Dynamic Global Illumination
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
By the way, frame rate is more and more tied to texturing, less and less tied to poly-count, as technology progresses. And the trend will continue into the forseeable future. Anything we can do to reduce texture sizes is of paramount importance, therefore. Ultimately, if at the cost of symmetry we can increase detail, I think it's very much a worthy tradeoff.
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
-
- Elite
- Posts: 7243
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
- Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
Interesting... because my math told me otherwise:Privateer Ferrius wrote:Right now we have three textures for a ship, the diffuse texture, the PPL texture, and the GLO texture. For each faction that uses the ship, the textures increase dramatically. Take the Talon, that is used by the Militia, Confeds, Pirates, Retros, and Privateers. Thats 3*3*3*3*3*3 or 3^5 or 243 unique textures.
3*5 = 15.
Did you start unwrapping? Becuase that would be the only work trashed (and the discussion aims at avoiding that - trashing work).Privateer Ferrius wrote:As well, changing how coordinates are handled effectively trashes any and all work I've done to this point, and you're going to have to excuse me if that's something that I'm not going to be happy about.
[edit]: I must be the only one who thinks textures should NOT be symmetrical! [/quote]
That's what we think!
If you cannot exploit symmetry with the coordinates, you can't eradicate symmetry from the texture itself. Basically, when we say: "unique coordinates" that means that each poly cannot overlap with another poly - that make a symmetric model have a symmetric texture. By exploiting symmetry (and that requires polygon overlapping), you can eliminate symmetry in the texture itself by only mapping one half, and reusing that mapping for the other half.
Ok... Ferrius... simplifying:
For models that want dynamic GI... unless I find a way which I thought I wouldn't but now I'm unsure... unwrapping must avoid both tiling (forgot that one earlier) and overlapping. Thus, you must have that in mind while unwrapping.
The model itself remains as-is.
The extra textures needed to implement the technique you don't have to create (they're created automatically by various tools - blender and whatever - and others will probably be able to do it).
The only thing, and the discussion was originally to decide this, is that while I'm almost sure that GI for the cockpit is worth the trouble, I'm not that certain about the ships. So... if the decision is to not use GI for ships, then you may unwrap as you want (ships).
Clear? Doubts? Noone is going to make you work harder, or throw away any work.
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
Where does the quote come from? Not arguing; just never saw it before. Anyhow, "sympathetic" doesn't mean owned and operated; and in-game, the Retros fly ships of Confed and Kat manufacture; they don't have their own ship brands.Privateer Ferrius wrote:Really?
What's this doing in master_parts_list then?
(Funny that the Church of Man is using a 'utilitarian' craft thats also a Kilrathi light fighter with some pretty high-end Kilrathi engine technology.)The Retros, being by their nature not given to grand industrialization, rely on a small number of hidden facilities and sympathetic manufacturing plants to supply them with ships. The Salthi bears the distinction of being the only class of spacecraft officially sanctioned by the reverend Jones, who, when presented with its initial designs just over a year ago, said that prayer had revealed to her that that this was to be the 'shepherds crook' by which man's sins would be constrained. Inexpensive, even at the time of its introduction, the Salthi remains a utilitarian craft well suited to the production schedules of backwater worlds.
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
Dude, that's also an issue of the economy of the UV-wrapping. Right now there is a lot of negative space in the texture files for most of the fighter. I'm no UV-wrapping junkie, but I could show you how you could economize the Demon texture and squeeze a good couple of handfuls of surfaces into that same texture size.
For a professional high-quality example, crack open a Half-Life texture. There is not a single significant area of negative space on them.
In any event, the handling of the textures is something I should be worrying about, and trust me, I'll make sure it works.
Also, regarding the quote: I believe I cited my source, but to be more specific, all of those descriptions are lifted directly from Privateer.
