February 18, 2000

[Nao]

Okay, no new beta yet ... However, I've prepared a funny screenshot for you. It shows my latest work on Kyodai : Environment-mapped Bump-mapping It looks so great ! Well, the screenshot shows a game that is rather unplayable, but I'm working on making easier-to-watch graphics for the final version. Implementing bump-mapping was much harder than expected (Microsoft, I hate you !), but I'm glad I did it. Don't worry, it will be optional, because it causes a severe performance hit, and it's only available on G400 cards. Apart from that, I've reimplemented the good old MCI routines for playing Midi music. As you may know, the DirectMusic engine doesn't correctly play the pitch-bend calls in Miguel's musics, and I was unable to find information on how to fix the problem. Expect a third (and final ?) beta version by the end of the month. The final version will still be late, yes. But it will be worth the wait.