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High Dynamic Range Rendering Possible?


Ralle321

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Right, but normal bloom costs nearly no performance afaik and Parallaxmapping is just awsome! ;) My suggestion was anyway rather to integrate those features as options (not defaultrendermodes). I don't know how it works with the parrallaxmapping, but there are mutliple blurmods out in doom 3 and most of them can be very easily adjusted via console cmds.

 

You can turn on/off Bloom and scale the Lightstrength in the Console or in the autoexec.cfg.

 

set r_bloom 3 (standard) = 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 (0=Bloom off)

set r_bloom_src_mult 1 (Standard) = no changes needed

set r_bloom_blur_mult 0.5 (Standard) = 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 / 0.5 til 1

 

There are also the Mods brilliant bloom (which fakes the named HDR effects, but doesn't look that good) and AMD-Optimized-Glow (looks kinda good as well, but non configurable).

 

With the parallaxmapping it's not that easy though I think, because you need a new interaction.vfp for every mapping technique. You could of course ship multiple interaction.vfp files to support low-end-system gfx, but also feature a stunningly fresh looking Doom 3 engine. :) I don't know the technical aspects of the default normal- and parallaxmapping. I think the first uses normal maps (of course) and the second uses heightmaps (right?), which would give you guys an extra amount of work, which I wouldn't want to force you to. Though those heightmaps might possibly be automatically generated like Fabio did for his Reliefmapping mod?

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and Parallaxmapping is just awsome!

 

We've examined parallax mapping before. It can be quite a performance hit, and the effects weren't very impressive as far as I could see.

 

There are lots of bloom mods out there. The team hasn't generally been in favour of their appearance either. It's actually possible for mappers to make their own bloom effect in places where it is appropriate. See Dram's outdoor mansion shots for examples.

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Awkward, parallaxmapping looked amazing in doom 3. But that might also have been the case because of the massive use of specular, reflection and bloom. You guys should definitely have a look at maximum graphic mod and extreme quality mod. The big ones!! (1,5Gb / 900 mb)

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My problem with Parallax mapping is that you rarely notice it. For example, look at the game S.T.A.K.E.R. I played through the game with it turned off and then when I upgraded my computer I turned on the dynamic lighting, and I didn't even notice it until half way through the game. I only noticed it because dirt chunks and bricks on buildings were "3d". I just don't think the performance hit would be worth an affect you will rarely pay attention to.

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There are lots of bloom mods out there. The team hasn't generally been in favour of their appearance either.

Is it possible to selectively apply bloom to fogged regions? That would actually look more realistic.

 

Might be expensive though, since the degree of blooming/blurring would have to be linked directly to the degree of fogging (depthwise). Dunno if you guys have sufficiently low access to the render pipeline for that sort of thing.

Edited by ZylonBane
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Is it possible to selectively apply bloom to fogged regions? That would actually look more realistic.

 

Dram was able to apply some kind of semi-transparent texture around his lights that created a bloom-like glow. Not sure exactly what method he used, but it looks good.

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My problem with Parallax mapping is that you rarely notice it. For example, look at the game S.T.A.K.E.R. I played through the game with it turned off and then when I upgraded my computer I turned on the dynamic lighting, and I didn't even notice it until half way through the game. I only noticed it because dirt chunks and bricks on buildings were "3d". I just don't think the performance hit would be worth an affect you will rarely pay attention to.

I'm not arguing for it in Doom 3, I just want to say I really notice it, in Oblivion and Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening (The only 2 games I've played recently that have it).

 

It's definetly more immersive for me to see a stone wall, rather than a flat wall with stone wallpaper on it. The stretching is always apparent. You probably will miss it more if you get used to having it and then go back. I think it's possible to get "used" to flat textures and ignore the fact that they don't look 3D, but I'm "un-used" to it now.

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Hehe I am not quite sure what the difference between parallax mapping and normal mapping is, but the first one looks better. ;) I think both don't make the texture really 3d. It's only the lightning that makes it look like 3d. For example, if you pull out your flashlight on a texture the structures on it will cast shadows on the texture as if they were 3D.

 

Relief mapping is really 3D though, but it's a BIG performance killer and it actually didn't look that good in Doom 3.

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Hehe I am not quite sure what the difference between parallax mapping and normal mapping is, but the first one looks better. ;) I think both don't make the texture really 3d. It's only the lightning that makes it look like 3d. For example, if you pull out your flashlight on a texture the structures on it will cast shadows on the texture as if they were 3D.

 

Relief mapping is really 3D though, but it's a BIG performance killer and it actually didn't look that good in Doom 3.

 

Parallax actually makes it look 3D too, it displaces the texture according to the height information in the heightmap.

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Any chance of Dram's custom particles being incorperated into the mod?

 

If you have mansion_alpha then you already have them. Look into darkmod/particles/tdm_light_glares.prt - that's where they are.

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Actually, I downloaded the parallax mapping mod for doom3 and I was surprised to see it was only 10mb in size. I think it would be viable to have it as a graphical option so it wouldn't be forced on players. However I have no idea how hard it would be to achieve so it's hard to say if time should be spent on it.

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I personally don't like parallax, because I can't ignore the awful texture warping/stretching it does to accomplish the 3D effect. I'll see if I can make a short Oblivion video to show what I mean...

 

EDIT - hmm, let me revise that a little - I sometimes like parallax but often don't. The visual 3D effect is indeed cool at times, but I do still notice the texture warping that bugs me. It often seems to take a row of pixels and just extrapolate them into these straight lines (since there is no actual 3D texture for the "sides" of the rocks, for example) which look bad.

 

I guess If it's done right and more subtlely, it is good, but done badly it's an immersion breaker for me.

 

Here is an Oblivion video I put together (let me know if it works, my first time with this encoding program)

 

http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/files/parallax.wmv (15MB)

shadowdark50.gif keep50.gif
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I personally don't like parallax, because I can't ignore the awful texture warping/stretching it does to accomplish the 3D effect. I'll see if I can make a short Oblivion video to show what I mean...

 

EDIT - hmm, let me revise that a little - I sometimes like parallax but often don't. The visual 3D effect is indeed cool at times, but I do still notice the texture warping that bugs me. It often seems to take a row of pixels and just extrapolate them into these straight lines (since there is no actual 3D texture for the "sides" of the rocks, for example) which look bad.

 

I guess If it's done right and more subtlely, it is good, but done badly it's an immersion breaker for me.

 

Here is an Oblivion video I put together (let me know if it works, my first time with this encoding program)

 

http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/files/parallax.wmv (15MB)

 

It does make it look more 3ds than normals, although the normal filter in photoshop can be bumped up pretty high.

I think it looks pretty good on the rock in the cave, but it does look really bad on the city bricks. Looks like someone plananr mapped an object with alot of shape.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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