On April 5th, 2004, (sorry we were late!) IGN got a sneak peak at the new graphics engine for Everquest. Here are some of the features in the new graphics engine (take directly from http://pc.ign.com/articles/504/504386p1.html?fromint=1, all credit goes to IGN and their staff):
-- Better special effects for rain and snow
-- Realistic sky gradient
-- Advanced star rendering
-- Multiple cloud patches moving independently
-- Hierarchical bone-based animation of models
-- Animated textures (both color map and bump map)
-- Animation mixing (each bone can perform a separate animation)
-- Animation blending (between successive animations, either additive or averaged)
-- Single-bone skinning supported for original assets
-- More efficient loading of geometry and textures
-- Option to turn off rendering of a piece of a given object
-- Standard bump (normal) mapping (zones and characters)
-- Faster in many ways
-- Numerous bugs in old system eliminated
-- Client & server share the exact collision code now
-- Line of sight tests in all zones should now be possible without substantial CPU penalty
-- Improved targetting
-- Normal maps for dynamic and static per-pixel lighting (diffuse and specular)
-- Use of glow and gloss maps for self-illuminating and specular intensity
-- Tinting of skin layer
-- Single layer texturing for NPCs includes color map, bump/glow/gloss map
-- Two texture layers for old character art (for skin and clothes)
-- Color keying as required for transparency on old art assets
-- Detail texturing as required for Luclin terrain, etc.
The changes are amazing, make sure to click on the following link to look at how rats and bats will look: http://pc.ign.com/articles/504/504386p1.html?fromint=1
