"normalmap" edition released! (2006-07-22)

by Aardappel_ on 07/22/2006 23:56, 191 messages, last message: 09/11/2006 07:36, 196902 views, last view: 05/05/2024 21:18

As always, here are the new features, any feedback or bugs specific to this version in this thread, please.

* added support for "dot3 lightmap / radiosity lightmap" mode that works well with normalmaps & per pixel light, various shaders supporting bump/parallax mapping, glow/specmaps etc.
* added lots of normalmapped textures
* many new maps using normalmapping
* extended Fanatic's amazing soundtrack with 8 new tracks!
* added dbghelp.dll to the bin folder that win98 users need to rename...
* clearer color coding in the console: green: player talk, blue: "echo" command, yellow: gameplay messages, red: important errors, white: everything else
* added -z (z-buffer precision), -b (bits per pixel), -a (FSAA), and -f (shader precision) command-line settings (see config.html)
* added "trigger" command for opening/closing doors
* added entity selection by left mouse button.
* added entity copy and paste
* added entity undo / redo support
* added entity support to flip and rotate
* added editmove command
* added replaceents command
* made sure that textures of 'new cubes' are appropriate. Maps need to be remipped for this to fully work.
* added outline mode for showing geom boundaries (toggled by "outline" var)
* added -p (admin password) and -c (maxclients, default 4) command-line options for servers
* added setmaster command
* added voice announcer for certain gameplay events
* quad & boost powerups are now randomized in spawn times, but their spawn is announced 10 seconds before (so everyone will have to fight for it :)
* added showcharacterboundingbox var (useful when creating new models)
* increased rhino bounding box size

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#21: colours

by MeatROme on 07/24/2006 20:18

Nice to have colours for text now!
But this results in some problems too:
E.g. when a player uses colour in his name it will colourize the frag-message too.

So - till this is fixed, you should always end your coloured name with colour #2 (yellow).

name "^L3blood^L1wash^L2"

Maybe white should be available too, or did you omit it because only server messages will then be white?

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#22: Re: warning 9600 and similar cards users

by Aardappel_ on 07/24/2006 21:09, refers to #14

well, so we are improving.

- I started Cube as an advanced Wolfenstein 3D clone :P
- It was then perceived as a Doom clone
- Once we got the really HQ maps like metl3 it was perceived as Quake 1, sometimes even Quake 2 Clone.
- Sauer started life as looking like a Quake 2 clone
- Then with the better maps people thought it looked more like Quake 3
- and now with the bump maps I have heard comparisons with Quake 4!!!

So hey, even though people can't get it in to their thick skull that there are other things besides quake out there, and that this is not some kind of lame based on quake source project, we are certainly moving forward!

And on the admin issue: I am sticking with my philosophy of the players control the game mode. It just makes so much more sense. If ISPs think they need this, they don't understand the game... we are NOT QUAKE 3 or whatever.

Btw, most quakeworld servers nowadays can be set to 4v4 3v3 2v2 1v1 or even FFA or mods like midair.. its wonderful to have the flexibility. In the old days you would have to move servers if people left/joined or you want to play something different.

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#23: Re: Comments

by Aardappel_ on 07/24/2006 21:15, refers to #16

well, the 8500 and geforce 3/4 are part of an in-between generation of cards (the so called D3D 8.1 cards) that had some shader features, but very minimal. They had seperate interfaces (OpenGL extensions) for ATI and NVidia that are completely unrelated.

Supporting these cards would mean maintaining 3 rather than 1 set of shaders, plus the fact that most of our shaders are too long for them so they would have to exclude features like specular (without which bumpmapping looks unnoticably dull). Never mind the fact that we don't have cards to test this with.

Summary: not worth it by a mile. You just needs a newer card for your sake.

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#24: Re: colours

by Aardappel_ on 07/24/2006 21:18, refers to #21

argh. TODO list: write function to filter illegal characters out of names and server talk. This stuff was not meant to be available to players.

