You may have seen a few of my posts or heard me talk about my work porting SRB2 to an SDL2 backend in order to support newer operating systems. Well, I'd like to uncover a little something else I've been working on.
I'm doing a rather massive overhaul of the engine, taking only the game logic and putting it into a new renderer and map loader. What does this mean? Well, the new renderer is OpenGL based and built around materials rendered on triangles instead of repeating flats and linedef textures. Yes, this means the old style of building maps will no longer be relevant, because you'll be able to produce things like this in the new map format:
Yes, that's rendered in-game right now. You can do heightmaps, CSG modeling (like Quake) for structures (AND SLOPES!!), refraction and reflection shaders, bump mapping, displacement mapping, the works. Also, "MD2" models will be supported, but it's actually Inter-Quake Model Format models instead, which are similar but far more powerful. It looks and runs great, though it obviously requires quiet a bit more horsepower than the old Doom software renderer.
What does this mean for you? Well, a new age for SRB2 is coming. It's definitely not ready for people to use yet, and the tools needed to work on maps would need to be ready as well, so this is a ways off. The SDL2 port will come soon, though, which will introduce at least the shaders part to the engine for OpenGL mode.
Please look forward to it.
I'm doing a rather massive overhaul of the engine, taking only the game logic and putting it into a new renderer and map loader. What does this mean? Well, the new renderer is OpenGL based and built around materials rendered on triangles instead of repeating flats and linedef textures. Yes, this means the old style of building maps will no longer be relevant, because you'll be able to produce things like this in the new map format:
Yes, that's rendered in-game right now. You can do heightmaps, CSG modeling (like Quake) for structures (AND SLOPES!!), refraction and reflection shaders, bump mapping, displacement mapping, the works. Also, "MD2" models will be supported, but it's actually Inter-Quake Model Format models instead, which are similar but far more powerful. It looks and runs great, though it obviously requires quiet a bit more horsepower than the old Doom software renderer.
What does this mean for you? Well, a new age for SRB2 is coming. It's definitely not ready for people to use yet, and the tools needed to work on maps would need to be ready as well, so this is a ways off. The SDL2 port will come soon, though, which will introduce at least the shaders part to the engine for OpenGL mode.
Please look forward to it.
