You're getting a little beyond my understanding of things, and we'd likely need to call in one of the graphics programmers for some of those questions. I don't know that there is anything you can do to force it to draw textures farther away. My understanding is that it only loads the mip level you should be seeing (which is why mip reversal was important). It will always try to draw full res textures for things you are near. However, with mip splitting, if you're running on a lower end card, and you don't load that other half of the mips, your max level is still somewhere down the chain. However, that should improve performance for you in general.
What have you done to my ship windows. My ship has more windows than crew.
I think that's true of many ships. If you think about crew quarters, most quarters have multiple windows, even if there is only one person living in there. . .
As for the window textures, the irony here is that we didn't change those source images. So, your ship has ALWAYS had that many windows, but with the previous tech, some of them just got blurred out of existence from afar.
This may sound weird, but I actually like having all those windows on my ships. For me it gives it a sense of scale. Sometimes when I'm flying a smaller ship like a BoP I often forget that these are actually huge ships and not small fighters. Then I see an Atrox with all those windows and I think "Oh right, these ships are freakin' massive." All those windows remind me that the ships have large crews on them.
Also thanks for the write up, very cool insight into the process. Love reading stuff like that, even if a lot of the times it makes no sense to me haha.
Oh, cool. Thanks for providing such a detailed insight, Taco.
As for the quotation marks, they happen to me all the time since the forums were changed a while back. The key I usually use for apostrophs is two keys to the left of the "0" on my keyboard. That gets changed to "?" when I post. I have to use the key right of the big "Enter" key to make it work. But since I'm used to use the other key, I have to edit almost every post I make ! Maybe it's the country configuration.....
...
now how do i force the game to display higher res mips at greater distances? -> because my 1GB vRam on my old TRIBBLE GTX460 is usually only utilized by ~ 600MB and i have 400MB FREE. (i can see that stuff via Aida64 on my Logitech G15 display stats ).
And next gen Graphics Cards are having a LOT more memory, when i go window shopping i see cards with 2 - 5GB of vRam (crazy!).
...actually how does this work to begin with?
I think that it loads the mips up to the limit of what your current resolution would be able to display anyway, so increasing the distance for the higher res ones won't change what you see while you are standing still--it would effectively just be "pre-loading" the detail for when you move closer to it.
now how do i force the game to display higher res mips at greater distances?
I think this can be done via one of the sliders in the advanced graphics options, specifically, the object distance slider, which (as I understand it) will give the system a multiplier for the distance at which to use each mip.
Things are pixalated, low res texture at what is a normal viewing distance. From a distance they are more blobs. You only get what should be to normal high res texture when you are literally right next to it.
If you take one step back the texture changes. One step forward, it changes. You can see the textures loading and its not smooth.
Somethings I can hardly even call a texture since there is no actual detail. Maybe its always like that but the plasma weapons I have been using are just dirty and have no actual detail. All the other weapons look great. All you have to do is look at a weapons rack in the game to see the differences.
My ship doesnt have the same look at times. what would normally look like a smooth metal texture is now gritty and looks fairly rough and doesnt reflect the same.
On some of my ships the windows are now very pixalated when you are zoomed in.
Many wall textures are very pixalated even when you are right next to them.
Things are pixalated, low res texture at what is a normal viewing distance. From a distance they are more blobs. You only get what should be to normal high res texture when you are literally right next to it.
If you take one step back the texture changes. One step forward, it changes. You can see the textures loading and its not smooth.
Somethings I can hardly even call a texture since there is no actual detail. Maybe its always like that but the plasma weapons I have been using are just dirty and have no actual detail. All the other weapons look great. All you have to do is look at a weapons rack in the game to see the differences.
My ship doesnt have the same look at times. what would normally look like a smooth metal texture is now gritty and looks fairly rough and doesnt reflect the same.
On some of my ships the windows are now very pixalated when you are zoomed in.
Many wall textures are very pixalated even when you are right next to them.
