They say that bloom is the new lens flare.

So I said to myself, who am I to fight Them? I mean, what with Their black helicopters and mind control rays and everything, I wouldn’t stand a chance..

This is still a work in progress; the code is based on the algorithms discussed at Philip Rideout’s OpenGL Bloom tutorial; working with pixel shaders (“fragment shaders”) is entirely new to me, so I’m learning quickly!

The code is checked in to the subversion repository, but is not yet enabled. I need to set things up so that VectorStorm can figure out whether or not a particular computer is capable of doing this effect (requires a video card supporting OpenGL Shader Model 2), and if so, turn this on by default.. or if not, use the old renderer by default. Probably will require a little bit more work to set things up so that I can switch renderers while the game is running. I still refuse to display a “restart the game for your changes to take effect” screen.

And now, time to get to bed. It’s nearly 3:00am. Amazing how time can fly when you’re staring at glowy things.