[Akalabeth Angel]

Anyone else dissatisfied with some of the HTL models? Not that I'm saying one or the other are bad models. Just that some of them deviate so much from the originals that it gives me pause and makes me consider ditching the mediavps even though they are more or less a "standard" in terms of campaigns (and due to model differences some campaigns will encounter problems without them).

The mjolnir for example used to have blue lighting everywhere on the model. Now it's just a boring metal casing with some irrelevant blue pin prick lights at the front. What the hell???

[Herra Tohtori]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm guessing you are talking about some models where some part of the textures are interpreted as glowpoints as opposed to just glows on the texture, which in retail were just parts of the diffuse texture but are now dealt with glow maps.


Personally I like glow points more than glow maps bot only in cases where the lights obviously are more like point sources of light (and possibly the baked in glow from them) rather than glowing panels in the original texture. Using glow points instead of a glow map can save a lot of memory that can be more effectively used for, say, a normal map. Also, for blinking glow points one would need a two-frame (at the least) animated glow map with the FPS synched to the glow point frequency... which might actually be a pretty interesting exercise (imagine seeing a baked in lighting from the running lights on Orion's "runway" for example).

I haven't seen the retail Mjolnir in quite a long time, though. Could you post some images "before" and "after"? It is possible that a glow map is just missing, in the case it uses some sort of baked-in lighting with the glow map (like the Hercules for example). Also, do you have other examples of such cases?


Also, this topic might be better seen at FSU board since it is definitely an issue that concerns the mediaVP's.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Hmmmn.
Well actually now that I open the thing up in PCS2 it does seem to have some lights on it but it doesn't show up for me during the game. I do have glowmaps enabled so I don't know why it wouldn't.

But old mjolnir:


HTL mjolnir in-game:



And maybe this should be in FSU forum. I dunno.


I think this is supposed to be how it looks but it doens't look like this in-game:

[Akalabeth Angel]

Thanks for the feedback.

I haven't seen the retail Mjolnir in quite a long time, though. Could you post some images "before" and "after"? It is possible that a glow map is just missing, in the case it uses some sort of baked-in lighting with the glow map (like the Hercules for example). Also, do you have other examples of such cases?

Btw I haven't noticed a problem with any other models that I'm aware of. Then again most retail don't really have a lot of lights on them, but the Mjolnir does. And whenever I've seen it in a campaign it's always bugged me greatly. I think it's a ship that certainly does need a glow map myself.

[Herra Tohtori]

OK, here goes.

The parts on the new Mjölnir textures that used to be faintly glowy blue/cyan in the old one are apparently interpreted as shiny rather than glowy. They basically have very high environmental reflectivity but low specular reflectivity, so if you only use -spec and do not use -env, you would seem them as dark parts.

I think the glows on the points on the tips are a bit exaggerated and glow points would do better justice to them. Also, I think it is a trivial matter to make the shiny parts glowy. Furthermore, I personally think it should be done.

[-Norbert-]

This is how it looks on my comp (with the re-release of the 3.6.10 mediavps).

While it doesn't look like the Screenshot from PCS2, it wasn't completely unlit like in your ingame-screenshot.

In case it matters any, I'm using the CKid's setting from the from the wiki.

Code: [Select]

-ambient_factor 35 -no_emissive_light -spec_exp 16.7 -spec_point 0.6 -spec_static 0.9 -spec_tube 1
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]

[Akalabeth Angel]

OK, here goes.

The parts on the new Mjölnir textures that used to be faintly glowy blue/cyan in the old one are apparently interpreted as shiny rather than glowy. They basically have very high environmental reflectivity but low specular reflectivity, so if you only use -spec and do not use -env, you would seem them as dark parts.

I think the glows on the points on the tips are a bit exaggerated and glow points would do better justice to them. Also, I think it is a trivial matter to make the shiny parts glowy. Furthermore, I personally think it should be done.

Oh so the white stuff in PCS2 is just some sort of default environment lighting or something? I noticed the reflective part in game.


I think that the shiny parts should be glowy too. That was THE prominent feature of the retail mjolnir. It's akin to making the shivan's red-hulled parts into an environment reflective map.

This is how it looks on my comp (with the re-release of the 3.6.10 mediavps).

While it doesn't look like the Screenshot from PCS2, it wasn't completely unlit like in your ingame-screenshot.

In case it matters any, I'm using the CKid's setting from the from the wiki.

