[Flaser]

To summarize what was said.

Using more polies right now is better becasue:

• Since using another texture takes another render pass and more computation, using more textures is just plain bad from a performance point of view.
• Adding more polyons rarely invokes another render pass, so it's efficient for the time being.
• Apparenlty polyon rendering is actually a bottleneck so it can be improved..
• High polygon models using less advanced 'DX9 generation' features are easier to render on a variety of cards/machines as the engine already has very advanced LOD (level of detail) tools (like detail boxing).
• A high polygon model is easier to optimise/upgrade later by implementing 'DX9 generation features' than the other way around.

[Snail]

What's with the stupid formatting of doom?

[DaBrain]

Using more polies right now is better becasue:

Nobody said that. It's not that simple. Using a normal map can save a huge ammount of polies. Just keep in mind that normal mapping can't do everything. It might be even completely useless for some models.

What I think is, that we're too much worried about polygon counts and don't care that much about map sizes.

[Mars]

To summarize what was said.

Using more polies right now is better becasue:

• Since using another texture takes another render pass and more computation, using more textures is just plain bad from a performance point of view.
• Adding more polyons rarely invokes another render pass, so it's efficient for the time being.
• Apparenlty polyon rendering is actually a bottleneck so it can be improved..
• High polygon models using less advanced 'DX9 generation' features are easier to render on a variety of cards/machines as the engine already has very advanced LOD (level of detail) tools (like detail boxing).
• A high polygon model is easier to optimise/upgrade later by implementing 'DX9 generation features' than the other way around.

You did know that FS2O uses OGL and not DX... right?

[Grizzly]

Using more polies right now is better becasue:

Nobody said that. It's not that simple. Using a normal map can save a huge ammount of polies. Just keep in mind that normal mapping can't do everything.

Anyone mind telling me what normal mapping is? the only thing i know is that its great for some reason.

[Mehrpack]

Anyone mind telling me what normal mapping is? the only thing i know is that its great for some reason.

hi,
normal mapping is a variety of bump mapping.
the most developer use normal mapping to visual reconstruct geometry.

so you can have a modell with 5 oder 10k of polygones, but the normal texture let it look as it had over 30 or many more polygones.

farcry was one of the first game, which it has use it.

one of the problems of normal mapping is, thats its only visual.
on the shapes of a modell, you still see that its hasnt so much polygones.
but if you have to render a lot of geometry, then its very helpfull.

a other of the probelms are the shadow / point of view problem.
if you have a bad angle to the texture, you see thats its only a texture and no really geometry, because its look flat.
thats problem solve first virutal displacemapping or parallax mapping.

but aside of the problem i think normal mapping is a good tool to improve the visual details of modells.

Mehrpack

[ARSPR]

Anyone mind telling me what normal mapping is? the only thing i know is that its great for some reason.

It's an auxiliary map which uses just two channels (Red & Green for example). This channels are not colour info but the X & Y component of the normal vector to the surface in each pixel. In this way the GPU can simulate roughed surfaces over the flat polygon surface, because the illumination from a direction will reflect with different direction (and therefore intensity from your point of view) in each pixel.

It's a way of adding more detail without using more polygons. It's very useful to model small detail (the roughness of a stone, skin wrinkles, wires over the ship, bolts ...). Many 3D recent games use it. Although it adds more render work it allows much simpler models. Each modder has to find the balance in each situation.

An advanced version is parallax mapping where the pixels are also slightly displaced. This version can create nearly 3D effects with just a flat surface. (FEAR uses it, for example, shot damage on the walls are flat maps although they seem really hollow. You need a DirectX9c GPU).

[wolf]

It's an auxiliary map which uses just two channels (Red & Green for example).

Three channels.

An advanced version is parallax mapping where the pixels are also slightly displaced.

This is not an advanced version, but completly different effect.

[ARSPR]

It's an auxiliary map which uses just two channels (Red & Green for example).

Three channels.

Nope, just two. As the vector has a value of one, you don't need to tell the z component. z=Sqrt(1-x^2-y^2)

An advanced version is parallax mapping where the pixels are also slightly displaced.

This is not an advanced version, but completly different effect.

Well, more or less. I know this isn't an expert explanation but speaking in a home way about this kind of 3D effect over a 2D surface, the evolution would be:
1st generation. Bump mapping
2nd generation. Normal mapping
3rd generation. Parallax mapping

[Agent_Koopa]

Wow. This is like reading the bridge column in the newspaper except you know that there are some people who understand it.

[DaBrain]

Could you send me the uncompressed maps VA?

I'd like to kill some of the 8-Bit leftovers on the maps.


