[Woolie Wool]

I was informed by Woomeister that HT&L won't work with ships over 30km long. Is there anyway you could bump up the size and texture limits? One of the ships in the Starforce mod will be around 50km long.

[Nico]

The pb is not the size of the ship, it's the fact they put some render limit, so what is more than 30 kms away from you won't be rendered. Is that annoying? Yes, very, ther wasn't such a limit before.

[Stryke 9]

Don't you still hit a wall at 60?

[Woolie Wool]

Could you please remove the rendering distance limit?

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Don't you still hit a wall at 60?

no, some zero's later, askk phreak, IIRC.

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Could you please remove the rendering distance limit?

http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/index.php/Removing%20the%20Distance%20Culling%20in%20HT%26L

[mikhael]

no matter how far you increase the limit, users will expand their needs to fill the space.

Having a horizon/far-clip is a good thing, as it limits the z-depth of the view to a finite, discernable distance. That translates into more efficient rendering and faster frame rates.

I'm sure I could imagine a use for a 50km capship, but somehow I suspect I could imagine a better, smaller, less extreme design.

[Stryke 9]

You could just tex the thing so that it just looks like it gradually descends into shadow, and then stick a perpindicular silhouette at the end, I suppose... should be enough if you keep the player busy enough to not go wandering off exploring. Wouldn't need much silhouette, either, if you position the player somewhere near the center of the ship.


Anyway. Yeah, clip rates are vaguely annoying, but also seem kinda useful. Is there any way to, say, put a slider for it in the graphics options panel?

[Woolie Wool]

The extreme design is necessary for my purposes. It is the flagship of an empire that spans half a galaxy and the most powerful warship ever built by mankind. It is not only supposed to be an effective warship, it is also supposed to be awe-inspiring. Against most opponents, it would rarely ever engage the enemy because it is so terrifying to behold. And when it does attack, woe be anything that it fires upon.

How about setting the render distance to 80km?

[StratComm]

IIRC it will eventually float to around 100km, and is already there under one of the render modes, but that's still not my issue with it.  Far clipping planes are extremely useful, but the limit should have been set PAST THE DISTANCE AT WHICH THINGS WERE RENDERED IN VANILLA FS2.  As it stands, Knossos 3 is gone at 150km from the player start location.  I'm not sure if it's a hardware concern, or an algorithm concern, or what but capping the depth somewhere and capping the depth freighteningly close to the playable range don't seem to have anything to do with each other.

[phreak]

you're going to get stuff rendering thorough each other if you set it to 150km.  that is unless you have a card that will do a 24 bit z-buffer

[Woolie Wool]

Which cards can do a 24-bit Z-buffer? Can a GeForce2 MX do it?

[phreak]

im pretty sure.

if it can run 24 bit color, it can do a 24 bit z-buffer

[Nico]

Originally posted by mikhael
no matter how far you increase the limit, users will expand their needs to fill the space.

Having a horizon/far-clip is a good thing, as it limits the z-depth of the view to a finite, discernable distance. That translates into more efficient rendering and faster frame rates.

I'm sure I could imagine a use for a 50km capship, but somehow I suspect I could imagine a better, smaller, less extreme design.

Yes, but say goodby to scenary meshes in the distance, planets for exemple.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by PhReAk
im pretty sure.

if it can run 24 bit color, it can do a 24 bit z-buffer

There are cards still used in significant numbers today that don't support 24-bit color? Cards with 24-bit color support have been around for at least 10 years. If a card-supports 32-bit color, it should by extension support 24-bit since 32-bit is 24 with an alpha channel, right?

How do you change the render distance anyway?

[phreak]

its in the code, not to mention required to get HT&L to even function

[kasperl]

well, i know that a lot of people here, nyself for one, use TNT's and the like, so you might want to consider us doomed ones.

[Woolie Wool]

Could you make a version of the Dec. 5 build with a really high draw distance or show me how to edit the code to increase the draw distance? How far can I go with a 24-bit Z-buffer?

[Gloriano]

so may big ships *wait's that someone do 100KM warship*

[phreak]

http://www.sjbaker.org/steve/omniv/love_your_z_buffer.html

basically tells you how it works.  there is a java thingy there too to compute resoultion and such