Post-processing effects test (SSAO/HDR/Bloom)

[halcyonXIII]

Done. (there was a bug in the GLSL shader)

myconid, I think your changes to particle.vs has introduced a bug where the particles no longer rotate to always face the screen.

[myconid]

Whoops, fixed.

[Gen.Kenobi]

Hi!

If you just update your SVN you'll notice that almost all Roman Buildings now have Spec + Normal Maps. It's a work in progress, since looks like that Parallax Stuff on Transparent and on Player Collor behaves weirdly. Also, looks like the new shader does not applies to animations, so the gate fails to load the material.

Anyways, as I always say, enjoy the bump!

The maps need some tweaks, but I think it's looking quite nice already, Please report and bugs or suggestions.

To do:

* roman props

* other roman buildings

* fix the weirdness of the alpha maps (have no idea how to do that though... Any ideas myconid?) and on the roofs.

* all AO stuff! (will be a pain, since It'll need a new UV map for all buildings!)

Hopefully the Romans will be done for Alpha 11

Enjoy the bump!

[Enrique]

@Gen.Kenobi: You should create a thread or task in the Art forum for this. I think Zaggy was also working on roman normal/height/spec maps

[myconid]

Holy pasta, that looks spectacular! Just look at this: http://imgur.com/a/W12du

looks like that Parallax Stuff on Transparent and on Player Collor behaves weirdly.

If you can be more specific, I'll try to help.

Also, looks like the new shader does not applies to animations, so the gate fails to load the material.

Yeah, only instanced things can use that at the moment. Maybe I should work on that next, just so it's more consistent.

When you say "the gate" do you mean the entire structure with the walls etc, or just the door part? If it's the entire structure, maybe the door part could be moved to a prop instead?

[zoot]

Holy pasta, that looks spectacular! Just look at this: http://imgur.com/a/W12du

Yeah! Looks much crisper. Now imagine a whole city like that...

[myconid]

Btw Gen.Kenobi, one small suggestion: if you are rendering the AO with Blender, you might want to avoid its "normalise" option. It exaggerates the effect and makes it look too contrasted.

Otherwise, you can try fiddling with the AO value in the effectsSettings (in the material files).

[Almin]

omg, It looks fantastic! If I would just know from where you take all that energy and motivation!

[zoot]

I wonder if there are any options (short of displacement mapping) for making the outline of an object appear rougher, so e.g. these merlons don't look completely rectangular:

Maybe some way to paint parts of the outline transparent and others not?

I realize it's a minor issue at standard zoom, but still curious if anything could be done...

[zoot]

* fix the weirdness of the alpha maps (have no idea how to do that though... Any ideas myconid?) and on the roofs.

What exact weirdness are you referring to?

[myconid]

I wonder if there are any options (short of displacement mapping) for making the outline of an object appear rougher, so e.g. these merlons don't look completely rectangular:

The easiest and most efficient way to do that would be to use additional geometry.

[Enrique]

Btw Gen.Kenobi, one small suggestion: if you are rendering the AO with Blender, you might want to avoid its "normalise" option. It exaggerates the effect and makes it look too contrasted.

Otherwise, you can try fiddling with the AO value in the effectsSettings (in the material files).

You baked the AO without normalize, but you touched up the BW levels with a image editor? normally without normalize the baked AO it's too dark. We should know which modifications were made to the Civil centre AO to have the same "level" of AO on the rest of the buildings

[Mythos_Ruler]

You baked the AO without normalize, but you touched up the BW levels with a image editor? normally without normalize the baked AO it's too dark. We should know which modifications were made to the Civil centre AO to have the same "level" of AO on the rest of the buildings

Someone suggested a standardized Python script.

[myconid]

You baked the AO without normalize, but you touched up the BW levels with a image editor? normally without normalize the baked AO it's too dark. We should know which modifications were made to the Civil centre AO to have the same "level" of AO on the rest of the buildings

I don't remember how I did that. I doubt it was anything too complicated.

