Another quick update.
So development was progressing slowly due to the constant need to light bake all the shadows. This meant my PC was locked up for hours for things to render and then test. It also meant that everything I moved I'd need to think long and hard about summing up if it was worth the hours spent light baking. As you can imagine, this was a slow process and has been for many months.
Recently I discovered the 'deferred rendering pipeline'.
The what??
With newer graphics cards, within the last 6 years [sic], the deferred rendering mode can be taken advantage of and eliminate the need for light baking, instead all lighting is done in real time! (insert party popper here) There is also a slight increase hit on the CPU but I think will hopefully be nominal.
After some consideration I've decided to go down this route as I (and I'm sure many of you) would like to get ICARUS.1 completed sooner rather than later. The new lighting mode also allows for some exciting new game play features and mood setting. On top of this I've added SSR (Screen space reflections) a new AA filter and have overhauled the Bloom Amorphic lighting effects.
Chapter 4 is half way complete and story writing is being done in parallel.
Thanks for reading, I'll update the Demo of Chapter 1 to the new rendering mode shortly so you can see what I'm so excited about. Here's a few new screen shots in the new rending mode to wet your appetite.
:D
And finally the overused starting crippled scout pod (in the new rendering mode)