I think this can be done via one of the sliders in the advanced graphics options, specifically, the object distance slider, which (as I understand it) will give the system a multiplier for the distance at which to use each mip.
I'd tend to agree with that, only that it does not seem to do anything to textures between 100% and 200% anymore, only when i go lower i notice a difference.
*shrug* i guess i'm running at maximum as it is
just thought there might be some unkown console command magic to force it to 11
I'd tend to agree with that, only that it does not seem to do anything to textures between 100% and 200% anymore, only when i go lower i notice a difference.
*shrug* i guess i'm running at maximum as it is
just thought there might be some unkown console command magic to force it to 11
i think there are serious viewing distance issues.
Brea from Cutting the Cord is the best example. There are wall panels all over the city
From Distance to mid-distance they are simply a bright blog. very noticable but just really bright blobs.
From medium distance to VERY close they are very pixalated and very poor quality.
Once you literally get right in front of it becomes a high rez nice looking panel.
This is one of the instances where you can literally take a step forward or back and see the new image load. It doesnt feel like you are getting closer or farther but the images noticably switch out.
I also think there are lighting issues. They could always have been there and the new textures just make them stand out. Somethings seem more high contrast than others. Some lighting effects are overly bright. Not the actual map lighting - which is overly bright in places - but details that are supposed to be lights.
And there seems to be a bumpmap or something on a lot of stuff. Lots of stuff has more of a "stone" texture than metal or what ever materials we use in the 24th century.
And everything looks dirty. Not refering to the image quality but that everything looks like it has a layer of dust and need a rag and some windex taken to it.
Tacofangs, you one hoopy frood and I love your taco-y goodness, but you've screwed this one up real bad. Every character in the game looks like they have a skin condition, since the textures got "improved."
im also seeing what used to bug me in CO. Surfaces that should be glossy or really smooth are way too reflective. In the Admins office in Romulan command, his guest chairs are like mirrors and the book shelves are highly reflective.
I think that's true of many ships. If you think about crew quarters, most quarters have multiple windows, even if there is only one person living in there. . .
As for the window textures, the irony here is that we didn't change those source images. So, your ship has ALWAYS had that many windows, but with the previous tech, some of them just got blurred out of existence from afar.
here, have a carrot :::holds out carrot:::
Thanks taco thats a spicy carrot
The best modifications are the shiny deflector dishes.
I have a question for you Tacofang, but before I do I would like to thank you and your fellow developer team members for putting in the hard work to make this game come 'alive'.
I think I speak for all the players in this game that your team has done an outstanding and admirable job putting time and effort into things we would take for granted but will come to appreciate!
A job well done!
Tacofang, I was wondering since the update to the textures has changed...does that mean that there will be more processing power required for the new textures? (More cpu power required? Does this mean the use of graphics card will be less 'taxing'?)
No problem, glad to be of service.
I'm not exactly sure where the line between GPU and CPU is, that's another question for our graphics programmers. Overall there shouldn't be any more processing power required for our textures. For low end users, they won't ever bother to load 1024, or 2048 textures, and thus, their processing power should be improved fairly significantly.
I think this can be done via one of the sliders in the advanced graphics options, specifically, the object distance slider, which (as I understand it) will give the system a multiplier for the distance at which to use each mip.
The World Detail Distance slider is actually more related to models rather than textures. Much like MipMaps display lower resolution textures at a distance, objects do the same thing with what is called LODs (Levels of Detail). The objects will swap out at certain points, for lower resolution objects. Increasing your World Detail Distance slider is just going to push out those model changes to be further away.
There is a "World Texture Quality" slider. TBH, I'm not sure what it does exactly. But I would guess that it would do the same thing as "World Detail Distance" but with textures (Mips). I can ask about that on Monday.
Many maps now have the cheap Champions Online look.
My system handled the previous textures fine and everything looked great.
Would it help if we posted screen shots to show how degraded many things are? Its fairly noticiable.
By all means, post screenshots. We'll adjust things we see as problematic.
