Thread: Developer Notes
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Old 01-08-2009, 02:20 PM   #245
Jim Sachs
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Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 9,768
Getting back to the theme of this thread, major announcements...

I finally got Specular working in MA3. For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the "shine" that a few saltwater fish (and most freshwater fish) have. In the current fishlist, only the Copperband Butterflyfish truly needs it, though the Blue Damselfish and Flame Angelfish also have a bit of shine.

Previous versions of MA had the Specular feature, because they used the Direct3D lighting model, but MA3 uses Shaders instead. Shaders are far more efficient and versitile, but are one of the hardest things to learn that I have ever encountered. I finally buckled down and spent 5 straight days figuring out how to accomplish diffuse lighting, lightplay, and specular in a single-pass Shader.

The code still needs a few hours of cleanup, but I should be able to upload Beta8a before tomorrow.
Jim Sachs
Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium
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