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#25: When's the Mac Version?

by Greywhind on 07/24/2006 21:22

I haven't even seen a note here yet about a Mac version on the way, let alone being available.

Is there a timeframe on the Mac version of this release?

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#26: Re: Comments

by Xerxes on 07/24/2006 22:41, refers to #23

Yes, I fully understand and respect that implementing shaders for these cards is not worth the effort, and it is not what I want/request/ask you for. The thing I want to point out is that for all owners of the pre-dx9 hardware, the surfaces designed to be normal-mapped look very noticeably flat without the mapping.

What I'm suggesting is that each normal-mapped texture would have a third texture associated. This texture would be shaded and used in the case normal-mapping is not available.

I doesn't have to be a separate file eating up disk resources, it could be a texture that is dynamically generated during load time using the normal map and a single light source (probably white and infinitely distant). So that all these textures would appear shaded, albeit all from the same direction. But they would not appear flat.

This is just an idea I'm throwing in for comments.

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#27: ..

by makkE on 07/24/2006 23:06

That sounds good. But wouldn´t that prolong load time quite a bit?
Anyways I would do it (given I could).

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#28: Re: Comments

by Aardappel_ on 07/25/2006 02:42, refers to #26

we already do some of this, e.g. on pre-dx9 cards, the glow/decal maps get baked into the diffuse map at load time. The problem with the normalmap is that you'd have to choose an arbitrary direction for the light to come from, which would look all wrong in most cases. I am not sure what is worse, flat lighting, or wrong lighting. It's not hard to do, its just a question of wether it would look good.

I have looked at the maps with -f0, and metl4 actually looks rather good without shaders. deathtek and aard3c less so, because the diffuse textures used look more noticably flat.

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#29: Re: warning 9600 and similar cards users

by Pxtl on 07/25/2006 03:11, refers to #12

Works fine on my 9600, but I keep it updated.

My review of the new version:

1) normal maps are incredisexy, and the old phong shading on non-normal-mapped models keeps you from noticing as much that only _some_ of the textures are nmapped. Still, it would be nice if at least the hudguns got normal maps, but that's a "nice-to-have".

2) LOVE LOVE LOVE the "powerup countdown" feature.

3) Is Deathtek a new map? It's fscking gorgeous.

4) The maps list could be cleaned out. Many of the "more maps" stuff should be removed, or at least reclassed into "test maps" - there some playable maps in the last pages of "more maps" but most of them are useless to players. Many of them even have the "savecurrentmap" message on. I'm sure any number of players could go through the current map list and sort them into useful groups so that we know what we're looking at in the map list - some of the ones that _look_ playable turn out to be unusable because of spawn points or unclimbable ramps. For example, there are a large number of small, weaponless maps that are good for Tactics mode, but not much else (Id for example) - these would do well to be moved into a "Tactics maps" group similar to the "Capture maps".

I'd been planning on making a patch to get vweps in on the models that can support them, but I know MD3 models are a WIP - would vwepped MD2s be a worthwhile investemnt of time then?
(it's a bit of a moot point though, as I still can't get the damn thing to compile).

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#30: Hmm..

by Pxtl on 07/25/2006 04:00

Dunno if this is a new bug, but when playing Tactics today we had a player join the game, die, and respawn - which had the result of hanging the round as the game couldn't figure out who won.

No idea how it happened.

Also, iirc a Spectator mode was added a while back, but currently when dead and waiting to respawn in Tactics, you're stuck in "dead mode" - spectator mode would be very nice there.

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#31: Re: Comments

by metlslime on 07/25/2006 05:41, refers to #28

Aard: I don't think it would be as bad as you suggest -- all game textures prior to the normalmapping era had shadows and highlights painted into the texture.

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#32: ..

by makkE on 07/25/2006 09:50

I think It might look good if the light source was dead on, or simply slightly raised above the texture.
If you take a close look at the non-bumped textures, they aren´t all consistent in light direction too, especially if someone rotates them, but the benefit of fake volume would imho be a stronger point.

