[http://sourceforge.net/p/ufoai/bugs/2617 Item 2617] imported from sourceforge.net tracker on 2013-01-28 19:43:45

Glow is working perfectly when making models' textures glow, but there are still glow-shine-through issues & other gfx-errors when using a glowmap for a 'normal' Radiant-mesh-texture.

Also the usage of glow via material system is unusable @ the moment.
In first tests having several frames doubled (v1 for usage as frame & v2 for the glowmap) just 1 animation played with glow, the others didn't.
Also this system is not suited perfectly as we would have to use double the amount of texture-slots (we have just 1024) for glow-animations...

It would be nice if you could take a look @ that, Arisian.

Screenshots describing the problems in pictures see here:

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=5143.new#new

===== Comments Ported from Sourceforge =====

====== mcr2010 (2010-07-15 10:57:45) ======

I will not upload any of those new glowmap textures as long as this is fixed to avoid graphical glitches in trunk version...
====== arisian (2010-07-15 13:19:54) ======

I'll take another look at this; could you post or upload those textures somewhere and tell me what maps they're on so I can try to replicate this?
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-15 22:25:36) ======

anim frames, anim glowmaps, tex_lights gms
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-15 22:26:35) ======

Thanks. Sure.

Issue 1: Glow on normal radiant textures causes weird stuff:

I attached a pk3 with some glowmaps for tex_lights. You can test those best on the new city map or frozen industrial.

Issue 2: Glow not working correctly with material animations:

To replicate rhis you will need trunk version or @ least a material file from it. Then just insert the attached pk3 into base or decompress it there. The texture below the alpha animation frame is overwritten somehow, but it is working & looks really nice, but if you look @ the textures you can see that the glowanim frames are exactly the same like the animation frames, that is why I wrote this feature request:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3022387&group_id=157793&atid=805245

Thanks in advance for looking into this ;)
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-15 22:30:27) ======

Additional Info:
Issue 2:
The animation frames are to be found on all of the Harvester ufos (except city) for example ;)
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-16 12:32:14) ======

Bad News again :(

Issue 3:
When using glowmaps as additional textures (having the original tex. & the glowmap) via the material system additional commands like pulse for example stop working, so I am not able to program advanced effects there, where a rotating glow-texture pulses with a non-glow texture for example...

To check this bug out simply delete the new glowmaps in textures/pt/fx after you have checked out the new effects with glow to see the difference in behaviour (check out tropic +bigufo corrupter, the pulse command in tropic.mat has no effect when additional glowmaps are used)...

Hope you can check that one out asap also ;)

Nice Greetinx. Cool Effects possible now !!! :)))))))
====== arisian (2010-07-18 20:31:10) ======

Okay, just to clarify, a lot of these issues are less "bugs" and more feature requests, but I think they're good requests and should be implemented. This means that I'll do it, but it's not a higher priority than some of the other features I'm working on (eg. shadows), and I'll probably integrate it into the renderer-work branch rather than trying to do it in trunk. Also, I want a chance to talk with Mattn about some of the issues relating to the matterials system, since I think he was already looking at adding some flexibility to it.
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-19 11:55:30) ======

Just to clarify, feature requests are where they belong ;), most of the stuff described here are clearly bugs in the codebase.

I somehow understand, that you do not want to get back to 'old stuff', while you are working on the new branch, but I have to admit, that I am a little bit disappointed that for example v2.3 from April 27 is the last version with working normalmaps & real-time lighting on my ATI-card, the black models issue is unchanged in trunk for a long time & now you want to tell me that my bug reports are feature requests ?!?
I am sorry that I seem to be the only one creating artwork, that actually uses your new code, therefore I seem to be the only person even observing these problems, still they exist !
All of these bugs are valid except the one saying that more than one glow-animation will not play, which was my fault (some naming-problem), but still I cannot use this feature, as the alpha channel overwrites the texture below the animation with black color...

IMHO bug fixing should always have higher priority than new features ;)

Greetinx from Vienna & sorry for maybe sounding a little bit rude here, please do not take it personally...
====== arisian (2010-07-19 18:22:00) ======

I agree, fixing bugs has higher priority than adding new features. The things I was talking about were:

- being able to use sequence based AND material based animations simultaneously
- being able to use a single "glow" image with multiple frames of "non-glow" sequence textures

These aren't things the current codebase was designed to do, so the fact that it doesn't do them isn't really a bug.

