[The E]

Enough of this. Any further off-topicness will be dealt with.

Now, back on track. MNG seems like the way to go here as far as I am concerned, so it has my vote.

[Zacam]

MNG has mine as well. I'll see what needs to be done to add it in with the existing PNG system we have.

As for maps/etc. Unless nVidia get's layered DDS out to the market before we get a materials system, a basic container that can house DDS for the existing animated glow-maps might be nice.

[The E]

Nice, but unnecessary, I think.

[Nuke]

a container format might serve as a precursor for a material format, at the very least. at some point you might want a container for maps, shaders, settings, etc which can be used as if it were a texture by its file name like an eff. most of us could and would use containers as it stands.

[The E]

Wrong. As I said before, the last thing we need is a new proprietary format. If we do a material format, it will (hopefully) take the form of a simple text file, like this:

example.mat

Code: [Select]

$Texture: example.dds
$Texture: example2.dds
... (include further textures as needed; will be handed off to the shader as uniform samplers of the form "uniform sampler2D texture1"

$Numeric Argument: 1
... (arguments are passed as uniform ints or floats, using "integer1", "integer2".... etc naming

$Timer: YES (means the current timer is passed as an argument as well)

$Vertex Shader: example-v.sdr
$Fragment Shader: example-f.sdr


[Tomo]

We should not just invent a new format, we should use an existing one that's designed for our intended purpose.
- A perfect example of why we shouldn't do that is the font files. That app isn't cross platform, and very few people have successfully used it.

Standards exist for a reason - we should use them.

That way we get editors for free, a standards document to work with and examples to test against.
- If we invent our own, we get none of those things. So you get bugs due to incorrect implementation at both ends, and bugs due to mistakes in the format.

So I would say MNG or OGG.
Given the previous information, MNG looks to be by far the best bet unless someone wants to re-write the movie player.

A materials system is a different kind of usage, so should be handled in another way.
- It also shouldn't be a container because there's a lot of data there that would be shared between materials.
For example, almost every ship in a mission would use the same shader with very different textures. You don't want to have to load and compile that many times from many containers 'just in case' one is different - the code should be able to detect "Ship classes 1..10 use Shader X, ship classes 11..20 use shader Y" and just load shaders X and Y.

[General Battuta]

its just dumb.

if your are doing any kind of video post-render editing that isnt just resizeing and similar stuff, you will hit the artefacts barrier horribly.

and if you're going for high quality, then doubly so.

 

In all my video production experience... nevermind.. it's not worth it...

yes, because you are right by default now? you make relatively good anims. doesnt mean they are perfect, good enough or that you actually know the right and proper way how to do it. so drop the elitism already, and stop supporting a format that shouldnt EVER be used for anything animated or in-game.

Please find a way to make your points that does not involve personal attacks. Thanks.

[Galemp]

Since this thread is getting a bit too long and rambling I recommend we start a new one solely for discussing implementation of MNG support.

[The E]

Agreed.