The two main questions I have are:
Did you implement a check for card compatibility? So if the user doesn't have a shader2 card it can fault back to standard A6? Is there a global variable for this? So in our scripts for instance, we can say 'if no sphere support do this, otherwise do this routine'? On that same idea, will this even work or are the way the levels need to be put together so different that you can't realistically use the same material with both rendering pipelines?

And what about documentation? What's a basic sphereEngine authoring session like? What can/can't we do with it? Special considerations? etc.

Thanks!

There is documentation included. There is a way to check for ps 2.0 support, its in there now, and it will pop up an error.

You could run the levels without the Sphere effects, but they would be just like normal models then.. not very good looking.. this could be done however.

To do this, just dont init the Sphere Engine and change the materials setting around. Sphere is really meant tfor the latest cvards to run, so it is not much use on oldert cards. Also, Geforce FX cards wont run at all yet. Hopefully this will fixed, but i have no idea why they dont work, so i cant put a check in there. if i can get ahold of one i can try to fix this.

Bascially, just develop maps in max or maya or whatever...then place them in wed. Inside maps should be made out a few large models for the shell of your level, and then some more models for other details..the fewer models the better making up your level. PLace Sphere lights like you would place dynmaic lights in WED, you attach an entity to the Sp_Light action, and place them, not more than 6 can be visible at once.

Outdoor levels are even simpler to make, nothign special is needed.. just that water must be at 0,0,0 and there must be an object attached to the sunposmodel action.. this will give the correct cast shadows for your WED sunlight.

One question... About the Bloom effect, can I have it only over one entity and not over other ones?

Another think... Under the water, the shadow is very strong and it is not getting distorced. Maybe you could do somethink about it.
But I am going to wait for the second release with road path texture option implemented in your DLL. I hope that it will come out soon.

Adding the road feature will be easy, and I wont need to change the DLL, i can just post the new effect file here.. Just buy it now and that will be ready soon if you want it.

Bloom effect for now is only on all objects.

Shadow looks stronger undewater yes, this is ajust an artifact of the blending ops.. i can tweak it a bit.

Yes!! Thank you! I will buy it! I realy need the road feature.

You didn't answer my question about the shadows being too blurry. I fumbled with the .fx files (shadowblur.fx and gaussianblur.fx), and it didn't affect it at all. I'll buy it if I can make the shadows a little more hard, right now they don't really fit the style of my game.

I also want to buy it for sure. But I have a modelling question before that I would like to solve:

I tried to create the right textures. I had a color map with an alpha channel (TGA-file). The alpha channel is black on some spots and white on other because I do not want specularity / glossy ont he head of the model. I created a normal map with a GIMP-Plugin and created an alpha channel and saved it also as TGA.

Then I attached both textures to the model. In WED I attached the action sp_model.

But the indoor level gave me just a very glossy model. I tried several flags (e.g. 8 for animated models) and changed the skill 7 to 1 or 2 later but it always looked the same.

What could be my problem? I want some normal or parallax mapping with specularity on only a few spots.

Frank

To all that have the "sp_device reset not found". I also had that because I forgot to replace the plugin in the 3dgs plugins folder. The old version did not support the sp_device reset.

Frank

I'm getting "Error E1513 Crash in sp_render_water"
--Tom

Matt_Aufderheide, I will only have credit on my credit card on day 22 of this month. So, don't rush the development os the road feature, but please don't forget it. But you can be sure that I will buy it.