nbohr1more

I wasn't talking about modifying the SVN source. Just make your own personal build. I have seen some fairly rough replies when folks ask the devs for graphic tweaks so I figured I'd pre-emptively offer a diplomatic "community member" answer. Feel free to ask any Dev whatever you want and however you want... AO, as currently implemented is dependent on your view of the scene. It merely means that as a surface faces away from you or is farther from you the ambient gets darker. This behavior can be approximated in a number of ways. The more accurate the approximation the bigger the toll on performance... The Strombine approach has the additional advantage that the whole projection image can be modified in real-time. If you created a specific ambient projection for each light source then the the ambient could react on a per-projection image basis. Whether this would be more expensive than SSAO is a tough one and would have to be tested. That does not say that you couldn't go crazy and have SSAO and multiple dynamic projection images (if you have absolutely no mercy on the low-enders). I will give Sikkmod a go anyway to see the SSAO in action (screen-shots don't always tell the whole story). We are kindred here I think because you bring up AO as often as I do Strombine

Not to remind people of my foolish posts but Baddcog's work-flow (above) would go perfectly with a Sculpt feature for Patch Vertices I wont say more for fear of another beating...

Quoted for all-time truth. Hero to us all.

The "only two" vfp option restriction is something I gathered from one of the other forum threads here but it may no longer be a restriction with JC Denton on the team so there ya go... The team is conservative about these types of changes for the sake of stability and to ensure that the existing art is compatible. If you are really ambitious, nothing would stop you from looking at the TDM source code and figuring out how to apply Sikkmod to TDM (many of Sikkpin's vfp elements may be compatible with JC Denton's, there are tons of multi-mod packs out there that do this very thing for Doom 3...). If everything in the environment has a texture then baking AO into every texture would have the affect of applying AO to the whole environment. I agree, however, that calculating AO in real-time would be more accurate. Is that quality difference worth the FPS drop? If Sikkpin or JC Denton (or TRSGM) figures out a less taxing way to do SSAO before Doom 3 goes open source then maybe it might be considered for inclusion in a new release but (now) that's less than a year away at which time the Z-Buffer will be accessible. It'll be an interesting race anyway. SSAO won't stifle all the howls from Thief 2 fans who like the look of Light Maps because it's just one component of the GI used that can be baked into a light map. I know I sound like a broken record but the Strombine technique is the best chance to out-do light maps because you can bake as many GI effects into the projection image as you want. It's flexible because it's emitted via a real light source. If you wanted to get crazy you could project multiple overlapping Strombine images and do hollywood style light-composites. Keep in perspective too that lighting techniques are dwarfed by the impact of texture quality. With Melan and Serpentine on the case, we are already seeing huge visual jumps. Then, finally, without any major changes to anything an artist that is adapted to the look of Doom 3 can blow away all the lighting tricks we can imagine. Just look at Arcturus's map in the Upcoming Fan Missions area. The look is perfectly pitched for Doom 3's strengths. It's not immediately comparable to Thief 1/2 but instead clearly shows that this type of comparison is "Apples and Oranges" because the engines offer resources that appeal to different art-styles. If you don't like Arcturus's taste then you probably wont be convinced but I would certainly love to see more artists who know how to carve a niche style from this engine... I think Bikerdude, Melan, and Baddcog have all shown similar specialized aptitudes.

SSAO is a great visual improvement but... Currently two "modes" can be selected for an active "vfp" so it would have to be weighed against HDR or added to HDR (very costly) for the high-end mode. When Doom 3 goes open source then it may be possible to have more diverse settings available so that (for example) you could enable HDR without SSAO if your system cant handle it. I do agree that SSAO is one of the better options as things like Parallax mapping are a bit more gimmicky (but could have their uses...). JC Denton actually was advocating that AO maps be created for all the texture assets as that would take less of a toll than calculating AO in real-time (but then you have a ton of assets to create or remake...)... Yeah HappyCheeze, what's the score on this FM

Evolution isn't going anywhere. It trends towards whatever we deem the source of power and success. If being a Rap Musician makes you rich powerful and successful then that is the trait that will be desirable and thus the direction for evolution. But, obviously, I don't think that fleeting cultural characteristics are the primary direction for all this. The problem now is that the people who make money (and thus have the power desired from the evolutionary stance) are not the actual people who create the technologies (etc) that lend valid value to their financial status. But that is not a blanket rule, there will be people who are both financially and creatively gifted and they will continue to "win". The seeming stability of evolution comes down to one primary factor, "monogamy". As long as it's illegal to have more than one wife, no alpha-male will be able to spread his genes to a significantly disproportionate number of (reproductive) women. If the world continues to trend secular (or Mormon?) then this barrier to rapid evolution will come crashing down (presuming that this secular future also entails both citizens with no regard for the costs of child rearing and women who don't mind being part of a harem for some stud... ) Caveats aside, Mormon style families would be seen as evolutionary power-houses and might draw folks to emulate... Overshadowing all this is our Cyberpunk future. The real evolutionary winners will be the humans that augment themselves with technology.... or merge with the singularity....

