Shadowplay (updated 27 Jun. 2005)

GarageGothic · Sat 08/10/2005 17:09:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys. I won't come up with bad excuses, just try to explain what's going on in my life and why I haven't fulfilled my promises of releasing a tech demo yet.

As some of you know, I'm currently in Canada working as a language tester at EA's Black Box studios. Not surprisingly, the project end date was postponed, which has meant a 2Â½ month stay for me in glorious Vancouver. I knew this would happen, which is why I bought a laptop computer for the trip, so that I could work on Shadowplay in my spare time. Then something very unexpected happened: I met the coolest, most amazing person I've ever known, and for a wonderful period of five weeks, I had the time of my life. Little time was left over for Shadowplay, but we all have our priorities.
However, this person's reponse as I told her the story of Shadowplay made me even more motivated to finish the game, and after she left for her own country, I was dedicated to devote the rest of my time here to coding a rough version of the full game, using temp art for the backgrounds that hadn't yet been finished. This is still the plan. But remember that I'm also here to work, and for the last three weeks we've beein doing serious overtime to make sure that the product is shipped on time. After this weekend though, it seems that the workload will lighten up a bit, so we might get off at 6pm instead of past midnight, and I'll get some more evenings back at the hotel room, which I can spend on Shadowplay.

Another reason for delaying the tech demo is that CJ has been implementing quite a lot of my feature requests in the latest betas of AGS (thanks CJ!). This means that many of the effects I wanted for the game now actually are possible. The most interesting one (for the sole reason that I've never seen it done in a 2D adventure game before) is probably the dynamic shadows. The ShadowBox script module will allow a character (currently only the player character, but that's a trivial matter to change) to cast a realistic shadow from a light source positioned anywhere in the room. I've attached a few screenshots below, to show you what they currently look like in my test room. As soon as I get a few glitches ironed out, I'll release a tech demo showing the effect in action.

(and yes, the light source was moved between those two screenshots were taken, as someone else pointed out)

Theme · Sat 08/10/2005 18:17:56

nice shadows

o/

ildu · Sat 08/10/2005 18:29:59

What a cute story. Congrats. And this dynamic shadows business looks awesome.

Snarky · Sun 09/10/2005 05:55:13

Didn't Still Life have dynamic shadows? It's been used in several 2.5D games.

That doesn't make it any less awesome, of course!

GarageGothic · Sun 09/10/2005 06:05:12

Still Life was 2.5D as you put it, it uses 3D characters on 2D backgrounds. What I meant was 2D sprites on 2D backgrounds. To the best of my knowledge, this is a first.

fovmester · Sun 09/10/2005 11:38:53

amazing!

Vel · Sun 09/10/2005 12:27:06

Wow, great stuff indeed!

AlbinoPanther · Sun 09/10/2005 15:31:59

YES this is what we need

LD

TheCheese33 · Sun 09/10/2005 15:37:33

The lighting effects are amazing! I've never seen this in an AGS game before. Keep up the good work!

Mozesh · Sun 09/10/2005 15:43:09

Really great I can wait to see that in action.

Death_is_upon_us · Tue 17/01/2006 00:50:03

Happy New Year everyone , just wondering if there are any news about the game's production...
Shadowplay is one of my most anticipated games for
quite a while now and thought reviving this post would be nice.
Looks great GarageGothic , can't wait to get my hands on it

ildu · Tue 17/01/2006 03:14:03

Once again I thought there was a real update here. Now I'm left disappointed like so many other times when threads get bumped for no reason.

Darth Mandarb · Tue 17/01/2006 04:59:40

Good lord in heaven ... the world has lost the ability to read.

Death_is_upon_us - don't post in here again until you've read the forum rules.

I'm locking this.

GG, let me know when you want me to re-open it.