Beta Testing 2.08

[nbohr1more 2096]

I converted the specular to black and white with the "makeIntensity" keyword and it cured the flickering

but I'm afraid that workaround is only masking a general problem with specular decals.

I tried replacing the TWOSIDED_DECAL_MACRO with other decal attributes and still the colored specular decals flicker.

[duzenko 654]

4 hours ago, stgatilov said:

Perhaps it is time to fix it?

I have no idea what to do. Except that delete the specularmap line.

Can I help somehow?

Quote

It is already fixed. Zero timestamp means that all files inside PK4 were last modified at the beginning of the epoch.

Even if you change a file inside and repack it, the game will still think it was modified at the beginning of the epoch and won't notice changes.

idDeclFile::Reload still checks for zero timestamps. That's what bothered me last night.

It reloads all packed materials, at least. Seemingly .def's and .prt's as well.

[duzenko 654]

On 3/11/2020 at 5:38 PM, nbohr1more said:

I found the first "color specular: bug (Tears of St Lucia basement):

 

 

The yellow patch on the ground flickers with r_testSpecularFix enabled. A few other places in this mission have these strange specular patches.

Probably attempts to make it look moist?

FWIW I can't repeat it on my side

[nbohr1more 2096]

46 minutes ago, duzenko said:

FWIW I can't repeat it on my side

That is because I fixed the material.

 

tdm_decals_legacy.mtr

 

Broken:

 

textures/decals/stain01bwet
{
    TWOSIDED_DECAL_MACRO
    

    qer_editorimage textures/decals/stain01bwet.tga

    
     {
        blend    gl_dst_color,gl_zero
        map        textures/decals/stain01b.tga
     }

    specularmap   textures/decals/stain01b_s.tga
       
   
    
}

 

"Fixed" Rev 15923

 

textures/decals/stain01bwet
{
    TWOSIDED_DECAL_MACRO
    

    qer_editorimage textures/decals/stain01bwet.tga

    
     {
        blend    gl_dst_color,gl_zero
        map        textures/decals/stain01b.tga
     }

    {
       blend specularmap    
       map  makeIntensity(textures/decals/stain01b_s.tga)
       
    }
    
}

 

The issue is that this "fix" is probably hiding a general issue with this scenario.

If another mapper tries to create a decal with colored specular they will see the bug.

[duzenko 654]

15 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

That is because I fixed the material.

 

tdm_decals_legacy.mtr

 

Broken:

 

textures/decals/stain01bwet
{
    TWOSIDED_DECAL_MACRO
    

    qer_editorimage textures/decals/stain01bwet.tga

    
     {
        blend    gl_dst_color,gl_zero
        map        textures/decals/stain01b.tga
     }

    specularmap   textures/decals/stain01b_s.tga
       
   
    
}

 

"Fixed" Rev 15923

 

textures/decals/stain01bwet
{
    TWOSIDED_DECAL_MACRO
    

    qer_editorimage textures/decals/stain01bwet.tga

    
     {
        blend    gl_dst_color,gl_zero
        map        textures/decals/stain01b.tga
     }

    {
       blend specularmap    
       map  makeIntensity(textures/decals/stain01b_s.tga)
       
    }
    
}

 

The issue is that this "fix" is probably hiding a general issue with this scenario.

If another mapper tries to create a decal with colored specular they will see the bug.

Can you guess what they tried to achieve here?

I suspect blending with gl_dst_color is what adds the orange tone since the torch light is yellow

[Araneidae 36]

I have noticed one problem since 2.07: I can't edit the brightness settings anymore.  To be precise, the Brightness and Gamma sliders are there under Video Settings, but they don't do anything when I move them, used to work with 2.07.  Otherwise it looks ok so far.  Please to say that sound now works out of the box (actually, maybe it already did for 2.07, can't quite remember now).

System is Fedora 32 XFCE.

[cabalistic 746]

23 minutes ago, Araneidae said:

I have noticed one problem since 2.07: I can't edit the brightness settings anymore.  To be precise, the Brightness and Gamma sliders are there under Video Settings, but they don't do anything when I move them, used to work with 2.07.  Otherwise it looks ok so far.  Please to say that sound now works out of the box (actually, maybe it already did for 2.07, can't quite remember now).

System is Fedora 32 XFCE.

They don't do anything in the menu, unfortunately, but they should have a clear effect in-game.

[Araneidae 36]

2 hours ago, cabalistic said:

They don't do anything in the menu, unfortunately, but they should have a clear effect in-game.

Ta, I'll try that and report back if it still doesn't work!  Presumably this is a regression, because the Gamma popup used to be quite helpful.