Good luck Sotha, that's a pretty hefty optimization. !

I had to lookup that phrase as well. It's a British colloquialism for "Now behave yourselves" or "Stop arguing"... No TDM wasn't built to erase all knowledge of Thief :laugh: (As much as folk around here talk-smack about Thief's inferior features, they will just as quickly put-down an FPS fan who doesn't do "stealth"... So the kinship is still there... we just "fight like brothers"...) Your conspiracy idea is amusing though, Mortem Desino will have to create a polished Youtube about it in a similar vein as the intro to NHAT

I see the problem. Since the cubemap is designed to always face the (edit: viewer position) camera, each envshot camera is seeing the same portion of the skybox. Unless I'm somehow mistaken, you will need to capture your geometry without the skybox and then blend the images in an image editor??? Edit: Another method might be to noclip and precisely take screen-shots from each direction...

Not a pretty topic but here ya go LEGION TTLG Politics (I think I topped it with my own crazy thread though... )

Well... we all hope that flurry of authors from 2009 comes to fruition. I have a bad feeling that those 2009 folks built the architecture (because of the ease of Dark Radiant) but got stumped by leaks and visportals... Maybe it's seasonal and we'll see those folks back here for the holidays with finished maps... (or they will donate their unfinished stuff to Fidcal...) Here's hoping... Thanks for your appreciation LEGION.

Yes: http://www.interstellarburst.com/ You should click the links in the wiki: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Upcoming_Fan_Missions (AluminumHaste's "Nobel Cave" Youtube link was also already in the wiki)...

Alright, someone has to say it... Is this the end of Aidakeeley here at TDM? On one hand, I feel a little more free to say politically incorrect stuff without the oppression of Aida's ultra-PC attitude... OTOH, I do kinda miss his enthusiasm for the mod and odd-ball commentary. Every post of his made me imagine an over-exaggerated Elizabethan actor with the stereotypical thespian enunciation. It's probably kinda rude to post about someone in this fashion and Aida would probably come around an rip folks a new one for doing so... ...but I think a small amount of disclosure is cathartic... Anyone want to share their thoughts, remorse, celebration? I went back after his last post and fully read that "TTLG politics" thread where he got his bad rep (AFAIK). It seems he probably was already gone to most folks after that anyway. He seems to have lost his marbles a little there... I think Mortem was just joking and trying to lighten the mood to shake him out of his sour zealotry (about his views on social politics) but Aida's paranoia got the best of him and he took this thread change as a "bully move". Well that's my take on this. Maybe he'll show-up and rain shit on all the mods and members after stewing for a couple of days. It would be an interesting wager at least. Goodbye Aidakeeley ?????

(against my better use of language) MOAR! Thanks.

Any reply from Spitter, Fidcal?

HOLY!

Well... at least your steps are less intensive than the Arcturus version: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11482-blender-sculptris-gimp-video-tutorial/ ...but would simply starting with an increased resolution give better results (rather than Serpentine quality results?) Though that texture is pretty enough to want the deluxe treatment.

I'll chime in with my clumsy take... (experts will arrive shortly): It looks like either the resolution of the Normal Map is lower than the texture or the threshold used to create the map was not tuned to pickup fine-details. I would try enlarging the texture to 2x resolution then create the normal map then scale the normal map back down. It should retain more detail. (Unless that's what you've already done... then I don't know what to advise? Enlarge 4x? Manually create details? Model... ) (Edit: Expert arrived before my post ...)

Yeah... but the end of Sikkpin's newer thread still indicates that he's experimenting with the problem... You have to look for the bread-crumbs at D3W....

Maybe progress has been made...? http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=23213

Unless something new has been discovered (Sikkpin says he is up to something...), all AO implementations in Doom 3 require a hack that involves painting the Z-Buffer to a texture. This takes a heavy performance toll. I believe this is the thread that references this hack: http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=21576&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

It worked! (At least on the wood floor)... I will have to test on a cleaner surface... I will go back and try one last stab at the straight cross-fade but I think the "W" \ "M" zigg-zagg pattern is the optimal pattern to obscure the seam... Now I just have to shrink the edge pattern a bit as it is currently over a quarter of the texture...

That comment needs more screen-shot...

Yes, that is probably the main area of concern. I just cooked up the other "mundane" usage scenario (excuse) a couple of days ago. Yeah, it's pretty dull but it's another valid performance optimization option. I think the Strombine usage is pretty exciting though... Edit: Here is my zaggy version. Will test soon... zzz_cross_zaggy.pk4.txt

You need to create a thread titled "Men with Clicky Shoes and Light Gems" (or someone need to create a band with that moniker).