Author Topic: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [CLOSED - 1/1/14]  (Read 60296 times)

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Online Col. Fishguts

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
I understand what you are saying, but there is absolutely no chance that I'm going to manually go through and tweak every LOD distance ever. I simply don't have the capacity to do that and the rest of the FSU team seems to be on an extended hiatus or something.

This I can understand very well :)
But then you might consider to remove the "$Detail distance" lines from mv_root-shp.tbm, because that one defines custom LOD distances for every ship, and they are all roughly 20% smaller than the retail values.
So, someone once defined those values, but they don't seem to fit the FSU models very well, and they sort of break the model detail slider option.

EDIT: About the Zephyrus, looking through old threads, it appears I was remembering Galemp's HTL model, but that one was never stable enough to be included in the media VPs.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2013, 06:12:22 pm by Col. Fishguts »
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
HTL models have their own detail distance in MV_Assets that the modelers supposed to have included. Though again, that's way too much for me to check. I have the understanding that Vasudan Admiral fixed the detail distances in MV_Root. So if you are all done second guessing.... I would rather spend my time making sure these VPs don't crash FSO instead of catering to what everyone thinks is best.

Harsh as it may sound, I simply can't spend all my time making sure that every aspect of a mod this big pleases all of the people ever.
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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
1. Are FS2 campaign related problems supposed to be listed here or is there a more suitable place for them? Should there be a thread dedicated to them perhaps? And is there any collaborative effort to attempt to fix them?  ;)

-----

2. Regarding the nebula rendering issue, I think I found a clear regression between builds 3.7.1.10150 and 3.7.1.10201 (6th December). Here is what I found when testing two missions: "A game of TAG" and "Proving Grounds"

Build 10150: No problem with the "Game of TAG". In "Proving Grounds" I actually managed to get Aquitaine flicker 100 % visible for two seconds, but only once during the whole mission. Doesn't really bother the overall experience.

Build 10201: The 2 Deimos corvettes in "Game of TAG" flicker 100 % visible several times when I turn to face them, but not always. The Aquitaine in "Proving Grounds" is even worse, it flickers 100% visible almost every time I turn to face it.

How to reproduce: The flickers don't start immediately. There has to be some action first: flying missiles, projectiles and such. In "Proving Grounds" the problem escalates when the Shican Moloch corvette jumps in.

What I used as graphical options: Baseline recommended lighting preset and -no_emissive_light -ogl_spec 80. All the graphical options enabled in the wxLauncher.

This is by no means a game-breaking issue, and non-nebula missions have no rendering issues whatsoever. But as people more wise and experienced than me have concluded, this has nothing to do with the MediaVPs, so should I make a new thread, or is there an existing one regarding this specific nebula problem?  :)

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
If there's a change between builds then it's an SCP issue. Go to SCP's mantis and file a bug report.
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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Quote
If there's a change between builds then it's an SCP issue. Go to SCP's mantis and file a bug report.

Ah, sorry. I originally thought that Mantis was an "insider thing" dedicated only for the SCP core team, but apparently anyone can log in. So that's why I've been using the forum to attract attention for the problems I have found.

I'll proceed to make a new account to Mantis later today.  ;)

 

Online Col. Fishguts

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Quote
HTL models have their own detail distance in MV_Assets that the modelers supposed to have included. Though again, that's way too much for me to check. I have the understanding that Vasudan Admiral fixed the detail distances in MV_Root. So if you are all done second guessing.... I would rather spend my time making sure these VPs don't crash FSO instead of catering to what everyone thinks is best.

The thing is that mv_assets-shp.tbm doesn't define detail distances for most its entries (but it does for some). Also, if we're still loading VPs in alphabetical order, MV_Assets is loaded before MV_Root, so some detail distance settings are loaded from MV_Assets and some from MV_Root, which further complicates things.

Look, I'm not trying to impose my personal taste on the media VP tables, but I thought the purpose of this beta release was to identify things like this, where you have missing/conflicting data in the various modular tables.
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Offline Rodo

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
I'm thinking... flickering ships in nebula could be related to the engine switching between lods?
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Offline JGZinv

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Since supposedly some LOD issues were fixed with this, can I get some clarification on how to fix this:

Code: [Select]
For asteroid 'Small Asteroid', detail level
mismatch (POF needs 3)
<no module>! KiFastSystemCallRet
<no module>! WaitForSingleObject + 18 bytes
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! <no symbol>
<no module>! RegisterWaitForInputIdle + 73 bytes

Happens with Small, Medium, and Large asteroids, 2-3 identical errors each. We have a mainhall replacement with visible roids,
so it literally hits these each and every time you use the main menu. Roids that do show up, look like old low poly style roids.

Have tried with latest nightly and 3.7.0.

Log attached.

[attachment deleted by an evil time traveler]
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Offline Yarn

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Does this happen if Fringespace is not enabled?
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--strings.tbl, entry 177

"Freespace is very tired.  It is shutting down to get some rest."
--strings.tbl, entry 178

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Going to probably have to give me a better description on how to test it then.
The mainhall / mission is integrated as part of the mod, I turn that off it's going to be a lot
of work to rip it out so it can work with FS2 assets only.

