[Gambini]

The problem is the balance between shading and visibility is a math that requires an adjustment per case. You know shading affects visibility and vice-versa so finding an equation which restores the looks of distant bright constructions and at the same time dark closer ones is probably something only the engine knows.

I will be insolent and ask: What is the problem of allowing users access those commands? Come to think of it: nobody will fuck up with them, it´s improbable and your action would save us hours of work, which would be fair to spare, since we always been on the rules when building this. Polymost has been on development for 14 years, claiming we should not have relied on an unfinished renderer is not a valid point.

[Danukem]

Fox, on 24 March 2018 - 10:56 AM, said:

I recommend a custom shade table with 48 shades to get a result similar to 0.65.

Sent you a PM asking for help on this, and yes as we said DNF 2013 uses the same base palette. Your expertise would be much appreciated.

A scripting solution could be made to work, but I'm pretty sure it will take trial and error, using different scripts on different groups of sectors and still fine tuning the result in many cases...it will probably take quite a few hours to get it perfect on all the maps, which are quite large and complex.

[Fox]

Gambini, on 24 March 2018 - 07:08 PM, said:

The problem is the balance between shading and visibility is a math that requires an adjustment per case. You know shading affects visibility and vice-versa so finding an equation which restores the looks of distant bright constructions and at the same time dark closer ones is probably something only the engine knows.

I will be insolent and ask: What is the problem of allowing users access those commands? Come to think of it: nobody will fuck up with them, it´s improbable and your action would save us hours of work, which would be fair to spare, since we always been on the rules when building this. Polymost has been on development for 14 years, claiming we should not have relied on an unfinished renderer is not a valid point.

"Palette Emulation" is r_usetileshades. The option is acting weird because of WIP code of the shader.

The console commands were never intended to serve as tools for modders, but an interface for the user. Meaning that console commands may be changed, removed, etc with no concern for backwards compatibility.

Polymost was in development for a long time, but it was still not working as intended. The purpose has always been to look like classic. It would be equivalent of using a poorly adjusted computer.


Anyway, here is a solution. Add this to the defs:

globalflags 1
shadefactor 47

Then adjust the visibility in USER.CON to your liking:

define DEFAULTVISIBILITY        512

[Danukem]

Fox, on 25 March 2018 - 01:21 AM, said:

Then adjust the visibility in USER.CON to your liking:

define DEFAULTVISIBILITY        512

Here's the thing I don't get, though. Even if the def commands plus changing DEFAULTVISIBILITY gets the correct result in game, how will that help in mapster? Mapster doesn't use settings in USER.CON

The mapper needs to see what the levels will look like in-game while mapping.

[Gambini]

Hello.

I haven't been following new features progress closely but i'm tempted to ask, because I know these have been subject of discussion in the past times, so they may be already available:

Are model skyboxes featured already? If so, what i have to do to get one of myself working?

Exists a way to use fog without changing the sector´s palette?

When will palette emulation apply on models and voxels?

Thanks for the response.

@Hendrics266: The sound problem I reported is fixed. If you are interested on reading what was it: it seems that (at least on my end) If sound SFX volume goes below 53% it wont work at all, and will abruptly begin to work when turned up to the next notch.

[Fox]

Gambini, on 30 March 2018 - 07:31 PM, said:

Exists a way to use fog without changing the sector´s palette?

Yes, it's a structure called "fogpal".

[Danukem]

Fox, on 30 March 2018 - 11:47 PM, said:

Yes, it's a structure called "fogpal".

http://wiki.eduke32.com/wiki/Fogpal

Note for Gambini:
So it would require an effect sprite similar to an SE that specifies what the fogpal is for that particular sector. For example, you could set pal 0 to cause white fog instead of the default black fog -- then you just set visibility to determine how strong the fog is.

The code would not be complicated and I could add this pretty easily. All it has to do is read values off the effect sprite at map load time and apply them to the fogpal struct. EDIT: At least that's my understanding of how it would work -- the wiki link for the sector struct actually goes to the entry for the def command...

[Striker]

Palette Emulation possibly being forced in the future is troublesome for me. I'm using a combination of true-color and stock Duke3D textures in StrikerDM for various things in maps, and the palette emulation would cause a serious clash in appearance between the two, so I recommend to play the mod with it off. (Which is why I've considered asking for a DEF token to force pal emulation off. Unless there's one that exists that I'm unaware of.)

I would prefer if the option was still there. If anything, if the shading with palette emulation off is incorrect, something should be done about it. (Ie. The shade/differences in brightness should be as if what software would pull off if it were 32-bit, rather than 8-bit paletted. In short, using the same formula but without palette restriction.)

[Fox]

globalflags 1 will force palette emulation off.

Trooper Dan, on 30 March 2018 - 11:58 PM, said:

http://wiki.eduke32.com/wiki/Fogpal

Note for Gambini:
So it would require an effect sprite similar to an SE that specifies what the fogpal is for that particular sector. For example, you could set pal 0 to cause white fog instead of the default black fog -- then you just set visibility to determine how strong the fog is.

The code would not be complicated and I could add this pretty easily. All it has to do is read values off the effect sprite at map load time and apply them to the fogpal struct. EDIT: At least that's my understanding of how it would work -- the wiki link for the sector struct actually goes to the entry for the def command...

You can change the fogpal in the maps. I don't know if there's a command, but setting the fogpal in the console works.

