[kasperl]

Note: it was an odd guess, but i remember that d3dmipmapping creates a sort of LODding for texes. Since it creates the LODs itsself, it might have the maps scaled down when you are in the distance. Or it might have actually scaled the maps up , when you close.

edit: spelling

[Flipside]

The wierd part is that the damaged part of the ship just has to be in the same hemisphere as your FOV to start slowing down the computer, before they even appear on screen

[Nico]

For now, I'd rather have vertex painting than decals, wouldn't need them to go, and wouldn't look too bad imho.

[Lightspeed]

I used the ones that came with Bob's zip so there shouldnt be that huge kind of slowdown.

[Rictor]

Why are the decal marks red? Ships don't bleed last time I checked :D

[Bobboau]

becase I made a four second glow map for them.

the slowdown I'm thinking is from the dynamic decals, I origonaly tryed makeing a seperate list for them, but that was buggy as hell so I just had it look through the whole list to find ones that were still smoldering, wich worked, but also means that if you have a ship with 200 decals on it it's looking at 200 decals on that ship every frame, and that's not good, so I'll see if I can get that seperate list working, that should be nice and fast.

[Flaser]

I think a priority should be given to weapons with a hell of a punch - a Helios will leave quite a noticeable dent, while a Subach won't.

Maybe decal data should contain this priority too.

[Bobboau]

each weapon is given a diferent decal texture, generaly I'd expect weapons of the same damage range to use the same decals (i.e., bombs would use a big scorched twisted metal texture, fighter weapons would use a small puny 'look ma' I nicked the paint' decal) so it sort of does this already.

[Bobboau]

oh, I know why it's so slow now, I such a freaking dunce, I commented out the thing to tell it not to rebuild the buffer every frame becase I wanted to look at it a few times, and I for got to turn it back on, so it was rebuilding the decal buffer every frame!

that said it was actualy going prety fast , I'll have another build up before the end of the night.

[Taristin]

w00t.  Now for the graffix peoples to fix the lame damage and we'll be set.

[Bobboau]

ok, I bandaided over a small crash error in the decal recycleing code (and god damned I have had more problems with that one function ) it'll keep it playable, but it might cause decals to stop working and probly will cause a (small) memory leak, but I'll fix it later.

this zip has been updated, lower end cards may also see an improved performence, as that build uses index buffers for everything but the decals (and small scale effects). on the other hand you may see random crashes while doing nothng, if it seems too crashy I'll post a build with index buffers disabled.

oh, and I supose I should mention that index buffers impose a poly limit of 21,845 triangles, yes, I know, it's quite restrictive, but we'll just have to get used to it I guess

[Kazan]

screenshots!

[Bobboau]

but the current art is mediocer at best, and the cooler effects are animated.

[Bobboau]

ehhh... fine








look at the smoldering death all over that bomber.

you've all seen the Vanir before, I nearly missed one of the ships you havn't see, you can still see part of the engine section if you look closely. and if you look closely you can sort of see some of the improvements I've made to the Golgotha. and while you'r looking at her, note all the little glowing pot marks covering her surface, burn baby burn

[Setekh]

@ the censoring.

[Raptor]

Looks like it's been infected by the Beast (from HW:Cataclysm)

[Lightspeed]

Using the new build, the odd slowdown's still there

Also, I spotted two bugs:

1. Sometimes decals simply stop working (they appear for about 1/10 seconds, but seem to be facing me and are NOT aligned with the hull and then vanish) - Sometimes they get working again later or they wont work for the whole game

2. I got some decals 'floating above the hull' rendering in front of fire plumes and other stuff. They were in about 1 m height above the hull of the ship (but rendered correctly with their alpha).

[Bobboau]

you are useing the build I linked to in my post not the one at the top of this thread right?

[Lightspeed]

yes.

[Bobboau]

ok lets try this build, I think I've fixed the junk polys that would show up from time to time (every decal was given 1 too many polys becase one was always needed to work with, and I never got rid of it)

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_Bobboau_5-25-04.zip