Author Topic: PBR and our green normal maps  (Read 1332 times)

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Offline fightermedic

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PBR and our green normal maps
So, here is the thing, this thread http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=90977.0 made me remember something i wanted to ask since a long time ago:
freespace right now is using these weird normal maps with the alpha and green channels
now, with the rendering engine being reworked for PBR anyway, is there any chance to change the whole thing to use the default red and green channels, like in any other game?
as far as backward compability is concerned: specific reflection PBR map is here = use new way, else use old way, done!
right now with the maps using the alpha channel, not only are they totally different from every other game out there, making everything harder for artists than it needs to be, but  MOSTLY, you need to use a compression format that supports alpha right now, which with using the usual channels you would not! thus, saving valuable texture memory in the process - furthermore, textures without alpha tend to have less compression artifacts from my experience, thus, we would have higher quality normal maps!!

i am aware that the 2 remaining channels in normal maps right now can be used for team colors, but we do already have a specific extra texture for that (which often can be a lot smaller in resolution and still produce good results anyway)
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Offline The E

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Re: PBR and our green normal maps
That would certainly be a possible solution. We can't adopt the standard format for all normal maps for obvious reasons, but if and when we introduce a PBR renderer, that option is available to us.

(That said, the process of converting "normal" normal maps to FSO and back is so simple that it can be easily automated)
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Offline Galemp

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Re: PBR and our green normal maps
DXT5 is actually not uncommon for normal maps in gaming. Here's what NVidia has to say about it:

Quote
The DXT5 format is designed for color textures with a smooth alpha channel. However, this format can also be used to store object-space normal maps. In particular, better quality normal map compression can be achieved by using the DXT5 format and moving one of the components to the alpha channel. By moving one of the components to the alpha channel this component is stored with more precision. Furthermore, by encoding only two components in the DXT1 block of the DXT5 format, the accuracy with which these components are stored typically improves as well.
...
On current hardware, the DXT5 format with re-normalization in a fragment program results in the best quality compression of object-space normal maps.
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Offline fightermedic

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Re: PBR and our green normal maps
a DXT1 with only two channels used (as in, the blue channel being completely white/black in this case) has basically no artifacts at all, and uses a lot less memory than DXT5 - with the added benefit of not confusing people
i think that simply is the way to go
>>Fully functional cockpits for Freespace<<
>>Ships created by me<<
Campaigns revised/voice-acted by me:
Lightning Marshal 1-4, The Regulus Campaign, Operation: Savior, Operation: Crucible, Titan Rebellion, Fall of Epsilon Pegasi 1.1Aftermath 2.1,
Pandora's Box 2.2, Deep Blood

Other Campaigns I have participated in:
The Antagonist, Warzone, Phantoms & Echo-Gate

All the stuff I release is free to use or change in any way for everybody who likes to do so; take whatever you need