Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: IncendiaryLemon on April 29, 2004, 10:40:48 pm

Title: SCP road map?
Post by: IncendiaryLemon on April 29, 2004, 10:40:48 pm
Curious about current efforts, whats next, and longterm plans. Particularly any ideas for the Hall GUI and the audio engine?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on April 29, 2004, 10:44:08 pm
I want to make changes to the model format an add a material system (giveing modelers much greater controle)
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Sticks on April 29, 2004, 11:26:53 pm
What in the audio engine needs updating?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: IncendiaryLemon on April 29, 2004, 11:31:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Sticks
What in the audio engine needs updating?


 Posted that without checking, but it only supports stereo?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Sticks on April 29, 2004, 11:38:36 pm
Hmm, you may be right. I don't have a surround setup to test that, however.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on April 30, 2004, 12:00:50 am
but let's not forget that I'll be putting in environmet mapping, trueform, and decals in almost instantly
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Trivial Psychic on April 30, 2004, 12:25:13 am
SEXPs!!!!!  We want new SEXPS!
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: JarC on April 30, 2004, 03:34:28 am
Quote
Originally posted by IncendiaryLemon


 Posted that without checking, but it only supports stereo?
and according to the launcher, it seems to support EAX too, but nothing like surround sound...would be a great mood enhancer though...
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Nico on April 30, 2004, 04:12:24 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
but let's not forget that I'll be putting in environmet mapping, trueform, and decals in almost instantly


Trueform, the ATI meshsmooth thing? I can be how cool that would be, but is there a way to stop it on certain meshes? Applying that too Karma's fenris or my ezechiel would be a catastrophe...
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: DaBrain on April 30, 2004, 07:33:34 am
Quote
Originally posted by JarC
and according to the launcher, it seems to support EAX too, but nothing like surround sound...would be a great mood enhancer though...


It supports even A3D, but this does nothing either...

Is it possible to get it up from Stereo  2channel to 5.1 6channel sound ? Perhaps with real LFE effects ?

And perhaps to improve the EAX presets ? (Like choosing "infinite echo" for the subspace and "underwater" for the nebula)
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: J3Vr6 on April 30, 2004, 08:14:55 am
?!  if you're going with real LIFE effects then there wouldn't be any sound at all...

right?



right?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: DaBrain on April 30, 2004, 08:30:45 am
LFE = Low Frequency Effect
In most cases the direct link to the subwoofer.


It could be realized by analysing the crossover frequency.

There should be a SDK for this.


And what about removing the samplerate and bitrate limitation ?

Are Mp3s already supported ?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on April 30, 2004, 08:51:16 am
Quote
Originally posted by Nico


Trueform, the ATI meshsmooth thing? I can be how cool that would be, but is there a way to stop it on certain meshes? Applying that too Karma's fenris or my ezechiel would be a catastrophe...


two things,
1)it uses the surface normals of the geometry, so things that have hard edges will retain them, only the smooth parts of the ship will be smoothed, this is all determined by the lighting surface normals. so you have all the controle over how this will be used.
2)the inital implementation will subdivide the surface liniarly, in otherwords it it'sn't going to change the shape, it is to be used to make the lighting better, it'll look like we have pixel shaders.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: DaBrain on April 30, 2004, 10:18:33 am
Is it possible that the music sounds better in winamp, than in the game ?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Kazan on April 30, 2004, 10:19:48 am
I'm going to be working on NavPoints/AutoNav ala Wing Commander
and trying to get the IRC client finish [UBER****INGTEDIOUS]
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Inquisitor on April 30, 2004, 04:11:47 pm
There's a rumor that we might meet with some of hte mod authors out there, and get a wish list going. We have mod representation on the team, but, something more formal is probably appropriate :)
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Kazan on April 30, 2004, 05:54:07 pm
Well i'm obviously the Laison (sp?) to WC Saga, and Bob and I both advise TBP
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Lightspeed on May 01, 2004, 07:39:49 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau


two things,
1)it uses the surface normals of the geometry, so things that have hard edges will retain them, only the smooth parts of the ship will be smoothed, this is all determined by the lighting surface normals. so you have all the controle over how this will be used.
2)the inital implementation will subdivide the surface liniarly, in otherwords it it'sn't going to change the shape, it is to be used to make the lighting better, it'll look like we have pixel shaders.


