ATI Users - Need your help to test a lighting fix.

[New Horizon]

Hey folks, we need your help here.

 

We are testing a fix for a bug in Doom 3 ambient lighting. For some reason, probably because doom 3 didn't use ambient lighting very much, this bug got through. Essentially, instead of evenly lit surfaces...doom 3 ambient did this.

 

Doom 3 ambient.

 

 

It has now been fixed, by rebb of doom 3 world, to light all surfaces evenly. So if you were to only light your level with a single ambient, it would look like this.

 

There is a snag however. We have two members that have had issues with this fix. One is an intel graphic chipset user and the other ATI.

 

So, for any of you ATI users who were able to play the Alpha...would you please consider playing the alpha again and taking a screen shot using this new file?

 

Basically, download and unzip the file. The drop the glprogs folder into your thiefs_den directory. That's it. When you fire up the level, it should work as before...but if you get any abnormalities, please post a screen shot to let us know...as well as the specs of your card.

 

<a href="http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/test/glprogs.zip" target="_blank">

Ambient Fix Download</a>

[Mr Mike]

As posted on TTLG

 

'Hi NH

 

Just tested this on my ATI X800 GTO2 and i can confirm that it does fix the normal maps with ambient lighting but also causes any dynamic lights to become hugely oversaturated.

 

Thiefs Den worked with the same drivers with the normal map fix.

 

Hope that helps, give me a shout if you need more detail.'

 

Cheers.

[New Horizon]

As posted on TTLG

 

'Hi NH

 

Just tested this on my ATI X800 GTO2 and i can confirm that it does fix the normal maps with ambient lighting but also causes any dynamic lights to become hugely oversaturated.

 

Thiefs Den worked with the same drivers with the normal map fix.

 

Hope that helps, give me a shout if you need more detail.'

 

Cheers.

 

Hey there Mike, can you post a screen shot? Man, I'm going to be severely disappointed if we can't use this fix because of ATI cards.

[Mr Mike]

Can i send a 7z archive to someone? I'm on a new install with no software to convert the TGAs. Just took a few screenshots with and without the bumpmap fix.

[Springheel]

I'm going to be severely disappointed if we can't use this fix because of ATI cards.

 

It works fine on my ATI card, so there's something more than just that.

[New Horizon]

It works fine on my ATI card, so there's something more than just that.

 

Yeah, but I suppose it could just be certain ATI cards.

[Springheel]

If it's just certain cards, then we should still go ahead and use the fix, but provide a backup file for users with those cards (assuming we can't fix the problem somehow).

[New Horizon]

If it's just certain cards, then we should still go ahead and use the fix, but provide a backup file for users with those cards (assuming we can't fix the problem somehow).

 

Yeah. Especially since it's so easy to remove anyway.

[Springheel]

My specs:

 

ATI X850

Intel Pentium 4 2.80 GHz

1 GB RAM

[New Horizon]

We should also get everyone to post their driver versions and whether they're using their manufacturers driver, ATI's or Omega variants.

[Springheel]

What's the easiest way to find out what your drivers are? I've had the same ones for ages.

[Crispy]

Try the DirectX diagnostic tool. D3 uses OpenGL rather than Direct3D, but the driver stuff should be relevant regardless.

 

Start->Run -> type "dxdiag"

[rebb]

Hi there, thanks for testing this.

 

There is now a more current Version of this Fix on www.trisoup.net/temp/d3ambient/ .

Please use this to see if it fixes any issues you encountered.

Edited February 29, 2008 by rebb

[Mr Mike]

Ok, first off I haven't got round to seeing if those lines you PM'd me are the same as Rebbs new version NH and I've not tried them yet.

 

 

Rebb, your new version fixes the light oversaturation problem BUT now only some of the normal maps work and some appear flat.

 

As I said I'm on a barebones system so I can't check out what it might be, could be a dds problem?

 

2 examples; the cobbled stone floor where the patrolling guard with the torch is DOES work correctly. The shimmering wall torch leaves no doubt that that normal map is giving the feeling of depth as it should.

 

2nd example; inside the next room where the torch is on the wall. That texture appears FLAT with no normal map effect. The same texture makes up a lot of the house and it all appears flat with the latest fix.

 

Remove the fix and both textures appear bumped as expected.

 

What's the difference between the 2 textures/shaders?

[New Horizon]

Ok, first off I haven't got round to seeing if those lines you PM'd me are the same as Rebbs new version NH and I've not tried them yet.

Rebb, your new version fixes the light oversaturation problem BUT now only some of the normal maps work and some appear flat.

 

As I said I'm on a barebones system so I can't check out what it might be, could be a dds problem?

 

2 examples; the cobbled stone floor where the patrolling guard with the torch is DOES work correctly. The shimmering wall torch leaves no doubt that that normal map is giving the feeling of depth as it should.

