New Renderer (OpenGL 3.3)
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Especially the storage tanks, like they’re coated with alien slime or some sh-it
They look more plastic than metal, but that’s because the same levels get applied to every object I’d imagine, just like unreal engine 3 always has glossy everything.I think it’s really great that you all continue to push this game well past its limitations, you’re a determined bunch and I hope the rewards are worth your efforts. I keep visiting just to see what crazy thing will be made possible next.
I think FF said a few years ago that without a complete retexture the dx9 wrapper wouldn’t make much difference to vanilla, beginning to see a lot of sense in that statement now. It’s the same as freespace 2 open, the models and textures are just so old and basic that normal maps don’t really do them any favours.
It’s hard to tell just looking at screen grabs I guess, do you think it’s a real improvement when you’re playing Schmack? Does your mod have plenty of custom models with better textures?
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Yeah, they’re definitely referring to the specular highlights being too diffuse. I suppose you’re generating that on the fly or using just a fixed value for the spec power.
It wouldn’t be too hard to generate basic spec maps from the textures themselves, at least manually.
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I think it looks better when you see it in movement, yes. More like a new game.
There is no material system, yet. The shader supports it, but it has the same value for every material. Also I am not sure whether I keep the current lighting model or choose a different one.
I plan to write a material editor with a preview. You will be able to set for every texture metalness, smoothness and specular intensity (that is for the currently used lighting model). So it can look like plastic, metal or in between. Also if this is not enough I can add every map you wish (specular maps etc), this is easy. But I don’t want to use a model no one is able to set the parameters for, because you need to measure them or they are too many.
In case I am able to render the whole scene to a cubemap or at least the starspheres, I could use image based lighting to get good metal reflections. But for now I am not able to do that. I will get to it when the rest is working.
My hope is, that with the possibility of better models / textures people will make those. Now it does not make much sense, but with the wrapper this changes. It is more like the chicken-and-egg problem.
Thanks for the good feedback, this is really helping me a lot!
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I noticed one shader had old settings. Textures with only normal maps were not so smooth and reflected with a larger radius (that did not apply to the tanks, but e.g. to those towers with windows). You can see the effect for all materials in the second pair of screenshots below.
Here are a few examples of the settings:
Same settings, full specular intensity:
Same settings, half specular intensity:
Less smoothness, full specular intensity:
Less smoothness, half specular intensity:
Update: Sorry, found an error in the lighting equation
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Yes. Looks like covered in oil. I dont know how it is bad ot good. Gameplay video is needed
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It’s as sizer says.
That colour, the goldy stuff is bleeding like crazy throughout the scene.
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I think that is because the reflective colour was wrongly calculated. Fixed it in the screens above. Please reevaluate. Also keep in mind that there are two light sources (one orange). Also there is a glitch at the storage tank which has to do with the tbn values stored in the model and will be fixed.
I can make another video, but for that I would use the settings you prefer. I also would like to be sure there are no errors left before I do one, since weird looking effects might be mistakes I made and did not yet find
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Alright, I have checked the equations again and now they seem to be correct.
Here is a video with rather smooth settings and a little bit tuned down specular intensity:
LinkSince as mentioned there is no material system yet, every texture has the same setting. Also I don’t know whether I will keep this lighting model or choose another or even make it selectable per texture etc.
Edit:
Here is one with even less specular intensity: LinkBut I think it is better when I do more research before posting endless screenshots and videos. At least I think I do understand the problem now. Maybe it also is a matter of taste.
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Looks okay in that last video, fix those tanks and you’re in better shape there I think. Does look far better in video than screenshots so well done.
It would be easier to form a proper opinion if you didn’t have different coloured light sources, something that never really made any sense to me in freelancer if I’m honest, but each to their own as it’s purely an artistic choice. If it were made per system, gas cloud, or purely dynamic effects like gas jets, station lights, laser beams etc I’d get it, but it doesn’t work well for my eyes when adjacent surfaces of the same station are lit in sharply contrasting colours.
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oil is a good way to prevent oxidation (not that there is much oxigen in space… im just trying to find a good explanation)
also keep in mind that metal can have very different looks depending on its composition
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Schmackbolzen wrote:
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I can make another video, but for that I would use the settings you prefer
…Can you record video with regular random mission at 1280x800 resolution?
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I can, but I am not sure what you want to see there? You’ll get me flying wild behind some ships
Here is a video with a PBR based lighting model: Link
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That’s made quite a nice difference, subtle but effective, well done.
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I also think it is better, but maybe too weak. One of the next tasks is to calculate a better reflective base colour, so that the “oil effect” is reduced and you can tune the reflections up a little. I have had some results, but I am not there yet.
In the meantime I have implemented gamma correction and now the lighting calculations should correctly take place in linear space. I think it looks much better (you can see it everywhere in the game): Link
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Yeah, that’s fixed the lighting, top job, your hard work is paying off in spades my friend!
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Thanks! Here is a video with settings for the reflections Skotty and I like: Link
Probably still not optimal, but I will leave it by that for now, since I plan to leave the settings to the people who configure the materials (which hopefully will not be me ;)).
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Yeah, that’s introduced some different lighting issues now hasn’t it, faces on the tanks are lit incorrectly with the bottom triangle of the face showing highlights and the top not, and large parts of the base showing highlights which should be in shadow at times. You’ve got your work cut out with this fella! Keep at it and you’ll crack it eventually I’m sure.
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Those have been there all the time. The problem is with the tbn data in the models (I had written it in one of my last post somewhere :)) There is a reason I said development will still take time
I need to port the algorithm to correctly generate them, because I only have c++ code for now, but the UTF editor is c#. I only added a quick fix to correct much worse lighting problems like this: 
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Schmackbolzen wrote:
I can, but I am not sure what you want to see there? You’ll get me flying wild behind some ships…
I do not want to see - i want to feel and compare with vanilla
It is because when player going to complete missions - he is blind usually about game details. If he feels comfortable in this moment - then success -
Not talking about that stripe, are we watching the same video? I’m sure you can see far better than I can in a video though.