IMHO, I view this like I do the transition to HDTV. Cable News Anchors hated HDTV because you can now see the pimples and flaws they have. Those flaws (and your ship's details) were always there, they were just glossed over by the old, low res TV signal.
Do the viewing of those flaws mean that we should go back to old TV signals? No, I think the vast majority of people would agree that HDTV is an improvement, and that while you can see the flaws in an anchor's face, it is a minor price to pay for the general improvements it brings.
But that's just my opinion.
The change in mips (stepping forward and backward) has not changed. That has been there since launch. I would argue that you are only noticing it now because you are paying such close attention to textures now.
Again, none of the base, source textures were altered. If there is a "stone" texture or if things look more dirty to you, that is the way it has always been. It may be more visible now that we've sharpened the mips, but that detail was always there.
Tacofangs, you one hoopy frood and I love your taco-y goodness, but you've screwed this one up real bad. Every character in the game looks like they have a skin condition, since the textures got "improved."
Hey! I'll have you know my FATHER was a Hoopy Frood! So you watch your mouth! . . . er. . . fingers.
Again, no textures were changed, so if they have skin conditions, they always did. Perhaps we can look at redoing some of them as necessary, but personally, I don't see it.
...Cable News Anchors hated HDTV because you can now see the pimples and flaws they have. Those flaws (and your ship's details) were always there, they were just glossed over by the old, low res TV signal.
Do the viewing of those flaws mean that we should go back to old TV signals? No, I think the vast majority of people would agree that HDTV is an improvement, and that while you can see the flaws in an anchor's face, it is a minor price to pay for the general improvements it brings.
But that's just my opinion...
Actually, our EIC (Engineer In Charge) is able to soften the contrast a little in the rack room, smooths those harsh details without impacting the overall picture, but that's just my show. I'm sure on the Network shows with larger staff, the Shader room has a few tricks up their sleeves to deal with issues like you're describing. Between makeup having to now go all the way down the neck (for example) and little tricks with tweaking the camera's settings, and a COMPLETELY different approach to lighting, HD was just a learning curve.
EDIT: Did I mention 4K is coming? Yeah. You think the Anchors look bad now, wait until the standard jumps again...
Wampaq@Jnoh, Fleet Leader: ..Bloodbath and Beyond[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]'Iw HaH je Hoch! ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3 A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome. Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
No, I might some time. The version of Vi I used was the one that goes with Solaris Unix.
I've found the Windows version of vim to be pretty good. I haven't used Solaris in ages. Now that Oracle has acquired Sun, I'm not sure how much longer that OS has left.
Is there a way to decompress textures on the hard drive as they are being installed, for those of us with plenty of space? I would think it would improve performance having the data decompressed ahead of time rather than doing it on the fly as it's being accessed.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
Just to note there's still flickering sky file textures in patrol missions, the one I encountered yesterday was in the Eriksson System, Pi Canis Sector Block.
The World Detail Distance slider is actually more related to models rather than textures. Much like MipMaps display lower resolution textures at a distance, objects do the same thing with what is called LODs (Levels of Detail). The objects will swap out at certain points, for lower resolution objects. Increasing your World Detail Distance slider is just going to push out those model changes to be further away.
apropos LOD
i have some pretty big beefs and some bacons here
since Captain Logan updated the Galaxy/Intrepid/Sovereign/Defiant Ships there is some oddness going on.
Long story short, he did update the high res models but forgot/ignored the low LOD models.
The low LOD models look significantly different to the high res models.
Most obvious example is the Sovereign class, that one changes it's deflector color between orange and blue when the LOD model swaps (on a 1920x1080 screen, with maxed out sliders that is still pretty visible).
In that one mission from the Dominion Arc, Facility 2048, the one with the prison. There are these cut scenes and the LOD models swap inside the cutscene, you can really see how the SHAPES of the Ships change, because Logan updated the Shapes of the ships to be more close to the original, i'd say the Defiant had the smallest changes and even on that one you can see the LOD swap pretty badly in that cutscene. For the Galaxy Class i can see it in-game without a problem because that Ship was really redone pretty extensively, the LOD swap is real bad here, and for some reason it happens a lot earlier than on most other ships.