 

2nd example; inside the next room where the torch is on the wall. That texture appears FLAT with no normal map effect. The same texture makes up a lot of the house and it all appears flat with the latest fix.

 

Remove the fix and both textures appear bumped as expected.

 

What's the difference between the 2 textures/shaders?

 

Email me some screenshots and I'll post them sir.

[rebb]

Ok, first off I haven't got round to seeing if those lines you PM'd me are the same as Rebbs new version NH and I've not tried them yet.

 

 

Rebb, your new version fixes the light oversaturation problem BUT now only some of the normal maps work and some appear flat.

 

As I said I'm on a barebones system so I can't check out what it might be, could be a dds problem?

 

2 examples; the cobbled stone floor where the patrolling guard with the torch is DOES work correctly. The shimmering wall torch leaves no doubt that that normal map is giving the feeling of depth as it should.

 

2nd example; inside the next room where the torch is on the wall. That texture appears FLAT with no normal map effect. The same texture makes up a lot of the house and it all appears flat with the latest fix.

 

Remove the fix and both textures appear bumped as expected.

 

What's the difference between the 2 textures/shaders?

 

Thanks Mike, i'm very happy that this fixed your "oversaturation issue" .

Did you encounter the flatness problem with the previous Version too ? Or did that come with the latest one ?

 

If possible, could you make screenshots of the 2 areas you mentioned ?

[Mr Mike]

I'm sending some new shots through to NH on the email I used yesterday.

 

From testing just then normal maps work correctly with v1 but something goes wrong on the latest one.

 

I used r_skipbump 1 and r_skipbump 0 to test a few times and all the normal maps are actually being displayed but it seems that most, if not all, become very shallow and are hardly noticeable. For what ever reason the cobbled floor texture displays as it should.

 

This sounds strange but check out the last shot. That's with the latest version with me holding a candle near an unconscious guard. Notice the apparent lack of normalmaps except on the floor?

[New Horizon]

I used r_skipbump 1 and r_skipbump 0 to test a few times and all the normal maps are actually being displayed but it seems that most, if not all, become very shallow and are hardly noticeable. For what ever reason the cobbled floor texture displays as it should.

 

I haven't looked at the screen shots, but the normal maps won't look quite as deep as they did before due to the them being more evenly lit...but once I see the screens, I'll be able to tell what's happening.

[Mr Mike]

I know what you're getting at NH but I really don't think that explains it. I thought normal maps weren't working until I noticed the slightest difference using that command, and I mean a very small difference.

 

Are all textures in the demo TGAs or are some DDS?

[Komag]

I just tried the newest file and to me it's working perfectly. I suspect that it's working correctly for you Mr Mike but the results are a bit less than ideal due to Fidcal not taking this new ambient into account when setting up the lighting in Thief's Den. Fixing the saturation issue and making some normals appear more flat sounds like it's right on target

 

I'll try it on my desktop with Thief's Den though, and see

[New Horizon]

I just checked out the screenshots Mr. Mike and they look fine. What you're seeing is exactly what Komag described. The ambient settings in Thiefs Den are now a bit too high since all the black shading we had to compensate for is gone...that will make the bumps look a bit flatter...but future missions will not have this issue.

 

Your screen shots look exactly how everything appears on my system.

 

Another thing to consider, is that the alpha has compression enabled for normal maps and diffuse textures. Go into your doomconfig.cfg file and find usenormalcompression and usecompression. Set both of those to 0. The bump maps will be a lot more evident then. This will also put more strain on your card however, so you may notice the fps drop.

[Mr Mike]

Well, I hope that I'm seeing it wrong and that the bump mapping is fixed. Seems strange how the cobbled street texture looks so deep but the others do not. Maybe over the weekend I'll have time to get TDM assests and my maps installed on this machine again and I can experiment with it.

 

Either way, good going Rebbs

[New Horizon]

Well, I hope that I'm seeing it wrong and that the bump mapping is fixed. Seems strange how the cobbled street texture looks so deep but the others do not. Maybe over the weekend I'll have time to get TDM assests and my maps installed on this machine again and I can experiment with it.

 

Either way, good going Rebbs

 

The cobbles have a deeper bump map than the others textures. As I said though, if you change those two settings...you'll get more definition in those areas, but it's also a matter of the ambient appearing brighter now due to all the removal of the incorrect shading. The incorrect shading made everything look deeper than it actually was.

 

With a proper level set for the ambient light, it will make things look less flat.

 

If you open up Thiefs Den in Dark Radiant, you can try lowering the ambient value yourself.

[Komag]

I just tested it on my Desktop with the public Thiefs Den release, works perfect for me there

 

XP Pro SP2

ATI Radeon x1650

Catalyst 8.1

 

(I'd be interested to see those Mr Mike screenshots )

 

So we really need those other folks with the brightness/saturation issue to try this version, it's promising

[rebb]

@Komag : Did you have any problems with the older Versions ?