We were so impressed by some of the fantastic mod submissions last Jam that we want to dedicate an entire Jam to get to see some more
Humble beginnings of the HPL Engine
I recently stumbled upon some really old videos with gameplay tests in the HPL engine and decided they would be fun to show off. This was not our first foray into 3D first person horror (Unbirth was), but it was the first time the the HPL engine was used. All of these are gameplay videos are from a student project then know as “The Hatch” and later became the “Penumbra Tech Demo”.
Pre-pass lighting redux
After writing the previous post on pre-pass lighting I started doing some tests, to see how it compares to the old deferred renderer. The results that I got where pretty interesting, so thought I might as well share them. Also note that this post might be a bit more technical than the previous.
Tech Feature: Pre-pass lighting
Progress on the new engine, HPL3, is coming along nicely and recently I changed the core rendering system into something called Pre-pass lighting. This switch has been made for a number of reasons, but before I got into that and what pre-pass lighting exactly is, I need to explain how we did it back in the “old days”.
Penumbra: Overture goes Open Source!
It has been in our minds for quite some time and now finally it has become reality: Penumbra:Overture and the HPL1 Engine are now open source! In case that is all you need to know, then head straight to: http://GitHhub.com/FrictionalGames to get your hands on it!
Playing around with particles (not related to the LHC in any way)
Now for another lookie at our powerful arsenal of tools. This time I’m showing the Particle Editor, which is the app we use to do those nifty particle effects like fire, smoke and so on… you can get really nice stuff by using this thing.
The unseen stuff
Normally you only hear about various graphical effect problems and issues regarding 3D engines. In this log I want to highlight a few other problem many 3D engine builder face, but you do not hear about as much.
Render To Texture
One of the things that I am planning to do in this work log is to release a demo showing off a new feature whenever I can. That way I can see how well the engine works on various machines and you readers will also be able to follow the development in a more hands-on fashion!
Texture Atlas
The texture atlas was one of the first thing that I implemented in the engine. It was actually something I started working on the day work started for Energetic, which also means the code is a bit messy 😀 So I decided an update was needed.
‘Penumbra: Black Plague’ Developer Diary #3 – Screens
One of the main features in Penumbra: Black Plague is the physics. This is a feature that adds a lot of immersion and gives new opportunities for gameplay. However, it has not been without problems to implement it and that is what we will focus on in this diary entry. We will go through some of the different problems we encountered and explain how we solved them.