Code: [Select]

-ambient_factor 35 -no_emissive_light -spec_exp 16.7 -spec_point 0.6 -spec_static 0.9 -spec_tube 1

Yeah that's how it should look. But I don't know why mine doesn't look that way.
I dunno what all those flags you're using are for. Would they make the difference? This is what's on my command line at present:

Code: [Select]

C:\Games\FS_Open\fs2_open_3_6_10.exe -mod FoW_COTS,mediavps -spec -glow -env -mipmap -normal -ship_choice_3d -3dwarp -warp_flash -output_scripting

[Herra Tohtori]

Yepp, the first release of 3.6.10 doesn't seem to have beam2-glow texture on the Assets. I haven't bothered downloading the r-released mediavp's as I'm not on my own computer. Seems like the issue is fixed though.

[-Norbert-]

I dunno what all those flags you're using are for.

Neither do I really. I simply copy/pasted them from the wiki page about the Lighting Settings http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Sample_Lighting_Settings and put them in the custom flags field in the Launcher under the featers tab.

[General Battuta]

You don't use custom lighting settings, Akalabeth?

I would strongly recommend it,

[Zacam]

The first MediaVP release missed on the Cyan BeamSaber texture. It got put back in on the Rerelease and should be working.

Check your Data\Cache and if necessary, delete the BeamSaber.* files. It shouldn't matter, but it may help.

[Galemp]

The whole thing REALLY REALLY needs to be UV mapped anyway. And I agree, some glowyness would be nice to have.

[-Norbert-]

Oh just thought of a possible reason for your problem.
Could it be that you forgot to delete the mv_complete out of your mediavp folder after putting the re-release in?

[Akalabeth Angel]

Oh just thought of a possible reason for your problem.
Could it be that you forgot to delete the mv_complete out of your mediavp folder after putting the re-release in?

I deleted the beamsaber.ibx from data/cache and I don't have any mv_complete in my directory but it still looks the same way.
All I have in mediavps is advanced, assets, core, effects and music plus a data folder with a cache directory and some stuff in there.


What's this custom lighting thing about?
Maybe I'll just re-download whatever I need. . .mv_advanced??? and then it'll fix it??

[Zacam]

Shouldn't need to if the Hashes matches the Hash in the crcs.txt file.

If you go in to F3, what's it look like?

-Norbert-: Yours almost looks right, but it's kinda hard to tell.

My flags:

Code: [Select]

C:\Games\FreeSpace2\fs2_open_3_6_10.exe -mod mediavps -spec -glow -env -nomotiondebris -missile_lighting -normal -3dshockwave -cache_bitmaps -dualscanlines -targetinfo -orbradar -rearm_timer -ship_choice_3d -weapon_choice_3d -3dwarp -snd_preload  -ambient_factor 70 -no_emissive_light -spec_exp 8.2 -spec_point 8.6 -spec_static 3.5 -spec_tube 1.0 -ogl_spec 25

My Mjolnir:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5508/screen0000u.png

Now, as previously mentioned, there IS a high degree of shine/reflectivity in the glowmap. We'll look at addressing that and getting some Glowpoints in.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Okay, I can try it out.

Though my question is, should a person NEED all this custom lighting stuff? If a person has to adjust the lighting with a bunch of odd code that doesn't even appear in the launcher (as far as I can tell) it seems a bit off.

[Mongoose]

It's only "necessary" if you want to generate your own spiffy custom setting, like some of the super-dark setups that so often appear in the Celebration of FS thread.  I've always been perfectly content with leaving everything default myself.

[Zacam]

Depends on the Launcher you are using.

For Windows

Code: [Select]

-ambient_factor 70 -no_emissive_light -spec_exp 8.2 -spec_point 8.6 -spec_static 3.5 -spec_tube 1.0 -ogl_spec 25

Is manually entered in to the "Custom Flags" text box and can be ignored if you wish.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Okay. I downloaded the re-released assets and advanced and it works now. Doesn't look as good as the original, but at least it has blue lights on it now so I'm comparatively happy. But I noticed another problem. After I saw that it was working I did what all good pilots do and tried to fly between the spinning arms without running into anything.

The problem is, a few times I got through unscathed when I shouldn't have. Observe:




Most of the arms seem solids but if you fly into the outer arm tips (past the yellow/black warning stripes) there's no collision. Not sure what sort of problem would be causing this but I'm sure the wiser folks on the board might have a clue.

[Vasudan Admiral]

That could well be a faulty model file - this was one of the first done via the Max exporter IIRC, and many of those ships have had collision problems. Stick it in the FSU mantis and we'll check it out.