Ever wonder what I do behind the scenes when making the game? Over the time the game is being developed, I occasionally record videos of my actions, often using multiple takes to get the video just right. The videos are posted on YouTube. As of Oct 26, 2008, I have 5 videos.
The first video is what the game looked like as of Feb 27, 2008, barely 4 days into the programming. Even this early in the programming, most of the scenery is done, though some things are still missing and others need to be redone. For the most part, you can get a good look at how the game was like. At this time, I only used the arrow keys to accelerate in that direction at 80 mph per second. It, technically, wasn't a game at all, but just a bunch of scenery elements. The ground uses quality 7, a recommended setting (medium-high quality) based on experiments. Even with just 4 days' programming, and months at working on the images for the scenery, it already looks better than the 2.4 version overall and the 3D effects are readily apparent, especially the ground which makes you think that this was a 3D game rather than a 2D game. That's parallax scrolling taken to the extreme!
The second video is what I did to create the 90-mile landscape (for version 4), including a basic overview of what I use to create it and a rough overview as to what the landscape itself looks like. Simply put, it involves using shades of gray, like a height map, but instead of the shades of gray being used to represent height, they represent the slope's angle instead. This gives a lot of flexibility and a seemingly unlimited height range with precision finer than a 16-bit (or even 24-bit) heightmap would offer. The precision is less than an inch (0.055 feet, roughly 2/3 of an inch), and the height span is nearly 23,000 feet.
The third video is what I did to create the landscape's fifth version, where I used the engine itself to do so. The landscape drifted far from my original plans, getting over 50 miles of mountains when I only wanted 45. It contains more types of landscapes than before.
The fourth video is what I had in terms of the looks on October 1, 2008, after the second of the long stalls of no progress. The landscape is now rich in texture details, including lighting and the texture blending effect at high quality. AlphaBlend, a Windows GDI function, is slow to execute and limits the number of draws I can make, forcing me to have to use DirectX in order to get the speed I need. It's also about when I realized the flaws I had with the system shown in the second and third videos, where a vertex-based system was needed.
The fifth video is the first look into the city's welcome signs and the first building. Upon obtaining the formula for calculating slope and heading of a face given three vertices, new improvements have been made with the graphics as a result of this, allowing for very realistic lighting, more than I thought possible prior to that of the fourth video.
Learn more about the game with the following links:
9.1.4 The Supernatural Olympics version 3.x - the highly enhanced full remake of my high-speed action game
9.1.4-1 What is the game? - an introduction to the game and it's features
9.1.4-2 Feature comparison chart - a quick overview comparing each editions' features
9.1.4-3 Going 2.5D - the numerous advantages for taking a 2.5D approach instead of 2D only
9.1.4-4 Scenery features - features related to the game's scenery
9.1.4-5 Special features - the game's special features
9.1.4-6 Special abilities - explains the various special abilities
9.1.4-7 Special effects - explains what the various special effects are
9.1.4-8 Tournaments and challenges - details about the tournaments, challenges, and ranks
9.1.4-9 General features - various other features
9.1.4-10 System requirements - what the minimum and recommended system requirements are
9.1.4-11 End user license agreement - read this first before using the software or it's components
9.1.4-12 Ten reasons to upgrade - the top ten reasons to upgrade to the full edition
9.1.4-13 Buy, download, and install - how to buy the game, download it (including the manual and old versions), and install it
9.1.4-14 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - some common questions that may be asked frequently
9.1.4-15 Support, bug reports, and updates/upgrades - how to obtain support, file bug reports, and what updates/upgrades are
9.1.4-16 Development progress checklist - an in-depth checklist for things I need to do before the next release becomes available
9.1.4-17 Future plans and features - features planned for the future and the game's general future
