Visportals and fog

[DeTeEff]

Hello!

I'm working on a fog heavy map and have encountered a problem regarding visportals. If I look straight into the visportal and back away, as the fog gets thicker the portal closes as the fog engulfs it, ie the fog gets so dense that the engine deems it to thick to be seen through. This sounds like a good thing, but the thing is, even if the fog is so dense, some stuff will still be visible through the portal, like light cones and hazy effects. But the engine lets the fog thickness take precedense and closes the portal anyway and this abrupt closure of the portal makes a jarring cut between a dark area and pop up of haze and stuff. I have tried func_portal on the visportal to try to override the standard range but it doesn't work.

 

Any idea folks?

[nbohr1more]

Did you add the noFogBoundary keyword to your foglight entity?

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Light_Properties#noFogBoundary

[DeTeEff]

No, that only affects the skybox so it doesn't get fogged. The portal still closes as I move backwards...

If there was a way to force the portals to stay open, then I could close areas the player has left with switches and func_portal-entities.

[nbohr1more]

Hmm, the only other thing I can think of is creating an invisible entity within the region you want lights (etc) to be seen and using def_attach to connect it to the affected lights and emitters so the portal calculation thinks the entity is closer to you?

@Dragofer @duzenko  perhaps we need a new noFogBoundary flag option?

[DeTeEff]

One way to make stuff to been seen through caulk/portals is to combine them with other func_statics. Like combining a rock-func_static on the ground in one visleaf with a huge tower in the background (within another visleaf) and if you can see the rock, the engine will render the tower as well. But that is func_statics. Is the method you're suggesting something along these lines?

 

[nbohr1more]

23 minutes ago, DeTeEff said:

One way to make stuff to been seen through caulk/portals is to combine them with other func_statics. Like combining a rock-func_static on the ground in one visleaf with a huge tower in the background (within another visleaf) and if you can see the rock, the engine will render the tower as well. But that is func_statics. Is the method you're suggesting something along these lines?

 

Yes, that is the proposal. I believe this technique should work for other entity types too. Only brushes would be immune to this method AFAIK.

[DeTeEff]

Okay. I have created some caulk boxes, one in each leaf, turned them into one func_static and tried to def_attach that to the light or vice versa but I get an error; "Couldn't spawn '' to attach to entity 'func_static_621'" Should I use "name_attach" instead? It doesn't show any icon in the entity inspector so it doesn't seem to work.

 

 

[nbohr1more]

Yeah, name_attach sounds like the way to go.

If it doesn't work, please attach a test map so we can evaluate

[DeTeEff]

I have built a dummy map to illustrate the issue...Note how the boxes in the room ahead disappears as the portal closes...

 

 

[DeTeEff]

10 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

Yeah, name_attach sounds like the way to go.

If it doesn't work, please attach a test map so we can evaluate

I'm sorry I'm not getting it. This def/name_attach is nothing I'm good at. I only use it to attach some random pouch to some guard and thats stuff that is defined and tweaked to fit the belt for example. The light in my misison that misbehaves is a spotlight in the sky. I don't get how I could attach this to some func_static?

I could just use the old method of patches and tubeformed moon rays, but that would defeat the purpose of these volumetrick cones.

[DeTeEff]

 

Three more pictues that show how the portals opens at angles (when you turn 45%) and the fog boundary (that grey field on the floor) hits the portal.

[DeTeEff]

https://easyupload.io/zfv54v

The map file

vislight.map

[DeTeEff]

For the record, it seems that ordinary omnidirectional lights (with volumetric 1) doesn't get shut off by a fogclosing visportal...

So perhaps I can get around this "bug" by replacing the projected light to a omnidirectional one...

[nbohr1more]

Thank you for the details and test map!

I will try to get testing done tonight but I see that our engine still has support for the "noportalfog" global material keyword.

There may already be a noportalfog light material in our repo that we can test ( converted from Doom 3 ).

Too bad it's not an entity spawnarg but I think I can add that too.

 

[nbohr1more]

I confirmed that the noPortalFog material flag fixes this behavior:

Modified delta1_fog material def:

// legacy fog material
fogs/delta1_fog
{
    fogLight
    noShadows
    noPortalFog // prevents fog distance from closing portals
    {
        map        _fog
        alpha    0.5
        colored
    }
}

I'll look into added an entity flag because that's way more convenient than using override materials.

[nbohr1more]

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6282

Added the entity flag in Rev 10344. Should be in the next 2.12 Dev Build.

[DeTeEff]

Lovely I can see stgatilov rushing to this, hammering away with his magic

How will this be implemented? A switch/spawnarg on the foglight itself that prohibit the fog from closing portals, or will it be possible to put it on a func_portal to prevent just that visportal to close. The fogclosing is nice in itself and absolutely not a useless feature. It's only bad when the portal closes and make things inside popping in and out of view.

Edited March 31, 2023 by DeTeEff

[nbohr1more]

Just add the spawnargs “noPortslFog” “1” to any foglight entity.

I can only build Linux binaries so perhaps @AluminumHaste can get you a Windows build if you want to check it out before the next dev build release.

[AluminumHaste]

2 hours ago, DeTeEff said:

Lovely I can see stgatilov rushing to this, hammering away with his magic

How will this be implemented? A switch/spawnarg on the foglight itself that prohibit the fog from closing portals, or will it be possible to put it on a func_portal to prevent just that visportal to close. The fogclosing is nice in itself and absolutely not a useless feature. It's only bad when the portal closes and make things inside popping in and out of view.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BgDrQSpSvcv4E6ENQ_l4dGlGqIBhIgV6/view?usp=sharing

[DeTeEff]

48 minutes ago, AluminumHaste said:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BgDrQSpSvcv4E6ENQ_l4dGlGqIBhIgV6/view?usp=sharing

I must be an idiot, but I only get a .7x-file...is it packed or should I change the file type?

[nbohr1more]

Should be a zip containing TheDarkModx64.exe. If the exe is missing, your browser or security software might be stripping it?

[nbohr1more]

You'll also need the latest glprogs ( shaders ) attached below.

glprogs.zip

[DeTeEff]

Okay, I have run the TheDarkModx64.exe. and the screen is black. I hear the menu music though...

 

Where do I put the glprogs?

[AluminumHaste]

In the main darkmod folder

[nbohr1more]

C:\darkmod\glprogs\<all the shader files>