Something big.. - 6.29.2008

As you may have noticed, progress on Project Shadow has been put on hold, temporarily, in order to focus our efforts on a project to design and manufacture a real world product that is guaranteed for quick production times and quick success. This direction will provide financial aid in the funding of Project Shadow and our other subprojects such as Roo Racers. We are hard at work on pushing our projects through development, and highly anticipate the completion of Project Shadow for a late 2008 or early 2009 commercial release.

More information regarding this currently undisclosed project will surface soon.

Happy New Year! - 1.05.2008

The Ion Productions team would like to wish all of you a happy new year, and may it be the best one yet. Project Shadow is tentatively slated for release later this year. A render of the new handgun is up, along with an array of new screenshots, depicting the latest multiplayer CTF map, Rockridge.

Recent Advancements
- Different explosions effects for different materials
- Different sounds for different materials (footstep/explosion)
- Armor/wall piercing rounds
- Water surface explosions
- Decal wrapping
- Random bullet hole decals, grenade explosion decals
- Blood decals

There will also be a short teaser trailer displaying the current functionality out soon, which is less than pretty, but nonetheless good enough to show what we've been working on. Also, a page with descriptions of the weaponry of Project Shadow will be uploaded sometime in the near future. Roo Racers has been put on hiatus as work focuses on Project Shadow, and hopefully all goes as planned.

Next Up/In Progress
- Enter vehicle via keypress rather than collision
- Fixed/enhanced vehicle collisions
- TGEA forestKit integration by Tom Spilman
- Directional damage indicator
- Primary player model acquisition
- Crouching ability
- First person weapon animations
- Third person weapon hold animations
- Various other tidbits of code

Not a Very Scary Halloween Update - 10.31.2007

We don't even have a cool jack-o-lantern model, but that's partly due to laziness. However, we've been plugging away at code for quite some time after a seemingly slight hiatus, advancing further with Project Shadow's functionality and enhancing our codebase. Beside our main game, Roo Racers has been put on the forefront of development, and we are working toward a release a decent amount of time before that of Project Shadow. The subsection will be inserted on the left side menu within a short amount of time, showcasing current screenshots, storyline, renders, and overall game information once again.

For Project Shadow, currently in the works is a fun to play testbed map, which should give the screenshots some new life, along with a nicer environment for upcoming gameplay video trailers. Our team members are conceptualizing structures for said map at the moment. On the weapons front, the plasma repeater has been resurrected and is now able to function in TGEA, firing (at a high rate of speed) blue glowing plasma orbs that bounce off objects, but damage players. The model will be completely redesigned, as the current one is designed from an MP7, and that just won't do.

Recent Advancements
- Animated HUD elements
- Zoom in/out sound effects
- Teleporters (fade effect/sound effect/functional across network)
- Footprints ported
- Bullet marks/damage ported
- Fixed overpowering detail texture on Legacy terrain
- Minor fixes/enhancements throughout

Four new screenshots have been uploaded, this time with antialiasing. It appears that the utilization of full screen antialiasing is done at the loss of bloom and dynamic range lighting. In order to fully tap the potential of the Torque Game Engine Advanced, one must program a solution to use FSAA with TGEA's bloom/DRL, as the current way of hardware 6x FSAA forcing does not mix well with the engine's special effect processing.

Next Up/In Progress
- Fixing poor fogging on scaled objects
- Menu Revision including guiObjectView ported to TGEA 1.0.3
- Weapon Overheat Meter/HUD change for energy based weapons
- Weapon charge-up for certain energy weapons
- Different explosions for different surfaces
- All Weapons Fully Functional (Models, Effects, Animations, Reload)
- Grenade Throw Animation/Schedule Timer for Projectile
- Ben Garney's forestPack ported to TGEA

All in all, things are heading in the right direction, they just need the kick in the behind to get it done.

What's new - 4.10.2007

We re-merged back to TGE for two days, then realized TGEA is far more robust in capabilities, and decided to remain with that engine, waiting for its 1.02 release with Torque Constructor support. Now we're adding weapons one by one, conceptualizing, modelling, texturing, animating and all that fun stuff. What's on the agenda:
-Weapon overheat meter/HUD change for energy based weapons
-All weapons fully functional (Models, Effects, Animations)
-Grenade throw animations
-Different explosions for different surfaces
-Menu revisions
-Animated HUD elements
-Various bug fixes

Some screenshots have been uploaded. Nothing special, still no antialiasing.

Moving right along.. - 2.05.2007

Working closer and closer to getting all core functionality done, then inserting in the nice game art.

Recent Advancements

- Weapon Specific Crosshairs
- Crosshair image change over Enemy
- Radar show moving players only (fades in/out as well)
- HUD Tweak, including warning message fix
- FIXED: Translucency problem, black renders sometimes, should be alpha
- FIXED: Death camera flickering GUI and view, crash, bug in TSE
- Separate 1st person weapon/hand animations for moving/idle
- Smooth zoom in to target FOV for scoped weapons
- A little weapon effects work
- Fixes/features here and there

Seven new screenshots have been uploaded, too, though with no antialiasing (TGEA bug.) The renders page has been trimmed down, to show only the models we are retaining in the game (from the previous batch.) A new handgun model has been modelled and textured, and is awaiting its turn at animation and exporting. A weapon information page will be up soon, including renders/in-game shots of all weapons that will be featured in Project Shadow, as well as specification/description snippets.