Maybe even the PSD for some new kind of map. If you didn't do that already.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Err, for the base map? None of the 8bit leftover stuff should be visible on Lod0, and barely any of it on Lod1, where it shouldn't matter anyway.

I'll upload the .pspimage or the bmp files if you want though?

[Marcus Vesper]

Oh it looks good, minus the fact it's made out of rock..

The Zeus looks the best so far. 

edit: ok the Hasp. looks the best, but thats a capship 

btw is there a problem with the Ravana?  When I switch to no diffuse mapping, I get odd lighting issues, like the light is coming from the wrong place.

That's because the Loki normal map in the 3.6.10 beta isn't the awesome one Vasudan Admiral made that's way back on page 1 of this thread.  For your convenience, here's the link.  No made of rock problems with this one!

[castor]

I have to agree that I don't like the Loki's 'bumpy skin' too much. The other normal mapped details on it look good though.
And the model itself is of 1st class, of course

[fsphiladelphia]

Anything you'll see on a fighter will probably look cartoonish at best.

More than likely the normal mapping will be completely invisible.

The 3.6.10 media vp's disagree with you.

Re: these three statements, I agree with BlackDove -- I've been replaying the entire retail campaign with 3.6.10 mediavps.  when a loki flies past me at full speed during a dogfight, it's true that it is moving too fast to see every little detail -- but there is beyond a perception that what is flying past me is a very highly detailed ship -- the normal maps DO have a not insignificant impact on the appearance of fighters during high-speed combat.

The dev team has taken things in a really good direction.  I've been playing this thing for about a year now, and it has never looked better.

[Scooby_Doo]

I suppose if you have only indentation (which i usually do) then pure white background (pre-normalizing) works best, if you have only bump outs then pure black background (and white detailing) works best, if you have both then grey (128,128,128) gives best of both worlds.

I will agree with VA on one thing, height maps on fighters just isn't worth the performance hit

[Vasudan Admiral]

More than likely the normal mapping will be completely invisible.

Re: these three statements, I agree with BlackDove -- I've been replaying the entire retail campaign with 3.6.10 mediavps.  when a loki flies past me at full speed during a dogfight, it's true that it is moving too fast to see every little detail -- but there is beyond a perception that what is flying past me is a very highly detailed ship -- the normal maps DO have a not insignificant impact on the appearance of fighters during high-speed combat.

Oi, taking me out of context there a bit. I'm talking only about subtle normal maps like the one Scooby has just made for the.....um.....well I have no idea what it's called - the pinkish orangey fighter thing. If I wasn't looking for it, I wouldn't be able to see the normal map at all, let alone notice the detail on it in a dogfight.

I suppose if you have only indentation (which i usually do) then pure white background (pre-normalizing) works best, if you have only bump outs then pure black background (and white detailing) works best, if you have both then grey (128,128,128) gives best of both worlds.

I will agree with VA on one thing, height maps on fighters just isn't worth the performance hit

Huh? No - again I'm talking ONLY about subtle normal maps. Heightmaps are used to enhance and strengthen already strong normal maps, and normal maps really are worth the performance hit if they are strong enough show up as they do in the MVPs. Dial up the contrast on your source heightmap for the spikey fighter thing and regenerate the normal map so that the bumps on the plates are about as visible as they are on the following loki image and see how that looks. If it does look good, keep it. If not, there's no point in using a normal map for that fighter at all.

Anyway, since apparently people don't seem to like the slight texture on the lokis normal map, here's the new version where the roughness has been removed, and I fixed a couple of other things I forgot about in the previous one too.


Download: http://www.sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/FSU_Fixes/NewLokiNormalMap.zip (Might need to copy+paste the link)

Oh and as for the 'level' ground to use - IF you intend to create a heightmap to use in conjunction with the normal map, ALWAYS try and use grey on the heightmap - even if you're doing all extrusions or all indents. Herra is spot on. Using a non-grey colour as your 'middleground' on a height map will create really weird map distortions. For example, if I use my loki source map as a height map, I get this:

Notice the weird and silly looking texture shifts around the edges - the game is treating what is supposed to be middle ground as an indent and shifting everything accordingly - because in my source image the middleground is nearly black.

If you don't plan on using your height map in-game, then it doesn't matter.

[Scooby_Doo]

Does this help? 

[Vasudan Admiral]

That looks to me to be the same map.
Showing what it looks like without the diffuse & spec map is fairly useless, because as the previous pic demonstrates; that particular map is close to invisible.

Seriously, try making a much stronger one with deeper indents for the plate seams. This is what the source map for the loki looks like:

From there I use crazybump on full normal map intensity, full power to fine, medium and large detail, and 0 to very large.

[Scooby_Doo]

Something like this?

How do I get it so the isn't such a huge gap between the plates? It looks like you could drive a truck through it.