MirceaKitsune

I can concede that the polished armor definitely looks too new: Most of those guards are presented as being old timers, not an army that just bought new armor straight from the factory and is wearing it for the first time that night. Hence why I'd tone down the effect, and use the specular channel as a mask to further reduce it and ensure the reflection isn't applied to areas that are rusted. If the super shiny armor is to be turned into a new skin, I'm in favor of making a whole new outfit for polished armor guards: I don't think it's a good idea to create custom skins merely to enable an effect, rather they should be different enough to justify a new skin. I still think even for existing armor a very subtle cubemap should be applied, but agree the ultra-shiny one should be a new suit we could feature in the next release.

Experimental door with electronic lock, intended for more important doors in rich areas. A decoder tool can be used to pick the lock, magnetic keycards act as standard keys to open them normally. Might reuse in future projects if this goes well.

The improvement isn't just for one type of guard: It's for all metals, including other armored guards such as city watch and builder armor as seen in a previous video... also loot, weapons such as the swords, etc. If we create a custom skin and entity for all of those just for a basic reflection effect, I think that would be out of hand if anything. Some graphical improvements are meant to be universal; We didn't need to patch old missions when ambient occlusions or shadow maps were implemented just because there's a tiny difference to the way things used to look. If such a change could bother anyone, maybe we can have a cvar to toggle cubemap reflections universally, I'd find it comparatively cleaner and easier to manage.

Not in this case: That would create a mess of needless AI skins, multiplying every clothing to have a shiny and non-shiny version. At least those changes absolutely need to be applied retroactively to the existing materials. If it's too much, I'm fine with toning the reflection down instead.

I think it looks really good especially with bloom. Only thing that may affect both realism and gameplay is indeed the decreased brightness. You can turn up the brightness to compensate, but this has the unfortunate side effect of also making readables / main menu / every GUI exponentially brighter; I have r_postprocess_brightness 1.5 which is still a bit too dark in-world but makes every menu appear hideously bright... gamma doesn't do this but makes everything more gray and ugly instead so I don't increase it.

100% a phenomenal improvement. Please let the next release have these... no, the next development snapshot for that matter Thanks again for picking up those materials and this chain of awesome and unexpected improvements to the graphics.

Spinning display case with alarm, owned by the shop next to it. Sounds the nearby alarm and shuts off if glass is broken. I don't plan on having loot inside so you don't have to break it, just one of the many details I wanted to have fun with here.

Pool party anyone? I hear the Inventors Guild has lights that work underwater and everything!

No bug in this regard that I at least am aware of. It will show an empty field if you select multiple faces with different properties: Make sure you have one face selected not several or a whole brush, if you have more they should have the same texture otherwise the field will go blank to indicate different values.

So I'm running into one final issue with my approach to the reflective floor, hope there is a way around it. I'm indeed able to use the heatHazeWithMaskAndDepth shader to deform a reflection on top of the normal surface. The problem is I don't see a way to put the mirror render pass into the shader: fragmentMap 0 requires _currentRender or a cubemap, I tried "fragmentmap mirrorRenderMap" but unsurprisingly that causes an error. Is there any trick to pipe the mirror result into the fragment program? Maybe with color masking? Without that the only thing that gets distorted is what's rendered behind the surface, which for a brush will be either blackness or the skybox. textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_mirror { surftype15 qer_editorimage textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_ed diffusemap textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked specularmap textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_s bumpmap textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_local { vertexProgram heatHazeWithDepth.vfp vertexParm 0 0, 0 vertexParm 1 0.75 fragmentProgram heatHazeWithDepth.vfp // fragmentmap 0 mirrorRenderMap 256 256 // Won't work! fragmentMap 0 _currentRender fragmentMap 1 textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_local fragmentMap 2 _currentDepth } }