If i have a fleet of ships sitting above ESD in sector space, and one of them is a Galaxy and another is a Odyssey.
I do NOT see any change on the Odyssey at all, no matter the distance, but the Galaxy swaps to the low res LOD model before i'm ~10k away, so the ship is still pretty big.
LOD Gripe nr.2:
and this one really hits the Bacon!
The K'Tinga was updated once to have it's engines glow like on DS9 / Voyager, in fact the D7 had added glows too but in different spots.
A few updates later those glows disappeared magically and never were added back, no comment from the Devs if the removal was intended or not... it looked a lot better with the glows anyway.
BUT the glow on the low res LOD model is still there, i don't know maybe the high and low LOD objects got reversed here maybe. But when i see a K'Tinga far away it always has the glows on it's nacelles, as soon as LOD model swap happens the glows are gone.
LOD Gripe nr.3:
Gorn Ships!
i don't know if this got fixed lately i didn't see it happen in a while, but then there aren't that many Gorn Ships around these days anymore.
Anyway on some of the 3 Gorn Ships, i don't know which, they all look the same to me ;P
The Ship model changes extremely on the LOD swap.
In fact i think the Tier 3 version swaps to the LOD model of the Tier 5 version because the size of the far away LOD model is twice as big as the closer version, so when you get close the Ship shrinks by half.
As i said, i think this might have been fixed, not sure though.
This stuff needs to be looked at and a coat of polish applied.
As time permits of course. Maybe with the after May-update fix wave that is to follow?
Comments
What have you done to my ship windows. My ship has more windows than crew.
You're getting a little beyond my understanding of things, and we'd likely need to call in one of the graphics programmers for some of those questions. I don't know that there is anything you can do to force it to draw textures farther away. My understanding is that it only loads the mip level you should be seeing (which is why mip reversal was important). It will always try to draw full res textures for things you are near. However, with mip splitting, if you're running on a lower end card, and you don't load that other half of the mips, your max level is still somewhere down the chain. However, that should improve performance for you in general.
I think that's true of many ships. If you think about crew quarters, most quarters have multiple windows, even if there is only one person living in there. . .
As for the window textures, the irony here is that we didn't change those source images. So, your ship has ALWAYS had that many windows, but with the previous tech, some of them just got blurred out of existence from afar.
here, have a carrot :::holds out carrot:::
Also thanks for the write up, very cool insight into the process. Love reading stuff like that, even if a lot of the times it makes no sense to me haha.
Mine Trap Supporter
As for the quotation marks, they happen to me all the time since the forums were changed a while back. The key I usually use for apostrophs is two keys to the left of the "0" on my keyboard. That gets changed to "?" when I post. I have to use the key right of the big "Enter" key to make it work. But since I'm used to use the other key, I have to edit almost every post I make ! Maybe it's the country configuration.....
Uh, is it 1998 somehow?
https://youtube.com/channel/UCJZ5FBJ9bFaZ6yAFiNpZiRQ/featured?view_as=subscriber
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/CaptainCidStorm
I think that it loads the mips up to the limit of what your current resolution would be able to display anyway, so increasing the distance for the higher res ones won't change what you see while you are standing still--it would effectively just be "pre-loading" the detail for when you move closer to it.
I think this can be done via one of the sliders in the advanced graphics options, specifically, the object distance slider, which (as I understand it) will give the system a multiplier for the distance at which to use each mip.
Everything in the game looks "degraded"
Many maps now have the cheap Champions Online look.
My system handled the previous textures fine and everything looked great.
Would it help if we posted screen shots to show how degraded many things are? Its fairly noticiable.
Things are pixalated, low res texture at what is a normal viewing distance. From a distance they are more blobs. You only get what should be to normal high res texture when you are literally right next to it.
