Fixed some depth precision issues with the island shadow volumes, so now their shadows look sharp at any distance #gamedev #flightsim

Still needs a bit of blending, but I've added some new stencil shadows to the floating islands that look much better at a distance than just the shadow maps alone #gamedev #flightsim

The new clouds still need some better lighting effects, but chasing planes through them feels pretty good #gamedev #flightsim

#gamedev #flightsim

I've had a hard time deciding whether to implement volumetric clouds or something simpler, but the volumetric clouds are starting to look really good mixed with the floating islands #gamedev #flightsim

They're still a work in progress, but I've been making some new clouds #gamedev #flightsim

The first person view has been broken for a while, but now it's fixed #gamedev #flightsim

Made this last night because I wanted to have an example I can point to whenever I see people have bad player ship/plane/vehicle/camera controllers that just 1:1 mirror game input and how much of a difference even a tiny amount of smoothing can make to game feel.

Revisiting the way enemy planes get fatigued. They'll still start to make shallower turns over time, but should be able to keep avoiding the floating islands a bit better now #gamedev #flightsim

Starting to test some scaled-up dogfights. Enemy planes will now spread themselves out across multiple targets instead of all ganging up on the nearest one #gamedev #flightsim

#gamedev #flightsim

You can do this now #gamedev #flightsim

#gamedev #flightsim

Redid the afterburner effects and added a bit of color to the exhaust #gamedev #flightsim

Exhaust masks are now placed and scaled dynamically with the plane's exhaust nozzles #gamedev #flightsim

🔊 Thanks to @qwesta6.bsky.social, the game now has its first piece of original music

One of the two remaining prototypes made into COBRA STRIKE: Restored, rearmed and refueled - ready for action! #screenshotsaturday #gamesdev #indiedev #retrogames

More skilled enemy planes will try to use nearby floating islands to prevent you from getting a lock. But they'll get tired eventually #gamedev #flightsim

Made some big performance improvements to collision detection. The game doesn't actually have to do a lot of collision detection, but it's very important that it's very accurate between the player and the floating islands #gamedev #flightsim

It's been a long time coming, but cityships finally have ground units spawning on top of them for you to shoot at! #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday #NovaSquadron

New animated exhaust nozzles #gamedev #flightsim

I'm really happy with how the sun turned out #gamedev #flightsim

Sunny day at the roofless hangar in the gray void #gamedev #flightsim

The game doesn't have a soundtrack yet, but the soundtrack has a cover

Enemy planes can now hold their position instead of always making a beeline across the map for you #gamedev

I still have no clue what i'm doing but at least flying through the clouds feels awesome. Still needs more work. IhateshadersIhateshadersIhateshadersIhateshaders

Making your wingman a little better at using their throttle, so they're quicker to catch up if they start falling behind #gamedev #flightsim

The new sun effects with some real gameplay

Playing with a fake HDR effect to give the islands more ways to affect lighting #gamedev #flightsim

Been working on Polybox, my PS1 fantasy console recently. A lot of non-visual work such as a virtual filesystem and project system. Mostly to support it being an actually usable little product rather than a demo. While doing this I got the swamp scene from Crocotile3D imported #gamedev #programming

Working on some new sun effects #gamedev #flightsim

Powerful people aren’t happy with how much progress I’ve made on my game recently, so I’m cooling my heels overseas for a bit

The big heat signature in the sky #gamedev #flightsim

More new lighting stuff #gamedev #flightsim

Thunder Helix 0.611a (beta) is now available on the 'preview' branch. #gamedev #lowpoly #solodev #flightsim 🚁 More info here: steamcommunity.com/app/1906230/...

Working on getting materials for the jets playing nice with the existing shadow maps and lighting. It's going to take some fixes to the models themselves, since there was a lot I didn't know when I first made them #gamedev #flightsim

Islands will block your radar and prevent locks #gamedev

Adding material support to the engine was way overdue. Materials and normal maps do a lot to help the islands visually stand out from the rest of the terrain #gamedev #flightsim

Floating islands now receive impact craters

Enemy planes will avoid floating islands, which can help with getting them to turn their back to you #gamedev #flightsim

In light of recent events... ...screw it. Gay rights. Trans rights. Non-binary rights. We'll make it through this. We always have.

Added dialogue triggers and working on some new gradient particle effects

Spent some time working on something far outside of my comfort zone. Ongoing works addressing VR regression, performance and bugs are also currently being worked on. #gamedev #UE4 #ProjectWingman

Added text boxes and portraits for dialogue #gamedev #flightsim

Finally implemented texture blending on the terrain. The tile textures still need some work but it looks much better up close and gives me a lot more options than the giant single texture I was using for so long

Working on the terrain shadows a bit more

Here's a quick look at the Valkyrie's rig. Every one of these little pointy bones represents a separate moving part on the aircraft. Planes are complicated. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday #NovaSquadron (trying a game-specific hashtag for a bit, we'll see how it goes!)

Dogfighting in the floating islands