DanW58

I haven't THE FOGGIEST IDEA what these conditionals are about and why they threaten to mess with my ao. Hoping to learn. It's likely nobody but devs have that option enabled. So, thousands of hours of ao baking have yet to make it to a single eye-ball out there...

Actually, I WILL advocate a redoing of all ao's for A25. For two reasons: 1) The type of ao that Blender does is not realistic. There are other tools that provide incident angle modulated ao, which looks a lot more realistic. 2) We will probably have worked out a new texture set and texture packing by then, and we'll need to revisit the art with automated tool to check for non-conforming features, perhaps auto-fixing in some cases. Just speculating...

Actually, I looked to a few other ao's and I find the brightest parts are consistently 0.6 to 0.65, so I put back the multiplier in the shader, except at 1.6, rather than 2.0; and I adjusted the non-ao option down from 1.0 to 0.8, so that objects not using ao don't look too much brighter than those that do. This is the updated relevant section: #if (USE_INSTANCING || USE_GPU_SKINNING) && USE_AO vec3 ao = texture2D(aoTex, v_tex2).rrr; ao = mix(vec3(0.8), ao * 1.6, effectSettings.w); ambColor *= ao; #endif So, the shader to replace (the only one, since terrains have no ao) is model_common.fs, and is attached. NOTE that this also contains the ambient sky-bias hack, and so it goes together with model_common.fs that I attached to a post yesterday. Ok, here it is again, the whole set: model_common.fs model_common.vs terrain_common.fs

Well, my choice would be to report the bug to the Blender devs, rather than work around it. I don't remember the Blender ao being so dysfunctional. They did not modulate the rays by vlight dot normal like they should have; it was an all rays are born equal type ao, but it did work reasonalby well. The sky-facing ledge on the top terrace should get pretty close to 100%. If it doesn't, it's a BUG. Nothing to test yet, Gameboy. We are just trying to agree what to do, and failing at it.

Actually, I was just looking at the ptol_civic_centre ao texture, and the brightest spot on it is (0.63,0.63,0.63), which is quite dark, and out of the norm. If all the ao's are non-standard, then I would understand the need to tweak. I just don't understand how this is possible. SOME piece of the structure should get a good 90%...

Science, Logic, Decisiveness and Hard Work, I should say. All of which this is. Going from witchcraft to optics is the science part.

WOW! Let's do it! Think of Elon Musk. How does he beat all his competitors to a pulp? Decisiveness.

Well, so much the better. Change one file is what I meant. That way it's easy to revert. I give you a shader to try. If we don't like it, we go back. What's the ptol cc material called? How many users does it have?

How about we start withe ONE building. The ptol cc. See how it looks. Then add two more...

Oh, come on! Just make a backup of PTOLs, change and fix, and then we'll see how easy or difficult it is, or how dangerous. There's nothing to gain postponing. We got plenty of things to work into 25; this is a laughable change, work-wise. It's also zero risk. What's happening right now is that all the work that was put into ao is not showing. This is just helping work from the past to finally make it in.

Let's do 100 today, 100 tomorrow. Or start with Ptolemaic today, Indians tomorrow, Egyptians day after... But it would be better to get them all done at once, really. Having disagreeing assets is not nice. But in any case, you can zip the whole thing as a backup, should something really go wrong. Or a third option: Ptolemaic today, all of the rest tomorrow.

No; a different problem; but it will help make the first problem less noticeable and will look MUCH better overall.

Nonono, we'll reveal them AND squish them. Just make a backup. Zip it.

Don't worry, Stan, AO baking is standardized; it cannot be too light or too dark; it is not tweaked. What we're doing is lighting by the optics book. If it looks wrong it's because of a problem elsewhere, which we might as well discover instead of cover up. Proceed without trepidation. Go to town. ;-)

public/art/materials doesn't exist. Maybe that's the problem Or should I change the files IN that webpage? I'm confused, Stan. That's the spirit! Maybe we could have this parameter ignored; might be easier than change hundreds of xml files...

