Near future plans for nGENE

It took me a lot of thinking recently about the way I should follow with further nGENE development. Here is a small summary of conclusions I came to:

• nGENE definitely needs a game to prove its capabilities as a game engine. Therefore, I'll soon try to code something larger than up-to-date demos. It won't be a game by all means but it'll contain some gameplay elements. Besides this way it'll be much easier to spot bugs and flaws as I'll put myself in the position of a game developer. What it'll be is still to be decided, however to options I consider as most probable are: small racing game and fps shooter.
  
• Current nGENE WIP status is not really convenient for potential developers. Therefore, I'll soon change the way it is stored in the repository. Updates to it will be much more frequent (even at daily basis) but at the same time there will be stable versions available for those who doesn't want not-well-tested functionality present.
• Animation system is the thing I'm currently working on (amongst other things). The goal is to finish it by the end of summer (and by that I mean the end of september). I'm trying it to make as flexible and effective as possible.
  
• Also problems with nGENE not working on some GPUs (modern ones) has to be definitely addressed. As for now I have no clue what they are caused by (unfortunately I don't have access to some of the top GPUd on which problems occur).
  

There is one problem (which can be also broken into several smaller problems) though to which I cannot find a good solution. I want nGENE, all it's shaders, techniques and code to be free of charge as long as possible (forever in the best case). However, working this way causes several complications:

• I have to work somewhere else what makes it impossible to work on nGENE everyday and respond to queries and issues as fast as it should be done. It would be different if nGENE allowed me to earn a living.
  
• It's much more difficult to build up a team. Almost all of the talented guys out there doesn't want to make this only for fun. Money is something what really matters. It means I have to code everything on my own and I have no assets available like 3D models, textures or sound. Ok, I have by downloading them for free from some of the sites but this way there is no consistency as they come from dozens of authors.
  

As I stated above I don't want to sell nGENE - I don't even believe anyone would buy it at this stage with lack of animation system or really poor GUI system. What I consider are donations. And here comes the question: I wonder if anyone of you have any experience with them and whether anyone would consider donating project such as an nGENE?

Dadaj Lake - night photos

Recently I have no that much time to work on nGENE Tech (it is temporary though, I have ambitious plans for this summer regarding nGENE).

However, I spared some time to practice night photo shooting last weekend. You can see the results on picasa:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tomanw/DadajNightPhotos#

Here are some of the pics from the album:

Even though everything is pretty bright and the colours are vivid the night was pretty dark and several minutes long exposures were required to achieve this effect.

What I like about taking photos at night is that the results are somewhat unrealistic, the colours are more artistic so to say. And there is no one but night animals to disturb you.

I have still a lot to practice but the results get better and better each time.