[edit] @Klauss: using half a texture will CAUSE symmetry, not eliminate it. Take the Demon texture right now, the symmetry is pretty obvious and detracts from the quality of the texture (and consequentially, the quality of my work ). The fact that you have two fuel ports and the text on one of the hardpoints is only reflected horizontally instead of rotated 180 degress as it would be on a real fighter are two glaring examples.
For a professional high-quality example, crack open a Half-Life texture. There is not a single significant area of negative space on them.
In any event, the handling of the textures is something I should be worrying about, and trust me, I'll make sure it works.
Also, regarding the quote: I believe I cited my source, but to be more specific, all of those descriptions are lifted directly from Privateer.
[edit] @Klauss: using half a texture will CAUSE symmetry, not eliminate it. Take the Demon texture right now, the symmetry is pretty obvious and detracts from the quality of the texture (and consequentially, the quality of my work ). The fact that you have two fuel ports and the text on one of the hardpoints is only reflected horizontally instead of rotated 180 degress as it would be on a real fighter are two glaring examples.
Cmdr. Micheal Ferrius (Ret.)
Retired Confederate Pilot
For Hire!
Post jobs to the BBS!
Tengoku de omachi shite imasu
Retired Confederate Pilot
For Hire!
Post jobs to the BBS!
Tengoku de omachi shite imasu
-
- Elite
- Posts: 7243
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
- Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
I thought the same when I saw it (What a waste of space).Privateer Ferrius wrote:Dude, that's also an issue of the economy of the UV-wrapping. Right now there is a lot of negative space in the texture files for most of the fighter. I'm no UV-wrapping junkie, but I could show you how you could economize the Demon texture and squeeze a good couple of handfuls of surfaces into that same texture size.
And though it is ok for you to "worry about texture handling", it is also necessary for you to worry about not doing stuff that will inhibit the utilization of an important engine feature. That's why I brought this up - so that you know what you can and can't do, or if you decide to ignore that, you know what you're sacrificing. (if you decide to use mirroring even if we had decided to use GI, then GI for that mesh would have to be disabled - if you know that and are convinced you come out winning in the tradeoff, that's ok too).
Yes, it seems I understood your post exactly to the inverse of its meaning - I thought you were saying that textures (the images) shouldn't be symmetrical for that would be a waste of space (rather than because the ship texturing itself shouldn't be symmetrical).Privateer Ferrius wrote:[edit] @Klauss: using half a texture will CAUSE symmetry, not eliminate it. Take the Demon texture right now, the symmetry is pretty obvious and detracts from the quality of the texture (and consequentially, the quality of my work ). The fact that you have two fuel ports and the text on one of the hardpoints is only reflected horizontally instead of rotated 180 degress as it would be on a real fighter are two glaring examples.
I happen to agree, assymetrical texturing on symmetrical shapes would work really nice - but it means doubling memory and bus usage, and that is definitely not worth the little gain from assymetrical texturing IMHO. But you're the artist... in the end, it's your call, or of whomever textures a ship (but have in mind our concerns - doubling texture sizes is not benign).
Last edited by klauss on Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
Well, I've heard the masters parts list being mentioned, but I don't know what it is. I have an idea it's some file in the VS tree; my question was more like, where does it ultimately come from. I do not believe the retros manufacture any ships.
R.e.: "Negative Space" [sic] is there for a reason: islands tend to bleed into each other due to mipmapping and filtering in the gpu; though I reckon the Demon texture isn't terribly mipmap friendly. And the idea would be to color the "negative space" with colors that smoothly change from one island to the next, meeting each island with its color at the edge, to minimize mipmap and filtering artifacts.
R.e.: "Negative Space" [sic] is there for a reason: islands tend to bleed into each other due to mipmapping and filtering in the gpu; though I reckon the Demon texture isn't terribly mipmap friendly. And the idea would be to color the "negative space" with colors that smoothly change from one island to the next, meeting each island with its color at the edge, to minimize mipmap and filtering artifacts.
