[Mad] Posted October 16, 2007 Report Share Posted October 16, 2007 (edited) Ohh I have one, I made the first, I have a plugin for PS, just wanted to know opinionsWell, if you could post screenshots of both... Edited October 16, 2007 by Mad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 Nice work. Now, stupid questions time. Has anyone tried setting the oceans to a single blue color, to see how the Geoscape looks? I kind of assume the colors indicate ocean depth, and I'm not sure that's needed, at least at this point in time. Withhttp://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/7105/world.t...3x5400x2700.jpgWithouthttp://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/7117/world.2...3x5400x2700.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 hmm looks better than I would've thought. So what's the benefit (in numbers I mean)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 Resolution is exactly the same, file is a little diffrent in size, this isn't the bump maping I was talking about this is just the ocean change dteviot was asking about. I think the single dark ocean color is nicer as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 Red Knight: Second, I've had a look at your bump shader, and I think there's a small error in your logic.Specifically, this part here. float dotL = max(dot(normalFromMap, Input.LightDirection), 0); float sunlight = clamp(dotL * 3, 0.25, 1.0); // Night lights bitmap. (Note, lights start going on at twilight) // and make lights ramp up quickly to full float nightTerm = saturate((0.2 - dotL) * 3.0); I believe the night term should not use dotL, it should use dot(normal, Input.LightDirection), because there IS no directional light at night.Also, the sunlight = clamp(dotL * 3, 0.25, 1.0) produces enhanced bump effects in the twilight regions. Finally, Some minor artifacts which I'm just pointing out before someone else does (I'm not suggesting we need to fix them any time soon.)if you look at antarctic, you can see the seam where the left and right edges of the bitmap join (I suspect the normal is not correctly calculated for the edge.)There's also an interesting artifact at the pole, due to the fact that the polar strips are triangular, not rectangular. That one's my fault, but to fix it, would need compressing the bitmap in those strips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 (edited) Resolution is exactly the same, file is a little diffrent in size, this isn't the bump maping I was talking about this is just the ocean change dteviot was asking about. I think the single dark ocean color is nicer as well.yea, I know that this is not the bump mapping. But I thought a single color ocean would not look that nice. However, I stand corrected. Anyway, I still like the multi-color ocean better Edited October 17, 2007 by Mad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 Resolution is exactly the same, file is a little diffrent in size, this isn't the bump maping I was talking about this is just the ocean change dteviot was asking about. I think the single dark ocean color is nicer as well.yea, I know that this is not the bump mapping. But I thought a single color ocean would not look that nice. However, I stand corrected. Anyway, I still like the multi-color ocean better Gotcha, I didn't know what you meant by numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 I believe the night term should not use dotL, it should use dot(normal, Input.LightDirection), because there IS no directional light at night.Also, the sunlight = clamp(dotL * 3, 0.25, 1.0) produces enhanced bump effects in the twilight regions.Yes that is a mistake indeed recalculate it from the light direction back for the night term (it wasnt supposed to do that) but the difference is so small that I didnt see it. About the poles, yes that is a problem that can only be fixed with Fuller Coordinates. GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taz0k Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 (edited) Now, stupid questions time. Has anyone tried setting the oceans to a single blue color, to see how the Geoscape looks? I kind of assume the colors indicate ocean depth, and I'm not sure that's needed, at least at this point in time. Just tested and I think that the current EarthDiffuseMap.jpg looks better.Maybe the one with single blue color would look better with some glossyness applied to the water but right now I think it looks too dead/mat. Edited October 17, 2007 by taz0k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 (edited) About the poles, yes that is a problem that can only be fixed with Fuller Coordinates.GreetingsRed KnightActually, I believe I am using Fuller Coordinates. (That is, the spherical mesh is composed of triangles that are (as close as possible) to equilateral triangles of uniform size.The problem is due to the fact that the bitmap we're using for our textures has had Mercator projection applied to it. That is, as you approach the poles, the scale on the rows change. Effectively, features are stretched horizontally as we approach the poles.A simple way to hide this artifact (from the amount of work it requires from me) would be, because the texture mapping works by cutting the texture into 30 horizontal strips and then putting them onto the sphere, modifying the top and bottom strip on the diffuse and normal textures to have a single colour/normal. I.e. In the texture, it's a flat area, of uniform color. The north pole being ocean, and the south pole being antarctica, I don't think many people would notice the deviation from reality. Edit.It occurs to me the easiest way to see what's going on would be for me to write a little program that takes a (texture) bitmap, and then overlays a grid showing how the bitmap is cut into triangles that are then pasted onto the surface of the sphere. A graphic artist (Darkhomb) can then see where the texture needs tweaking. Edited October 17, 2007 by dteviot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 Even if you use Fuller coordinates you have to modify the textures to make use of them properly. That involves creating a different projection over the textures. For an example take a look at the 3rd point: Dymaxion Air-ocean World Map, 1943 You have source code that do the transformation and some extra explanation here: Source Code for Coordinate Transformation GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 17, 2007 Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 We would be talking about these 2 areas, the seam and the stretched triangles? If the seams are just because of the normal then yes I will take the normal off on the top/bottom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2007 We would be talking about these 2 areas, the seam and the stretched triangles? If the seams are just because of the normal then yes I will take the normal off on the top/bottomThe "seam" is probably from joining the left and right edges of the normal map.To explain, the normal map is created by taking each pixel in the "bump" heightmap, and then comparing it's value to the pixels above, below, left and right. However, at the left edge, there is no pixel to the left, and on the right edge, there's no pixel to the right. This probably results in texture maps with "odd" values along the edges. (This is a classic problem with bump maps. It's difficult to compute the normals along the U-V edges.I think (but I'm not sure) the simplest fix for the seam would be copy the normal on the leftmost but one column to the leftmost column, and similar for the right column. Should be easy enough to prove the seam is from the normal map by turning off the normal map and seeing if the seam disappears.In GeoscapeScene.cs, change effect.CurrentTechnique = effect.Techniques["RenderGlobeWithBump"];to effect.CurrentTechnique = effect.Techniques["RenderGlobeStandard"];Of course, the best solution would be update the normal map generator to fix the normals at the seam itself. The "triangles" at the pole are due to the Mercator projection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted October 18, 2007 Report Share Posted October 18, 2007 I have the source code of the plugin, I can modify it to handle it (even though I am not completely sure yet how). GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2007 The attached diagram shows how the Geoscape cuts the earth texture into strips, and then the strips into triangles, which are then pasted onto the sphere.There are a couple of points to note. To make the cuts more obvious, this image only uses 10 horizontal strips. The sphere used in Xenocide uses 30 strips. There are 6 triangles on the top strips. However, the leftmost and rightmost triangles on this strips are not drawn. That's because the north pole is a single point. Which means that the top left corner, top right corner, and top centre (and in fact all the pixels on the top row of the bitmap) are the same point on the globe, so the leftmost and rightmost triangles collapse into a line (in fact the SAME line, because the leftmost edge of the bitmap joins to the rightmost edge when we wrap the texture onto the globe.) when rendered onto the surface of the globe. Same effect happens on the south pole. The effect wasn't noticeable with 30 strips at the north and south pole because the "missing" triangles are just water, and just snow at the south pole. Unfortunately, when we add the bump map, the south pole's texture ceases to be uniform, and the distortions become apparent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted October 22, 2007 Report Share Posted October 22, 2007 Yeah definitely the way to solve that is using a Fuller projection as the triangles in texture space are very different. GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgoat Posted October 22, 2007 Report Share Posted October 22, 2007 The only thing that I changed was the "Copy Always" to "Copy if newer". The strange thing is that if your video card doesnt support a bigger than 2k x 2k target in content pipeline why it does it with a Texture2D.LoadFile ... I found that Texture2D.FromFile actually scales down the image to fit. I loaded a 4096x4096 image that way and after checking the Width/Height values they were 2048. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 23, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 I'm currently working on "Equip Soldiers", and am starting to suspect that I will need artwork to create a screen. Specifically, I'm going to need a "background" image with a soldier and backpack, and a set of sprites (preferably as a texture atlas) to represent the various pieces of equipment. As an interim measure, I might be able to copy assets from UFO2000, but I'm not sure that's a good idea.Can anyone suggest how I could do a purely textual "equip soldier" screen? And does anyone think that's even a vaguely good idea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 23, 2007 Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 A purely textual Screen might be difficult to handle, but it's not a bad idea. But I guess you would have to cut back on some features. For the hands it's not a big deal, you can anyhow take any item with them and only one item fits per time and hand. However with the backpack etc this is more difficult. But I suppose you could just make "slots" so there are infinitve (or just many, like 15) slots for the hands, x slots for the backpack, y slots for the belt etc etc. and each item eats up z slots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 23, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 (edited) Finally, SVN working again. Latest check-in: Merged in Staff Sargeant's FxCop and End of Month Psi Training patches Silenced a number of FxCop warnings Aeroscape, added a "real time" button, and doesn't show rounds where nothing happens. In Equip craft screen, double click on weapon to assign to first empty pod on aircraft Updated Research notes. Started creating CombatantInventoryNotes: I would appreciate it if people would have a look at the research notes (docs/research.html) and check they make sense. Edit: Mad & Darkhomb, would you two please start putting together the 0.2 Progress Release. Thanks. Edited October 23, 2007 by dteviot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 23, 2007 Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 Working on it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 23, 2007 Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 Rapidshare--------------------------------------------------------------------Xenocide 0.2.0.1740http://rapidshare.com/files/64723115/Xenocide_0.2.0.1740.zip.html Xenocide Audio