Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: devi1sdoz3n on November 08, 2011, 11:21:47 am
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I am trying to make nicer looking full nebulae - so far things look good, but I'd like to be able to change the fog distance parameters.
I searched the board, and I've found a lot of topics which say it's possible by changing the settings in objecttypes.tbl. I can't find that one in any of the vp files.
Is that a separate download, and where can I get it?
Also, is it possible to stop ships from disappearing when they reach maximum view distance in fog (I want to use a skybox for the background, so I need them to stay there, not pop out of existance)
And one final question - it seems to me that explosions, particles and thing s of that type don't fade with the distance in the nebula. Any way to change that?
Thanks.
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FS2 Open has a lot more tbl (and tbm) files that the retail FS2 does not support. As such you won't find them in retail vp files, but may find in mediavps or other vp's by other mods.
Short answer: create one yourself.
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Objecttypes.tbl#.24Fog:
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There are also per-mission fog multipliers in the background editor in FRED.
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OK, got it.
I can now control the fog distance through objecttypes.tbl, however not for everything - I still can't control the fog distance for asteroids. Also, as far as I can tell, explosions, trails and things like that are not affected by fog at all, which breaks the illusion a bit, and the objects still pop out once they reach the maximum fog distance.
In the wiki example there is +Disappear factor: line which looks suspiciously like the thing that I need, but it gives an error if I try to include it into the objecttypes.tbl.
Hope these are not silly questions, but I've been at this just for a few days now, and am not a coder but an artist anyway.
As for the range option in fred, that's just for the radar range, isn't it? Or am I looking at the wrong one?
In case anyone's interested, here's what I have for now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av-GXBqNBpo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av-GXBqNBpo)
Looks much better ingame - video compression destroys a lot of detail.
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Wow, those poofs look amazing.
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Looks far nicer indeed
Feels less like you are moving through layers with that
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I'm sold! That's very cool and eery, when can I get my hands on that? I'd love to see this coupled with Valathil's godrays. Nice work! :yes:
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Yeah, really good job.
Feels like flying through soup, and that's the way it should be, me thinks.
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Blue nebula that isn't blinding.
I approve.
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Very nice. Moving to FSUpgrade, as this is of interest to FSU.
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As for the range option in fred, that's just for the radar range, isn't it? Or am I looking at the wrong one?
Add "Fog Near Multiplier" and "Fog Far Multiplier" options for missions. Allows the FREDder to tweak distances at which ships fade out in a nebula.
Not sure if you're already using those or not, but I think that was what was being mentioned.
And yes, the FSU is definitely interested. You just managed to leap past the progress that I was making on trying to accomplish the same thing. :D
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This looks much, MUCH better than any other setup I've seen on FSO. Good job, seriously.
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Looks great but - and I'm a layman here - can anything be done about the "pop-in"?
By that I mean the random asteroids or - in some cases - the Aquitane - appearing out of seemingly nowhere. Everything should fade in from an extreme distance.
Another idea I had (sort of): Would it be possible to have dust *in space* (rather than in a nebula)? I know it wouldn't be realistic but I was toying with the notion that it might be quite a nice way to get a sensation of speed and add a bit more ambience to the mission. It would have to be heavily editable of course so that it wouldn't be as thick as a standard nebula and would be at the discretion of (a mission designer) as to how thick the dust is. But what do you reckon... possible?
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Maybe toying around with the asteroid field editor (creating nebula/dust texture plains that always face the player instead of asteroids)?
But I really have absolutely no clue about the whole theme - just a thought lol
Cool results so far :yes:
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really liking the look and feel you got there, was playing around a bit with this myself but as Zacam said, you just passed what I was doing, so go full speed ahead :yes:
looks like you are using a skybox for the backgrounds right? with custom poofs... on some of them I would try taking the brightness down a bit, this will make the pop in less noticeable, and the overall look less cartoony.
*on another note, something really needs to be done with the pop in, maybe a shader that fades the objects into view instead of a hard pop in...
