[Trivial Psychic]

Regarding final implimentation of bump-mapping in FSO (a long way away, I know), will this be accompanied with a major reworking of the texture system, or will it just be tagged on to our current system as glow and shinemaps are?  Now, if the second is closer to the truth, there might be a way to save a render pass.  From what I've seen in this thread, bumpmaps are just greyscale, right?  If that's true, then perhaps we can upgrade glowmaps from pcx to dds and slip the bumpmap into the alpha channel.  Granted, glowmaps don't realy need the extra 16-bits of color depth, but when faced with either another render pass, or a slightly larger glowmap, I think that most people would choose the latter.  So, is this a good thought?

[Carl]

what you posted:


It would work for a texture, but notice that the parts that are higher and lower are not all brighter and darker respectively.



what the bump map for the texture should look like:


notice the parts that are sticking up are bright, while slopes are gradients, and low parts are dark.

Result:

[Taristin]

Carl is correct.

[DaBrain]

You are going to loose the structure of the map this way.

Though it it's still visible, it won't be affected be the light position anymore...

[Xaphod]

Carl, what DaBrain posted was a normal map, not a bump map.
your statement that

it'll see the brighter parts of the map as higher and the darker parts lower.

is wrong.  That's not how normal maps work.

[FireCrack]

On a nromal map the Red Green and Blue vaules of each pixel add up to 1. Each color represents a component of a vector tangent to the surface that the map is applied to act as a modifier for the normal of each pixel. 1 is fully in the + direction 0.5 is 0, and 0 is fully in the negative direction.

Blue is for the vector component sticking in and out of the screen, with +blue being out.

Red is for the horisontal vector compoinent, with + being left.

Green is for vertical with + being up.

I think the rule of 0.5 being zero may be different for blue due to the fact that you cant have a pixel normal facing inwards.

[Omniscaper]

:: patiently awaits the faitfull day that the SCP project DESTROYS Starshatter's coming DX9 implementation without using DX9 ::

[Xaphod]

What FireCrack said.

[Bobboau]

actualy omni, after further investigation, it seems like we will still need to upgrade to D3D9 to get anything decent out of a Cg implementation. I can get started useing d3d8 but before we call it done we will have to have d3d upgraded. and this may cause some major problems, especaly with some of our developers.

[phreak]

especially the VC.NET requirement

[Omniscaper]

Originally posted by Bobboau
actualy omni, after further investigation, it seems like we will still need to upgrade to D3D9 to get anything decent out of a Cg implementation. I can get started useing d3d8 but before we call it done we will have to have d3d upgraded. and this may cause some major problems, especaly with some of our developers.

Developers? As in complicate the modding process? If that is the case I am more than willing to adjust to any modding nuance. If you mean other coders, well I guess that would be a pain.

The BSG project is attracting a number of programmers, a langauge I'm not well versed in. Moon language. So far I've pointed a couple of them to HLP for them to get acquainted with the work you guys are currently on. I hope, if they stay around, they can make usefull contributions to your noble cause of gaming perfection.

I don't understand it. OpenGL has achieved much greatness without traversing 9 versions. Am I assuming incorrectly when I say that the achievments of Doom 3 is purely software uberizing VS software/hardware dependant progress? If I recall correctly Bumpmapping has been around since the dawn of DX8 and HT&L.

If DX9 is a major challenge, would taking the OGL path be much more headacheless?

[aldo_14]

Incidentally, I think OpenGL has been through 6 versions (excluding precursors...I think the first version was pulicly released in 1992, and it was developed off of another SGI API; I think Glide may have been a subset / branch based off OpenGL, but I'm not sure).

This might be interesting; I don't know if it's up-to-date as there is no date one it

 That seems to be a useful looking site, actually.......

[kasperl]

Omni:You can only compile a DX9 program on a machine with XP or 2k. Meaning that all devs not using either of those can no longer compile builds, or test their own code untill someone else compiles the code for them.

[WMCoolmon]

To expand on what kasperl said:

MS dropped support for DX9 SDK with anything less than XP/2k3 with the most recent updates. As many of the programmers dislike XP or don't want to switch for some reason, ie cost, (myself included) that means that they have to use and find the original SDK in order to compile Freespace 2. Or, we have to support three different rendering libraries, which just isn't going to happen.

Not to mention that I think DX support for Win98 was dropped with DX8, but I'm not 100% sure.

Going OpenGL only would solve compatibility problems, but Bobb prefers DX

Edit: aldo, that link you posted is somewhat out of date...OpenGL does support Vertex buffers.

[Col. Fishguts]

DX8 works even on Win95.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
To expand on what kasperl said:

MS dropped support for DX9 SDK with anything less than XP/2k3 with the most recent updates. As many of the programmers dislike XP or don't want to switch for some reason, ie cost, (myself included) that means that they have to use and find the original SDK in order to compile Freespace 2. Or, we have to support three different rendering libraries, which just isn't going to happen.

Not to mention that I think DX support for Win98 was dropped with DX8, but I'm not 100% sure.

Going OpenGL only would solve compatibility problems, but Bobb prefers DX

Hrmmph.... so is it still possible to use the stuff detailied in the 'Free compiler for the FSSCP: The answer' thread?  Because I can't install service packs (and I'm on Win2000 anyways), because they (literally) break my machine.

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Edit: aldo, that link you posted is somewhat out of date...OpenGL does support Vertex buffers.

Dagnabbit.  Kind of figured it would be, in all honesty.......