If you take one step back the texture changes. One step forward, it changes. You can see the textures loading and its not smooth.
Somethings I can hardly even call a texture since there is no actual detail. Maybe its always like that but the plasma weapons I have been using are just dirty and have no actual detail. All the other weapons look great. All you have to do is look at a weapons rack in the game to see the differences.
My ship doesnt have the same look at times. what would normally look like a smooth metal texture is now gritty and looks fairly rough and doesnt reflect the same.
On some of my ships the windows are now very pixalated when you are zoomed in.
Many wall textures are very pixalated even when you are right next to them.
hmm not noticing any of that earlier when i shot this
http://i1065.photobucket.com/albums/u389/kapla1755/closed%20beta/2013-05-11_00007.jpg
I'd tend to agree with that, only that it does not seem to do anything to textures between 100% and 200% anymore, only when i go lower i notice a difference.
*shrug* i guess i'm running at maximum as it is
just thought there might be some unkown console command magic to force it to 11
i think there are serious viewing distance issues.
Brea from Cutting the Cord is the best example. There are wall panels all over the city
From Distance to mid-distance they are simply a bright blog. very noticable but just really bright blobs.
From medium distance to VERY close they are very pixalated and very poor quality.
Once you literally get right in front of it becomes a high rez nice looking panel.
This is one of the instances where you can literally take a step forward or back and see the new image load. It doesnt feel like you are getting closer or farther but the images noticably switch out.
I also think there are lighting issues. They could always have been there and the new textures just make them stand out. Somethings seem more high contrast than others. Some lighting effects are overly bright. Not the actual map lighting - which is overly bright in places - but details that are supposed to be lights.
And there seems to be a bumpmap or something on a lot of stuff. Lots of stuff has more of a "stone" texture than metal or what ever materials we use in the 24th century.
And everything looks dirty. Not refering to the image quality but that everything looks like it has a layer of dust and need a rag and some windex taken to it.
Thanks taco thats a spicy carrot
The best modifications are the shiny deflector dishes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsVRj7VvfWc
No problem, glad to be of service.
I'm not exactly sure where the line between GPU and CPU is, that's another question for our graphics programmers. Overall there shouldn't be any more processing power required for our textures. For low end users, they won't ever bother to load 1024, or 2048 textures, and thus, their processing power should be improved fairly significantly.
The World Detail Distance slider is actually more related to models rather than textures. Much like MipMaps display lower resolution textures at a distance, objects do the same thing with what is called LODs (Levels of Detail). The objects will swap out at certain points, for lower resolution objects. Increasing your World Detail Distance slider is just going to push out those model changes to be further away.
There is a "World Texture Quality" slider. TBH, I'm not sure what it does exactly. But I would guess that it would do the same thing as "World Detail Distance" but with textures (Mips). I can ask about that on Monday.
By all means, post screenshots. We'll adjust things we see as problematic.
IMHO, I view this like I do the transition to HDTV. Cable News Anchors hated HDTV because you can now see the pimples and flaws they have. Those flaws (and your ship's details) were always there, they were just glossed over by the old, low res TV signal.
Do the viewing of those flaws mean that we should go back to old TV signals? No, I think the vast majority of people would agree that HDTV is an improvement, and that while you can see the flaws in an anchor's face, it is a minor price to pay for the general improvements it brings.
But that's just my opinion.
The change in mips (stepping forward and backward) has not changed. That has been there since launch. I would argue that you are only noticing it now because you are paying such close attention to textures now.
Again, none of the base, source textures were altered. If there is a "stone" texture or if things look more dirty to you, that is the way it has always been. It may be more visible now that we've sharpened the mips, but that detail was always there.
Hey! I'll have you know my FATHER was a Hoopy Frood! So you watch your mouth! . . . er. . . fingers.
Again, no textures were changed, so if they have skin conditions, they always did. Perhaps we can look at redoing some of them as necessary, but personally, I don't see it.
Elite Defense Stovokor
You should have signed this post: Wile E. Coyote, "Super Genius"
mip mip!
