[RandomTiger]

Im not sure if DDS can be used that way.

[Nuke]

as far as the file format is concerned it contains a channel of red, a channel of blue, and a channel of green. when freespace sees it it sees a channel of glow, a channel of spec, and a channel of env. but now that i think about it i havnt a clue how the video card (and the code as well) handels such things.

[Carl]

Originally posted by Nuke
you know, there is a differance between diffusive reflectance and direct reflectance. its like comparing a shiny silver plate to a dull titanium panel.

they are both about as reflective as each other.  the "dull" quality you speak of is actually because of the surface is rougher, blurring the reflection.


the reason some things have specularity but not apparent reflection is because the reflection is so subtle that it's hard to see, but the specular highlight shows up because the light source is so bright. it's beyond 255 255 255. so if bob would just make the specular highlight smaller but extremely bright, it would solve the problem.

[KARMA]

Idea for the RGB solution:
for the glowmaps, let's use the color already present in the texture, this way they'll just be a brightness map. You could use the red channel for this.
Then you can use in the glowmaps another channel (blue) for the envmap.
Since the shinemaps use color sometimes they'll need to be a separate map.
You will still have another channel (green) free for use in those new glowmaps......bumpmap?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Wes

I'm also getting this problem. It might be caused by some older change though as I haven't downloaded a new build in a couple of months.

Add this flag to your command line -ambient_factor 75 (You can change the 75 to another number if you want).

[Turnsky]

*grumbles* Guess what?.. that's right.. no workee!

-spec -glow -pcx32 -jpgtga -fps

anything i need to add to this to get it  to work?

[Lightspeed]

Originally posted by KARMA
Idea for the RGB solution:
for the glowmaps, let's use the color already present in the texture, this way they'll just be a brightness map. You could use the red channel for this.
Then you can use in the glowmaps another channel (blue) for the envmap.
Since the shinemaps use color sometimes they'll need to be a separate map.
You will still have another channel (green) free for use in those new glowmaps......bumpmap?

No.

I have an idea that will keep it working.

Glowmaps need to be seperate, as you can do cool stuff with seperate glow maps (lights that leave black bulbs when turned off, not some turned on but 'not glowing' lights, etc.).

Specular maps without an alpha channel will use the normal spec map as the env map. If the image has an alpha channel, it will use the shinemap's alpha channel as the reflective map. Like this, you can create barely shiny but really reflective cockpits (the only use I find for having seperate shinyness and reflectiveness on one surface).

So you would have:

Texture
Texture-Glow
Texture-Shine

as we have it now, but with added Env map in the shine texture.

This doesnt break anything and will look good enough without extra data, and extra data will be easy to add in. Transparent shinemaps / reflective maps are nonsense so using the alpha channel is a really good idea, since most formats you use support alpha channels (TGA, DDS) - and if it doesnt find one it will simply use the normal shinemap. You will be able to use most shinemaps unmodified, and only some specific ones (fighter cockpits etc) will have to be modified.

That's what I would like to see

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Turnsky
*grumbles* Guess what?.. that's right.. no workee!

-spec -glow -pcx32 -jpgtga -fps

anything i need to add to this to get it  to work?

I only had -fps and it worked.

[Turnsky]

...

okay.. if ANYBODY can recreate this, i would appreciate it

AMD athlon XP 2200+ (1.8ghz)
256mb pc2100 ddr
128mb ATI Radeon 9000 pro (hecules)
Ati catalyst 4.2 drivers
DX 9

[kasperl]

i agree with lightspeed, glowmaps should be able to keep colours in them.

do specmaps use colours?

[Nico]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
Glowmaps need to be seperate, as you can do cool stuff with seperate glow maps (lights that leave black bulbs when turned off, not some turned on but 'not glowing' lights, etc.).

 I don't agree, makes no sense, lights that turn automatically on when a ship turns away from light

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Turnsky
*grumbles* Guess what?.. that's right.. no workee!

-spec -glow -pcx32 -jpgtga -fps

anything i need to add to this to get it  to work?

I saw nothing until I used -ambient_factor 75. I have no idea why it works now but it did.

[KARMA]

no, he mean a light that could be turned on/off on a ship, and when the light is off you see the area (a window, or any else) dark.

