Status Update

Hi everybody. This past week has been a rough one for me, as far as getting out any additional tutorials.  Between helping my future sister-in-law move into a place in Cambridge, a deep sea fishing trip, a year-long project at work finally coming to a critical stage, and the release of Rome Total War II, it's been hard for me to find the hours to hammer out an article.

Not to fear, next week should see an explosion of new content, as I am way ahead on the coding side.  Expect articles on skyboxes and reflections using cube maps, normal and displacement mapping, terrain rendering with texture splatting and constant LOD, and loading meshes in commercial formats using Assimp.Net.

Here are some teaser screenshots...

Using cube maps to render a skybox and reflections:

Real-time reflections using a dynamic cube map:

Normal and displacement mapping (click for full-size):

Flat lighting	Normal mapped lighting	Normal mapped lighting and displacement mapped geometry

Terrain rendering:

	Wire-frame mode, note the far hills are made up of far fewer polygons than the nearer details.

Loading meshes with commercial file formats using Assimp.Net: