[Sobek]

I was just testing out that latest Synthesis build with model normal map support on my work PC, and while eDuke32 works just fine, Mapster crashes if I try to switch to 3d mode while running with either the Polymer or Polymost renderer. Software (8bit) appears to work fine...

The log shows everything loading like normal, it just bails out at 'Initializing Polymer Subsystem...' with nothing after that. In the case of Polymost, the log just stops after 'Cache Contains xxxxxx bytes of Garbage Data'.

I've tried deleting my configs and letting them be recreated just in case (I normally do this anyway) but so far no luck.

[Plagman]

I don't really know what could be causing that. Try deleting your texture cache, it's possible it is only enabled in mapster32 and the build you were using previously used the old format. If that fails, try going back through the synthesis history until you find a build that works for you.

[Sobek]

Ahh yes, deleting the texture cache did the trick. Not sure why I didn't try that sooner (given what the log says about garbage cache data).. Doi!

Thanks.

[zilp]

Plagman, on Jan 25 2010, 01:27 AM, said:

You're right that the model is going to get flat shaded depending on its BUILD shade. This is essentially the ambient component when rendering with Polymer. If you want to start from complete darkness, do a test room and shade it very dark.
Also, note that you don't need a specular map to specify the specular material of your model. Just setting "specpower" and "specfactor" in the diffuse map definition will allow you to make your model less shiny. The specular map is just for tweaking that per-pixel.

Quote

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this is not going to work correctly if you're using mirrored UV. Not sure if the new liztroop is using it, but since I know the old one is I thought I'd mention that. Any vertex that's shared by two triangles that don't have the same UV handedness will cause artifacts. I'm not sure whether it should be the artist responsibility to duplicate these vertices to create a seam in the mesh along the UV mirror or if the model postprocessor should automagically patch it up when loading it in EDuke32.

Would it be somehow possible to control that amount of ambient lighting on the model?
Ofcourse I could make the model a bit more dark, but still I would not achieve as much contrast as I want..

I did remake the UV maps (and most of the model) for this one, so this does not have shared UV:s. I tested it in Blenders "game engine" viewport rendering and they worked.
I think I'm having those seams because the X-axis is mirrored in Blenders normal map system. I'll try to get that Gimp Normalmap-plugin working to fix it.

[Tea Monster]

You can also use X-Normal for baking. It works a treat. If you are having problems with mirrored uv maps and baking, just copy your cage and your high-res meshes to a different layer, chop them down the middle and then bake those.

[Fox]

Hey, I am having some trouble with mod directory def loading. It seems that the game will load the duke3d.def from eduke32.exe directory, not the mod directory.

Is it possible to add an alternative def name that would be loaded instead of duke32.def (like having a eduke.con does)? That would avoid any issue with it

[Parkar]

zilp, on Jan 25 2010, 08:59 AM, said:

Would it be somehow possible to control that amount of ambient lighting on the model?
Ofcourse I could make the model a bit more dark, but still I would not achieve as much contrast as I want..

I did remake the UV maps (and most of the model) for this one, so this does not have shared UV:s. I tested it in Blenders "game engine" viewport rendering and they worked.
I think I'm having those seams because the X-axis is mirrored in Blenders normal map system. I'll try to get that Gimp Normalmap-plugin working to fix it.

It shouldn't be controled on a per object basis the problem here is that we don't have a way of controlling the ambient light in the maphack yet. I have been making my own eduke32 build with the sector schading hardcoded to a pretty dark value when working with the light hacks.

As far as the normals direction goees I think it is the way 3dsmax has them, r = x, g = -y, z = b so my guess is you might have to invert the green channel. As Tea Monster says xNormal is great for generating the normals.

[zilp]

I did use xNormal, but I did some tweaking in Blender and re-baked the maps, which obviously was a mistake since I found out for some odd reason Blender uses different setup from everyone else.

I tried to fix them up, but I am still not very sure, since the normal maps aren't that visible in the game yet, atleast for me.

Also I'm not sure how to setup normal maps and skins for several surfaces in the model?

I'm posting the model here, but it most certainly is not finished. The textures or the normal maps don't work at all.
Hopefully someone with more experience on Eduke32/Polymer stuff could take a look and help me out?
I put the textures as jpeg now.

EDIT:
Just add up, that I did switch one of the channels that blender generated for normal map, so it should work in the zip.
But it is really hard to see if this is really the case, especially since I could not get multiple textures work.
My first test was with only one texture for the entire model, but I think it became a little too blurry.

It seemed that 1024x2048 single texture was scaled down when loaded in game?

