Beta Testing 2.07

[Springheel]

Just did a fresh install of the beta and ran through A New Job. The game correctly set my resolution (no more starting on 640x480, yay!), and I didn't notice anything obviously amiss after a quick playthrough with soft shadows on, other than the water looking different (not in a problematic way). Some menu text looked a little low-res, but I'm not sure that's any different than 2.06--might just be image files I didn't address while updating the menus and fonts.

[Springheel]

Btw, is the menu music being affected by EFX? It sounds different to me (or maybe it's something specific to NHAT...sounds normal when I uninstall that).

[kingsal]

Could you also say what's the value of image_useNormalCompression cvar?

 

I have briefly looked at the changes since 2.06, and there are quite a lot of them.

I'm afraid that substantial help is needed from your side.

 

I have attached an instrumented version of ambientInteraction.fs.

I'm pretty sure that you know how to override stock shader with this one (replace it inside pk4 / uncompress one pk4 and change the file / etc).

The file has several #if 0 and #if 1 blocks, each one has a comment at the end of the line.

With their current values, the shader works normally for me (at least at the beginning of St.Lucia map).

 

I suggest going through all the #if-s. For each of them, do the following:

1) Toggle the digit (change 0 to 1 or vice versa).

2) Execute reloadGLSLPrograms in console.

3) Check if the picture has changed, and how it has changed.

4) Toggle the digit back.

5) Proceed to next #if.

Then write back exactly which changes made a difference and what was the difference.

If there are no changes, then the whole effort is useless

 

This is rather bruteforce approach, but I would definitely do it myself if I could reproduce the problem.

Probably Duzenko would suggest something less stupid.

I am going to do a fresh install of 2.07 to see if that fixes anything. If it still persists I will try this brute force method and see whats going on. Thanks for the help!

[Boiler's_hiss]

When I started testing clean installation of 2.07, I forgot to assign discrete GPU and run it with intel IGP (was too tired to notice drastic difference in FPS).
At certain moments, ropes started to behave this way.

 

 

(The screenshot is from Penny Dreadful 3: Erasing the Trail, Mandrasola had this as well.)

It happened on both 64 an 32 and I also could reproduce it on 2.06. This looks like it might have something to do with handling unlocked FPS, because I don't recall seeing that before.
Should this be reported here?

Edited December 22, 2018 by Boiler's_hiss

[kingsal]

Alrighty, so I did a clean install of 2.07 and everything is working as expected . I think something in the base needed to be replaced.

 

These new shadows are looking hot!

[lowenz]

Yeah, now we only need some kind of ambient occlusion.

[Aildon_01]

Great job, compass is back, sky is back to normal.

 

Haven't seen this issue here yet.. I now have invisible weapons. Can blackjack ppl, but dont see it. Can shoot arrows and can see arrows, but the bow is invisible.

 

Tried to delet cfg file, tried to delete base_***.p4k file

 

It happens in Willam Steele 2

 

Tried "A new job" - weapons are visible again.

[STiFU]

I believe this is a broken save game. Did you try anew or just load an old save? Savegames are almost never compatible with old versions.

[stgatilov]

When I started testing clean installation of 2.07, I forgot to assign discrete GPU and run it with intel IGP (was too tired to notice drastic difference in FPS).

At certain moments, ropes started to behave this way.

(The screenshot is from Penny Dreadful 3: Erasing the Trail, Mandrasola had this as well.)

It happened on both 64 an 32 and I also could reproduce it on 2.06. This looks like it might have something to do with handling unlocked FPS, because I don't recall seeing that before.

Should this be reported here?

Yes, here is a good place.

Tracked an issue as 4924.

Thanks!

[stgatilov]

Btw, is the menu music being affected by EFX? It sounds different to me (or maybe it's something specific to NHAT...sounds normal when I uninstall that).

I think this FM uses some custom version.

 

Did you have a chance to take a look at it? When I use maskDepth in the program stage, it cancels the refraction effect. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

To make things clear...

The heatHazeWithDepth uses depth buffer to decide whether to distort surfaces or not. However, it also writes to depth buffer while drawing, unless maskDepth is specified everywhere. NVIDIA GPUs don't like when you read depth buffer while drawing to it, and you can easily read complete carbage from depth buffer (which causes the artefacts you see).

 

When FBO is off, the window's depth buffer is copied into a separate texture: so reading happens from the copied texture, while writing goes into the window's depth buffer --- no problem here.

When FBO is on and multisampling is enabled, then there are two depth buffers: everything is rendered into the multisampled depth buffer, which is then copied into depth texture. Again no problem because read/write are from separate places.

With FBO on and multisampling off, depth is written to a texture, and this texture is attached as shader input at the same time (no copy is made). So the problem can happen.

 

I tried to add maskDepth to all stages of clear_warp material. It fixes the artefacts for me, but then render order becomes undefined:

When I hit air with blackjack on glassproblem.map, back faces of the glass cube pop into front. It looks very ugly, and in fact prohibits using two glass surfaces visible one through another.

I wonder if it is OK or not?...

[peter_spy]

So at this point it's either turning FBO off (which is on by default, and, as I understand, it should stay that way) or using AA x2, otherwise the water/glass materials will be broken for nvidia users. IMO, since 2.07 is a stability release and it aims to fix everything that got broken by 2.06, this is a quite an issue (it worked fine in 2.05).

