Ok you've got me
I was always bothered by IL2 not being more minecraft-like.
So that's what I'm working on.
Next I will extend the pilot walk-around functionality with the ability to dig into terrain.
OK, on a serious note - what I'm working on is re-implementing the effects system just like I did with the terrain.
Currently particles are displayed as blocks (no it's not supposed to stay like this
).
The benefits will (hopefully) be better performance and the integration of the effects into the same shader framework as terrain and objects.
The effects are probably one of the bottlenecks of the engine because they are rendered using legacy drawing functions of OpenGL.
Using modern OpenGL functionality should at least theoretically improve performance.
The same goes for dynamic lighting btw - there is a lot of room for improvement.