But still, it's nothing you will really loose removing the colour from glowmaps
you can obtain the same results with animated textures/glowmaps and/or glowpoints, which wouldn't be much a performance problem since it's something that will be barely never used anyway, and removing the colour from glowmaps you'll have room for future bumpmaps w/o having to increase bits and therefore kb size of the maps.
And about why to keep reflections and shinemap separated is to have material-dependent reflections. As it is, it generate a chrome effect that personally I don't like, and I'd like it to happen only on certain surfaces.
Nonetheless using the alpha channel is surely a fair solution, mostly because it'll require less changes to the existing maps.
But then, it's a coder's decisions.

[Bobboau]

"Specular maps without an alpha channel will use the normal spec map as the env map. If the image has an alpha channel, it will use the shinemap's alpha channel as the reflective map."

that was my thought exactly

glow maps should remain seperate as right now you can have animated glow maps, and as said, glow maps that when turned off have a black spot rather than a whit spot (though nobody currently takes advantage of this). and shine maps use full color to a much greater extent, it is an incredably cool effect to have a spec map of a totaly diferent color than the defuse color (though this is only being used to a slight extent)

[Lightspeed]

TVWP uses 'real ship lights'

Anyway, glad we agree 100% on this Bob.

I did some performance tests with your nice new build (which I have switched to as my standard FS2open build):

Performance:

COMPARISON:

Testing with TestMission Set v1.0: 20_01 build  26-2 test build  Environmental Mapping Build

Testing with TestMission Set v2.0 (same as build v1.0, but crammed with my new nebula effects to test with "busy" backgrounds): Environmental Mapping Build

Polygons & Textures
(using the standard texture code (tick box not checked))

Detail - 1:

85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 43.4 FPS

Detail - 2:

44.3 FPS | 42.5 FPS | 42.5 FPS | 42.5 FPS

Detail - 3:

42.5 FPS | 42.5 FPS | 28.4 FPS | 28.4 FPS

Detail - 4:

28.3 FPS | 28.3 FPS | 21.4 FPS | 21.4 FPS


ANI performance

Low Use:

min: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 42.5 FPS
max: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
avg: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS

Medium Use:

min: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 42.5 FPS
max: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
avg: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS

High Use:

min: 35 FPS | 30 FPS | 42.5 FPS | ~37 FPS
max: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
avg: 38 FPS | 42.5 FPS | 42.5 FPS | 37 FPS


Weapon Effects
(using the standard particle rendering)

Low:

min: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
max: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
avg: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS

Medium:

min: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 81.4 FPS
max: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
avg: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS

High:

min: 61 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 45 FPS
max: 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS
avg: 75 FPS | 85 FPS | 85 FPS | 80 FPS


Result:

The speed drop compared to the latest Test build and the 20_01 build is really small - It runs (almost) at the same speed, yet offers a lot more eye-candy. I'm sure when you perfect it (after 3.6) you can even make it cause less slow down than now.

Two thumbs up

[Bobboau]

there shouldn't be much of a performence drop at all, as the environment map is just a set of 6 512 textures, wich is rendered once per frame (this could be further improved to only being rendered once per mission, but anything that might be animated (someone try it out in a subspace mission!) wouldn't have an animated reflection) the only people who may have a slowdown would be the people who have cards that don't suport the rendering of cubemapping very well.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Drew on another thread
LS, i was foooling around with bob's evn build and i noticed that i couldnt move around the primaries on the select screen. not sure if this is a table error or what but could u please look at it?
i can mess around with Secondaris just fine...

I've noticed this too. It happened with LS's mods and with MindGames (which doesn't use them) so I think it's a problem with the build.

[Bobboau]

uh oh

[Deepblue]

Originally posted by Nico
am I the only one to dislike the fact that everything looks glassy now? The fenris is all grey, stained, battle sworn, not some kind of stylish mirro
That's great for cockpits and stuff, not for hulls ( well, depends of the ship, of course ). it should be there, but so faint that you can't recognise planet03.pcx on the wing of your fighter...

*points*

Originally posted by Deepblue
No. It doesnt look good to have both shine maps and reflection maps on the same surface sometimes. (especially when it comes to the hull, it should be shiny but not reflective)

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Bobboau

uh oh

is this very serious?

and how can something graphics related interfere with interface/table structures?