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Awesome job, dude. These poofs are exceptional, especially the green and blue poofs. These new poofs are used with matching skyboxes (I think), which make the nebula feel *much* more organic and fluid.
Could someone explain what is getting multiplied? Is it distance or is it another formula? Is there attenuation, etc.?
I think we can all agree that this style looks a lot better, and that the old way was probably set up that way because of the limitations :v-old: had to deal with. If we can pair this with an upgrade to how nebula fog works, probably after 3.6.14 is released, it would probably become the standard way of doing nebulas and would surpass Freelancer's nebulas (which can look really nice, too.)
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the first one looks exactly like what you see in the intro
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A very welcome improvement. Thank you for your hard work on this! :yes:
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looks great!
as mentioned if there is some way to reduce the popin it's a certain winner :)
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can we apply a translucency shader similar to the cloaking one to "fade in" ships
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Totally agreed, if you can get rid of the pop-in you've got the perfect nebulae.
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Not just that, but ambient light as well. It makes sense that with so many particles around, light would bounce from all sides, and radiate objects with its color. Same goes for subspace tunnels by the way, wich are somewhat of a light tunnel. (don't know if this issue is solved through good fredding though)
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the first one looks exactly like what you see in the intro
So it's even more canon than the original pofs! :)
Nice indeed!
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Not just that, but ambient light as well.
Ambient light is already in Fred. The light which shines on ships comes from two sources. One is the sun(s) in the level and which have their color set with tables, and the second is ambient light, whose color and intensity are set in the background editor.
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Ok, this is the situation: I can do convincing dense and thin nebulae. It's the in-between that's the problem.
This is the setup: I have some well chosen poofs which interact well one with the other (I may even animate them later, although that may not be necessary). For the background I use a skybox with a very dark (because it is additive to the distance fog) and blurred image. This just emulates distant lighting variance in the nebula. You don't want a detailed and well defined image here - imagine a Sun behind a very dense cloud on an overcast day. You won't see its shape, just a lighter patch of sky.
So these are the options:
1. Very dense nebulae. Just poofs with no skybox. Works very well. There is no more pop-up than in the original game (since it's the same thing, just different image maps). Asteroids look good.
Problem: thrusters, lasers, beams, explosions and other glowy things don't get obscured by the fog (they don't get obscured in the original game either).
2. Very thin nebulae. Poofs+skybox+very high maximum fog distance (I can do this via objecttypes.tbl, thanks for the advice).
No pop-up for anything except asteroids, since I can't control them in objecttypes.tbl, or don't know how. On the other hand, glowy things look fine, since they don't need to be obscured by the fog.
3. Moderately dense nebulae. These would look the best if they didn't have the most problems. Poofs+skybox with dark and blurry image. This ads another layer to the nebula and gives it more dimension. However, objects will pop-up, as you've all noticed.
What is annoying here is the fact that I am pretty sure that pop-up is a vestige of the times past when they were trying to preserve framerates in the nebulae, and absolutley unnecessary for modern machines. I'd pull a guess out of my a** that it's just a single switch somewhere in the code, or something like that. As i said, if you look at the table example here:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Objecttypes.tbl (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Objecttypes.tbl)
you will notice something like this:
$Fog:
+Start dist: 10.0
+Compl dist: 500.0
+Disappear factor: 1.5
Start dist and Compl dist control the minimum and maximum fog distance for a ship type, however if I try to use the disappear factor, the game will report an error for some reason. And it sure looks like something that could be used for controlling the pop-up. So if anyone can help with this...
Also, glowy things are again not obscured by the fog.
I will post some videos and images later when I have the time so you can see what I am talking about.
Concerning the ambient lighting, I already boosted it up in fred, it just looks too dark in the youtube video because compression will do that sometimes. Although ambient lighting is usually evil, in this case it works because most models have baked-in GI so it basically just brings that out, as it should in a diffuse lighting setup like nebula.
I've also seen someone coded crepuscular trails recently. Combine that with the setup I have here and you'll get nebulae which can almost pass for volumetric. Perhaps I'll try to contact the guy later.
tl;dr
I am aware of the pop-up, if anyone can help with that, please step right up. Thanks.
