Important Need some opinions on renderer stuff

[DracoHouston]

hi all, so a lot of you have been told by me already, with probably more detail than you cared to know, that i am writing a new renderer for the game

i have gotten things to a stage where its pretty much displaying things as it was, but now i have more control over the graphics pipeline and performance is more under control more things are possible. here's where things can get interesting

right now theres a diffuse colour that gets applied to everything based on environment settings in the map (outdoor maps are different diffuse colours per time of day, indoor is always bright), and a shader colour that gets applied by the shader objects you can place in maps. these shader objects allow you to either make things brighter, tint stuff, or make fake 'shadows' under things. this is tedious to set up though.

i'm looking at the possibility of a dynamic lighting mode where things are drawn with lighting done on the GPU, for people that don't want it the old method would be there and shader objects used to create the old lighting effects as a fallback.

how many lights would people really use? i'm looking at the possibility of needing like up to 128 point lights to illuminate a very large cave. outdoors you'd be able to set a morning, day and night light position and colour/intensity

the biggest part i need opinions on is an idea i have, to use something like half life 2's 'materials'. this sort of thing gets used in unreal engine 3 as well. basically, a material is texture + information about it. this could be what foot step sounds are used on it, what particle effect and sound it uses when bullets hit it, what shader effects to apply to it, its friction, all sorts of stuff

here's 2 hypothetical ones i came up with in the staff forum

in content/textures there would be .dat files in there. for routes 96,16,16,16 with no lighting you could have

{"Material"{MAT{{"TexturePath"{str[Routes]}}{"Texture"{rec[96,16,16,16]}}{"Filter"{int[0]}}{"Lighting"{int[0]}}{"ShaderParams"{str[]}}}

a dynamically lit translucent material with anistropic filtering and that refracts light

{"Material"{MAT{{"TexturePath"{str[HypotheticalTexture]}}{"Texture"{rec[0,0,256,256]}}{"Filter"{int[3]}}{"Lighting"{int[1]}}{"ShaderParams"{str[AlphaTest,Refract|0.3]}}}

basically my idea is instead of setting this in the entity, you set it in the material, then you set what material the entity uses.

this would let people set filtering and effects on things per material. a texture pack could swap materials, meaning your texture pack texture could make all sorts of changes to the texture

the animated water thing could be a material with 2 textures set to swap every second or something

so yeah, any suggestions, does this sound reasonable to everyone?

 

[Whitney]

I don't know much of anything that you've just said (LOL, sorry, I'm not good at understanding this graphical jargon) but anything that makes the awesome perform and look more awesome would be great! You have my support!

 

[Splint]

Am not sure how good it would look to have materials that reflect light with the current textures that are being used.

Think we need a more practical example in what situation we can use these new fancy features before we can make a judgement.

Lightning in the pokémon games mainly consist of outdoor windows being lit up , lanterns / street lights with lighting , indoor lighting. Possibly machines / devices could have neat lighting effects not to mention u could extend it for use with the combat system have dynamic light effects go off based on attacks etc.

Data stored for materials could be a really nice addition if the engine is properly set up to handle it.
Moving trough grass could give u sound and if possible have effects go off like grass / dirt flying up.

 

[Shou Liengod]

I don't know much of anything that you've just said (LOL, sorry, I'm not good at understanding this graphical jargon) but anything that makes the awesome perform and look more awesome would be great! You have my support!

Mainly the new engine will provide the PCs with low Spec with full rendered 60FPS.


@Draco:
Im not sure what exactly what you did to the Engine itself, but you have my support Dracs :']

 

[DracoHouston]

I don't know much of anything that you've just said (LOL, sorry, I'm not good at understanding this graphical jargon) but anything that makes the awesome perform and look more awesome would be great! You have my support!

Mainly the new engine will provide the PCs with low Spec with full rendered 60FPS.


@Draco:
Im not sure what exactly what you did to the Engine itself, but you have my support Dracs :']

batch drawing. calling a draw stops the graphics card, you feed it the vertices, and tell it to draw. because this stops the card while you feed it the data its going to not run fast if you do it too often. so instead of drawing each block 1 by 1 after depth sorting and transforming them on the cpu i feed the whole damn level's stuff into a bunch of big buffers and draw the level in a dozen calls instead of thousands.

errr, quick question, what shader model does your gpu use? it there any way you can find out for me? i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1 because im using shader model 2 atm. but afaik no ones had a shader model 1.1 card since like, 2002

 

[DracoHouston]

Am not sure how good it would look to have materials that reflect light with the current textures that are being used.

