Hi. These effects look excellent!
I've got loads of things where you've achieved what I have in mind, so it would be great if we could discuss it further. My project isn't in an advanced state, but from what you've shown I think you have covered most of what is desired:
2D highlights shader
3D with lighting integrated into 2D game
2D soft shadows (godrays?)
1) If possible I want to have 2d sprites and lighting for the foreground, then 3d backgrounds with their own lighting, and have both interact where its realistic for them to do so (an actual sense of depth defining their interactions)
2) Particles that light the environment / objects etc
3) Water shaders - reflections, and wave simulations
4) A recreation of something like Desert Strike, where its an isometric shooter. Perhaps driven by a shader to make the scenery, which I have seen done using height maps albeit looking slightly basic.
5) A recreation of something like Cabal, where its an into the screen, over the shoulder, faux 3d shooter. But in this, the camera and your position are not fixed. You can't rotate the view, but can walk into, and out of, it. Think Resi 4 if it was done in raycasting or in the old DOOM engine
6) Volumetric clouds being lit by lightning (or at least that effect, however you do it)
7) A Space Harrier faux 3d effect, as seen recently in 'Blazing Chrome'
8) This is a big one.....I want to have a way of animating scenes, where lip syncing and facial expressions / shading of those expressions, are handled by a shader. I have a vague idea that this is possible, based on previous directional lighting examples, and your experimental shader seems to be like light passing over the contours of the face.
What if that face was being drawn on the fly as textured primitives, and attempting to match a "true" (ish) 3d representation? Obviously with the limit that it isn't actually 3d. Could you shade the face from a light source, as it moves? Have highlights / reflections in the eyes? All the things that give realism to a face, and a setting etc, so that there is some fluidity and depth to these scenes. I can certainly animate a face, and maybe even handle some of the positioning / scaling aspect, and then hackily fudge the shadowing aspect, but it seems like you have the chops to do it all properly.
There's loads of effects where you seem very capable of delivering them, and I really want to know if GMS can deliver a graphical experience comparable to the Ori games. Which look gorgeous
I wanted to discuss whether that's possible, or if you could do it, and of course the cost, so I'll PM you. Cheers!