[duzenko]

So at this point it's either turning FBO off (which is on by default, and, as I understand, it should stay that way) or using AA x2, otherwise the water/glass materials will be broken for nvidia users. IMO, since 2.07 is a stability release and it aims to fix everything that got broken by 2.06, this is a quite an issue (it worked fine in 2.05).

Or use maskDepth as suggested by @NB in the very beginning, for all visible stages

[Springheel]

Or use maskDepth as suggested by @NB in the very beginning, for all visible stages

 

 

I tried to add maskDepth to all stages of clear_warp material. It fixes the artefacts for me, but then render order becomes undefined:

When I hit air with blackjack on glassproblem.map, back faces of the glass cube pop into front. It looks very ugly, and in fact prohibits using two glass surfaces visible one through another.

 

[stgatilov]

So at this point it's either turning FBO off (which is on by default, and, as I understand, it should stay that way) or using AA x2, otherwise the water/glass materials will be broken for nvidia users. IMO, since 2.07 is a stability release and it aims to fix everything that got broken by 2.06, this is a quite an issue (it worked fine in 2.05).

There is a question which is not clear to us: is doing something like the glass cube in glassproblem.map considered normal?

It has two glass faces in a row, and with the suggested fix it causes farther surfaces to pop up sometimes.

 

I'm almost sure that all those glass materials are inevitably hacky, so there must be some limitations on how they can be used to avoid graphical problems.

Is it true that glass surfaces will never overlap each other?

 

P.S. Don't worry, this is considered a serious problem -- we are thinking about best fix now.

[peter_spy]

Ok, so MaskDepth works, if put in curly bracket stages, heathaze programs and after.

 

There is a question which is not clear to us: is doing something like the glass cube in glassproblem.map considered normal?

It has two glass faces in a row, and with the suggested fix it causes farther surfaces to pop up sometimes.

 

I've never noticed it earlier, to be honest, but it seems like heathaze programs make the material two sided somehow, it happens even with one-sided planes. I tried smashing my glass models with both blackjack and shortsword, but didn't see any any faces from the other side popping in. Maybe it's a brush (precision) problem?

[Aildon_01]

I believe this is a broken save game. Did you try anew or just load an old save? Savegames are almost never compatible with old versions.

Restarting completely helped, thanks. Though previously i loaded save and it was from the start anyway.

[STiFU]

Restarting completely helped, thanks. Though previously i loaded save and it was from the start anyway.

This is exactly what happens when saves are incompatible. A new build of tdm almost always renders all previous saved games invalid. Sometimes it might even work to load to the same position, but then something totally weird happens. Glad this is sorted out, though.

[peter_spy]

I've never noticed it earlier, to be honest, but it seems like heathaze programs make the material two sided somehow, it happens even with one-sided planes.

 

 

I just checked to be 100% sure, but that actually doesn't happen with models. I just made a simple glass plane model, and it's one-sided. So that might be just a problem with brushes.

[stgatilov]

I just checked to be 100% sure, but that actually doesn't happen with models. I just made a simple glass plane model, and it's one-sided. So that might be just a problem with brushes.

Ok, please correct me if I'm wrong:

1) You tried to add maskDepth to all stages of your shader, and the artefacts are gone.

2) You also see the issue with backfaces popping up when hitting blackjack on glassproblem.map (if you add all maskDepth).

3) You tried to look through several glass surfaces on some real map, and this popping up does not happen (with all maskDepth added, of course).

4) Adding maskDepth to all stages of glass materials is a proper fix for the problem.

[Spooks]

Is it true that glass surfaces will never overlap each other?

 

2.05 and prior, in the case of two glass surfaces, one would not be visible behind the other (if that is what you're asking clarification for). It indeed looked hacky and was a limited case but I noticed it enough to remember.

[peter_spy]

Ok, please correct me if I'm wrong:

1) You tried to add maskDepth to all stages of your shader, and the artefacts are gone.

2) You also see the issue with backfaces popping up when hitting blackjack on glassproblem.map (if you add all maskDepth).

3) You tried to look through several glass surfaces on some real map, and this popping up does not happen (with all maskDepth added, of course).

4) Adding maskDepth to all stages of glass materials is a proper fix for the problem.

 

The answer is yes for all the questions. I suspect my glass material doesn't exhibit the popping seen in clear_warp material, because it's structured differently. It has diffuse, normal, and spec textures, then heathaze programs, and then a fake cubemap reflection. It also works properly with brushes, and when I fly inside such cube, there are no inside faces.

 

Clear_warp starts with heathaze, then it has fake cubemap reflections, and it blends the texture on top. Maybe the stage order is the problem here.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Judith

[peter_spy]

Duh, the problem with clear_warp being two sided is because it has the twosided keyword in the material definition *facepalm*

 

If you remove twosided from material definition, the popping is gone.

[stgatilov]

New package is up on the server (codenamed beta207-02).

You can see more info at one of the first posts (here).

 

P.S. The heatHaze problem has not changed in any way yet.

We still have no conclusion on how to fix it the best way.

[duzenko]

I wish someone tested 2.07 on DX9 hardware (nVidia 5000-7000, AMD 9500-X1000, Intel 900)

[Bikerdude]

The following model -

• models/darkmod/mechanical/factory_machines/utility_fan_frame_002.lwo,

Is missing its mesh/grate texture -

• utility_grate_001

Looking at the material def for the grate textures I can see the issue, its empty -

utility_grate_001
{

		// 	Mesh used for Epifire's fan 002
		//	void needs path correction


}

And the texture utility_grate_001 dosen't look like its present.

Edited December 25, 2018 by Bikerdude