Think we need a more practical example in what situation we can use these new fancy features before we can make a judgement.

Lightning in the pokémon games mainly consist of outdoor windows being lit up , lanterns / street lights with lighting , indoor lighting. Possibly machines / devices could have neat lighting effects not to mention u could extend it for use with the combat system have dynamic light effects go off based on attacks etc.

Data stored for materials could be a really nice addition if the engine is properly set up to handle it.
Moving trough grass could give u sound and if possible have effects go off like grass / dirt flying up.

thats the thing, we wont be using it much, at all. but the idea is that its powerful enough to handle more than minecraft esque graphics. i basically want this to look as good as you can get a doom map looking in modern source ports. good textures, special effects, animations etc. basically this system is for modders but i think nils and i could benefit from it too, thats why i need opinions on this before i go ahead and lock it in

p3d itself could probably use refract on water, and reflect on windows

 

[Orion]

Mainly the new engine will provide the PCs with low Spec with full rendered 60FPS.


@Draco:
Im not sure what exactly what you did to the Engine itself, but you have my support Dracs :']

batch drawing. calling a draw stops the graphics card, you feed it the vertices, and tell it to draw. because this stops the card while you feed it the data its going to not run fast if you do it too often. so instead of drawing each block 1 by 1 after depth sorting and transforming them on the cpu i feed the whole damn level's stuff into a bunch of big buffers and draw the level in a dozen calls instead of thousands.

errr, quick question, what shader model does your gpu use? it there any way you can find out for me? i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1 because im using shader model 2 atm. but afaik no ones had a shader model 1.1 card since like, 2002

My GPU can handle Shader Model up to version 5. But if you need to know more details about the GPUs we use, I can post my whole GPU-Z log, and I guess someone can do the same thing. Hope to help anyway...

Am not sure how good it would look to have materials that reflect light with the current textures that are being used.

Think we need a more practical example in what situation we can use these new fancy features before we can make a judgement.

Lightning in the pokémon games mainly consist of outdoor windows being lit up , lanterns / street lights with lighting , indoor lighting. Possibly machines / devices could have neat lighting effects not to mention u could extend it for use with the combat system have dynamic light effects go off based on attacks etc.

Data stored for materials could be a really nice addition if the engine is properly set up to handle it.
Moving trough grass could give u sound and if possible have effects go off like grass / dirt flying up.

thats the thing, we wont be using it much, at all. but the idea is that its powerful enough to handle more than minecraft esque graphics. i basically want this to look as good as you can get a doom map looking in modern source ports. good textures, special effects, animations etc. basically this system is for modders but i think nils and i could benefit from it too, thats why i need opinions on this before i go ahead and lock it in

p3d itself could probably use refract on water, and reflect on windows

Wow, you have all my respect! Your work is essential for this game! Keeps going on this way, and if I can help you, feel free to ask me whatever you want!

 

[DracoHouston]

My GPU can handle Shader Model up to version 5. But if you need to know more details about the GPUs we use, I can post my whole GPU-Z log, and I guess someone can do the same thing. Hope to help anyway...

ya most folks have shader model 2+, i'm just worried about shou because he's got an old lappy, it should support shader model 2 though, shader model 1.1 was soooooooooo long ago, like, year 2000 long ago

 

[Orion]

ya most folks have shader model 2+, i'm just worried about shou because he's got an old lappy, it should support shader model 2 though, shader model 1.1 was soooooooooo long ago, like, year 2000 long ago

I thought it was a question to everyone, because you said "i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1", so since I'm a regular poster I gave you an answer! Just a misunderstood. My mistake!

