An Island in a Globe

Sometimes, terrible weather can be a feature.

Here it is, the “seasonal island in the globe”. You can see it motion in this video, accompanied by the cheesiest music I had on the top of my mind. I don’t even know why, I’m not even a Final Fantasy fan.

The main (and personal) features include:

• Entity parenting and transform stacking.
• Geometry shader particles, with mesh-based generation. Low-poly meshes are used to generate particles, per  around certain areas.
• Displacement mapping.
• Multi-pass lighting and shadowing.
• Mesh reflection (work still in progress).

My initial consideration was a component-based architecture, which I later traded for a more standard, hierarchy-based structure, as many people convinced me it was just overkill. Truth be told,  even without a proper composite pattern, the end result is probably just as much. One feature I dreamt of having was soft particles, but sadly I had to prioritize other aspects for the deadline.

The island follows the cycle of the four seasons, having respectively:

• Leaves growing in spring.
• The tree burning in summer.
• Thick mist masking the island in autumn.
• Water freezing in winter.
• A dynamic, directional light used to simulate the sun.
• Four (optional) spotlights, which show off the multi-pass shadows-lights.

About these ads