LancerSolurus

Actually I use steering for my AI. Since it is a full 3D environment (outer space) A* isn't a viable solution. In my implementation a straight line is calculated to the target and the AI use 'feelers' to keep from crashing into objects. Eventually the AI will work their way around objects and get close enough to attack if thats their goal. The movement is nowhere near as precise as A* but is is a workable solution in the case of 3D star systems and 3D surface maps.

This is the technique I ended up emulating

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-programming-and-theory/soft-edged-shadows-r2193

Works out very well for large shadow maps and you can complement it with cascaded shadow maps. It give a nice soft penumbra for all maps and all jaggies are pretty much removed. It is a bit expensive on the sampling though, I ended up doing a 27 point tap filter which can thrash the texture cache if your not careful. In my case I limited it to a 0 to 1 sample offset which helped quite a bit.

I use a progress bar but only update it between stages. I don't see the need to update it for every file loaded, only when a particular step in the initialization stage is complete. In a way it is a 'lazy' update but it does let the user know something is actually progressing. I don't bother with showing what is going on internally but it does show about 30 steps worth. Since I've implemented that perceptually it seems as if the loading time is much shorter even though I know it is a few ms longer than before due to the draw code.

You might want to take a look at the page linked below, it might be what you are looking for (specifically the smoke and rain demos)

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-graphics-sdk-directx

@ysg, either your young or your trolling....

I would like to see the elimination of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

You have got to be kidding me, do you realize how many people live on just the funds they get from that? Do you even know what it means to have to live off of just 800+ dollars a month in the US? You sound like a rich kid who doesn't have to worry about money, NOW...