 

[DracoHouston]

ya most folks have shader model 2+, i'm just worried about shou because he's got an old lappy, it should support shader model 2 though, shader model 1.1 was soooooooooo long ago, like, year 2000 long ago

I thought it was a question to everyone, because you said "i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1", so since I'm a regular poster I gave you an answer! Just a misunderstood. My mistake!

thats ok, im just not worried about what SM people have specifically, just if their card can do at least shader model 2.0, or rather, if their card does not. so i can go ooooooh noooo and try and make a fallback method to support their computer still

 

[Banned]

I thought it was a question to everyone, because you said "i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1", so since I'm a regular poster I gave you an answer! Just a misunderstood. My mistake!

thats ok, im just not worried about what SM people have specifically, just if their card can do at least shader model 2.0, or rather, if their card does not. so i can go ooooooh noooo and try and make a fallback method to support their computer still

I would try to add as many as you can, and detect the shader model when running the game, and apply the closest one. I do that for some of my applications, to make sure it's always compatible, and higher-end computers don't get the bad end of the deal.

 

[Shou Liengod]

batch drawing. calling a draw stops the graphics card, you feed it the vertices, and tell it to draw. because this stops the card while you feed it the data its going to not run fast if you do it too often. so instead of drawing each block 1 by 1 after depth sorting and transforming them on the cpu i feed the whole damn level's stuff into a bunch of big buffers and draw the level in a dozen calls instead of thousands.

errr, quick question, what shader model does your gpu use? it there any way you can find out for me? i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1 because im using shader model 2 atm. but afaik no ones had a shader model 1.1 card since like, 2002

And where exactly can i find that? its not in y System menu where it tells me the specs if the PC.

 

[Banned]

batch drawing. calling a draw stops the graphics card, you feed it the vertices, and tell it to draw. because this stops the card while you feed it the data its going to not run fast if you do it too often. so instead of drawing each block 1 by 1 after depth sorting and transforming them on the cpu i feed the whole damn level's stuff into a bunch of big buffers and draw the level in a dozen calls instead of thousands.

errr, quick question, what shader model does your gpu use? it there any way you can find out for me? i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1 because im using shader model 2 atm. but afaik no ones had a shader model 1.1 card since like, 2002

And where exactly can i find that? its not in y System menu where it tells me the specs if the PC.

No I mean, the game will do it automaticly, because in most coding(if not all) languages, you can find system specs.

 

[Banned]

batch drawing. calling a draw stops the graphics card, you feed it the vertices, and tell it to draw. because this stops the card while you feed it the data its going to not run fast if you do it too often. so instead of drawing each block 1 by 1 after depth sorting and transforming them on the cpu i feed the whole damn level's stuff into a bunch of big buffers and draw the level in a dozen calls instead of thousands.

errr, quick question, what shader model does your gpu use? it there any way you can find out for me? i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1 because im using shader model 2 atm. but afaik no ones had a shader model 1.1 card since like, 2002

And where exactly can i find that? its not in y System menu where it tells me the specs if the PC.

1. Click on the Start menu, then "Run".

2. In the "Run" box type "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and click "Ok". This will open up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool.

3. In the System tab, listed under the "System Information" heading you should see a "DirectX Version" listed.

4. Match your DirectX version with the Shader version listed below.
Please note DirectX versions prior to DirectX 8.0 do not support shader models
• DirectX 8.0 - Shader Model 1.0 & 1.1
• DirectX 8.0a - Shader Model 1.3
• DirectX 8.1 - Shader Model 1.4
• DirectX 9.0 - Shader Model 2.0
• DirectX 9.0a - Shader Model 2.0a
• DirectX 9.0b - Shader Model 2.0b
• DirectX 9.0c - Shader Model 3.0
• DirectX 10.0* - Shader Model 4.0
• DirectX 10.1* - Shader Model 4.1
• DirectX 11.0* - Shader Model 5.0
• DirectX 11.1* - Shader Model 5.0
*DirectX 10.0 and higher will not run in Windows XP

 

[Orion]

batch drawing. calling a draw stops the graphics card, you feed it the vertices, and tell it to draw. because this stops the card while you feed it the data its going to not run fast if you do it too often. so instead of drawing each block 1 by 1 after depth sorting and transforming them on the cpu i feed the whole damn level's stuff into a bunch of big buffers and draw the level in a dozen calls instead of thousands.

errr, quick question, what shader model does your gpu use? it there any way you can find out for me? i really really hope no regular posters have a gpu with only shader model 1.1 because im using shader model 2 atm. but afaik no ones had a shader model 1.1 card since like, 2002

And where exactly can i find that? its not in y System menu where it tells me the specs if the PC.

You can use that: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2198/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.6.7.html