Packhttp://rapidshare.com/files/64724903/Xenocide_Audio_Pack.zip.html-------------------------------------------------------------------- Megaupload--------------------------------------------------------------------Xenocide 0.2.0.1740http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RSLBEWOA Xenocide Audio Packhttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=HV03OYYM-------------------------------------------------------------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Strife Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Rapidshare--------------------------------------------------------------------Xenocide 0.2.0.1740http://rapidshare.com/files/64723115/Xenocide_0.2.0.1740.zip.html Xenocide Audio Packhttp://rapidshare.com/files/64724903/Xenocide_Audio_Pack.zip.html-------------------------------------------------------------------- Megaupload--------------------------------------------------------------------Xenocide 0.2.0.1740http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RSLBEWOA Xenocide Audio Packhttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=HV03OYYM-------------------------------------------------------------------- Wouldn't it be better to upload the release into our FTP server? it is an internal release after all so we can't expect heavy traffic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 (edited) It is not an internal release. This is a progress release for the public and we can put them on the FTP if they want to. I just made it avail on those sites as mirrors to save bandwidth. Edited October 24, 2007 by Darkhomb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Strife Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 It is not an internal release. This is a progress release for the public and we can put them on the FTP if they want to. I just made it avail on those sites as mirrors to save bandwidth.Well, actually as long as we don't make a specific thread and/or post news in the main site about it, this is an internal release in almost all aspects bar the fact anyone can download it, but most people just don't read programming forums (workshops).Anyway, it was just a suggestion for simplicity, I hate rapidshare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I do not have access to modify the website, nor add the main FTP.. I posted these here as it was asked here and people with access can now takes the files and do whatever they want with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 (edited) sheesh, guys, give an old man some peace! I'm posting it on the main site right now Edited October 24, 2007 by Mad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 (edited) Cool, can you also add the audio pack as well and explain the 2 parts? Edit - Old? you're 26 Edited October 24, 2007 by Darkhomb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Strife Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 sheesh, guys, give an old man some peace! I'm posting it on the main site right nowWell, the add/edit news of the site is ready, if you want to upload it (you need someone to upload the database) let me know and I'll get the stuff packaged and ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I see the audio pack in the downloads section, but the main news might want to talk about it as well. Also in the download section it says size 1.55 meg when it should say 14.8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 sheesh, guys, give an old man some peace! I'm posting it on the main site right nowWell, the add/edit news of the site is ready, if you want to upload it (you need someone to upload the database) let me know and I'll get the stuff packaged and ready.ok, let's take this to the CMS thread, but what's about the authentification framework? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I see the audio pack in the downloads section, but the main news might want to talk about it as well. Also in the download section it says size 1.55 meg when it should say 14.8.Fixed. Happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkhomb Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Hey I am just trying to make it easy to navigate... Good work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 (edited) Cool, can you also add the audio pack as well and explain the 2 parts? Edit - Old? you're 26 Old enough for my taste... Hey I am just trying to make it easy to navigate...And you're right to do so! I was just kidding Thanks for the help! Edited October 24, 2007 by Mad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I have updated Wikipedia and requirements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xenocide Can you do that on the web page? GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I have updated Wikipedia and requirements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xenocide Can you do that on the web page? GreetingsRed KnightI suppose I could, but I do not agree. It works perfectly on my Notebook with Fx5200 Graphics... Anyway, updated, but let's make sure that we do not exclude too many people by demanding something we don't need atm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I didnt knew that FX 5200 had PS2.0 so that is a very interesting news change it back ... GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I didnt knew that FX 5200 had PS2.0 so that is a very interesting news change it back ... GreetingsRed KnightIt depends... It does have the shaders, but often they work very badly (e.g. Halflife 2). However, in Xenocide I haven't had problems until now (apart from the pretty low - but playable - framerate...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[dteviot] Posted October 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 I didnt knew that FX 5200 had PS2.0 so that is a very interesting news change it back ... GreetingsRed KnightIt depends... It does have the shaders, but often they work very badly (e.g. Halflife 2). However, in Xenocide I haven't had problems until now (apart from the pretty low - but playable - framerate...)Thanks for your efforts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SupSuper Posted October 25, 2007 Report Share Posted October 25, 2007 I can confirm that Radeon (not Readon ) 9500/9600 are also compatible, fully supporting PS2.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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