Covii Challenge part 2 update log: Wednesday

Day 3-Wednesday:
Update 1(2:10):

•  Ok, I've spent three productive hours playing around with shaders, lighting, rearranging FBOs and generally playing around with everything. Here are the progress screenies:

Boring!

Basic textures, yay! Also, my eyes kinda hurt, red+blue=bad >:(

The beginnings of bloom. AUGH MY EYES!!!

MY EYES! MY EYES! MY EYES!!!

Ok, now it's not so bad, but still looks like crap.

• As you can see I didn't do much. But only the last one is a true bloom effect. Even though it looks like crap, and isn't as strong/diluted as I would like it to be. I'm starting to get the hang of the shaders, since I've taken a nap I'll probably work another few hours before going to sleep, but I'll take a little rest now from the project.
• Anyway, I updated my list of things to do. I also updated the list from the previous update here's the resume of what I did today:

1. Finally Added real bloom (even though I'm not completely happy with it)
2. 3D model particles
3. Working quaternion rotation lib
4. Added lighting
5. Played around with various effects.

• I can't say this is bad but I also would like to have made more both today and yesterday. Optimally I would have already achieved good looking bloom, added at least one of two physical particle effects and already added cube mapping. Still I'll probably achieve at least 5 out of 6 planned features by tomorrow noon so things aren't as hopeless as it seemed to me. However tomorrow is a big day since the basic functionality should be finished and I'll start making some more advanced stuff as well as fine-tunning.

 Mini-update: Disco Ball!! Well, sort of.

This calls for some awesome music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awzrax7UcV8
Only link since youtube won't let me embed the vid :(
Watch it anyway :D

Update 2(11:44):

• I fell asleep around 8:00, it's now 11:44. Damn cleaning ladies and their racket. Can't sleep now, I'll try to work, but probably I'll take a nap in the afternoon.

Update 3(14:55):

• So, after some time feeling dizzy and with a minor headache from sleep deprivation I started blaying around with various effects. The current state of things looks pretty close to the video they gave me as reference. I noticed though that in the video the presentation also used DoF shader. I made some additions on my own of course, like subtle sphere mapping to give a more glossy appearance to the cubes, I also added an overlay texture which scrolls slowly enough not to be noticeable but still gives a faint effect of movement to the scene. Most probably my final work won't look as good as the original but hey! I'm competing against someone sponsored by Toyota, with quite a few years of experience in the field and I'm not that far behind!

The scrolling effect I mentioned earlier:

• The sphere map is costing me some nasty bright seams on the chamfered edges I used to smooth the cubes, I'm not sure what to do, I'll either have to sacrifice smooth lighting or the sphere map... unless... hm... I might use the same model but with different normals for the sphere map pass, and a different one, with smoothed normals for the light pass!
• Edit: No, I can't do that, stupid blender and its automatic normals!
• Edit2: HAHA! being smart as I am I decided to export the cube model two times, first time with the chamfered edges but flat on the cube sides and another one with the rounded edges. Then I'll just copy the normals from the first one to the second one and voilà! I have two types of cubes :]
• Edit3: Once again: DAMN YOU BLENDER!!! I don't want any stupid optimizations! I want the normals and vertices exactly the same always!!! AGRH. Because of this I can't have fancy sphere map.
• Edit4: The seams are caused by the light, now I'm mad >:(
• Edit5: Ok! Finally got rid of the nasty seams, I removed some detail from the edges and it seems to work fine now and I didn't have to sacrifice neither the sphere map nor the smooth light!
• Also: sorry for anyone stumbling upon this blog with a 56k connection. I really do feel sorry for you.

 Update 4(23:00):

• I ended up taking a longer rest than I wanted, it's 23:00 now and I haven't touched the program :(
  I disappointed myself quite a lot with this, especially since I haven't even slept properly yet. I hope that I can at least have a productive night, or productive morning, anything as long as I can deliver the program by tomorrow afternoon!!