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I think what you need is the "Fog Near Multiplier" and "Fog Far Multiplier" as discussed in this thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77757.0). I couldn't find anything on it in the wiki but it's in there as of Revision 7507.
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I think what you need is the "Fog Near Multiplier" and "Fog Far Multiplier" as discussed in this thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77757.0). I couldn't find anything on it in the wiki but it's in there as of Revision 7507.
Sigh, yeah, I've been meaning to document that feature...
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slight necro but how are things progressing on this?
also would it be possible for me to have the files used in this?
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Real life intervened. I'll try animating the poofs when I get the time and then release what I have.
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I can understand that, cant wait to get my hands on this :D
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I can understand that, cant wait to get my hands on this :D
Approved! These nebulae really are an improvement.
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It's almost as if you're actually flying around in the soup of a nebula.
Plus, some of these (the green/blue/black/notsurewhatthatcolorcombinationis) actually look like what I'd imagine the inside of a nebula to look like--that is, if nebulas looked like that from the inside :P No more flying through layers!
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Anxiously awaiting any release of these most awesome nebulas. I think what you've demonstrated so far is worth replacing the built-in ones as is!
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Could you please release it, even as a beta or something, I would love to fly in a nice nebulas for a change.
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I also would love to be flying in these instead of that eyestrain inducing soup that is a retail nebula mission.
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I'm sure he'll release it when he's ready to. :)
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So am I. I simply was adding my encouragement. I hope he finishes this soon.
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IMO you should release the poofs you made anyway and they should be added to the mediavps.
even without the animated poofs I'm sure its a huge improvement over the old poofs, and I would like to see them in the 3.14 release...(not that I have any say in what goes in the mediavps)
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a full two weeks later, nothing? :(
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Hey, life happens...
Anyways, here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/?o03cyxb8yu2lcul (http://www.mediafire.com/?o03cyxb8yu2lcul)
I made the sequences for the animated poofs (these are included in the rar file), however I never managed to get them to work (tried both eff and ani), so maybe someone else will have more luck with that.
There are also two commands in the debug console that make things much nicer (no poof pop-up):
neb2_break_alpha 0,0
neb2_max_alpha 8192
Don't know how to get that in regular release though.
Enjoy.
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Awesome, thanks for releasing devi1sdoz3n! Don't worry about everyone begging for a release - it just goes to show that you made something awesome and everyone couldn't wait to get their hands on it :)
Edit: One thing, and I do feel silly for asking: How do you access the debug console to input those two commands you suggested?
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Just a note, so I don't steal someone's credit: all the poofs I used started life as nebula background elements already present in MediaVPs. I tweaked them, chose the right combinations and colors, animated them and made the backgrounds - basically made the thing work for full nebulae.
Fineus, to use a debug mode, you have to choose a debug build in Launcher, then press shift+enter once the mission starts.
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This really is awesome work. Pretty humbling too, to discover that for all that the MediaVPs have Nebula Poofs in them, we never once distributed updated Nebula background bitmaps.
It is also really startling to discover just how wrong our existing poof files are in terms of visual effect. I'd like to know who did them so I can ask them what their compelling idea was behind them.
In any case. Yes, these will be in the next MediaVPs. And then some. :D I'm currently looking at making the nebula.tbl A: Extendable so that we can use the alterations (especially yellow and orange) as additions rather than replacements (which the existing TBL can do, but not while also adding the nbackblue, the current limit is 10 entries) as well as B: afford expansion for increasing the amount of Poofs available (this one is MUCH more difficult because of the Flags used in FRED for setting these, and we can't break Retail ordering for anything still relying on the existing values). Maybe even C: introduce a Nebula Template that can be referenced with predefined backgrounds/poofs/pof and fade in/out distance values and the like, though that part will be something for much later. Or at the very least, expand the current paltry limitations it has of 10 background images, 6 poofs.