Actually, our EIC (Engineer In Charge) is able to soften the contrast a little in the rack room, smooths those harsh details without impacting the overall picture, but that's just my show. I'm sure on the Network shows with larger staff, the Shader room has a few tricks up their sleeves to deal with issues like you're describing. Between makeup having to now go all the way down the neck (for example) and little tricks with tweaking the camera's settings, and a COMPLETELY different approach to lighting, HD was just a learning curve.
EDIT: Did I mention 4K is coming? Yeah. You think the Anchors look bad now, wait until the standard jumps again...
ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3
A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome.
Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
My character Tsin'xing
I've found the Windows version of vim to be pretty good. I haven't used Solaris in ages. Now that Oracle has acquired Sun, I'm not sure how much longer that OS has left.
www.divisionhispana.com
Thanks for the work improving the textures.
AND
Thanks for explaining it us.
Peace
- John
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
apropos LOD
i have some pretty big beefs and some bacons here
since Captain Logan updated the Galaxy/Intrepid/Sovereign/Defiant Ships there is some oddness going on.
Long story short, he did update the high res models but forgot/ignored the low LOD models.
The low LOD models look significantly different to the high res models.
Most obvious example is the Sovereign class, that one changes it's deflector color between orange and blue when the LOD model swaps (on a 1920x1080 screen, with maxed out sliders that is still pretty visible).
In that one mission from the Dominion Arc, Facility 2048, the one with the prison. There are these cut scenes and the LOD models swap inside the cutscene, you can really see how the SHAPES of the Ships change, because Logan updated the Shapes of the ships to be more close to the original, i'd say the Defiant had the smallest changes and even on that one you can see the LOD swap pretty badly in that cutscene. For the Galaxy Class i can see it in-game without a problem because that Ship was really redone pretty extensively, the LOD swap is real bad here, and for some reason it happens a lot earlier than on most other ships.
If i have a fleet of ships sitting above ESD in sector space, and one of them is a Galaxy and another is a Odyssey.
I do NOT see any change on the Odyssey at all, no matter the distance, but the Galaxy swaps to the low res LOD model before i'm ~10k away, so the ship is still pretty big.
LOD Gripe nr.2:
and this one really hits the Bacon!
The K'Tinga was updated once to have it's engines glow like on DS9 / Voyager, in fact the D7 had added glows too but in different spots.
A few updates later those glows disappeared magically and never were added back, no comment from the Devs if the removal was intended or not... it looked a lot better with the glows anyway.
BUT the glow on the low res LOD model is still there, i don't know maybe the high and low LOD objects got reversed here maybe. But when i see a K'Tinga far away it always has the glows on it's nacelles, as soon as LOD model swap happens the glows are gone.
LOD Gripe nr.3:
Gorn Ships!
i don't know if this got fixed lately i didn't see it happen in a while, but then there aren't that many Gorn Ships around these days anymore.
Anyway on some of the 3 Gorn Ships, i don't know which, they all look the same to me ;P
The Ship model changes extremely on the LOD swap.
In fact i think the Tier 3 version swaps to the LOD model of the Tier 5 version because the size of the far away LOD model is twice as big as the closer version, so when you get close the Ship shrinks by half.
As i said, i think this might have been fixed, not sure though.
This stuff needs to be looked at and a coat of polish applied.
As time permits of course. Maybe with the after May-update fix wave that is to follow?
I'll try to add some Screenshots later
//edit:
galaxy (bad picture, can't see it all here, kitbashed version... bad example)
http://i.imagebanana.com/img/ato2xv2c/_GALGameClient2013051210474939.jpg
http://i.imagebanana.com/img/ixhp2a4d/_GALGameClient2013051210475101.jpg
Sovy deflector color swap:
http://i.imagebanana.com/img/kq4g0pj2/SOV_GameClient2013051210475516.jpg
http://i.imagebanana.com/img/ztg6z0ay/SOV_GameClient2013051210475432.jpg