Topic: [NEWS] D2X-XL v1.15 Retrospect

[karx-elf-erx]

D2X-XL v1.15 is around for quite a while now, having gathered over 200 entries in its changelog, and so I thought I write a little retrospect, bringing its main features back into memory. So here's the major additions and improvements v1.15 has brought:

• Anaglyph stereoscopic rendering
• Support for three different player ship types
• Vastly improved lightmaps
• Realtime glow
• Rain and snow particle fx
• External tracker support via XML queries
• Improved level building and modding support (directed exits, mission configs)
• Shockwave effect w/ frame postprocessing
• Much improved explosions with a gorgeous shrapnel effect
• Improved RADAR
• Particles are handled more efficiently
• The game runs much better on low end machines
• Improved shadow rendering creating soft shadows
• Better collision handling

Besides these improvements, roughly 300 bug fixes have contributed to making D2X-XL a lot more stable and offer a smooth gaming experience.

I can seeeee you!


The first pico second of a thermonuclear explosion:


No, this isn't Descent 3!


The firy blossom of destruction:

[Crash]

It looks lovely. Can I ask, how did you make the cockpit and all the weapon icons high-resolution when, presumably, they were pretty blocky (640x480 or whatever) bitmaps originally.

[Kaiaatzl]

I love D2X-XL.
But I hate fusion hulks.

[karx-elf-erx]

Crash,

I just loaded the standard cockpit bitmap into Paintshop Pro, resized it to a good, big size, and smoothed it. That makes it look better even at high resolutions. The other two cockpits are custom cockpits from Pumo Mines and The Enemy Within.

The weapon icons are just resized and smoothed by OpenGL.

[Crash]

In realtime (for the weapons)? - Comes out bloody well that way.

[karx-elf-erx]

Of course in realtime. OpenGL does all texture filtering stuff in realtime.

[Crash]

No, I appreciate that, I just wasn't sure if maybe you had some image editor that used OpenGL somehow rather than making the game do it.
Was just a bit surprised that realtime upscaling would do such a nice job.