AwareEngine First Screenshots

Okay.  So I've been working on the "engine" code for this tech-demo.  I'm calling it the Aware Engine.  Using my newly honed water-effect techniques I've created a rippling background for the menu.  A still image does not do it justice but:

I've also applied the water effect to my lava using a mask:

 

(click to zoom)

The mask above is shown as a 360 degree equirectangular (aka panoramic) environment map.

Next I need to generalize the masked water effect code and then I'll begin work on the smoke effect.

I'm kind of struggling with performance issues too.  The water effect is calculated on the CPU per-pixel - I'm not leveraging the graphics card at all.  I've got it up to about 25 FPS on my laptop but I need more for the smoke effect.  Perhaps I'll use a second thread to asynchronously render the effect(s) and just set minimum system requirements to any dual-core CPU.  We'll see.