Thanks for the comments.

@Kartoffel: You are absolutely right, let's call it screen-space lookup method

@Superku: Honestly, I consider the demo from 2007 as gameplay prototype I have absolutely no concerns about the gameplay, so, the first working version will be the last of the current-gen prototyping. My concerns were always how to achieve the kind of render-esque, no-texture visuals with my limited time and money budget.

Next visual steps are in this order: sun shadow, quasar entity + lighting + shadows + reflection, DOF... this will be pretty straight forward and I expect a good outcome

Then, I will test some considerations about screen resolutions and -orientation... this will be interesting, I don't know about the results

end of techdemo #1

After that I will implement user interaction... picking up the quasar, moving it around + collision detection with rings + dynamic camera programming...

Then, the first gameplay cycle of a single puzzle.