

OverDose Is Now OpenGL 3.2

What you thought we wasn’t doing anything in the time away? The entire OverDose game has been modified to use OpenGL 3.2. What does this mean for you? Well, a few things, really. The first and most important issue is that OverDose now “REQUIRES” a GeForce 8 level or equivalent GPU to run (Basically, anything OpenGL 3.2 ready). This is a pretty important thing to take note of. To be perfectly honest if your NOT on a GF8 level card in this day and age then you wont really be running many games anyway, let alone something as high spec as OverDose. On the plus side however, OverDose is now running smoother than ever. Smoother than a freshly shaved babies bottom, in fact… See below…

New Shadow Code

Ever improving, the shadows are now AT LEAST 4x faster than previous builds. Not only that but they are also a hell of a lot better, nicer looking and generally more bad ass than before. The way lights are set up is a little different. Gone are spending hours trying to find the correct resolution, that’s all done for you now. All the user has to do is select the correct sharpness level and bias for his shadow. This allows you to create really nice sharp indoor shadows and really blurred and fuzzy outdoor ones. One of the cooler new features we are working at the moment (But can’t show) is “Percentage Closer Soft Shadows”. These new shadows allow lights to blur more and more the further away from a light source the shadow is, thus simulating the real life penumbra effect. But for now, here’s a sample of our new shadow code (minus PCSS):



Subsurface Scattering + Rim Lighting

Two features we have been looking into for a long time are Subsurface Scattering and Rim Lighting. These two features give an amazing graphical boost, and when used in combination with flesh for example, they really so make the engine shine. In short, Subsurface Scattering tells the engine how much light a surface should let through, for example hold you hand up in front of a bright light source. Notice how the thinner parts of flesh have a certain translucency to them, showing up as a warm red glow under the skin? That’s Subsurface Scattering in real life at work. Rim Lighting is a feature seen in many games these days, mostly in cartoon games, as they give a very nice soft specular highlight to the edges of models when there is a light source behind them. In combination with Subsurface Scattering, this effect makes many surfaces really come to life, and really gives fleshy tones an amazing leap in graphical fidelity.



Parallax Mapping

Parallax Mapping has been something we have toyed with for a long time. The issue was never not being able to do it, just being able to find an acceptable looking implementation that would work well with the engine. We think we have found it… What do you guys think?



As always, the latest news for OverDose can be found on the OverDose Discussion forums at our site, so get over there and register if you haven’t already.

Decided to do a quick demo of a few things. Nothing major fancy really, but give it a once over see what you think. Remember if you go to the YouTube site you can view the movie in HD (For some reason it doesn't work here).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31N-oVIGsOM

I can't really comment on the tech side of it but it looks awesome!

good to see you back up, I added a link on my site

ps: you need to change your youtube account website link

Odium, put August 24 on your calendar. It's the date teamblurgames.com expires. With a bit of luck you can snatch it back.

if ya ever looking for a mapper, im keen.

^misantropia^ wrote:Odium, put August 24 on your calendar. It's the date teamblurgames.com expires. With a bit of luck you can snatch it back.

*Marks it in iCal so I can squat on the domain name and charge o'dium $5000 for it.*

There was a momentary, "WTF, why is o'dium posting a photo of some rocks?" Awesome work. Hurry up so I can play it.

watching that advanced shader clip makes me want to play Q2 again.
those were some awesome levels, reminiscent of Doom1 maps imo

At the rocks picture for parallax. That looks like an exact reproduction of one of the Crysis Parallax Occlusion screenshots... no?

EDIT: oh no, it is the crysis screenshot

looking great

lol @ Team Blur.

Grenader wrote:EDIT: oh no, it is the crysis screenshot

Hehe, you're absolutely right and it's quite embarrassing to Team Blur.

That's a shame, looks interesting otherwise.

How is it "embarrassing" to us Mr. Six Posts, when everywhere else knows that its there as an informative example. The original post even had google images for SSS/Rim until I went ingame and took shots of it in action. The reason there isn't an ingame picture yet is simple; Its a pain in the arse to set up with the bias and scale settings. But rest assured as soon as I get it looking good enough, it will be updated.

Whoa, calm down. You, sir, posted a Crysis screenshot and removed it afterwards. That's all that matters, Mr. Thirty One Thousand Forty One Posts.

It looks remarkably less impressive than the crysis shot. I feel conned.

oh shit son, thats cold.
and painful

Errr... okay o'dium, I do indeed feel that it was misleading. You even wrote, "We think we have found it… What do you guys think?" as if I'm supposed to comment on the screenshot you originally posted. Had Grenader not pointed it out, I wouldn't have been any wiser (though I did think, "hmm... looks like Crysis"). I'm not sure what your intentions were so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but it was certainly misleading. From a PR perspective, I suggest you be more selective of what you post and be clear about it.

The rest of the stuff is cool though.

Q3W isn't the tippytop. I posted the text at an earlier date with wip/temp pics, and to be fair everywhere knew that except here.

I didn't think it was much of an issue but with the text I can see how it was, hence why i quickly changed it with a subpar pic... At least it was OD.

Also for the few really low post count people that seem to be flaming for zero reason, take your alts and fuck off. Funny how DM shows up being a cunt then you do... Strange that.

Haha, give it up odium!

o'dium wrote:I posted the text at an earlier date with wip/temp pics

That's what the "Save" button is for.

Yeah, after 30,000 posts you were privileged with rights to tell people to fuck off. I've only posted less than ten times and lurked a couple of years. What would I know about forum etiquette lol? Geez, you made a little mistake -- no need to call names or get defensive. Deal with it, get over it. You need a hug.

Well done, mate. Regardless of the accidental screenshot posting, the rest looks great. Keep it up. I expect a release for Christmas, mwahah.

Nice tech demos, but is Team Blur still consisting of just you and Berserk? If so, what's your timeschedule looking like? Cranking out an entire game with graphics (or better: assets to commodate the effects implemented in the engine) like these is no small feat and neigh impossible for a 2 man team.

Screenies and video look great as always, o'dium. Hope you guys can finish this one!

And I really wish you some luck with your hosters in the future. I could hardly believe it when I read that you lost the webspace again - and the domain as well this time.

everything looks outstanding! i like

We added parallax occlusion mapping as a higher end version of parallax and I have to say to kicks arse so much. I'll add a pic when I get home from work. Really makes a huge difference.