Pxtl: When I find enough time again, I´ll be working on nicer hudguns, I think the weak point of them now isn´t the missing normalmaps, but simply their aging looks.

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#33: ..

by makkE on 07/25/2006 10:04

Btw, pixtl, when doing hdguns I will provide vweaps as well. Using them on md3 or on the md2 ogro would both be possible, and wouldn´t take long for me to make.

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#34: Wrong lighting is better than no lighting

by Xerxes on 07/25/2006 12:04

> I am not sure what is worse, flat lighting, or wrong lighting.

Flat lighting is worse IMHO. As metlslime said, all older games had shaded textures and no one complained. I think that even when the shading is incorrect, it is better than no shading at all. It would add at least a little depth to the surfaces.

> I think It might look good if the light source was dead on, or simply slightly raised above the texture.

Or the direction vector of the arbitrary light and its intensity could be configurable via the console, so that everybody who feels like it could fine-tune them until they find something they like. Or disable it altogether.

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#35: Re: When's the Mac Version?

by absinth on 07/25/2006 13:39, refers to #25

>I haven't even seen a note here yet about a Mac version on the way, let alone being available.

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sauerbraten/sauerbraten_2006_07_22_normalmap_edition_mac.dmg?download

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#36: Window not appearing centered

by Xerxes on 07/25/2006 15:01

Oh, one other thing. I noticed that the Sauer window always started centered in the previous version. In this version, however, it seems not to do so. I used to run it using "-w1280 -h1000 -t" parameters so that it would occupy the entire screen (1280x1024) with the start panel still visible, and it worked fine. In this release, the window is not centered and a big portion of the view is outside the desktop. And there is not way I could move the window, since Sauer captures the mouse.

Is something new in Sauer responsible or is it my system?

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#37: ..

by _Fanatic on 07/25/2006 17:06

I started working on a new map using this version, looks really good, and I just found the heightmap feature for making terrain. That makes is SO easy to make nice looking rocky surfaces and landscapes.

Now how about an "equalize" feature for heightmaps? For example, if I have a nice rocky surface down low, and another one up high, I want to make them smooth together to combine them. I could select the two areas of cubes I want to sync up and equalize, so they would kind of merge into a single rocky area. Not an instant action, but like using the mouse wheel to being them together.

Have a look at Stronghold or Stronghold 2, or Warcraft 3 editors, their landscaping utilities make it really easy to make nice looking cliffs and hills.

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#38: Re: warning 9600 and similar cards users

by Aardappel_ on 07/25/2006 20:22, refers to #29

yes, next release we'll do some pruning in the map list. Either remove them from the distribution altogether, or make a "map" pak. The latter because even though a map may not be tops in looks or play, it might still be fun looking at as an example or sauer mapping... not sure there yet.

Xerxes: windows positioning is a windows thing, I don't control that at all.

Will look into the baked in dot3.

If someone is going to make normalmaps for models (hudguns or characters) they'd better talk to me first. They'd probably have to be in object space, not tangent space.

Fanatic, I am not sure if such a feature is worth it, sounds like that be easy to achiever simply with a large brush. But feel to talk to Gilt about it.

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#39: Re: terrain editing

by _Fanatic on 07/25/2006 21:06, refers to #38

A large brush wouldn't merge the two together tho.

For example if you make a square "hill", then make a nice terrain with heightmap on it, then select part of the lower ground with part of the higher terrain, you get bad results between the two. Maybe if that can be fixed so they play well together when editing two different heights?

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#40: Re: warning 9600 and similar cards users

by Passa on 07/26/2006 08:31, refers to #38

"it might still be fun looking at as an example or sauer mapping..."

Definently keep the old test maps etc, just in a different submenu. The ladder map for example, is a great example to newbies on building ladders.

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