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Seasonal Effects

June 6, 2013 | Dukus | 47 Comments

I've mentioned in the last few posts that I've been working on getting environmental effects and changes to the game. I've got rain and snow effects prototyped, as well as changes of lighting and fog as the seasons progress. There's still a bit of tweaking and work to do to integrate them into the game properly, but so far I'm liking the visual differences that they bring.

Until I do get things properly integrated into the game and can make some video of the effects in action, here's some screenshots...

Winter Storm

Winter

Autumn

Autumn

Spring Rains

Spring

Summer

Summer

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47 comments on “Seasonal Effects”

  1. Just like every other update, well done!

    You might consider reducing the smoke during the daytime in summer. Except for cooking fires people would likely not be running their fireplaces/stoves during the heat of the day.

  2. Wow, looking pretty amazing. It'll be interesting to see how they transition from one state to the other.

  3. Looking cool!

    One thing I've noticed in a lot of these screenshots is that the roofs of the houses get extremely repetitive. Have you thought about doing some shader stuff with them (for instance, some modular arithmetic with the world position to tweak the value or hue by a tiny amount)? It would add much needed variety without adding too many instructions, I would think, though obviously I'm not in a position to judge the actual performance cost. It would also have the benefit of not increasing the amount of texture memory used compared to just having alternate textures.

  4. This looks awesome, I'm really impressed by how your game is coming along. The updates are great to read, I like seeing everything come together slowly. Can't wait to play it!

  5. Oh my oh my ... seriously wow

    The only thing I kind of regret is that it won't run under Linux/Mac ...

  6. I'm throwing gold bullion at the screen and...yeah i don't have a screen anymore.

  7. I'm incredibly interested to see how much the rainfall will come into play later in development. makes me want to imagine it to impact the world through droughts and flooding influencing crops, livestock, diseases or even destruction of property too close to the river that gets swept away. If its just a visual effect that's still good too.

  8. The buildings in the Autumn screenshot look very different from each other. I might have missed this in an earlier post, but are you weathering the buildings such that new buildings look less used than older ones? Assuming that's what's going on, it looks really great.

    And put me on the "wish it was on Mac" list. 🙂

  9. Have you considered putting this on Kickstarter? You seem like you don't need the money right now from what you've said, but I doubt it could hurt.

    You've effectively combined several different types of games into one, and it looks great.
    People will definitely pay for this.

  10. Just a thought. I don't know exactly where this game is set geographically. I live in the Southern US. I can assure you. I would do EVERYTHING in my power not to light my chimney fireplace during the summer.

    I am sure that people would still use them for cooking as needed, but the smoke animation would only be needed at certain times of the day for summer months.

  11. Agree with the other summer cookers who suggest reducing the smoke. I expect you'd see more communal outdoor cooking in summertime, when cooking over a fire was necessary. Maybe add an outdoor cook-pot or smoker pit to the common areas in summer?

  12. Something looks wrong with the water inside the winter screenshot. It looks like plastic... Great screens otherwise!

  13. thankfully i have no money right now and this game is not released yet... if you released it right now i would go a little more in debt and that would make my wife mad as i made her stop buying purses and such so we can get out of debt... 🙂

  14. I love the storms! The only thing that sticks out to be, here, is that the plots of farmland are all quite square. In ny experience, crops are planted in even rows, yes,but the borders follow the lay (it is it ley?) of the land. A fence would only travel straight when the people running the land decided to partition their field up. The outside of the field follows treelines, brooks, boulders,hills, even arbitrary land grabs. Love the weather though.

  15. When is it going to be out still wanting to push for a multiplayer version just trying my luck again lol

  16. looks great, my chief concern is whether the weather effects are constant through each season. as nice as they are, watch rainfall constantly throughout spring or snow in winter would become bothesome, not to mention limiting the view of the wonderful winter aesthetics you have

  17. This looks more badass every update. I'm not going to pester you with "ZOMG PLZ RELEAS NOW" but I'm excited at the prospect of someday playing this game. Good luck!

  18. Perhaps this is just me saying this as I live in New England (North-Eastern US), but I would love to see a little more color in those fall leaves! They're very brown and personally a bit hard to tell the difference from other seasons (Looks a bit like late summer to me, actually). What also might help is for the deciduous trees to actually shed their leaves before the snow hits.

  19. Very nice, but why they are heat (smoke from chimney) in their houses in summer 🙂

  20. This looks great! I get so excited every time I see you've updated the blog. Some suggestions though, how about having redder/oranger/yellower leaves in autumn? Oh and would a foam edge by the edge of the river be possible? It would be nice to have a closer distinction between water and land, as they sortoff just fade into eachother at the moment.

  21. The fact that you can wrap your head around the coding, the logic, the pace, the visual aspect is astonishing. You're like the Chris Sawyer of our day.

    I love the visual style you opted for this game and I can't wait to play this, every update makes me more eager to buy this.

  22. Please make a video. I dont if its a 10-sec video only! I'll even sell you my kidney!

  23. From my understanding. The fireplace will always be on as the people need to cook during the day as well as heat their homes up during the night. I don't know about you people but depending on where you live, you may need to have heating all year round.

  24. another hidden indie jewel, can't wait to see the finished product. I'll be buying this for sure

  25. I cant wait for this game to come out and for me to GIVE YOU MY MONEY for this game that you deserve so much!!

  26. Those deciduous trees look amazing in summer.
    Are the bushes of leaves made with billboards?

  27. Weather, lighting, audio, music, environment are all so important in enveloping the player in the atmosphere of the 'place'. I'm happy to hear you are putting such care and attention in to these aspects. Respect!

  28. I simply cannot wait until this game is released. The gameplay seems very rewarding, and the graphics are beautiful.

    But (!) ease up on the smoke from pipes during the summer. It's seems unlikely that the villagers would waste that much (precious) firewood when the weather is warm.

    I really hope you release this game soon

    Cheers

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