I was also amazed to discover the +Skybox Flags: setting in your dome missions. I don't think I've ever seen anybody use those before. And I didn't even know what they did until I looked it up in the code. It's not even documented in the Wiki currently. I am hoping though that we can reduce having to release multiple nebula type POFs (where the only difference is the texture associated to them) by allowing $Texture Replace: to affect the Skybox Model.
Speaking of code though, I looked at the ranges allowed by the commands that you said were entered into the debug console, and while I'm not 100% positive, the neb2_max_alpha value looks way out of range. I was thinking I could see about adjusting the "default" hard-coded values to some extent (as controlled by detail settings in nebula\neb.cpp) when I discovered that. And as for the Asteroid popping, that may be correctable in code since it looks like it is currently using small_ship values instead of something more size appropriate, so I'll be playing around with that.
I'll be taking the liberty of smoothing some of the gradients used in the provided files, as well as converting them from PCX and TGA into either PNG or DDS (Uncompressed most likely, since otherwise we're right back at gradient banding central). I may also come up with some mixes that involve having an Alpha channel applied. I also hope to resolve why EFF is not operating correctly as a poof designation image for the animated effects. Which, btw, the TXT .eff file for those were either not created, or not distributed with your package. Irrelephant as it doesn't work in any case and easy enough to fix.
All in all, a very smashing amount of work done.
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You've done a great job. Now, I really love nebula mission !! :)
(http://tof.canardpc.com/view/d01cd58a-d81b-4d71-9737-18e65a32094d.jpg)
(http://tof.canardpc.com/view/8a45e5a9-bd23-433d-9c85-6032b4b62e2d.jpg)
(http://tof.canardpc.com/view/ad80b431-f7d1-4e1c-b234-111bc9a50036.jpg)
(http://tof.canardpc.com/view/610da6d5-ca51-4ed6-919c-37437b3e236a.jpg)
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It's unreal how good the nebula looks there.
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What is unreal is the fact that some brilliant genius hard-loaded the Nebula Background loader to ONLY read PCX files in relation to the fogging that takes place.
I'm trying to work out correcting that so that it will support additional filetypes as allowed by the engine. Then I'll tackle why EFF's won't load for the Poofs.
Then I can get back on track with everything else I have planned as above.
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Zacam, here is what neb2 command documentation says:
neb2_break_alpha: Alpha value (0.0 to 1.0) at which faded polygons are not drawn. Higher values generally equals higher framerate, with more visual cloud popping.
Using neb2_break_alpha 0.0 seems to get rid of popping nicely for distant poofs.
neb2_break_off: How many pixels offscreen (left, right, top, bottom) when a cloud poof becomes fully transparent. Lower values cause quicker fading.
I chose arbitrarily large value of 8192 pixels offscreen (neb2_break_off 8192) to make sure that the close poofs don't pop out.
I didn't include the eff files for animated poofs because they didn't work, so there was really no point.
Concerning the PCX backgrounds, those are really weird. As far as I can tell, the image is not used at all (you can paint it black, or really anything, that's why I left the ugly fractal pattern), it is only used to set the color of the fog and the background, and even that in some weird way - it seems to me that the game takes the average of colors in the color palette.
Object pop-out seems to happen once the object is at 100% fog distance. Makes sense, as then you don't have to draw it anymore, since it's the same color as the background.
Unfortunatelly, once you start using skyboxes for backgrounds, you get object pop-in, because you don't have homogenous color background anymore (and skyboxes are additively blended on top of the fog color as far as I can see - that's why my skybox textures are so dark and subtle)
Also, as I've written before, explosions and things like that are not affected by fog, which breaks the effect. See images - the arrows point out explosions caused by asteroids hitting the Aquitaine beyond 100% fog, yet they are at 100% opacity. It would be nice to get that fixed.
Final note, I've included the objecttypes.tbl, because various objects had various fog distance settings, which makes no sense. I've set them all to the same number (max distance 500m), which can be changed in FRED with fog multiplier on per mission basis.
