With phase 1 of the MODDB awards coming to an end, the FW:ToW worked very hard over the past several days to convince you why you should vote for us.

In the past 10 days, we've been putting out image after image of our new DX9 engine and some tweaks that have gone a long way making the game look even better than before. FriendlyFire has been working, even when he should be studying for exams, at making this nearly 10 year old game really shine. Below is some of his work with summary of what he did:









With this accomplished FF went at work at figuring out how to apply normal, specular and glow mapping to the planets to really make them look even more drop dead gorgeous. The results below speak for themselves!




Although glowmapping has existed in Freelancer for some time, the glow maps never really "glowed". They were a brighter texture than the others, however there was something missing. FriendlyFire figured out a way to bring this missing piece of the puzzle to the DX9 engine for our mod. Below are the samples of his work:








W0dk4 instituted specular mapping a number of months ago now. However, with that being done, there was still some tweaking to do to get it to really bring our models/textures to life. FriendlyFire again went to work to see what he could...and my lord did he do some excellent work. The video below captures our new and improving specular mapping/lighting:

If you like what you see please don't hesitate to give us a vote for the MODDB awards! We'll be churning out more videos/images over the next few weeks to prove to you why we're one of the best up and coming mods out there!

Was going to say emissive textures are nothing new as they have always been there, i can't tell from these shots the subtle difference you claim there is. What is impressive however is the specular mapping, very cool indeed.

So both of the mc80s images have glow maps. In the bottom one there is quite a striking difference with how the light is cast.

I agree with with Timmy about this, looks more like bloom. You're forgetting that on modern gfx cards a number of effects can be forced onto FL, mine looks like it already has DX9 on it sometimes with the effects i have added. What's really missing is the shader support which thankfully you've already added. I'd be careful about going too nuts with this glowmap effect, personally i'd wind it back a bit but that's just my opinion. At least make it scaleable for users.

One other thing i find odd is the reflection of the sun on the planet, it's not a billiard ball, what would the light reflect off of in the first place? The detailing of the texture however is exemplary

Doubtful as atmospherics would reflect the light which is why you won't see this effect in reality and why it doesn't look very good in games. Seen this in many games and it always looks wrong. On stations and ships it's fine, but not on planets. Anyway, make it an option if you can, then people can choose it if they wish.

I like it all and can't wait to see how it's all done. Bravo, Freeworld's dev team. +1

Hey FF, is the new mod being released this month because on ModDB it looks like Q1 2012.

I'm going to jump back in to modding when I have my new beast of a PC in 1 or 2 months. Then you can show me all that cool new engine stuff

Yeah, we've had to push back the release to Q1 2012 for a variety of reasons.