 Welp, time for another quick and dirty update. Seems like its been a while. Well, work is getting busy, which suits me fine. Ive been working on my own engine stuff too (partly because Ive gotten more focused recently, and partly to try a few idea's Ive had out). One of the things that has become startlingly obvious to me recently, is that having great content is FAR more important than having great technology. Ive been a bit down about this whole aspect of development, because its so hard for me to visualise concepts with some trashy 3D box object I made myself. I heard a rumour that napster or one of the napster clones was to start sharing 3D models, this seems like a great idea. How many of you 3D mad guys wouldnt love to actually having something NICE to put in your latest and greatest 3d engine? Its just amazingly difficult to find artists to just produce something nice for you to play with :)), I work with some great guys here at Team17, but my own tests just arent really in the same context with Team17's fun style (I do stuff thats more FPS then Worms if you get my meaning :)) My solution to this problem has been to import and manipulate other game formats (Quake3, Halflife etc), but honestly, you cant really use content directly from these games (and this is just for tests, so I am not talking legal terms here, just that the content doesnt really suit). So its a bit of a problem for me. Which is kind of the reason I got into procedural stuff like landscapes. Landscapes are just perfect as an excersize, because you can really SEE wether youre doing something that looks good. Ive learnt a lot of "qualitative" things playing with my landscape stuff. So after looking at that, my next course is to finish my game architecture design, implement the networking and prediction (client side, the server is already there), then to start back on the character animation stuff. While I'm doing the game "framework" code, I'll also be making a start on the landscape editor. Ive been through the pipeline for creating "ordinary" landscapes, and it isnt nice. Just not controllable enough. So... its time to do some tools coding. No-one's favourite job, but essential if you want anyone to be able to create something that looks even half decent. Yep, sadly, tools are *THE* difference between a professional job and a freeware effort. Anyway, I'll hopefully get the editor up quickly and post some shots in the IOTD. Phil. 
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