Shadows have been taking most of my development time these past few months. I fought with Shadow Maps forever and then dropped them into the game and found they were completely ill suited for it. I then started over with Shadow Volumes. In the end I settled on both, maps for the hanger and volumes for outside the station. Of course Shadow Volumes put new constraints on my models, so I had to rework those too. My station no longer looks like a donuts, it now looks like… well it’s still ugly. I also have a new frigate that looks sort of like a poodle.

Recently I cleaned up the window hierarchy in code, making it easier to create and manage top level windows. I have also added a character creation window and am currently working on the new player experience. After creating a character you start up and there’s a popup point you to the mission window to get you started. Which brings me back to where I was back in June, creating new hooks for mission events. I’d also like to create a new ship so I can see what it’s like to have unbalanced ships in a fight.

I’ll have to take some screen shots and post them. Maybe I’ll show off the new shadows and the totally awesome, super cool new space station.