I found civic_centre.xml, but it has no mention of any effectSettings<...> I don't know where you are.

I see. The last number in settings, that's the ao strength? It should be 1.0 universally. Search and replace "0.85"/>" --> "1.0"/>" Search and replace "0.6"/>" --> "1.0"/>" Search and replace "0.777"/>" --> "1.0"/>" I'm going to start a movement one of these days, the "Anti-Tweak Front". .../art/actors/what? There's many folders...

Not sure I understand. Means I have to have parallax in order to get ao?

ao is missing?

Okay, I'm not yet familiar with modern hardware; my prime was 20 years ago. Well, there's something wrong there, with ao it should be darker; must be the * 2.0; in any case, I can see ao on the left picture, like behind the thin, tall pillars, for example. I'm getting no ao whatsoever, I'm telling you. I changed the section in the shader to, vec3 color = (texdiffuse * sundiffuse + specular.rgb) * getShadow(); vec3 ambColor = texdiffuse * ambient; //#if /*(USE_INSTANCING || USE_GPU_SKINNING) &&*/ USE_AO vec3 ao = texture2D(aoTex, v_tex2).rrr; //ao = mix(vec3(1.0), ao, effectSettings.w); ambColor *= ao; //#endif ambColor.rgb *= up_bias; color += ambColor; As expected, anything that doesn't use ao disappeared, including all the trees and berry shrubs. When my women are building the first granary, the temporary wooden support structure doesn't show, while the rising granary does. And still, no ao's. Look at faro and his wife; they look like they are sitting on light tables.

I'm looking through other screenshots... Gameboy screenshots don't show any ao either. Could someone post a screenshot where ao is visible? I'm beginning to think ao never worked.

Okay, I'll try that, but I KNOW I'm not seeing ao. In fact, I even disabled shadows, in case they were hiding the ao somehow, but nope. And I thought it might be my messing with the civic center, but I see no ao on the granary or on the plain house either. Also removed some conditionals in the shader... #if /*(USE_INSTANCING || USE_GPU_SKINNING) &&*/ USE_AO vec3 ao = texture2D(aoTex, v_tex2).rrr; ao = mix(vec3(1.0), ao, effectSettings.w); ambColor *= ao; #endif I know if I remove USE_AO it's going to crash, as there's definitely things that don't use it. Actually, I'm going to try removing the second line completely... EDIT: Nope; doesn't help. I think you have a bug somewhere, I'm probably not the only person ao starved; but most people couldn't tell an ao from a hole in the ground and that's why it wasn't reported before...

I've just tried removing any graphical features not necessary to ao, to see if my videocard was overwhelmed, but it makes no difference; still no ao.

There are no other sources for ao to modulate; ambient is it; ambient accounts for all sources except direct. Given the entire luminous surroundings, environment mapping returns the specular portion of it, and reflected ambient returns the diffuse portion of it. And just like reflections should get some self-occultation but that's really difficult to do, reflected ambient can get occultation by modulating it by the ao. It just has to be multiplied by the ao. You're talking about second reflections; that's a whole other subject; it cannot be handled by ao nor by anything except a HUGE hack; I tried to tackle that one... Thing is, not only is it incorrect, but it is likely to cause saturation. The good news is I took out that "* 2.0" and nothing changed... Maybe it's something with my videocard? Can't seem to see the ao in-game.

I'm looking at ao code in model_common.fs... #if (USE_INSTANCING || USE_GPU_SKINNING) && USE_AO vec3 ao = texture2D(aoTex, v_tex2).rrr; ao = mix(vec3(1.0), ao * 2.0, effectSettings.w); ambColor *= ao; #endif The first line is informative. The last line is reassuring. But the middle-line makes me reach for the gyn bottle ... ao * 2.0 ?!?!?!?