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
The texture backing with the dymanic-whatchamedoer-buzzword would be in the model anyways, as Chuck said.
I just see only using half a texture as a cop-out solution to the problem as opposed to an actual fix, which would be being more economical in the texture's positive space.
[edit]: [sic]? I'm using real-life art terms here (as opposed to the buzzwords of the 3D industry), exuse me
If the engine is mapping anything outside of the UV unwrapped areas, that's an engine bug. And again, my worry
I just see only using half a texture as a cop-out solution to the problem as opposed to an actual fix, which would be being more economical in the texture's positive space.
[edit]: [sic]? I'm using real-life art terms here (as opposed to the buzzwords of the 3D industry), exuse me
If the engine is mapping anything outside of the UV unwrapped areas, that's an engine bug. And again, my worry
Last edited by Privateer Ferrius on Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Cmdr. Micheal Ferrius (Ret.)
Retired Confederate Pilot
For Hire!
Post jobs to the BBS!
Tengoku de omachi shite imasu
Retired Confederate Pilot
For Hire!
Post jobs to the BBS!
Tengoku de omachi shite imasu
-
- Elite
- Posts: 7243
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
- Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
@Klauss: It would NOT double the texture size if it was done RIGHT, by making economy of the texture map, as I've been preaching
[edit]: What the artists on an old HL project of mine did was to reverse the process of texture mapping in a way. They did the texture, making sure to make the most of texture map economy, and then 'wrapped' it to the model. Took a considerable amount of trail and error, but solved the economy issue in spades.
[edit]: What the artists on an old HL project of mine did was to reverse the process of texture mapping in a way. They did the texture, making sure to make the most of texture map economy, and then 'wrapped' it to the model. Took a considerable amount of trail and error, but solved the economy issue in spades.
Last edited by Privateer Ferrius on Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cmdr. Micheal Ferrius (Ret.)
Retired Confederate Pilot
For Hire!
Post jobs to the BBS!
Tengoku de omachi shite imasu
Retired Confederate Pilot
For Hire!
Post jobs to the BBS!
Tengoku de omachi shite imasu
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
Klauss has been thinking of using that radiosity baking separately, rather than premultiplied and put into the glow map. That'd make your job even easier.Privateer Ferrius wrote:The texture backing with the dymanic-whatchamedoer-buzzword would be in the model anyways, as Chuck said.
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
-
- Elite
- Posts: 7243
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
- Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
That's true. The unwrapping for the Demon was done by Brad. You can re-unwrap it, if you want; but you'll need to learn how to do it. I think it's done acceptably well, tho.
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
-
- Elite
- Posts: 7243
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
- Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
Ah... I see your point now.
I saw the demon's layout once and it's messy. Somehow I had been left with the impression that it was just as it needed to be, but I was remembering Matt's baking, not the actual layout.
So... Ferrius... stay tuned. But I don't think you'll have to redo anything.
As I said, GI won't be applied to all ships, and that's certain. So... no GI for the demon isn't such a big thing, because it wouldn't get GI 90% of the time anyway.
But if I manage to translate everything to tangentspace, the demon might be able to use GI without re-unwrapping. I'd leave that in our hands, since re-unwrapping the demon would be a... demonic task.
BTW: tangentspace is a coordinate system in which vectors are represented in an orthonormal base which contains the surface's normal. This makes the encoding of... say... normalmaps invariant with respect to face orientation. Though I'm not encoding normalmaps nor vectors in the precomputation, I do store values that refer to directions - if those directions were fixed in tangentspace rather than objectspace, I think the precomputation map could also be invariant of neighborhood transformations (rather than face transformations).
Too much mumbo-jumbo? It's hard to explain in simpler terms.
I saw the demon's layout once and it's messy. Somehow I had been left with the impression that it was just as it needed to be, but I was remembering Matt's baking, not the actual layout.
So... Ferrius... stay tuned. But I don't think you'll have to redo anything.
