Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Woolie Wool on December 10, 2003, 12:11:25 pm
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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.
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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.
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Don't you still hit a wall at 60?
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Could you please remove the rendering distance limit?
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
Don't you still hit a wall at 60?
no, some zero's later, askk phreak, IIRC.
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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
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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
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Which cards can do a 24-bit Z-buffer? Can a GeForce2 MX do it?
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im pretty sure.
if it can run 24 bit color, it can do a 24 bit z-buffer
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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.
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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?
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its in the code, not to mention required to get HT&L to even function
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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.
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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?
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so may big ships *wait's that someone do 100KM warship*
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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
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That doesn't show me how to change the maximum draw distance.
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If you have to ask how. You wouldn't know how to do it even after the explaination :D
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do a search for "gr_set_proj_matrix", set it to whatever and recompile
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Geforces do NOT support 24bit Z buffers, only radeons do, Geforces DO support 32bit Z buffers, and Radeons do as well I believe. So your best bet is to simply enable a 32bit Z buffer and be done with it. The performance loss is minimal on modern cards.
-Krom
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Why 32-bit but not 24-bit? That's like a car that has heated seats and a navigation system but no power windows.
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Originally posted by Holy Imperial Gloriano
so may big ships *wait's that someone do 100KM warship*
I am doing a planetoid-sized battle station.:D
It seems that I wil not be able to use HT&L for models in my campaign, as it will take a boatloads of cool stuff out of it [attack on the huge station mentioned above, in-game planetary bombardment, fighting over the planetary surface etc].
Could you bump the limit to 300km-500km? This should last for really, really long, and should be enough for all of the super-ships, and, with some playing with distance and model sizes, planetary models in the background.
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Originally posted by Hollewanderer
I am doing a planetoid-sized battle station.:D
It seems that I wil not be able to use HT&L for models in my campaign, as it will take a boatloads of cool stuff out of it [attack on the huge station mentioned above, in-game planetary bombardment, fighting over the planetary surface etc].
That's where creative uses of background POF's comes into play. If the limit was simply greater then the explorable area, all you'd need to do is place a background POF with a planet dominating one side in, and map the rest out to look like a regular FS mission.
And Woolie, 24 bit is somewhat of an irregular number as far as a computer is concerned. They much prefer to have things in powers of two. Though I would think that there should be some accomodation to make 24-bit work with a 32 bit device, it doesn't suprise me (especially with GeForce) that there isn't.
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Then could someone add 32-bit z-buffer support in later builds?
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24 bit was extremely common in color depth and thus got translated over to zbuffers - video cards guys dont have issues with using odd byte lengths - or even odd sized bit fields like 5:6:5 R:G:B for the most common 16-bit mode (the decision for green to be the more precise one is not arbitrary however, the human eye is most sensative to the green range)
old card support is going to have to be sacrificed sooner or later, anyone with a card that cannot do 24 or 32 bit Z and 24 or 32 bit Color needs to get out of gaming these days
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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.
Personally I don't like spaceships that size, but "megaliths" (i.e. the large installations and backdrops promised to be in Homeworld 2) would be a good thing.
Not much to gameplay, but it adds to the atmosphere having the debris of a 60km spaceship and you're fighting over the surface of it.
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Exactly what I'm thinking.
Nevermind that I would like to see knossos 3 again.
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...and the universe ends at 600km (600,000m on the HUD) not 60km
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Is there any way to download the Dec. 5 build's code in one zip or something? I'm completely clueless about coding this stuff and I don't know which of the 10 billion files on CVS has the variable governing max draw distance? Can anyone give me a step-by-step explanation on what to do here?
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...
:lol:
Sorry, but... *snicker*
:lol:
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What, is it beyond mere mortals' comprehension or something?:wtf:
What I need to know basically is:
Where to get all the files together (I assume you run that "INSTALL" exe, but you never know...)
Which one is the file with the variable
How to compile
EDIT: the whole source code is on freespace.cpp. I changed the clipping plane distance from 30000 to 400000. Now I've got to find some compiler program.
EDIT2: This file is too small to be a whole source code. Jesus Christ, the source code files are all over the place. Will I have to go through every directory and download everything?!
