Q:
When and why did you decide to choose the Acknex engine for your projects?
A: I once buyed the A5 standard at a local store, put my fingers at it and
was shocked about the results. Only white lights and so on, so i put it away
deep down. Later on (I didnt even remember my a5standard) I got the
idea of making games again, went into the internet, and found 3dgamestudio.
This time I purchased a5 commercial. So i came back to it. I was just
thinking about a handbook and wow there was a A5 Hardcovered Handbook
on my desk:-) It didnt took long and i purchased A5 pro (I wanted those
mirrors) and then A6 (sadly I missed the free upgrade offer by only one
day, now thats life). Of course I was also impressed by the community where
I always found help when needed.
Q:
How did you learn C-Script?
A: I had some basic knowledge about programming (C16 basic, C64 assembler,
later on lingo, actionscript, java, javascript and html) so it wasnt that
hard to get familiar with C-script. However much is brute force coding with
lots
of tries, errors and trying again (especially with the latest
technologies: shaders)
Q: What
else do you do besides coding?
A: Besides coding I am generally acting with arts: I make music, using
my e-guitar, synthesizers. I play in a band. Sometimes I do paintings...
I have a daugther and a nice wife (much fun with the family and seeing a
human
grow up and learn to master life).
Q: The
guys at Conitec state that you have sent them not less than 7 demos for
the special effect contest. Could you name them for
us?
A: Ultimate camera fx (a wrapped view which allows to make
underwater views or totaly weird view distortions):
http://www.earthcontrol.de/downloads/ucfx.zip
There were two versions of volumetric lights:
http://www.earthcontrol.de/water/volumlig2.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/water/water.zip
A_room where a skull rotated and various material changes was made:
http://www.earthcontrol.de/a_room/a_room.zip
An endless looped flythru level using pixel commands:
http://www.earthcontrol.de/downloads/camorph1.zip
And a few more others (I hope it was them):
http://www.earthcontrol.de/downloads/meshfx.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/downloads/codesnippets.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/downloads/effektsII.zip (which was my first 'refresh'-effect)
My favourite (also it didn't win) was this:
http://www.earthcontrol.de/downloads/themachine.zip
Q: How
would you create a great looking underwater effect?
A: I would use the technique I used in the ucfx-demo. I placed a
sphere model (normals
to inside) and rendered the view to the texture; the camera
must be kept inside the sphere all the time. Now when
doing some sin / cos function
onto
the mesh
you get
a great
underwater
effect (of course
at
the cost of
performance). Using transparent and bright flag will do some
more.
However today I think there will be other ways to get this, using
shaders...
Q:
Can you tell us a few things about Gemwars?
A: Gemwars is a project I joined about a year ago (initiator
was Lonewolf). It was planned to be a multiplayer online game where the
players fight
each
other and collect
gems
to open
the door to
the
next stage.
However due to other projects it is on ice now. Maybe we will reject it
or maybe we
will put our fingers back
on it, as we have now A6 and because of those great new
graphical features we
would have to overwork it... we'll see
Q:
Can you recommend some good quality freeware tools?
A: http://www.mgshareware.com/frmmain.html offers this interesting proggie
(if you
dont have one). Ogg is a very nice format
Q:
What new features would you like to see implemented in the engine in
the
near future?
A: For
making it easier
with non-game
applications I'd like
to have textfields
where the user
can edit
fre like in notepad
for example. Some
cool flags
should be added,
like not
only having
bright but
multiply, add,
sub, difference
and all this
things, known
from other
multimedia tools,
like videosoftware
or anark and
of course
(I know it is planned)
dynamic shadows
reacting to every
lightsource, self-shadowing
and better
level design tools
(curved surfaces - automatically
splitted
into proper
bsp - parts), instant
objects, for example
making a
roundstair by giving
number of copies,
movement and
angles for the
instances.
Q:
Please give us a few tips for beginners.
A: Never give up, thats the only general tip I have :-)
P.S. If you dont mind, my latest releases are here:
http://www.earthcontrol.de/vas/vas_fireglow.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/vas/vas_lumi.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/vas/vas_shine.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/npr_shaders/1.zip
http://www.earthcontrol.de/vas/vas_fireglow.zip
Thank you a lot, Ello.