Could you make Trueform based on the distance to the ship?

You know, like the LODs, so it would only get Trueformed when youre really close to it. This would prevent any slowdown, while still looking it's best.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: kasperl on May 01, 2004, 08:02:39 am
And include a mutliplier or something in the launcher so you can turn it waay up, turn time compression waay down, and use it too get extra pretty cutscenes?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: DaBrain on May 01, 2004, 09:11:21 am
Quote
Originally posted by Lightspeed


Could you make Trueform based on the distance to the ship?

You know, like the LODs, so it would only get Trueformed when youre really close to it. This would prevent any slowdown, while still looking it's best.


I don't think that is necessary. In LOD2 the model is smaler and has less round areas, so there is less that will be "trueformed".

And I think trueform shouldn't cost much performance anyway.
(Perhaps that's different for the newer Radeons, which only emulate it trough their pixel shader...)



@Coders Are there any plans for the audio engine ?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: IncendiaryLemon on May 01, 2004, 10:27:39 am
Truform isn't generated on the fly I don't think.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on May 01, 2004, 10:52:56 am
yes it is generated on the fly, that's what makes it so cool.

yes the ships will be subdivided based on distance. LOD0 will go from no subdivision at the furthest point were it first gets rendered to a level that is entered in the comandline.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: DaBrain on May 01, 2004, 11:01:01 am
;)


"Truform is ATI's new technology for curving the polygonal surfaces of 3D models on the fly, making for more natural looking models in 3D games. "

-from: http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=4887


But it's not enough to put it in the code. You need to do, ummh "something" with the models.

Am I right ?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on May 01, 2004, 11:17:11 am
no, as long as the models are being rendered in 3d (wich ours are) a simple implementation is literaly two lines of code, the implementation I have is about 20 becase it figures in the distance of the ships in question, a third implementation I'm planning will be a bit more complex fixing the cracks that form when you enable positional smoothing on hard edged objects
it's basicly a form of geometry compression.

http://www.insidemacgames.com/previews/view.php?ID=35&Page=6
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Inquisitor on May 01, 2004, 11:35:11 am
Liason ;) And yeah, that was what I meant.

redmenace suggested it, I think it's a good idea, some kind of pie in the sky jam session where we brainstorm about the future.

After E3 though.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Lightspeed on May 01, 2004, 12:36:17 pm
Quote
I don't think that is necessary. In LOD2 the model is smaler and has less round areas, so there is less that will be "trueformed".


It is. On high settings (like most of the True-Form'ers will have set) the LOD will actually not change at all in a long distance :)

I.e. a fighter is still LOD 1 viewed from 3 km distance. :p

Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
yes the ships will be subdivided based on distance. LOD0 will go from no subdivision at the furthest point were it first gets rendered to a level that is entered in the comandline.


Cool. Just make sure it grows exponential - you wont notice it anyway unless you're really close to it.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: DaBrain on May 01, 2004, 12:43:58 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Lightspeed


It is. On high settings (like most of the True-Form'ers will have set) the LOD will actually not change at all in a long distance :)

I.e. a fighter is still LOD 1 viewed from 3 km distance. :p


I don't get your point. There will be no performance hit, so why make the the models uglier as the distance increases ?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on May 01, 2004, 12:58:54 pm
well there is a bit of a performence hit, if everything on screen is subdivided 4 times you'r going to have 256 times as many triangles, lighting and transformation calculations will all go up, now this is all being done on the card so it does it realy fast but if everything on screen is over subdivided it will cause a slow down, with the way it's set up now everything looks smooth and there is no performence problems.
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Ransom on May 02, 2004, 07:02:40 am
Are we going to see bumpmapping and/or dynamic shadows at some point?
Title: SCP road map?
Post by: Bobboau on May 02, 2004, 09:43:42 am
yes, but not by me