Cutscenes?

[Nyarlathotep]

Excellent effect, Master! For a more final version, may I recommend toning it down to about 80-90%, Master?

[New Horizon]

Starting to freak me out with this 'master' talk Nylar.

[Nyarlathotep]

Who's this "Nylar" you're talking about, Nude Horizon? Do I know him?

[Domarius]

I just saw the vid, and you've got to be fucking kidding me That is incredible. How much does this affect performance?

[Gildoran]

It does use up some fill-rate, but my computer doesn't drop below 60 fps when running the sky (except when using fraps). This kind of volumetric light is nowhere near as expensive as the volumetric lighting testmap, since I can make assumptions about the viewer's position and don't need to use D3's lighting system. This effect is probably just fine to use as long as you carefully optimize your level's lighting; in any case, if worse comes to worse, you can trade off sun-beam quality in exchange for speed.

[Crispy]

Wow. Just... wow. That's really impressive!

[SneaksieDave]

resulting in this (2531K)

Holy shit, Gil. I assume subtle moonbeams in fog would look great too.

 

Is that going up on SVN? Dissection imminent...

[Domarius]

Gil I showed my friend, and she said to say, that from someone who doesn't know much about games, she was amazed that it knew where the clouds were and cast shafts of sunlight through them (I didn't even tell her what was special about it, she said that straight away) and she thought it was beautiful, and she wishes it was a looping screensaver that she could have.

 

(I know that I could make this myself for her by making a video, just wanted you to see the positive feedback )

[bob_arctor]

Really all games should do it. It isn't hard in the D3 engine obviously.

 

Probably no other games have such genius programmers working on the code though .

[Gildoran]

Holy shit, Gil. I assume subtle moonbeams in fog would look great too.

 

Is that going up on SVN? Dissection imminent...

There's no reason this couldn't be applied to moon-beams... just keep in mind that in order to get rays, you need to block the moon with something thick that has occasional holes (hence why the clouds look different in the rays AVI - the original clouds tend to produce a warm glow rather than sun-rays), so fog might not work so well. I guess if you're not worried about whether the rays are tied to the shape of the fog, you could use an arbitrary texture to produce moon-rays.

 

I don't have SVN access at the moment, and I think I'd upload the sky as a PK4, so FTP might be more appropriate. In any case, I'd like to try improving the sky a little (moving the sun towards the horizon and increasing the contrast of the clouds a bit more, so that sunbeams tend to be more apparent with more realistic clouds) before uploading it.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

infact, I have seen moonbeams streaming through the clouds on one winter night, and it was beautiful.

[New Horizon]

infact, I have seen moonbeams streaming through the clouds on one winter night, and it was beautiful.

 

Have seen the same thing myself.

[rich_is_bored]

Wow. I am awestruck.

 

I mean, I've done some tinkering with material shaders before but I never imagined you could pull something like this off.

 

Hell, a commercial developer would turn to a fragment program before they thought something like this up. Ingenious.

[Springheel]

With a more complicated table, you could have less predictable swaying.

 

It just occurred to me...could this be used for a candle-flame? The current particle effect isn't ideal, primarily because it can't sway slowly enough to look realistic. Could you use a flame texture and sinusoidal shearing to create a believable swaying candle flame?

[SneaksieDave]

And if not that, another method might be to allow applying the same random movements to a particle emitter (with some tweaking) that is currently used for our wavering lights.

[Gildoran]

It just occurred to me...could this be used for a candle-flame? The current particle effect isn't ideal, primarily because it can't sway slowly enough to look realistic. Could you use a flame texture and sinusoidal shearing to create a believable swaying candle flame?

As long as you don't care about the candle looking the same from all directions, I don't see why not.

[Springheel]

Hmm, I thought of one possible snag...if a candle were held sideways, the flame would be sideways as well, right? Is there any way to make a texture always point upwards?

[Dram]

Well you could make it an animated particle, that way it acts as a particle but always faces up

[SneaksieDave]

Unless the change above changes the way the particle works, it should act the same as it does now. It wasn't changed to stay upright when I did so with the torch particles, because it seems the candle flame already does (at least, possibly the most it can at that small size?). If it doesn't sufficiently, it shouldn't be too tough a change.

[Dram]

Well you can use world gravity for the particles, so that way it would orient up

[Springheel]

Well you could make it an animated particle

 

Isn't that what it already is?

[SneaksieDave]

Well you can use world gravity for the particles, so that way it would orient up

Yes, that's what I already did with the torches. It's not so trivial as just turn on or up the gravity, because that invariably changes the shape of the particle, and it must be rebuilt taking that into acccount.

 

What I'm saying is, unless the shearing or whatever changes the particle, it shouldn't be needed. If it does, it can be fixed.

 

But on the other hand, if it doesn't work, or look good, there's still the suggestion I try making every time this topic comes up; just like our moving lights have a random jitter, maybe the candle flame particle emitter could be given the same jitter (a very small amount) to do candleflames the way they (apparently) did it in TDS.

 

Isn't that what it already is?

Yes.

[Dram]

I meant animated particle as in animated material. I know the particle itself is animated, obviously. But if you look at our water, it has a pan table and so looks like its moving. You could do this for the a candleflame texture, but have it a sinusoidal table so it does'nt fly off to god knows where.

[SneaksieDave]

Hm, that could work... don't know the answer about orienting the flame though. Although, wouldn't that need the extra poly at the top of the candle (or whatever else) again, as in the original (IMO weak) candles? And if so, it complicates the issue of adding the flames just anywhere, dynamically. Right now, we place the entity and we're done. The other way (I'm guessing) would require extra polys whereever, skin swaps, handle S/R somehow, another particle anyway for smoke on extinguish... urgh.

[Springheel]

You could do this for the a candleflame texture, but have it a sinusoidal table

 

That's exactly what I was suggesting.

 

there's still the suggestion I try making every time this topic comes up; just like our moving lights have a random jitter, maybe the candle flame particle emitter could be given the same jitter

 

Is this difficult to try?