Completing Graphics Rendering on Degine

Still a ton of features left on my custom engine project, Degine, though I feel like the rendering has gotten to a good place. Took a few days to verify the existing features, and was able to find a couple of errors I had missed, mostly small nitpick things, but a few major issues. Probably the most impactful was deciding to combine the ambient occlusion and lighting (GTAO and SSGI) so they can complement each other. Shown in the shot above, this allows for both large and small scale AO, making the render much more believable. Currently these run as separate passes (either is optional) but should likely combine them into one to make it a bit more streamlined. Also solved a major motion-blur artifact.

Next I’ve been finalizing the animation system. While working currently, there are some areas of improvement with the blending on the skinning I could do. Recently implemented dual quaternion skinning (DQS) which is an improvement over the older standard linear blending skinning (LBS), especially with twisting on the arms and the so-called “candy wrapper” effect. DQS does come with some of its own artifacts (namely over-bulging), which I’m investigating at the moment.

Need more visual debugging tools, since trying to fix these animation glitches by eye is nigh impossible. Hopefully can sort this out by the end of the week and post a video for the work-in-progress animation.