[Striker]

Fox, on 31 March 2018 - 08:59 AM, said:

globalflags 1 will force palette emulation off.

Ah, undocumented feature. I should check the source code and add some documentation on the wiki.

[Gambini]

I want to make emphasis in these two questions I asked. I'm looking forward to know the answer.

Gambini, on 30 March 2018 - 07:31 PM, said:

Are model skyboxes featured already? If so, what i have to do to get one of myself working?

When will palette emulation apply on models and voxels?

[Fox]

These have not been implemented yet.

[Jblade]

Any chance of a command or something that'll essentially take a screen grab of the screen and put it into a temporary slot for a display event or whatever? I could use it for a few things (flashbangs, trippy screen effects .etc)

[Jblade]

also I forgot to mention this but the new save stuff you did has made saving pretty much instant, it's really fantastic. Autosaves basically don't pause the game at all now, although now I get paranoid and worry that it didn't save

[Danukem]

If aim assist on hitscan is on, every single shotgun pellet hit the enemy in exactly the same spot, with zero spread? At first I thought this was due to autoaim, but apparently not. I will have to do some more investigation.

But apparently, hitting an enemy with shotgun negates the shotgun spread. I'm sure this is nothing new.

[Jblade]

Is there any way to determine what difficulty setting the player has highlighted in the menu screen? I'd like to add some text that explains the currently 'selected' skill level (but NOT chosen, the current ones I've seen only hold what difficulty the player has chosen not the one they're looking at on the main menu)

EDIT: whilst I'm here, is there a way to lock out skill levels too?

[TerminX]

Try the m_player_skill userdef. The ones with the m_ prefix are the ones selected in the menu, and the ones without are the ones used by the game in progress.

[Jblade]

Just tried it, no dice I'm afraid - it's just set to whatever the current skill level is set to (or it defaults to 2 when starting a new game) I have seen that userdef before in the wiki but it didn't do what I needed so I wasn't sure what was up.

[Mike Norvak]

There have been improvements to Ion Maden performance in the past weeks right?

I was wondering if these changes have been ported to vanilla eduke, or each engine will be on its own branch.

[Hendricks266]

Mike Norvak, on 23 May 2018 - 05:40 AM, said:

There have been improvements to Ion Maden performance in the past weeks right?

I was wondering if these changes have been ported to vanilla eduke, or each engine will be on its own branch.

They were in EDuke32 first.

[Phredreeke]

But those performance improvements would be limited to Polymost wouldn't they?

[Micky C]

That depends what you’re talking about. Some of the optimisations were to the Ion Maiden game logic, which should increase the frame rate in all renderers.

[TerminX]

Micky C, on 24 May 2018 - 04:16 AM, said:

That depends what you’re talking about. Some of the optimisations were to the Ion Maiden game logic, which should increase the frame rate in all renderers.

We've also been making improvements to the scripting system behind the scenes, which will improve performance for any EDuke32 content that suffers from the same slowdowns, in all renderers.

[Gambini]

Hello!

Is there any command to debug clipshape? maybe something that renders a visible clipshape model?

[Mark]

It may not be exactly what you are looking for but...

Load the 0_clipshape.map into Mapster. Then you can type into the console r_pr_wireframe. IIRC it requires being in the Polymer mode.

You can try turning off models from the menu and you will see the black 2D sprite with the model's dummytile dimensions. It should be about the same size as the model if its set up right in the defs.

[Gambini]

Thank you, but that´s not what i need.

I have my doubts about the precision clipshapes have, and what happens when the model moves, etc. I thought there would be a way to make visible the collision model, just like in other engines, like Source.

[Danukem]

Gambini, on 31 May 2018 - 03:03 PM, said:

Thank you, but that´s not what i need.

I have my doubts about the precision clipshapes have, and what happens when the model moves, etc. I thought there would be a way to make visible the collision model, just like in other engines, like Source.

The first thing that comes to mind would be making a "wind tunnel" room with some coded projectiles. Projectiles would fire at the model from all directions and angles, and each hit would leave a small indicator sprite on the point of impact. Over a few seconds, the impact points would accumulate and show the outline of the clipshape.

EDIT: It would be more like a car wash, with shooter sprites set up in many places around the model. Then the shooters would spray it. This could be made pretty easily.

[Gambini]

That is a good idea, but it´s not too far from what I can measure by shooting at the model, walking over and jumping on it. I can tell the shapes are right, and faithful to the clipshape map construction. But i´m more concerned about the technicism involved. The triangulation, and how some specific clipshape constructions affect it (for example, i have a hunch that slopes upwards are not as accurate as slopes downward). If there is no engine-level way of knowing this, at least your solution could help me to tell if -and how- the clipshape works on moving models.

[Danukem]

Gambini, on 31 May 2018 - 05:26 PM, said:

at least your solution could help me to tell if -and how- the clipshape works on moving models.

In many cases, clipshaped actors won't move at all: https://forums.duke4...aps-and-actors/

It may depend on how it is coded and the specific clipshape used.

[Gambini]

Thanks. That indeed saves me some research. I also can come up with some practical ways to do testing.

Still, i am worried my initial question washes away, it´s mainly focused on knowing if there is such thing, or is it even posible to feature in the near future? I believe collision detection and render engine have a close relationship, and may feed from similar inputs. Drawing what the clipshape is like on wireframe should be relatively easy and very functional for testing.