[DaBrain]

Man... I'm in a screenshot mood....

[Snail]

*blinks*

Is that FreeSpace?

[taylor]

Is that FreeSpace?

Nope.

[Snail]

*squints*

Is that FreeSpace Open?

[taylor]

Is that FreeSpace Open?

Yep.

[colecampbell666]

DaBrain, what are you system specs/FS_Open graphics settings?

It's amazing what the normal maps do. The Myrmidon looks so much better.

[Mobius]

ETA is...?

I love these screenshots(and wonder if my computer can run the new Media VPs)!

[DaBrain]

ETA... pretty hard to say... But I think the next test version will be a public one. Also... I'm tempted up pack everything together right now and just upload the whole thing, but there is a 'broken' effect I really should fix before I do that. And now a few missions crash...

All POF related problems take me very long, cause that's not what I usually do.
Like Amazon issue I'm working on right now. The center is out of place.

I can can fix that easy enough, but all gunpoints, subsystems, whatever will be out of place too. I can't import them and I don't know how to set them up again... duh. I think I won't fix some of the pof related problems and leave that to someone who knows what he's doing.


@colecampbell666
My system is a Core 2 Duo 6600 with 4GB ram and a Radeon X1650 Pro (256MB).
I get pretty stable 60 fps with the current build/shaders.

[Mobius]

Well the most interesting things are the textures. The models we already have work fine

Ok, no more pressure. Just release them when they're ready, but don't forget to post screenshots!

[DaBrain]

Damn, I forgot the screenshots!







Oh, well... almost forgot the asteroids... Still so much to do...

[colecampbell666]

What weapon is that?

[DaBrain]

What weapon is that?

That's the Kayser.


Time for asteroids! Now even with lods!

[jr2]

Freaking nice!!!

[colecampbell666]

  Mind using lvlshot? Not everyone has a widescreen.

[Herra Tohtori]

Cool...

But I have to say the asteroids in overall don't look so good to me. The amount of increased detail from normal maps is awesome, but is there a way to make the asteroids non-shiny but still have normal[+possible height] maps? The shiny bits are kinda weird considering those rocks are mostly chunks of iron, dense rock or porous rock... of which none have shiny surfaces. Not to mention the most likely dust coverage on them stones, which reflects light in a very matte fashion.

[colecampbell666]

Cool...

But I have to say the asteroids in overall don't look so good to me. The amount of increased detail from normal maps is awesome, but is there a way to make the asteroids non-shiny but still have normal[+possible height] maps? The shiny bits are kinda weird considering those rocks are mostly chunks of iron, dense rock or porous rock... of which none have shiny surfaces. Not to mention the most likely dust coverage on them stones, which reflects light in a very matte fashion.

QFT.

[DaBrain]

@Herra Tohtori

You probably mean something like this. I've toned down the spec map and the re-normalized the normal map (weaker).
However, that didn't do that much. This is with a different ogl_spec value (16).

I can't do much about this. We need a glossiness control map for asteroids, or even better, a different shader with a low fix glossiness value.
So -> material system

[colecampbell666]

Nice, but, as you said, you need a stronger, more detailed normal map, without the glossiness.

[DaBrain]

Even with the previous normal map, reducing the  ogl_spec (glossy) makes the asteroids appear less crisp.

I got another problem right now anway... The lods aren't working with the exported asteroids from MAX. They're in the pof, but don't work correct in the game. If I resave them in PCS 2, they work perfectly fine, but the collision is a mess.

[Herra Tohtori]

Actually, that's not too bad looking at all. The individual "glints" are almost completely gone, which was the main annoyance anyway - now it looks more like simple changes in the intensity of the reflected light, which does happen o non-glossy surfaces as well. Obviously the normal maps lose some of their detail, but I'd say the tradeoff is (for now) acceptable at least for me.

Are they using a completely black shinemap (with no alpha channel) now? Or does the normal map shader system require some shinemap intensity to work? Or does the normal map result in some glossyness no matter the shinemap's intensity? I'm just curious about the interaction of shine and normalmaps...

If I've comprehended correctly, materials will do wonders anyway when they are ready to be used (and someone goes through the business of making the material shaders and making the models use them...), so I'd say it's not too bad if normal maps can't be used to full extent on all of the game yet.

The ships already do look great.