2D Lighting System

Today I got a new 2D lighting system working. The old system was simply a big black square with a hole in the middle. The drawback of that system was that it only supported one light at a time, but the new one allows an unlimited number.

Please note that in this video the glow from Lum's esca does not grow when you collect planktids. This will change!

For those interested in the technique I used: it's really simple! I just attached a flat plane to each light source with a glowing sprite material. The material uses a Particles/Additive shader. Behind all this is another large plane with a semi-transparent black texture applied which darkens the background. The foreground rocks and creatures and all rendered in front of the glows so they are not obscured.

Happy New Year!

ENTOMBED

My daily commute by train has become a great opportunity to sketch up some concept art for some of the key moments in the game. Thus:

Development of the game has picked up again in recent weeks. The 2D art style is working really well for me and allowing me to get my ideas implemented much more quickly and painlessly. One of the benefits is that concept art like this can be recreated in the game far more accurately than it could using 3D assets.

I've set myself the goal of creating an introductory sequence made up of about 15 rooms, which will ideally act as a kind of new pre-release demo to replace the old IndieGoGo prototype build. I plan to use this demo to show off the darkness effects, demonstrate how the world will be explored and start to introduce the story.

More news to come in the next few weeks! Follow Luminesca on Twitter or Facebook for the latest.