Models by Jorzi (AR)

[MaNGusT]

I could, however, experiment with high polycounts and see how much they affect game performance.

It doesn't affect performance at all, what really affects performance is screwed up shading code which doesn't really shade anything properly except shadows and the overall bad state of the render engine.

[Jorzi]

Well yes, I haven't really looked that much at the shadow code but it seems to be an implementation of shadow volumes, which is very dependent of polycount, since it generates projection meshes, probably using the cpu. Right now, anything that is using the gpu doesn't seem to affect performance at all (which is understandable). However, I'm more afraid that texture space will run out, since I have quite a few texpages already. I guess many people still have only 256 mb of memory on their gpu:s.

[MaNGusT]

Well yes, I haven't really looked that much at the shadow code but it seems to be an implementation of shadow volumes, which is very dependent of polycount, since it generates projection meshes, probably using the cpu. Right now, anything that is using the gpu doesn't seem to affect performance at all (which is understandable). However, I'm more afraid that texture space will run out, since I have quite a few texpages already. I guess many people still have only 256 mb of memory on their gpu:s.

Well, I meant a different thing.
Yes, the current shadows use cpu instead of gpu but they work fine without bugs.( just slow )
But other shadings just look like hacks - i.e. the sun has -y coordinate(under the terrain) but shines like it has +y coordinate.
Ambient, diffuse and specular lights seems as they do nothing to shading. i.e. normal maps changes are unnoticeable in the game. I think will get the same result when specular maps will be supported.
Emitter light should always be 0, it is so called self-illumination. We don't need it at all.
I don't know, does the Gourad(Phong) shading(so called vertex shading) work with models or only with the terrain. Btw, I even don't know, does it really turned on for all models in wz?

In conclusion I want to say that Devs just need an example of how it should look like, if they want to fix the renderer of coz. You know, visually OGL=DirectX, so I made a video where I used a simple direct x shader in 3ds max with a 1 source of directional light to show You how it approximately should look like.
I hope it will help you, Per, safety0ff.

[Corporal Punishment]

It would be possible, although it would almost double the polycount as well as drastically increase the required texture space. The problem with human figures is that with my current shading I'll have to use separate texture space for each scav soldier in a different pose.
I could, however, experiment with high polycounts and see how much they affect game performance.

I can not claim to be proficient with texturing and shading. What I understand is that the meshes have information on them regarding what section of a texture page is to be painted on which section of their surface. It should be a pretty simple database query (something I am proficient with). The neat thing about databases is that an infinite number of sources (meshes in this case) can refer to the same target (here: texture page). Now, if shading is supposed to be handled by the game engine, why do you have to make separate textures for each mesh? Sorry, I don't get the point. It's the same surfaces with the same textures, just arranged slightly different and should receive shadows only after they are drawn in-game. Or not?

[Jorzi]

What I meant was that, since my normals are defined directly from the (normalmap) texture, I cannot do things like bend an arm on a scav soldier and still use the same texture as a soldier with a straight arm, because it needs new normal directions. This Is why I haven't made any lowpoly models for my scav soldiers yet. If we had tangent space normal map support, I could simply make one scav soldier, put him on various vehicles in various poses and use parts of him behind the steering wheel, as well as a stand-alone unit, armed with a rifle, all using the same texture and normal map.

[Corporal Punishment]

Okay. Just assume I have tried to grasp the concept of normal mapping from foreign language on-line resources with a limited understanding of mathematics. But I guess what you mean is that you could bent the arm of a scav bloke mesh by 90 degrees and the texture would be drawn in the correct orientation but the shading would be calculated wrong because the texture would be drawn diverging from what it defines as the normal direction. Correct?

[Jorzi]

Perfectly correct
Tangent space normal maps are more flexible because they only define the change made to the vertex normals rather than redefining the whole normal, like an object space normal map.

[IgorBrehm]

is it normal that the my light,medium and heavy cannons are the old ones?

[Jorzi]

you mean in my mod? I've included mangust's heavy cannon, but the other ones are still the originals.

[IgorBrehm]

ok i did not see the heavy one but the others are the old models

[CyclonatorZ]

Long time no see. Just downloaded the latest AR release yesterday, and i'm really liking how its coming along. However, there are a few issues that hopefully can be worked out - most noticeably, the black outline around certain remodeled objects, the relative blurrieness of the new road textures compared to the standard ground texture, and the fact that the old zoomed out roads don't quite match up with them. Still, its great to finally have hardcrete towers with more than six polygons.

[Jorzi]

Thanks for trying it out
Yeah the new road isn't perfect, it could do with a bit more cracking and roughness to fit the old style better. I'll have to revisit it at some point (still hoping for GLSL shaders on ground and decals)
About the black outlines, could you post some screenshots? It might be a side effect of the normal mapping, but not as much as on "alpha edges" where I've used material transparency to create holes.

[CyclonatorZ]

Here's a shot of one of the most obvious examples: as you can see, the oil well model has dotted black lines around many of his edges, as well as some that are oddly spaced out beyond the extents of the actual mesh. I've also noticed this on the new MG tower texture, and on the sensor turret dish at certain points in its rotation.

[Jorzi]

Ah yes, the oil resource is a prime example of alpha artifacts. The dotted black line is the actual border of the polygon, although I'm not sure why it shows up. The oil pool is just a textured rectangle. Same goes for the zigzag pattern inside the steel tower frame.
The sensor's edges are black because the normal map says it's circular, while the actual geometry is pretty polygonal, which results in the polygonal corners being blacked out.

[Berg]

rethink