[Mars]

If I got an extra gig of memory it wouldn't be minor, but oh well...

[Trivial Psychic]

I was thinking about that too.  There will be one more private test build.  If it goes well then I'll just move it to a public location (such as http://icculus.org/~taylor/fso/nightly) over the weekend.  Whether I remember to actually do that is another question, but it may not hurt to look there Saturday afternoon or so.

Isn't the "nightly" folder more where you put non-Windows builds?  Wouldn't the "testing" or "willrobinson" folders be better for that?  Yes, I am a snoop junkie.

[taylor]

Isn't the "nightly" folder more where you put non-Windows builds?  Wouldn't the "testing" or "willrobinson" folders be better for that?  Yes, I am a snoop junkie.

I just haven't released any builds that were "nightly" worthy since I made that directory.  The Linux and OS X builds are the only thing in there only because I haven't had the Windows builds to add in yet.  How I run down what goes where:

• "nightly" is those builds which are current CVS.  In this particular build case it's basically current CVS, just two days early.  I'll update and rebuild if needed before this weekend.  Anything in here will not contain any experimental code and either is current CVS, or soon will be.
  
  
• "testing" is for things that are not yet ready for CVS.  Mainly ideas or theories, but nothing that should cause any major issues.  These will typically be CVS ready code mixed with some personal-use type code.
  
  
• "willrobinson", well.. I picked that name for a reason.   Use builds from there at your own risk as those will be things that change options, init stuff, memory freakiness, io code, pilot code, etc.  Those builds are just as likely to not start up as they are to work fine, but  make it impossible for you to run older builds.

[ARSPR]

Hey, I'm leaving till next wednesday. But I really can't WAIT to see env-mapping... (although I will have to ... )

OTOH, to SCP crew and modders, as I have posted 3 billion times, DO NOT PAY ANY ATTENTION TO PEOPLE SAYING YOUR WORK IS RUBBISH OR WORTHLESS. You make a great FREE job. So what other people, (just like me), can do is just POLITE SUGGESTIONS. If someone is so clever to say Taylor, WMCoolmon or any other one, are wasting their time or making a bad work, what he/she has to do IS MAKING IT BETTER. Less talk and more actions.

[neoterran]

Hey, I'm leaving till next wednesday. But I really can't WAIT to see env-mapping... (although I will have to ... )

OTOH, to SCP crew and modders, as I have posted 3 billion times, DO NOT PAY ANY ATTENTION TO PEOPLE SAYING YOUR WORK IS RUBBISH OR WORTHLESS. You make a great FREE job. So what other people, (just like me), can do is just POLITE SUGGESTIONS. If someone is so clever to say Taylor, WMCoolmon or any other one, are wasting their time or making a bad work, what he/she has to do IS MAKING IT BETTER. Less talk and more actions.

In my opinion this just goes with the territory when you do any kind of development work of this nature whatsoever, you have to get a thick skin and abide by your own principles. You're going to get some criticism, and sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and ask yourself, is this criticism valid ? Most of the time it won't be, but sometimes..

And for all the people that are all talk and no action, then that becomes obvious. It's the people who add stuff to the community that will be valued, and it's fairly obvious who those people are.

Hey, has this thread gone far enough off topic or what ?!

[neoterran]

I would like to remind taylor that today is saturday and we are anxiously awaiting the holy grail of builds, that with env_map and env_map_alpha enabled in openGL.... 

[taylor]

I would like to remind taylor that today is saturday and we are anxiously awaiting the holy grail of builds, that with env_map and env_map_alpha enabled in openGL.... 

Don't I at least get a little time to sleep??

Builds are going now, check in about an hour or so and you should find it.

EDIT: There, happy now?

[neoterran]

Taylor,

you should know there is no rest for the wicked. 

* neoterran bows down before Taylor

WOOT ! This is just as I had hoped ! The effect is subtle, but Oh so nice. Thanks so much for toiling to get this working, your efforts are appreciated !