It would be nice if someone could hack in some sort of model preview tool, like an option to the games menu or console

Attached File(s)

•  trooper.zip (1.53MB)
  Number of downloads: 986

[Sangman]

Micky C, on Jan 24 2010, 08:30 AM, said:

I don't care how many bugs polymer has, with that and if lights and when lighting can be applied to HUD models, the game is going to look almost completely modern

What good does that do if the game crashes for people every so often? (the recently fixed soundbug reduced a lot of crashes but I still get them, sometimes quite often, but not as much) TBH I'd rather have stability over looks

[High Treason]

Exactly, the game would be almost completely modern
Or is it just me that gets crashes in modern games

[RPD Guy]

Roma Loom, on Jan 24 2010, 09:08 AM, said:

should be like texture definition:

texture 258 {
pal 0 { file "highres/textures/0258.png" }
normal { file "highres/textures/0258_n.png" parallaxbias 0.0 parallaxscale 0.1 }
specular { file "highres/textures/0258_s.png" }
glow { file "highres/textures/0258_g.png" }
}

Hope you'll figure it up quickly.

is this wath I aways talking about!
i need a tool to make the ''specular''
(:

[RPD Guy]

PS: why not the lights affects the HUD weapon?

[Spiker]

Dk2, on Jan 28 2010, 10:04 PM, said:

PS: why not the lights affects the HUD weapon?

Patience.

[BrOiler1985]

I have a (maybe) stupid question.. what does Polymer do? Polymost kinda converts most of the visible things to polygons, right? So what does polymer do? Does Polymer convert everything into polygons?

[kenia]

I have not read the code so I dont know the exact rendering pipeline, but in the end when you render something on your gpu with opengl everything is "converted" to triangles... somehow its a stupid question. So basically what polymer is doing is just calculating shadows (and using vertex shaders). so I guess it builds on top of polymost and just extents it (basically) with this feature.

[TerminX]

No, Polymer doesn't share anything in common with Polymost. It is a completely new renderer that works entirely different from Polymost in about every way possible.

[kenia]

I never looked at the code

[RPD Guy]

i have a question!
what i do to run duke plus with the polymer?
I tried to merge the folder ''duke plus'' with ''polymer_hrp'' folder, however I had no result

[The Commander]

Dk2, on Jan 31 2010, 09:34 AM, said:

i have a question!
what i do to run duke plus with the polymer?
I tried to merge the folder ''duke plus'' with ''polymer_hrp'' folder, however I had no result

Put "polymer_hrp.zip" in the Autoload folder and just run "dukeplus.bat" with the Polymer box ticked.

If that doesn't work then you have installed either Duke Plus wrong or the Polymer HRP wrong.

[RPD Guy]

tanks! this works!

[Tea Monster]

Sangman, on Jan 26 2010, 08:32 AM, said:

What good does that do if the game crashes for people every so often? (the recently fixed soundbug reduced a lot of crashes but I still get them, sometimes quite often, but not as much) TBH I'd rather have stability over looks

This is exactly why Plagman didn't release any alphas of Polymer for ages. He has said that there is still loads left to do, let him get it done.

Writing your own next-gen rendering engine is NOT easy. Trying to marry it to an old DOS game is near-on freaking impossible. Just wait.

[zilp]

I finally got the new trooper model to work somewhat ingame (Thanks to Tea Monster!).

But how should I declare the normal maps to the model with multiple surfaces?

skin { pal 0 surface 0 file "highres/sprites/monsters/1680_trooper_skin_color.jpg" }
normal{ file "highres/sprites/monsters/1680_trooper_skin_normal.jpg" parallaxbias 0.1 parallaxscale 0.5 surf 0 }
skin { pal 0 surface 1 file "highres/sprites/monsters/1680_trooper_gear_0.jpg" }
normal{ file "highres/sprites/monsters/1680_trooper_gear_normal.jpg" parallaxbias 0.1 parallaxscale 0.5 surf 1}

I tried the "surf" since it was used in glowmaps.. but what is the correct syntax?



Here is the model ingame now, and as you can see, the normal maps are not really visible... probably because they are not applied?

[Plagman]

Yeah, 'surf' or 'surface' should just work.

Can you post the fixed MD3 and DEFs so that I can make sure that normal maps work?

[zilp]

Plagman, on Feb 2 2010, 10:40 PM, said:

Yeah, 'surf' or 'surface' should just work.

Can you post the fixed MD3 and DEFs so that I can make sure that normal maps work?

Here you go!

 trooper.zip (1.56MB)
Number of downloads: 1042

[Plagman]

http://plagman.free....rmaltrooper.jpg

I "works" if you add spaces between 'normal' and '{' as well as 'surf 1' and the trailing '}'.
It's definitely buggy on some triangles, though. I'll try looking into it in some more detail, but I think it's bad interaction between the smoothing code and how the skin is unwrapped.

[MusicallyInspired]

Man this looks nice. I wanna play polymer again!

[Spiker]

Comparison.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Danukem]

Spiker, on Feb 3 2010, 02:09 AM, said:

Comparison.

I wish you had picked a shot of the new one that didn't have a green light on it from the shrinker.

[Sebastian]

Here's some shots.



It's too bad Duke is such a fastpaced game, it would be much more enjoyable to play this as a somewhat slow modern shooter. You miss too much of the details with its Unreal Tournament-style gameplay.

[Mblackwell]

Definitely needs work, but damn it sure is getting there.