New visuals - HUD - explosions - hyperspace - beta

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Re: New visuals - HUD - explosions - hyperspace - beta

The Saxman
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Post by The Saxman » Mon Dec 23, 2019 12:17 am

I still don't see normal mapping and materials. ;-P

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Trevor
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Post by Trevor » Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:40 am

Saxman, I think Keiran specifically mean this post
blue_max wrote:
Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:04 pm
Thanks Jeremy! I'll try that today!

This is what SSDO + Bent Normals looks like (note the shadows being projected from the pillars):

ssdo7-nobounce.jpg

and this is what it looks like with 1 diffuse bounce (the effect has been exaggerated a bit so that it's easier to notice):

ssdo7-bounce.jpg

and this is with normal mapping on (easier to see the differences in-game by toggling the effect):

ssdo7-bounce-nm.jpg
Trev

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:04 pm

No; I specifically meant VR support.

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Trevor
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Post by Trevor » Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:25 pm

VR does not set out to do normals but the GI mod (yes part of Bluemaxes ddraw.dll) does, that's why I posted that :)

Trev

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:54 pm

Oh, I'd forgotten about that. But those normals are extrapolated from the existing textures, whereas I'd taken Saxman's question to mean baked normals from high-res geo.

korekwerner
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Post by korekwerner » Mon Dec 23, 2019 10:34 pm

Test mission with new cockpit, explosions, lasers, ddraw and blue_max hyperspace effect. Thank You.
link - https://youtu.be/7vXpmWNjJgw

pls don't change link name. thx.
original link - https://youtu.be/7vXpmWNjJgw
changed by forum ghost link - https://youtu.be/7vXqmWNjJgw

There is still a lot of work ahead of me.
Last edited by korekwerner on Wed Dec 25, 2019 7:49 am, edited 5 times in total.

The Saxman
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Post by The Saxman » Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:06 pm

Trevor wrote:
Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:40 am
Saxman, I think Keiran specifically mean this post
blue_max wrote:
Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:04 pm
Thanks Jeremy! I'll try that today!

This is what SSDO + Bent Normals looks like (note the shadows being projected from the pillars):

ssdo7-nobounce.jpg

and this is what it looks like with 1 diffuse bounce (the effect has been exaggerated a bit so that it's easier to notice):

ssdo7-bounce.jpg

and this is with normal mapping on (easier to see the differences in-game by toggling the effect):

ssdo7-bounce-nm.jpg
Trev
Well sonovabitch. Is this with an actual normal (RGB) map texture?

God dammit, I'm so far behind on the state of modding in this game...

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Trevor
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Post by Trevor » Tue Dec 24, 2019 2:55 am

blue did say he could loads specific normal maps if people were interested in creating them.

Trev

The Saxman
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Post by The Saxman » Tue Dec 24, 2019 4:12 pm

I see, so rather than making the maps part of the model itself through the shader, the maps are implemented and stored at a global level?

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Wed Dec 25, 2019 12:05 am

There are no normal maps right now. The normals are computed in screen space from the gray level information. However, one of my future projects is to enable true normal maps that can be loaded from external files. This feature is available in regular and VR modes

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Post by The Saxman » Wed Dec 25, 2019 6:45 pm

The ideal solution would be to find a way to use shaders, so the normal map can be built directly into the model as currently is the case for the diffuse map. Throw in specular mapping and you’ve got a big visual leap forward.

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Wed Dec 25, 2019 11:10 pm

I'm already using shaders and I can implement per-pixel shading with normal mapping. In fact, since ddraw 1.0.9 I've implemented a deferred shading pipeline; but the normals are computed in screen space. Problem is we don't have access to smooth normals in ddraw, so if I add specular mapping we'll see faceted specular highlights.

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Rookie_One1
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Post by Rookie_One1 » Thu Dec 26, 2019 12:19 am

seriously, like that cockpit.

I love how close to xvt it look like :)
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The Saxman
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Post by The Saxman » Thu Dec 26, 2019 12:42 am

blue_max wrote:
Wed Dec 25, 2019 11:10 pm
I'm already using shaders and I can implement per-pixel shading with normal mapping. In fact, since ddraw 1.0.9 I've implemented a deferred shading pipeline; but the normals are computed in screen space. Problem is we don't have access to smooth normals in ddraw, so if I add specular mapping we'll see faceted specular highlights.
Obviously I'm coming extremely late to the party, and programming has never been my strong suit, but what exactly is missing from being able to do smooth shading? Is it an absolute limitation in DDraw, or is it just something that hasn't been cracked open, yet?

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Thu Dec 26, 2019 2:34 am

Regarding making normal maps "part of the model" - I believe that cannot be done with the current understanding of the opt format, barring some sort of discovery of new ways to store extra info. But blue_max's ddraw.dll can always just load side files from disk without needing them to be integrated with the opt, so it could be made functionally equivalent. Someone would need to make some normal maps first in order for that to be a useful feature, though.