As I said, GI won't be applied to all ships, and that's certain. So... no GI for the demon isn't such a big thing, because it wouldn't get GI 90% of the time anyway.
But if I manage to translate everything to tangentspace, the demon might be able to use GI without re-unwrapping. I'd leave that in our hands, since re-unwrapping the demon would be a... demonic task.
BTW: tangentspace is a coordinate system in which vectors are represented in an orthonormal base which contains the surface's normal. This makes the encoding of... say... normalmaps invariant with respect to face orientation. Though I'm not encoding normalmaps nor vectors in the precomputation, I do store values that refer to directions - if those directions were fixed in tangentspace rather than objectspace, I think the precomputation map could also be invariant of neighborhood transformations (rather than face transformations).
Too much mumbo-jumbo? It's hard to explain in simpler terms.
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
Sounds to me like a high-pass-filtered UV-map... Maybe we could store a quaternion per pixel in RGBA
How about GI just for carriers? Those are the only ships you get to see up close and often enough to notice.
EDIT:
Klauss, won't self-radiosity look a bit odd without a corresponding dual-bounce specularity? (Not to speak of single-bounce... )
How about GI just for carriers? Those are the only ships you get to see up close and often enough to notice.
EDIT:
Klauss, won't self-radiosity look a bit odd without a corresponding dual-bounce specularity? (Not to speak of single-bounce... )
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
-
- Venturer
- Posts: 538
- Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:54 am
- Location: Delta Prime
- Contact:
-
- Elite
- Posts: 7243
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
- Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
Looks like that, yes... but it isn't that.chuck_starchaser wrote:Sounds to me like a high-pass-filtered UV-map... Maybe we could store a quaternion per pixel in RGBA
Yes, mostly for stations. That was my idea, though I'd add it for ships too if possible - when they approach a capship or station. I was also thinking of a "shared" GI environment that could be applied to all remaining ships - so preparing all ships for GI wouldn't be a bad idea, if not too restraining.chuck_starchaser wrote:How about GI just for carriers? Those are the only ships you get to see up close and often enough to notice.
I don't think it would look odd, but nevertheless I was wondering if shader limits would allow me to do that too. I have all the data needed, I only need processing power and freedom to add instructions (since I need to further sample and filter the environment). The beauty of it is that since it works kinda recursively, it wouldn't be second-bounce... it would compute infinite bounces. The only caveat is that each bounce "takes time" - a frame - Materials have to be tweaked to absorb a significant amount on each bounce, or the system will become unstable.chuck_starchaser wrote:Klauss, won't self-radiosity look a bit odd without a corresponding dual-bounce specularity? (Not to speak of single-bounce... )
-
- Elite
- Posts: 8014
- Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
- Location: Montreal
- Contact:
(I meant "high-pass-filtered dU/dV map", btw)
I think we could add diffuse and specular for second bounce, since a second bounce could be decomposed into
diffuse then specular
specular then diffuse
diffuse then diffuse
specular then specular
so the final specular content is proportional to the square of specular over diffuse, and therefore only relevant to very specular, and partly facing each other, surfaces...; a rare case...
I think we could add diffuse and specular for second bounce, since a second bounce could be decomposed into
diffuse then specular
specular then diffuse
diffuse then diffuse
specular then specular
so the final specular content is proportional to the square of specular over diffuse, and therefore only relevant to very specular, and partly facing each other, surfaces...; a rare case...
Latest version of Cinemut Opaque
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.
Latest version of LaGrande noodleworks (scroll down).
An evolving La Grande How-To...
The non-working, but latest, CineMut test_bike
PU (Privateer: Parallel Universe's Home). WC or Privateer Drayman for you?
WCpedia --The Wing Commander Encyclopedia-- From Angel Deveraux through Belisarius to Zachary Banfeld...
WC Nexus forum, the Moonbase Tycho of WC fans.