[Bobboau]

yes that's why this is a cheat reflection

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by Sticks
Yes, there is an 8 bit alpha, 8 bit color texture format, A8R3G3B2. I would disagree, though, and say that the 256 color V textures just don't cut it any longer. User created models continue to get better, but textures need to move into current standards. Even the standard V models would look fairly decent with 1024x1024 textures on them.

I agree on higher size resoltion, but not on color depth... i don't think anyone could notice any visible difference between a plain 256 color texture and a 32bit texture on a freespace fighter...just a waste of video memory imho. Only VERY large textures, such as background, could benefit from the higher color depth.

[KARMA]

Originally posted by Sticks

Yes, there is an 8 bit alpha, 8 bit color texture format, A8R3G3B2. I would disagree, though, and say that the 256 color V textures just don't cut it any longer. User created models continue to get better, but textures need to move into current standards. Even the standard V models would look fairly decent with 1024x1024 textures on them.

Originally posted by KARMA

But even if it may be reasonable to go for 24bit textures, using more than 8 bits for glows and shinemaps is just a waste imo.

actually I already use more than 8bits for the textures, I was arguing about shinemaps, which I still doubt require an higher color depth than 256 colours.
ppl reported some slowdowns with many highres highbitcount images until they are converted to DDS, I was just afraid by adding more of those files using 32bit shinemaps when you actually don't need all this color depth on them, and I wonder what will happen when you'll have to find 8 addtional bits for bumpmaps.
But if you say that this isn't a prob, well, ok, no prob for me too

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by KARMA
actually I already use more than 8bits for the textures, I was arguing about shinemaps, which I still doubt require an higher color depth than 256 colours.

Of course, and i'm saying that even the stardard texture have very little notieacble difference, on a fighter, if they are high-colour, so having more than 8 bit for shinemaps seem just nonsense to me!
Of course it should be nice to have the ability to decide what color depth to use, so one can chose 8-bit textures or 24-bit textures, so people without uber top-end machines can use the low res ones to improve performance.

[nakki]

Enviroment map looks great, but there is a way make it look way better with some tweaking and to get rid of the old ambient.
a proper image based ambient lighting for both diffuse and specular.


specular is actualy just blurred enviroment map. (there is no difference in any calculations)

but addition of diffuse part would be awesome and sould be pretty easy.
it is MUCH blurried version of the enviroment map with texture cordinates taken directly from normals. (not view dependant.)

if you want it to look like movies (and im not kidding.)
add ambient occlusion term. per vertex should be enough and very fast.
.
becouse all maps are pretty blurry there is no need for high res maps. (something like 256x256x6 is already quite overkill for specular and 32x32x6 for diffuse is plenty.)
and becouse we talk about ambient theres no need for HDR. 8bits/channel should be enough.

this method would give the metallic look, not a perfect mirror like normal enviroment map.

some links to explain what is possible.

about ibl and ambient occlusion.
http://www.andrew-whitehurst.net/amb_occlude.html
http://www.debevec.org/IBL2003/
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ltokheim/ambenv/

exelent tool for creating maps and for blurriness reference if you want to do maps runtime.
http://www.debevec.org/HDRShop/

[kasperl]

welcome to the HLPBB, once you're in, you never leave. At least not according to the 5 legged bouncer.
don't crawl through the ductwork, you might run into some Shivans. if you do, hope it's Carl, and give him a snack. If it is Carl, you'll live, if it's not, that's why you signed the life insurance policy for upon entering. Flamethrowers are under seats, but bring your own napalm. Heavier weaponry is locked up front, but you'll need an admin to unlock the door.

anyhow, i don't know much about this code, but what you say sounds awesome. how much work do you think it would be to implement it? would you be willing to?

[nakki]

Sadly i'm not very good coder. (yes i have made 'hello world' and i can save x*y moire to hard drive, but not much more)

i'm mostly graphician who loves to read and do research of different algorithms and think how those could be implemented.

to get ambient running shouldn't be very hard now that the enviroment map is up and running.
what would be needed is filttering for enviroment map when it is made to get specular and diffuse maps out of it.

then for the diffuse part the texture cordinate calculations so they wouldn't be view dependant.  and change rendering mode from add to mult.

occlusion term would be most of the work but the ambient does get nice boost if its used.