[attachment deleted by a basterd]
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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Help me understand this,
(http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2396/nebulah.jpg)
Where are these patterns defined? It doesnt match up with the nebula.tbl
Which is: +Nebula: nbackyellow
+Nebula: nbackblue
+Nebula: nbackcyan
+Nebula: nbackgreen
+Nebula: nbackpurp1
+Nebula: nbackpurp2
+Nebula: nbackred
+Nebula: nbackorangeI dont see nbackblack in there for example, setting it to nbackblack gives me a blue nebula.
I just can't seem to reproduce something as cool looking as MetalDestroyer's nebulas. Mine all look like this:
(http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/2897/screen0139.jpg)
A kind of dull monotone single color (nebula settings of this screenshot are not the ones I posted above)
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Use teh poofs?
Also, did you install the files 'as-is' or did you convert them? Nebula code seems to have some issues regarding file types.
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Read the ReadMe.txt for poof, bg, and lighting combos (that is, specific backgrounds are supposed to go with specific poofs, turning on all poofs won't make the effect look better - the idea is that each nebula has a slightly different look to it, not just color), otherwise the nebula will look crap.
Background patterns (actually just colors really) are defined in nebula.tbl. If you put the one I uploaded into the Tables folder, the new backgrounds should be visible in FRED.
I killed nbackblack.pcx as I had no use for it, you can add it back if you want.
There are samples of all nebulae in Missions folder, go through those.
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I just can't seem to reproduce something as cool looking as MetalDestroyer's nebulas. Mine all look like this:
(http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/2897/screen0139.jpg)
A kind of dull monotone single color (nebula settings of this screenshot are not the ones I posted above)
I didn't use any skybox. I choose one of those nebula pattern and check the poof I needed to increase the depth. So, if I choose nbackpurp1, PoofPurp1 and PoofPurp2 are checked.
Poof textured has been redone, so, use them ! :)
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Object pop-out seems to happen once the object is at 100% fog distance. Makes sense, as then you don't have to draw it anymore, since it's the same color as the background.
Unfortunatelly, once you start using skyboxes for backgrounds, you get object pop-in, because you don't have homogenous color background anymore (and skyboxes are additively blended on top of the fog color as far as I can see - that's why my skybox textures are so dark and subtle)
Also, as I've written before, explosions and things like that are not affected by fog, which breaks the effect. See images - the arrows point out explosions caused by asteroids hitting the Aquitaine beyond 100% fog, yet they are at 100% opacity. It would be nice to get that fixed.
IMO an easy fix for the pop out at 100% fog distance would be to simply disable the pop out, I would much rather have a ships outline far in the distance than suddenly pop into view, this would be good for missions with bright skyboxs, for missions with a darker background it wouldn't change much as you won't be able to see the outline anyway as it will blend into the skybox better.
explosions, thrusters and all effects in general have this problem, I don't know if its true or not, but now that these effects are considered "soft particles" I think it might be possible to adjust their opacity depending on their distance from the player and the far multiplier
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I agree. A skybox is infinitely distant, so objects shouldn't blend into it at all, they should be nebula colored silhouettes once they get past max fog distance. Unfortunately, I haven't got the idea how to disable pop out.
Concerning explosions, thrusters, etc, weirdly enough, thrusters do have fog dissolve, but it appears that their max fog distance is much larger, so they disappear from view farther away. No idea how this can be controlled.
Anyways, I think I have done what I can with this effect, if someone manages to fix these things, I'll be happy to finish it. In the meantime, I have moved onto something else =)
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Thanks for the replies
Turns out, there was a nebula.tbl in a different mod folder overwriting it. That's what I get for using multiple mod folders :p
Good job with this devi1sdoz3n
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I agree. A skybox is infinitely distant, so objects shouldn't blend into it at all, they should be nebula colored silhouettes once they get past max fog distance. Unfortunately, I haven't got the idea how to disable pop out.
Concerning explosions, thrusters, etc, weirdly enough, thrusters do have fog dissolve, but it appears that their max fog distance is much larger, so they disappear from view farther away. No idea how this can be controlled.