My version does, but it doesn't have the distortion effect on the mirror pass. I got it working by adding the reflection as a separate pass on top of the diffuse map, which allows the surface to have normal light / specular / bump with the reflection too. As is realistic, there's less reflectivity on bright areas and more over dark spots. textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_mirror { surftype15 qer_editorimage textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_ed diffusemap textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked specularmap textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_s bumpmap textures/darkmod/stone/flat/marble_flower_mosaic_cracked_local { blend add mirrorRenderMap 256 256 } }

If blurry reflections didn't look nice in all cases, why not just remove the resolution in the material definitions instead of disabling it globally so those who want them could still use those parameters? Makes more sense to allow a resolution of "mirrorRenderMap 0 0" to specify you want to use the screen resolution. I'd probably use it for those floors: Blurry resolution would look better, plus I gain a lot of FPS just for having it that way! Is there a good reason why it was disabled this way? In the meantime I'll likely give your material a try as the result clearly looks better: Thanks for sharing that! I was wondering if I could bend the reflection with the texture's normal map but didn't hope for a way. I'll definitely want to put the specular map back on as I don't want to lose its effect either.

Just wanted to say I'm absolutely in favor of seeing this in the next release. Applied retroactively in all FM's this time, please! We don't have a system for generalized realtime reflections yet, but even with cubemaps that is so much better than the old graphics we still have in a few areas. Indeed cubemaps tend to appear brighter. That''s usually because they're applied using "blend add" as that makes most sense for reflections: Since cubemaps are fixed the level of light they reflect depends on their image rather than what's actually being reflected in a particular room. Playing with different blend modes for the reflection may give a better result, whatever you used here looks fantastic and seems like it should feel right in areas with different light levels.

I'm more than halfway through the 3rd map in the campaign. This one is my favorite so far, very complex and detailed environment with an unique atmosphere!

Aha: I was wondering why it still looked sharp but thought it's just me. I tried "16 16" and noticed it doesn't do anything. Why disable a base shader feature though? I think it should be at the render resolution if you don't use any numbers, if you specify a custom render resolution that should work. If there's a good reason not to do it any more, the parameters should probably be removed as it makes no sense to have numbers that do nothing... though that would break existing materials, maybe have them optional?

Getting to try realtime reflective floors in practice. Took me well over an hour to figure it out but the setup for a complex shader is ridiculously simple, all you need to do is add a "mirrorRenderMap 256 256" with a "blend add" to any material. FPS is reduced a bit of course but no big deal in a closed space, I'll improve it from the lighting which I abused a bit in this scene.

Yes, it's entity.setSkin("your_skin_here") if you're using scripting. There's also a way without scripts: Place two entities with the same model at the same location and rotation, give one the initial skin and the other one the new skin, give the first entity spawnarg "hide 0" and the second one "hide 1", trigger them both to make the switch. The downside is this requires placing two entities on the map, the upside is the new skin is then precached which may be faster and avoids stuttering when changing them.

Lit / unlit glass signs and neon anvil. They aren't perfect, but for something that adds a touch of cyberpunk to the steampunk I think they work pretty well.

Was wondering something about lights: Is it possible to make a light that toggles itself when frobbed? All examples of toggleable lights rely on an external flame entity being attached which I don't want to do in my case; I'd like the light entity itself to be frobable and turn on or off when frobbed, no attachments. In addition: Are breakable lights a thing that still works? I tried setting the spawnarg "health 5" on my light entity, but no matter how much I hit it with the blackjack or sword it won't turn off. Do I need to set a custom scriptobject perhaps? For the record my custom lights in cause inherit from "atdm:static_electric_light_lit_base".