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:hopping:
dude, download CVS, then follow the instuctions from freespace.volitionwatch.com/fsscp/
not that hard
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Download CVS as in the whole archive at once? You can do that? Or are you talking about a CVS-related program?
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I am talking about wincvs. the link was here in the forums at one time. But it is gone now.
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http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/cvsgui/WinCvs120.zip?download
here is the link. now all you need is the Direct X 8.1 SDK and the optional Speech SDK. You also need a Visual C++
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Found it with a Google search, but I don't have Visual C++ or the DirectX SDK. Do those cost money? I don't think Microsoft would give big SDKs away for free.
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Ever hear of Kazaa?
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yes they do, becase then everyone uses there SDKs that run only on there OSs, MSCV6 on the other hand does cost quite a bit, but I'm sure you could aquire it
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How much $$$?
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well I got an introductory eddition for like $50
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How much for the SDK? Microsoft is known for exorbitant prices.
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sdk is free,
didn't I just say that?
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Your grammar in that post was kind of weird so I think I might have misinterpreted it somewhat.
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I got a legal one of MSVC++ for free from school ;)
yes the SDKs are free and easy to find on microsoft.com in contrast to help or support on their website.
A couple of years ago I would have mailed you a burned copy but now I have more respect for the law.
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what, d'ya get busted or something
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First of all, GeForces don't support 32-bit z-buffers, only 16 and 24-bit ones (when they say they have a 32-bit Z-Buffer, they're lying, as it's actually 24-bit Z + 8-bit stencil).
Changing the far clip plane by that amonut creates a negligible difference in accuracy, due to the nonlinear nature of the Z-Buffer.
And I urge you to obtain the MSDN collection if you ever get MSVC, since it saves a lot of going to msdn.microsoft.com :)
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Btw, I suppose the last mission in the tBP demo will look a lot less impressive, now, w/o Earth showing under the battlefield...
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its actually an earth plane that isn't all that far from the user. i'm gonna commit some code that makes it about 250km
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Originally posted by Bobboau
what, d'ya get busted or something
No, I became a student senator and decided to make an ethical change in my life. I don't copy audio cds either. Call me a loser or whatever I don't care. However I am sure microsoft has my name somewhere.
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Z accuracy falters [and results in popping polygons] when the near Z is placed too close to the viewpoint - the clipping plane should be as far out as possible and still have things look right
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Originally posted by redmenace
No, I became a student senator and decided to make an ethical change in my life. I don't copy audio cds either. Call me a loser or whatever I don't care. However I am sure microsoft has my name somewhere.
Microsoft knows where you live!:drevil:;)
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Microsoft knows where you live!:drevil:;)
However, I do get cheep microsoft products because I work for staples office supply store and am enrolled in EPUP.
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Originally posted by PhReAk
its actually an earth plane that isn't all that far from the user.
Well I'm sure it's more than 30 kms away.
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I suppose that zbuffer is implemented into the hardware, so you can't work on modifying the algorythms, except fo the parameters.
I also suppose that you made some tests to decide wich values for far and near plane give the best results in FSO, so it is probably useless to discuss about changing them.
I also suppose that you probably have already looked into w-buffer, to see if it could be useful.
BTW, wouldn't be possible to implement in FSO both 16bit and 24/32bit z-buffer, and let the game switch between the two modes, depending by the video mode choosen with the launcher?
I'm asking this because programs like 3danalyze can force 24 or 16 bit z-buffer (it also can force wbuffer over zbuffer, and viceversa), but only if supported by both the card and the game.
If this can't be possible, then you should go to scratch support for older videocards (maybe using a "safemode" to disable most features and let people with outdated systems to still be able to play the game?), since this could limit a bit our possibilities, for example to add true planets, semi realistic landscapes, giant ships (who said death star?), and the like
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Originally posted by Nico
Well I'm sure it's more than 30 kms away.
No I think I placed it closer than 30km...I would check but I don't seem to have a vanila FS2 anymore....I screwed with the registry of FS2 and now only SCP works and TBP doesn't like it or something :D
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all the wbuffer is is literally 1/zbuffer
the value in the wbuffer is the reciprocal of the value in the wbuffer -- they both have the same behavior