And it's a hell of a lot different than the Direct3D version (which looked...WRONG.. it was like all the ships were hyper chrome-y and just absolutely unreal, at least, the leviathan was) Much more realistic and just the right amount of reflectivity. Adds IMO. I managed to mess up my mod.ini just prior to this and got a shock loading the game  expecting env maps and seeing retail ships and textures (I've forgotten just how much you guys have improved the game... amazing)

My weekend, and my freespace 2 installation, is now complete. I assume this has hit CVS as of today right ? All that remains is for Redmenace to build some CPU instruction set optimized versions and test to see if there is any difference between them. I'm psyched. Freespace SCP OpenGL FTW !

Oh, and Freespace SCP is working without any performance issues in Windows Vista while it is running aero glass. Which is good, because they almost considered crippling OpenGL for a while there, and I'm glad it didnt' happen.

*edit* and I assume that 'cubemap.vp' goes in the mediavps right ? Or is it supposed to reside in the root directory ?

[taylor]

*edit* and I assume that 'cubemap.vp' goes in the mediavps right ? Or is it supposed to reside in the root directory ?

Doesn't really matter.  That VP just provides a default envmap, in case your video card can't create them (which will be an issue for some).  I hope that the default envmap will be included in the next MediaVPs (even if it's not the particular one in that VP) so that the extra VP isn't needed.  The VP isn't even required, but since without it you have to actually play a mission before envmaps show up in the techroom, I decided to distribute the VP.

EDIT:  Oh and the hyper reflective ships can still be a problem here but it's not the code, it's the texture maps.  When you use -alpha_env it uses the alpha of the map to decide how reflective the ship is.  I check for this and if the map doesn't have an alpha channel then it uses non-alpha_env to render.  The problem is that some maps are still DXT5, which has an alpha channel, but the map doesn't actually have alpha.  These maps will have the hyper-chrome effect to them.  You have my MediaVPs which already have all fixed maps, but if you used the official ones then you would still get issues with some ships.

[neoterran]

Ah, okay then. that explains quite a bit.

[Mars]

When are we going to find out what this bigger better secret is?

[taylor]

When are we going to find out what this bigger better secret is?

As soon as you find it.

And it's not difficult to find actually.  Depending on the cmdline options in use you will see it within the first 5 minutes of starting the game.

[neoterran]

umm, is it something to do with the engine flares... they look different somehow, better... ?

[taylor]

umm, is it something to do with the engine flares... they look different somehow, better... ?

Nope.  By the time you get in mission you've missed your first opportunity to view it.

I said it was minor and that most people wouldn't even notice it.  That would mean that it's something you don't normally pay much attention to, and may turn it off.

[neoterran]

ummmmmmmmmmm......................... can you give us a hint ?

[Psychonaut]

@Taylor

i guess you want some feedback on the env-mapping, aren´t you?

First of all. Thx man, i´ve waited long for this. After Bob implemented env-mapping in D3D, i´d never wanted to miss it again. But OGL is much faster and the lighting is also much better. Now there´s really no reason to stick to D3D. The effect in OGL is more subtle than in D3D. I don´t use the alpha env-mapping, ´cause it looks weird in some situations.

I suggest to make it a bit less subtle, ´cause sometimes it is really hard to notice (and that´s really a shame after all this hard work you put in this feature).
I would also suggest to implement the "popcorn"-effect, mentioned in this thread:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,39221.0.html

That would create the PERFECT BUILD.

Keep it on. Thank you!!!

 

[neoterran]

No, leave the effect the way it is. It should be subtle, you don't want the ships reflecting all over the place, it would only be noticable in certain angles/lighting situations anyway.

Also the alpha env mapping makes the ships with the old black style cockpits look great, by making their cockpits shine.

Still trying to figure out what the super secret add on is...

[Psychonaut]

.......... it would only be noticable in certain angles/lighting situations anyway.

Right, that´s why i wrote "a bit less subtle". It´s too nice to be hardly noticed.

[Mars]

I too think the effect should be toned up.

[neoterran]

lol, well taylor, you knew this would happen. This is why perhaps you should have left parameter passing for this feature in so that people could tweak it.