- i think the fog colour is fine, its just too strong, should be more like the last pic in ratchets above post

- now that i see it, terrain shader may be fine, may be the tiling is too small though ?

- bad plant textures but i know youre no artist so cant say much

- maybe try to enable decal shadows for everythng? how does that look? hows the fps ?

- hdr tweaks

we're just trying to make it better, not saying you havent done a great job thus far

Indeed one of the best looking shooter projects I've seen here so far. Cool to see what can be achieved with A8 and an handful of good resources. I have no doubt the coding work matches the visuals, so I'm looking forward to AUM100 to play this.

maybe an implementation of HeelX's ssao can help the visuals even more

Yeah, could work, but then he would have to use an alpha testing material on the foliage/grass, then.

Thanks for your suggests, I really appreciate them. I've been working on this for one week in my free time, but I want to achieve the best result in the time I have.

About stencil-blurred shadows, I'm using the minimum blur value, but as trees use transparency channel they can't cast a shadow, but enemies, rocks... are casting shadows. About using just decal shadows, I don't get the point why to do that?

About SSAO, I don't know if I have to do something special for transparent parts, if yes, that would be a lot of work and I don't have enough time.

After playing with HDR and Fog I achieved this result, what do you think? (right click->open in new tab to see at full size)

Looks much better! I like it

But PSSM shadows are a MUST HAVE for this scene. Please try to get them running, maybe add an option to enable/disable them for people with slow machines. But I think with PSSM shadows it will look 50% better (but it's already VERY COOL!!!)

It was already great dude, but now it's awesome!!!

Btw. do you have shorelines for the sea?

doubt it has shorelines, though i did see a shoreline entity in the level when i looked at it so maybe hes using that ?

i suggested decal shadows because the previous shots really needed something to break the emptiness of the scene, this newer shot wouldnt need it however

better but i think the fog start should be closer. i think we should be able to see the slight fade of fog on those distant object bt be careful with it though

i dont think theres much more you can do to have this looking better outside the use of shaders, normalmapping and shadows, for now its looks pretty good

[EDIT]

btw, changing the theme of the level to say something more gloomy, like with an overcast sky, would result in you getting away without shadows

This is MUCH better, in fact it's starting to look quite good! Add some nice shadows and it will be perfect.

I also suggest that you let users with weaker hardware turn down the effects with a few button presses. All the effects should default ON, though.

EDIT: These screens look nice, but I also implore you to write a good, smooth player movement script to go with it. ALL movements -- including the movements of the gun -- should be realistic, smooth, and well animated to give the best effect.