[Fineus]

Well, IW2 features both glows and shine effects on its ships IIRC as well as various other effects... on the whole it's one of the most "realistic" looking of the latest batch of Space Shooters (as opposed to FL which went for a deliberatly "slightly" cartoonish graphical feel).

Bob, incredible work - you've seriously managed some pretty damn cool stuff with this - though I must ask one thing of all this...

Can we please take contrast into account with these shine maps? Now I know that sunlight will shine like anything off chrome or stainless steel - even more so in space no doubt - but in the interests of making sure the entire game doesnt become a chrome fest can the shine on ships be limited in some way, for instance this picture looks great:

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/shine08.jpg

It's metallic, but only to the point that metal might be (especially used in combat ships where ideally you don't want to shine like a little mirror... not exactly good for stealth against other ships!).

Whereas this pic:

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/shine05.jpg

Is much much brighter, pretty much negating the textures on the ships in some places and making it very unpleasent to look at if you ask me.

Ideally take a page from IW2s book and keep the amount of shine on metallic ships to around this:



Perhaps a bit shinier (couldn't find a decent image TBH) but you get the idea, there is a shine but it's not so brilliant that it blinds the user whenever they look at a ship (nor will the ship shine like a little sun and therefore look very jagged at 5K without any FSAA on).

This is all personal taste of course - but I can at least ask

[Black Wolf]

Hey - shouldn;t this be on the main page by now?

[Vilkacis]

Neat in addition to the fov modification this will greatly improve the detail of the ships. Imagine a ship has about the some color along their whole hull from far away, when getting closer you will notice slight differences in the specularity of certain hull panels providing extra detail when close to the ship (given you make a good spec map).

[Bobboau]

those pics are out of date by now, the lighting math was wrong in the first revision, by now things look more like the first pic than the second, if any specific texture is rendering ugly it can be handeled by a specificly made shine map.

[Rictor]

Ok, I just looked at it from another computer, cause this one is too dark, and let me just say

WOO HOO



Those shine maps instantly make any ship look better, more modern and give the overall impression that the game has better graphics capabilities.

Good work guys, very good work

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Bobboau
those pics are out of date by now, the lighting math was wrong in the first revision, by now things look more like the first pic than the second, if any specific texture is rendering ugly it can be handeled by a specificly made shine map.

Godlike. My thanks and commendations to you then!

[Unknown Target]

now if only more than 2 ppl could get it to work

[Flipside]

I suppose one suggestion is to make the Specular scale limit out at 127, that way you won't get super shiny surfaces?

Flipside

[IceFire]

Do the shine maps work so that a grey color means half reflectiveness and full white would give a "full" reflective shine.  In otherwords...can you help define areas where the reflection is higher or lower...a cockpit for instance having more shine than armored hull (which should be a dull shine - way too bright in the current pictures but they have been fixed apparently).

[SadisticSid]

The main problem seems to be when multiple light sources hit a ship - mainly beam cannons. I've seen Orions go turquoise and white from being hit by some green beams, combined with the standard red light from a star.

Sid.

[Nico]

Originally posted by IceFire
Do the shine maps work so that a grey color means half reflectiveness and full white would give a "full" reflective shine.  

yeah, from what I've seen, seems it works like a regular specular map. bright colors will be really shiny, dark colors won't.
That means you'll need to make specific maps for fighters, for exemple, coz an artemis will be super shiny, but all the black cockpits won't shine at all.

[TopAce]

I think it is a bit bright. Very bright. I think(and I know) than overlighting(<- does this english word exist?) is making its looking worse. Belive me, I am an experienced Q3 mapper, and lightning is one of the most important things.

[Vilkacis]

Originally posted by TopAce
Belive me, I am an experienced Q3 mapper, and lightning is one of the most important things.

That applies to "art" or at least naturalistic art in general light(or better highlights) and shadow fuse together the subjects and the environment of a scene.

[Nico]

Originally posted by TopAce
I think it is a bit bright. Very bright. I think(and I know) than overlighting(<- does this english word exist?) is making its looking worse. Belive me, I am an experienced Q3 mapper, and lightning is one of the most important things.

the exe has been corrected, I've tried it, it's better now:

[comICEMAN]

Wooooah that it cool, where can i download`?

[FreeTerran]

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_s.zip

[TopAce]

well, that's better, but I still find some area of the ships too bright. Is it only my mania?

[Nico]

Originally posted by TopAce
well, that's better, but I still find some area of the ships too bright. Is it only my mania?

yes. contrast is good, and if you're an experimented quake3 modder, well I'm out of an art school, so my opinion prevails, mwahahahAHAHAHAHAHA

[Sheepy]

It may be because my monitor has a habit of being to dark, but it looks fine to me

And on a side note venom, any chance of releasing those arcadia textures ..... one can hope cant he?

[Nico]

Originally posted by Sheepy
It may be because my monitor has a habit of being to dark, but it looks fine to me

And on a side note venom, any chance of releasing those arcadia textures ..... one can hope cant he?

no, really, those maps, anybody can do them, take the regular arcadia maps, greyscale them ( save for the lights ), and play with the tint to have them ( the lights ) blue. and that's it.