Neon Builder sign. Looks pretty good with the bright orange, kinda like molten iron which gets the point across. decorative/signs/sign_hanging_builder_symbol_neon_lit { model "models/darkmod/decorative/signs/hanging_builder_symbol.lwo" "tdm_hammer_small_bronze1" "textures/darkmod/window/lamp_glass_lit_opaque_colorme" } decorative/signs/sign_hanging_builder_symbol_neon_unlit { model "models/darkmod/decorative/signs/hanging_builder_symbol.lwo" "tdm_hammer_small_bronze1" "textures/darkmod/window/lamp_glass_unlit_opaque_shadowcasting" } atdm:hanging_builder_symbol { "inherit" "atdm:static_electric_light_lit_base" "editor_displayFolder" "Lights/Model Lights, Static/Switchable/Electric/Signs" "editor_usage" "Neon sign, hanging builder symbol." "model" "models/darkmod/decorative/signs/hanging_builder_symbol.lwo" "skin" "decorative/signs/sign_hanging_builder_symbol_neon_lit" "skin_lit" "decorative/signs/sign_hanging_builder_symbol_neon_lit" "skin_unlit" "decorative/signs/sign_hanging_builder_symbol_neon_unlit" "_color" "1 0.5 0" "texture" "lights/biground1_squarelamp_snd" "s_shader" "light_flicker_104" "light_center" "12 0 -32" "light_radius" "128 128 128" "noshadows_lit" "1" }

Don't know if it's a dumb idea or not, but I for one kinda like my steampunk neon signs. I'll probably mention them in the shop keeper's book, how neon signs are all the rage and everyone's buying them. Wish I could reskin more of the default models to get even more designs, was lucky it happened to work out with this one, even if the chain shining is a little meh. No custom assets needed, just the def and skin. If anyone else wants them here's the one for the sheep logo, easy to produce and customize the rest of them from there. decorative/signs/sign_half_round_neon_sheep_lit { model "models/darkmod/decorative/signs/sign_half_round_01.ase" "textures/darkmod/metal/flat/iron_rough_ns" "textures/darkmod/window/lamp_glass_lit_opaque_colorme" "sign_half_round_wine" "tdm_sign_shield_sheep" } decorative/signs/sign_half_round_neon_sheep_unlit { model "models/darkmod/decorative/signs/sign_half_round_01.ase" "textures/darkmod/metal/flat/iron_rough_ns" "textures/darkmod/window/lamp_glass_unlit_opaque_shadowcasting" "sign_half_round_wine" "tdm_sign_shield_sheep" } atdm:sign_neon_sheep { "inherit" "atdm:static_electric_light_lit_base" "editor_displayFolder" "Lights/Model Lights, Static/Switchable/Electric/Signs" "editor_usage" "Neon sign, sheep." "model" "models/darkmod/decorative/signs/sign_half_round_01.ase" "skin" "decorative/signs/sign_half_round_neon_sheep_lit" "skin_lit" "decorative/signs/sign_half_round_neon_sheep_lit" "skin_unlit" "decorative/signs/sign_half_round_neon_sheep_unlit" "_color" "0.5 0.5 0.5" "texture" "lights/biground1_squarelamp_snd" "s_shader" "light_flicker_104" "light_center" "0 0 -24" "light_radius" "128 128 128" "noshadows_lit" "1" }

I'll need to look into it for that FM. Need to prepare a bit to run a proper comparison. Saw the tone mapping and fire glow on Youtube, definitely hoping they can make it into vanilla.

Oh hey, I can see myself from here! To my surprise the screen can film itself too with at least one level of recursion, very well designed. Isolated room so don't worry about performance, overall this will be neat to have.

I can see that. Wonder if Z-fighting between brushes should be handled differently than between models and patches: Brushes are meant to be merged by dmap, other forms of geometry are often intended to interact more freely. This makes me wonder if it's logical to treat brush intersections in particular as the issue, maybe have a separate debug mode for catching them. Like a heatmap style render where normal geometry appears green, Z-fighting between non-brush geometry is yellow, Z-fighting between brushes is red... maybe blue for backfaces and anything else one may or may not want to make sure doesn't show up during a normal run.

I now wonder if Z-fighting should still be considered an issue the author has to find and solve. Especially with modules aligned in some positions, it happens so often it's often hard to address correctly. Wouldn't it be better to handle this by mixing the surfaces in a better looking way, perhaps use a separate debug mode for creators who want to catch and avoid it?