Would creating a new mission with just the same roids as the mainhall replacement,
and testing that without fringespace, be sufficient?
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Offline Yarn

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
The best way is probably to make a simple Fringespace mission with asteroids and see whether that triggers the warnings. If it does, then make the same mission again for FS2 and test that with the 2014 MediaVPs.
"Your fighter is running out of oil.  Please check under the hood and add more if necessary"
--strings.tbl, entry 177

"Freespace is very tired.  It is shutting down to get some rest."
--strings.tbl, entry 178

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Ran mission with Fringe + '14 MVPs, nightly build, = errors same as before.

Ran same mission file with ships changed back to FSO compatibles, + '14 MVPs, no Fringe, = no errors under nightly build.

That narrows it down to being us somehow. I don't see what difference the (2) ships themselves would make, so that leaves it being
the scripting that controls the mainhall replacement. The only other thing is we've got some kind of duplicate file / reference problem
somewhere in the mod files, which is conflicting.

Oy vey this will probably take a while to track down.
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Check asteroid.tbl.

Retail asteroid POFs have 4 LODs. The MediaVPs versions only have 3. However, asteroid.tbl is not modular so either FSU needs to create a 4th LOD for every asteroid (about 15, I think) or we just include a full retail asteroid.tbl with the necessary changes.

For Beta 2, I opted for the latter. Hope that points you in the right direction.
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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
1. It took me ridiculously long time to notice that the post processing feature (especially the "bloom" part") is a lot stronger in MediaVP_2014_beta than in MediaVP_3612. The nebulas are especially more colourful (even Blue nebulas contain some amount of red and green??) and saturated. But in the mission "Into the Lion's Den" (where Alpha attacks Shivan Comm Nodes) the bloom is now just TOO much. It blocks almost all the gauges with ludicrous brightness. I had to reduce Bloom intensity value to 10, which was more acceptable, but it still was bloomier than the same mission with MediaVP_3612 using default bloom value 75. Was this Bloom increase in the new MediaVP an intended feature, or a miscalculation?

2. Apparently the subsystem "Crystal" of the new Shivan Comm Nodes is now invulnerable. I tried attacking it from every direction, but it still remains at 100 %. I tried the same mission soon after with the old mediavps, and the crystal was vulnerable again. This does not prevent me from completing the mission, but it takes 5x more time to destroy Comm Nodes without destroying their Crystal first.

 

Offline MatthTheGeek

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
1. It took me ridiculously long time to notice that the post processing feature (especially the "bloom" part") is a lot stronger in MediaVP_2014_beta than in MediaVP_3612. The nebulas are especially more colourful (even Blue nebulas contain some amount of red and green??) and saturated. But in the mission "Into the Lion's Den" (where Alpha attacks Shivan Comm Nodes) the bloom is now just TOO much. It blocks almost all the gauges with ludicrous brightness. I had to reduce Bloom intensity value to 10, which was more acceptable, but it still was bloomier than the same mission with MediaVP_3612 using default bloom value 75. Was this Bloom increase in the new MediaVP an intended feature, or a miscalculation?
Bloom is set via command line, MVPs aren't to blame for this (default is 75, I'd suggest something around 40).

What is true is that the MVPs 2014 now have a post-processing table. You can just extract it from MV_Root, put it in Freespace2/mediavps_2014_beta/data/tables/ and change the values/enable or disable the properties to your convenience.
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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
I know how the command line works. I said I set the bloom intensity to 10 already. There is a CLEAR difference in-game between the two mediaVPs using the same amount of bloom in the parameters. MediaVP_2014 is way bloomier.

To clarify:
MediaVP2014 is brighter with Bloom Intensity 10 than the MediaVP3612 is with Bloom intensity 75.

Why don't you try it for yourself? "Into the Lion's Den" is a perfect example.

I know, at first I refused to believe that there was a difference between MediaVPs, but there is.

EDIT: Here are screenshots for comparison. These two use identical builds and identical Bloom values but different MediaVPs.

MediaVP_3612
MediaVP_2014_Beta
« Last Edit: December 16, 2013, 11:06:58 am by Lykurgos88 »

 

Offline The E

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Uh.

Yeah.

We got a few new nebula graphics in there. Of course the new MediaVPs look different than before. If they looked the same, we wouldn't have bothered releasing them.
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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Uh.

Yeah.

We got a few new nebula graphics in there. Of course the new MediaVPs look different than before. If they looked the same, we wouldn't have bothered releasing them.

Into the Lion's Den isn't in the Nebula... There is an overall increase in bloom everywhere.

 

Offline The E

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
Into the Lion's Den isn't in the Nebula... There is an overall increase in bloom everywhere.

"Nebula graphics" refers not only to the actual fog graphics, but also to all the various nebulae that a mission designer can place on the background skysphere.
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: The MediaVPs 2014 Open Beta [BETA 2 - 12/7/13]
I will look further into this later this day... but I think your answers are not sufficient, The_E. The nebula graphics do look exactly the same, but the 2014 version are burn out... it does seem like bloom effect. The ships also look a lot more vibrant, saturated, etc. (I know they are different models, but still).

I do think he is detecting something here.