One thing I can mention is that the way the AO is applied to the model is with this equation: (2 * ao * colour). This is a (over-)simplification of how Photoshop/GIMP do the "multiply" blending mode, and there's also a setting in the materials that controls AO intensity.

As a result, if you bake normalised AO (read: contrast-stretched AO), you can roughly control how much to mix in through the material setting. If you bake unnormalised AO, it won't look too dark since this is doing "multiply".

I think you need to experiment and get acquainted with the options, and decide what looks better. If you want any changes made, this is the place to ask.

[quantumstate]

In your latest commit in the config file you added

; Maximum distance to display very high quality parallax effect. Set to 30 to enable.
materialmgr.PARALLAX_HQ_DIST.max = 0

Shouldn't this be VHQ_DIST?

[myconid]

Someone suggested a standardized Python script.

Indeed.

On that point, I'm trying to get Blender's Collada importer to cooperate. I've imported a few random models and most of them import correctly, but some come out in the wrong orientation. Do you know anything that might help me? I've tried converting to an intermediate format (.obj) and importing that, but annoyingly it looks like it discards the attachpoint info.

Shouldn't this be VHQ_DIST?

Thanks, fixed.

[historic_bruno]

* all AO stuff! (will be a pain, since It'll need a new UV map for all buildings!)

Myconid was suggesting earlier in the topic that Blender has a way to automatically generate a non-overlapping second UV set, if you weren't aware. I don't know anything about it, but it seems likely to be a huge time saver for AO.

On that point, I'm trying to get Blender's Collada importer to cooperate. I've imported a few random models and most of them import correctly, but some come out in the wrong orientation. Do you know anything that might help me?

Sounds like an UP_AXIS problem, that's a way for the modelling program to specify which axis it used as "up". I recall that one of them causes a problem with Blender's importer (probably the one Max exports), you'll likely have to adjust it manually after importing, or see if you can get the original .blend or .max from someone.

Edit: there's a tool called COLLADA Refinery which claims to have an up axis converter, that might be worth a try.

[zoot]

Textures seem to blur out a lot when seen from a distance, to the point where normal and parallax mapping almost completely drowns:

What can be done about this?

[myconid]

there's a tool called COLLADA Refinery which claims to have an up axis converter, that might be worth a try.

Tried that tool with Wine, but none of the options looked correct when imported into Blender.

Though you're definitely right, the problem is Blender's weirdness of using Z as the vertical axis. Some of the models define "up_axis" as Z_UP and some as Y_UP. I'd guess Y_UP might be problematic, though I'm uncertain if it's so clear-cut.

I'm testing the following solution for swapping left/right-handed coord-systems and it appears to work (with celt_civic3.dae, at least):

1. Swap trans.Y, trans.Z
   
2. trans.Y = -trans.Y
   
3. rot.X = 0
   

[myconid]

Textures seem to blur out a lot when seen from a distance, to the point where normal and parallax mapping almost completely drowns:

What can be done about this?

Turn up the texture filtering in your graphics card's utility thingie...

[Mythos_Ruler]

My quick and dirty terrain normal+spec tests.

Note: You can see a patch of "normal" grass below the farmstead, without spec or normal mapping. You can see how dull and lifeless it looks.

[zoot]

Turn up the texture filtering in your graphics card's utility thingie...

I don't think Intel has one for Linux

Perhaps I could use GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic to do it from the engine...?

Edited August 11, 2012 by zoot

[myconid]

My quick and dirty terrain normal+spec tests.

Nice, thanks for testing!

I don't think Intel has one for Linux

Dunno if this'll work, but you can try this: go into graphics/ObjectEntry.cpp after this line (137)

textureProps.SetWrap(GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE);

add this:

textureProps.SetMaxAnisotropy(X);

where X is the amount of filtering you want. Try 2, 4 or 8.

[zoot]

Thanks, that did actually help, though mostly on super-oblique areas like the roof:

(First image is without anisotropic filtering, second image is with anisotropic filtering x8)

[Mythos_Ruler]

One thing I've noticed is that when giving terrain textures a new material, they are now rotated 45 degrees or something.