We did promise you a hot update cooking in the next update in diary #28, referring to one aspect of BlasTech's work with the special effects of JKG. This is the stuff that'll make you burn - I am of course talking about smoke, flame and fire!

The fire effects of JKG have gone through radical changes throughout development, all the time with the goal of the most realistic fire this engine can achieve. Right from the start, we worked with animated sprites, trying to get away from the boring "fire" of JK2 and JKA. The first step with photoshop textures may not seem like much, but who said it would end there? During the summer break of 2010, BlasTech got working on photosourced textures for many effects, including high summer clouds and a filmed flame in a stone oven. Not long after, the very same was in-game. The effects themselves were developed even further, but still didn't seem quite alive enough.

Finally getting to play Mass Effect, as well as getting inspired by the work of fellow modder Jedi_Mediator, BlasTech created brand new Photoshop textures to use for the fire particles in addition to the animated sprites. Along with vast updates of the effects themselves, the fires of JKG finally burned bright with a suitable radiance and particle behaviour.

If you like what you see, I suggest voting on Jedi Knight Galaxies for the ModDB Mod of the Year 2011 award (at the top of our ModDB page! As always, we are looking for talented people who want to help us build the mod. At the moment we want programmers, mappers and character modelers. If you feel that you've got what it takes to bring JKG forward, post an application on our forums!

Until the next time... Let that fire burn brightly.