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Thu Dec 26, 2019 6:50 am

@The Saxman: keiranhalcyon7 is right, I don't think we can add normal mapping to the OPTs; but we can always side-load the normal maps inside ddraw. As per your question, the short answer is: XWA does not send smooth normals to ddraw, so we would need to do a bit of reverse engineering to enable that.

However, your question made me realize that maybe we don't need that information after all to enable specular shading in ddraw. I'm already computing smooth shading without these smooth normals when SSDO is activated, so maybe I just need to add the specular component in the shaders... I'll try that and see what happens... Anyway, back on topic:
korekwerner wrote:
Mon Dec 23, 2019 10:34 pm
Test mission with new cockpit, explosions, lasers, ddraw and blue_max hyperspace effect. Thank You.
link - https://youtu.be/7vXpmWNjJgw
Beautiful! Thanks for using my graphics library and thanks for sharing. Also, I believe you mentioned at some point that having 8 dynamic cockpit elements per texture is a bit of a problem. This is a somewhat artificial limit and I can increase it; but it comes with a performance penalty (the more elements, the slower the performance). In addition to this, there is a hard limit on the number of constants supported by a shader, so I can't increase this limit too much either. Anyway, my question to you is: how many elements per texture would you say is adequate? 12? 16?

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rogue518
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Post by rogue518 » Thu Dec 26, 2019 11:02 am

Awesome!! korekwerner…. I really love your 'targeting' HUD, will you be releasing this(New Visuals-HUD. explosions, etc...) in the near future?

Sincerely, Rogue518
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korekwerner
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Post by korekwerner » Sun Dec 29, 2019 6:18 pm

@blue_max you are the boss man :-). Thank you for hard work.
In my opinion 12 elements will be enough. It's impossible to put all hud parts with 8 elements but 12 will be ok.
@rogue518 soon I will make package with hud elements for rebel and imperial fighters. Explosions are still in very beta state :-(.

For now I will share another tests with Spyder's X-Wing cockpit adjusted to dynamic cockpit made by blue_max.

Here is the link to the youtube with tests of dynamic cockpit - https://youtu.be/2YVCBg2UXmg

WK

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Post by The Saxman » Sun Dec 29, 2019 9:53 pm

I wonder if it would be possible to change that center console to actually FUNCTION like the target scope in the original X-Wing and films. I always found the presentation introduced in TIE Fighter pretty useless.

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:06 am

@korekwerner: You're welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying the little stuff that I did. I'll try to enable 12 DC elements and see how bad is the performance hit.

@The Saxman: So how would the targeting computer work then? Something like miniature crosshairs? That is, if the targeted object is centered, that means you'll hit it if you shoot? Something like that?

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Post by rogue518 » Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:46 am

Korekwerner that was awesome!!! Glad to see blue_max's Dynamic Cockpit was implemented into Spyder's Xwing !!! very well done!! ;)

Sincerely, Rogue518
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The Saxman
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Post by The Saxman » Mon Dec 30, 2019 3:36 am

blue_max wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:06 am
@korekwerner: You're welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying the little stuff that I did. I'll try to enable 12 DC elements and see how bad is the performance hit.

@The Saxman: So how would the targeting computer work then? Something like miniature crosshairs? That is, if the targeted object is centered, that means you'll hit it if you shoot? Something like that?
Exactly, just like it did in Classic X-Wing and in ANH.

Rebel (Cannon):

Image

Rebel (Warhead):

Image

(Just replace the Death Star Trench wireframe with the target. Even better if you could make it show the targeted component was lined up, IE shield towers, etc.)

Imp:

Image

I know at least for the Rebels the targeting scope and targeting computer is worked into the HUD crosshairs, but my impression is that makes the gunsight too busy and easy to lose your target in it. Maybe keep the plain sight for the cross hairs, and put this on the console instead.

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Mon Dec 30, 2019 3:54 am

It's basically the lead indicator. X-Wing used a simple + to represent the target. XWVM is using a camera, like the tie fighter/XvT/XWA view, but with the viewpoint and angle chosen so that the ship appears at a similar size as in the scopes in ANH and at the correct place to work as a lead indicator, and with a special shader applied to do the same for the rendered image.

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Post by The Saxman » Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:11 am

Yeah, XWVM's implementation for the guns is pretty close, if a bit more advanced than what is depicted in the film. Just need to match the shader's color to what's in the films (obviously, use red for the TIE scope).

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blue_max
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Post by blue_max » Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:19 am

It would be very interesting to learn more technical details about how this was implemented in XWVM. Maybe... just maybe something similar could be done in XWA.

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