Update - New Posteffects

The second (and last) update in our series of news regarding SickBrick's new MegaPatch is about new posteffects inside the game.

You have probably seen effects like these in games built on modern engines like UE3 and CryEngine.
Well NeoAxis is catching up with those big fish by way of adding new eye candy for us developers to work with.

The first posteffect we are going to show you is Depth Of Field.

DOF works by shooting a ray into the object you are pointing your cursor at and making that area sharp while blurring everything else around it (in a subtle way of course) thus simulating human eyes or camera lenses.

Here's an in-engine image to show you what I'm rambling about:



*DOF effect intensified for clearer understanding, in-game it will be more subtle

After DOF we have Light Scattering or God Rays.

This effects simulates the rays a strong light creates when behind an object. It works by zooming in the objects in front of the light and blurring them multiple times to get the wanted effect.
Sadly, you will not see a lot of these in SickBrick since it only has 4 outdoors maps. But maybe you'll probably get a lot more chances in our new game ;)

Map editor image:



Next up is SSAO which creates subtle shadows around close objects:



FXAA which is pretty self-explanatory (better than other AA techniques because it uses less processing power):



The last effect is a subtle but constant one: Vignetting
Used in most today's games, it makes a very subtle dark frame around the corners of the game's screen to give it a more movie-like feel.

Obligatory map editor image:



SickBrick is going to be updated very soon with it's new MegaPatch(TM)* bringing you a slew of improvements and bug fixes.
To see the previous update click here. To check out our new game in development "Project Lighthouse" click here.
*not really a trademark at all

Cheers!

Update - Navigation Mesh Based Pathfinding

We have been hard at work here at MisfitVillager HQ to bring you the long awaited first Mega-Patch for SickBrick.
The first of the new major features implemented in SickBrick is navigation mesh based path finding!

Before, your robotic enemies in SickBrick walked on predetermined waypoints to get to you, similar to old games (2005 and back).

Here is an image of the old system inside our trusty NeoAxis map editor:

This caused a massive frame rate drop in the engine since every enemy had to think which waypoint to walk onto based on your position and forced us to scale down the number of enemies that you faced in the game. The system was clumsy and hard to work with.

But now we bring you Navigation Mesh Based Pathfinding!

The old system was removed completely and replaced by the new one.
The enemies now walk on an invisible mesh created in the levels, making them able to avoid obstacles and not get stuck thus lowering your health considerably more than before :D

Here is an image inside the map editor of the new system:

This type of pathfinding is used in modern engines like CryEngine3 and Unreal Engine 3.

We have been listening to feedback and a lot of you said the game was too easy.
Not only are the enemies smarter now, but we increased their numbers by a third.
Additional benefits of the new pathfinding system are a dramatic frames-per-second increase and a lot less work on our side :D

Stay tuned for more updates on SickBrick's new Mega-Patch(TM)*! To check out our new game in development "Project Lighthouse" click here.
*not really a trade mark at all

Cheers!