‘SkyEngine’ progress
Today marks the day that the SkyEngine has officially started development.
I’ve decided that we’re going to be using the OGRE graphical engine for the SkyEngine, which is really awesome and just what I need. It supports all the fancy things like pixel and vertex shaders and anti-aliasing and whatnot, so it’s a really powerful engine. Plus it’s really lightweight and versatile, so it’s just what I needed. I just saved myself at least a year of programming by doing this, so I’m really happy.
So, anyway, here’s a summary of what I did today. All I did was play around and get to know OGRE a bit, which is basically what I’ll be doing for the next few days. But don’t fret, I’ll get around to the actual code sooner or later. 
First I took a model of a ninja and played around with the lighting and whatnot. Houston, the shadows are dynamically rendered! Screenshot
Then I started on a terrain test of some sort. It worked off a height map and had an animated skydome. Screenshot
And lastly, I added fog to said terrain test. It’s nothing really special, and I think I overdid the fog a bit, but it still looks awesome. Screenshot
More development updates in the near future! Also, if you know how to use OGRE pretty well, EMAIL ME!!!11
Summer
The summer is here and I’ve got tons of stuff on the way! My goals for this summer vacation are as follows…
I also have some news up on skyboundonline.com about it’s progress and the SkyEngine and whatnot.
Coding Day – Saturday
Tomorrow (Saturday) will mark the first day of development of the new SkyEngine! I got my book, and I’m all ready to roll. Just gotta get a good night’s sleep and a lotta quiet. 
I have come to the conclusion that the SkyEngine will be almost, if not just as good as, Valve’s Source engine. I remember people complaining about the level editor’s crappyness in the last SkyEngine, and I have taken that into consideration. The new level editor will be just as full-featured as WorldCraft. (pre-Hammer) The graphics engine will be able to process even some of the more complex things today, such as full water reflections and particles. Simply put, this is gunna pwn. Hard. The SkyEngine will be just as good, if not better than, some of the commercial game engines today.
No word on a physics engine yet, though. So far all I have planned is the basic stuff like collisions, gravity, inertia, etc… No word on ragdoll physics or anything too fancy like that. Just keep pushing me, gimme some motivation, (the key word here is DINERO) and I’ll see what I can do.
So, don’t bug me tomorrow. Fight the urge!! I promise, it’ll be worth it.
<3 MySQL
Since there’s heavy usage of MySQL in Skybound Online’s server, I’m starting to like MySQL. Okay, fine, I <3 it. 
Anyway, since I like MySQL now, I’m thinking of redoing some (if not all) of my old PHP scripts. Can you say DSChat 2.0?
Also, I’m going to be releasing a new PHP script sometime soon called DSUpload. It was specially made for a brickfilm proejct I’m working on to upload audio lines, and then let an admin download it, delete it, change the UI a bit, change the passwords, etc all server sided. I’m just going to have to convert it a bit so it works with other file formats than just .mp3 and .wavs.
Well, right now it’s time to watch ROTJ.
Image dump
I’ve moved the SBO image dump on here, so I’m allowed to put new stuff on it.
Anyway, the new image dump is at dvondrake.com/img/.
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