[cabalistic 746]

Not exactly a regression, no. Gamma/brightness were completely reimplemented and are no longer changing the desktop/OS gamma, but instead handling it ingame as an image post-processing step. Unfortunately, the consequence is that it no longer affects the menu. In all likelihood we'll remove the popups for this release, as it'll take some effort to make them work with the new implementation.

[duzenko 654]

48 minutes ago, cabalistic said:

Not exactly a regression, no. Gamma/brightness were completely reimplemented and are no longer changing the desktop/OS gamma, but instead handling it ingame as an image post-processing step. Unfortunately, the consequence is that it no longer affects the menu. In all likelihood we'll remove the popups for this release, as it'll take some effort to make them work with the new implementation.

A bigger issue here is the sliders are supposed to have nozzles (and I think they did at some point?)

Feels like a major UX problem

[duzenko 654]

1 hour ago, duzenko said:

A bigger issue here is the sliders are supposed to have nozzles (and I think they did at some point?)

Feels like a major UX problem

Made a fool of myself

The thumb shows with image_preload 1 (default value)

[duzenko 654]

Assets revision: 15925

Should fix the GUI feedback for gamma and brightness

[nbohr1more 2096]

6 hours ago, duzenko said:

Assets revision: 15925

Should fix the GUI feedback for gamma and brightness

Cannot compile:

                 from /home/randy/tdm_src/trunk/framework/Console.cpp:17:
/home/randy/tdm_src/trunk/framework/../renderer/GuiModel.h:16:10: fatal error: ..\ui\Rectangle.h: No such file or directory
 #include "..\ui\Rectangle.h"
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

Probably needs to be added to the Linux project files?

 

[stgatilov 1142]

11 hours ago, cabalistic said:

Not exactly a regression, no. Gamma/brightness were completely reimplemented and are no longer changing the desktop/OS gamma, but instead handling it ingame as an image post-processing step. Unfortunately, the consequence is that it no longer affects the menu. In all likelihood we'll remove the popups for this release, as it'll take some effort to make them work with the new implementation.

There was an idea of creating a new GUI screen which would show in-game screenshot with sliders including gamma, brightness, and other postprocessing settings.

See 5163

[lowenz 602]

And it's a good idea!

Ah, maybe move the "language" choice to a "game" section along with the "gameplay"  elements.

[duzenko 654]

2 hours ago, stgatilov said:

There was an idea of creating a new GUI screen which would show in-game screenshot with sliders including gamma, brightness, and other postprocessing settings.

See 5163

It's possible and should be quite simple actually

The currentRender persists when the GUI menu shows

Or we could have a fixed screenshot as a texture

[duzenko 654]

3 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

Cannot compile:

                 from /home/randy/tdm_src/trunk/framework/Console.cpp:17:
/home/randy/tdm_src/trunk/framework/../renderer/GuiModel.h:16:10: fatal error: ..\ui\Rectangle.h: No such file or directory
 #include "..\ui\Rectangle.h"
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

Probably needs to be added to the Linux project files?

 

Wrong slash in include path

Try now

[nbohr1more 2096]

5 hours ago, duzenko said:

Wrong slash in include path

Try now

Thank you.

[nbohr1more 2096]

SSAO Comparisons:

OFF:

 

ON:

 

 

OFF:

 

 

ON:

 

 

OFF:

 

 

ON:

 

[nbohr1more 2096]

OFF:

 

 

ON:

 

 

OFF:

 

 

ON:

 

 

[demagogue 1252]

You can definitely see the situations where it contributes, daytime outdoor scenes and big stretches of light-colored textures that break up the texture and give it some dimensionality, both of which are kind of rare for our game environments, but it makes a big difference when it makes a noticeable difference at all.

[nbohr1more 2096]

Yeah, a mission like "Full Moon Fever" with ultra dark ambient light lots of direct lighting, interesting contrast lights,

interesting light textures and lighting that naturally enhances the shapes of objects does not benefit at all.

[cabalistic 746]

AO exclusively affects ambient lighting - if ambient is weak or overlaps with direct light, you won't see much of an effect. Also, a few missions have some AO already baked into the textures, reducing the difference.

If you really want to see SSAO in action, I can recommend William Steele 5

[stgatilov 1142]

18 minutes ago, cabalistic said:

AO exclusively affects ambient lighting - if ambient is weak or overlaps with direct light, you won't see much of an effect. Also, a few missions have some AO already baked into the textures, reducing the difference.

Yeah, also keep in mind that the ugliness of SSAO is not noticeable on still screenshots.
It exhibits light leaking behind edges of big occluders, which catch attention as unnatural when you move around.

[Abusimplea 168]

I only use the lowest SSAO setting and it definitely improves all scenes noticably (even in missions where the author added "fake SSAO" on some edges). For me, it makes bright and dark environments more believable by adding that tiny amount of extra darkness where it belongs.
SSAO is not as impactful as soft shadows. But i would miss it if it would disappear.