Anyways, I think I have done what I can with this effect, if someone manages to fix these things, I'll be happy to finish it. In the meantime, I have moved onto something else =)
In non-nebula missions, the skybox is infinitely distant. But to make the ships fade cleanly, I think they need to fade into the skybox.
Idea, may not be intelligible to non-graphics-coders:
- Draw all the opaque stuff
- Draw the nebula skybox, with opacity based on the values in the depth buffer
- Draw the translucent stuff, with reduced opacity based on distance
The first and last steps are already being done (mostly).
Edit: @Nighteyes: explosions could fade based on distance without needing to use soft particles.
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I think it makes sense for glowy stuff like thrusters and explosions to have a bit of a further fade distance though, since it'd make sense that they'd be more visible if they were self-illuminating. Think city lights on a foggy day/night.
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That's a tough one. All the explosion effects fade to some blackish greyish smoke cloud. That's the part that looks out of place with such high opacity through the fog.
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So, in my crawling through the code in relation to the background images used in nebula, I'm having a hard time determining if it is actually in fact USING the image other than just to average the palette from it (which is currently fixed to loading indexed PCX images). As in, if it's then using that in application to the image itself for variation of the opacity/density for rendering it.
So far it seems that it might be, but because the images it's rendering from are PCX, even in using a bm_load for a DDS it's still rather blocky and low-res looking because of that fogging interpolation. So I'm thinking of maybe setting it up where you can either define a background as it currently is and expanding the allowed entries (to include for more custom variations rather than whole sale replacement) by being able to append to the list, or having where you can do a "background free" by specifying the fogging color and then intermix the Poofs to make it what you want. Basically, when you choose the option for a Full Nebula, you then select which type of nebula you want, indexed fogging from background image, or free form defined fogging values. It may even allow for where you can do both, but I still need to test how that looks (which would expand combination variance without having to rely on creating all new backgrounds to distribute).
Since the Retail background editor has those Pattern/Color options with Pitch/Bank/Heading that are held over from FS1 (and currently do nothing at all) that I could replace those with the ability for setting the fogging colors there directly, which works out placement wise in going hand in hand with the Fog Distance Multipliers. This would also then free up the ability to expand tho Poofs section into maybe a scrollable check-box option area (essentially how it already is, but the ability to house more elements without expanding the real estate taken up by it). Still need to work out a better way for deriving those Flag values that get set up into something a little more dynamic without breaking anything.
So, there are the thoughts for the day in relation to how progress is looking for enhancing how we can manipulate nebula in conjunction with getting these in game in a way that can hopefully work out for everyone.
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And what about my suggestion?
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Wow! Hadn't noticed this thread before. I have no words.. those nebula capship shots in the vid look so much better than the original.
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man really good. i tried to do it but i can't get any kind of effect like that. though i did get a cool effect with subspace i can't do it with a regular nebula. how do you do it?
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Sorry for bump, but the link on page 2 appears to be dead.
Also, how is progress coming with the pop-in issue? Any workarounds that don't involve the debug console?
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Is there anybody who can provide a link to the files? If not, could you post them?
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there:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/3m8e8dzt32hvdm7/NicerNebulae.rar
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Thanks for the files Angelus! :)
I cannot get it to work in game though. I put all the files in the appropriate files in \Freespace 2\data\*various folders* can anybody tell me why it isn't using the nicer nebulae?
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Should be going into Freespace 2\mediavps_3612\data\* I believe.
Thanks for the mirror!
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copy the data folder in that rar archive and place it in a folder named "whateveryoulike" without the quotes. Add it as mod in the launcher. IIRC, you have to convert the .tga files to .pcx, haven't had the time to test the new nebula myself.
For now, you can ignore the animated poofs folder.
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Thanks, I moved the files and now it works beautifully. Great job!
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you're welcome :)
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OMG it's beautiful thanks ;)
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Anyone could be so kind and reupload them ?
As those mediafire links are no longer valid.
Thanks a lot
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It's on FSMods. (http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.828)
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Thanks a lot :)
Have a nice day