Shader Builder Progress
Significant progress in the LxEngine ShaderBuilder. The builder now supports Phong shading and procedural patterns such as tile, spot, diamond, and wave.
Below is a quick, low-quality demo video of the work-in-progress LxEngine Tutorial 3, which loads of a Blender model and allows the user to cycle through a set of shaders to apply (each material defined via a concise JSON description in the XML file):
Video
Note how the specular highlights on the different, individual tiles of the checker patterns are not the same for the red checker materials. This really is a nested procedural! Each tile in the checker not only gets a color, but has its own Phong specification. Also check out the bright highlights on the last Phong checker: that’s actually another level of nesting where a border pattern adds much brighter specularity to the edges of the tile.
Stills
Here is the Stanford bunny shaded with a checker pattern with a nested wave pattern:
Stanford Bunny
Here’s the Suzanne model from Blender, shaded with the normal-based shader:
Blender's Suzanne
Finally, here’s the classic Utah Teapot with a spot pattern:
Utah Teapot
What’s Next?
I have a host of todo’s lined up, but…any reader suggestions on what next to add to LxEngine? I’m looking for something that – while still somewhat feasible for a single person to implement – would help the engine stand out as having potential to be a top-of-the-line engine someday.
- Continue the shader work and add a Tutorial 4 with even more advanced multi-pass, multi-layer rendering and animation?
- Further Bullet Physics integration to demo how that library can easily and effectively be used within LxEngine?
- A miniature MineCraft procedural world sample with an infinite world with a sky, rain, and snow since MineCraft is all the rage?
- A simple FPS to demo a complete game with LxEngine?
- Something completely different?