The "glow" showing through other objects, on the other hand, most certainly *is* a bug, and thus will receive higher priority attention.

The reason I haven't been trying to fix the "black model ATI" bug in trunk is that nearly all the GLSL rendering code will be totally different by the time I'm done integrating dynamic shadows, so I hope that those mysterious hard-to-replicate bugs will just go away when we merge the branch back into trunk.

In any case, I'm more than happy that some one is actually creating art assets that will take advantage of my new features; please, continue to do so! Part of the reason that some of the features don't work as well as I'd like is that without the art, there's no way to effectively test them.

I promise that all this stuff will get ironed out eventually. In the mean time, please keep creating artwork. If it doesn't show up correctly, just let me know about it and keep on going. If there are features you'd like to see (such as the single-glow-frame one), I'd be happy to hear about them; if these new features aren't convenient for artists, they won't be used. Just be patient; all your content will be properly displayed, but it may take a while to get there. I'm sorry if that's frustrating, but keep in mind that a few months ago there *was* no real-time lighting at all; this is a pretty major overhaul to the rendering engine that we're in the middle of, which is why I'm now doing it in a branch. If I'd realized how major it was going to be, I'd probably have started the branch before I added anything, including glow ;)

Finally, can you post a screenshot to show what you mean by "alpha channel overwrites the texture below with black"? I'm not quite sure what you're describing.
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-19 22:38:17) ======

requested screen showing the alpha channel of the glow frames overwriting texture below the anim with black color
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-19 23:04:49) ======

Thanks for your comments.
I've attached a screenshot describing the 'black alpha glow anim issue' or however we wanna call it ;)
I am sorry for my impatience, I am sometimes pushing things forward to hard I believe ;)
I'm more than happy that we have a cool coder, who uses modern, advanced coding techniques & implements all of this cool stuff, I just have the problem that I want to test all the artwork in-game before uploading & that is something I can only do when having the working UFO:AI code to do so ;)

I know that implementing a real-time lighting system & realtime shadows means quite some changes & additions to the code & quite some brainforce to invest, but there was a very advanced version of the rendering engine in trunk of v2.3 which worked with realtime-lighting, glow & normalmapping for models (Apr. 27th) & then it broke & was never working for trunk version again, even though it was already working & looking quite nice already...

So this looked for me somehow like 'forgotten' & that bugged me a bit.
But there is enough work to do for me ;), so do not worry, but you will see no well designed roughness & specularity maps uploaded [@ least from me] as long as this code is not working on my computer & I cannot test my stuff...

Btw., do not worry about ideas for new features as I have plenty of those for you to implement ;)


====== mcr2010 (2010-07-24 10:29:27) ======

Additional information:

Issue 'black alpha glow anim issue':
It seems that glowanimations just have problems with the alpha-channel (!)

When using black background color instead of an empty alpha-channel the overwriting issue does not seem to take place anymore, but I have not tested this using multiple layers of glow-animations yet, but will do so today & report here.
It should be very easy 4 u to tell the glow-processing system to cope with the empty alpha-channel like it would be black color, or to interpret a empty alpha channel in a glowmap as black color... ?!?!?
It would be great if you could make that change in the code, another solution would be to change all the animation frames designated to be glowing & fill the alpha-channel with black color (that would be my work then), but that would require reprocessing & reworking all of the frames (1000+) dedicated to glowanimation, but only these, as alpha-channel filled with black would overwrite the texture below when used as 'normal' material system animation frame...
So this second solution is rather semi-perfect, because it restricts the use of frames to either glow or normal use & it will not be possible to simply switch between glow & non-glow via code :[

Expect another report here soon, after I have confirmed my findings to be valid for the 'layered animations' also...

====== mcr2010 (2010-07-24 10:45:46) ======

/offtopic on

* Addition & more detailed explanation to previous post: The very advanced v2.3 version from April 27th working with realtime-lighting, glow & normalmapping for models was working flawless on ATI cards (!).
Shortly after that date changes were introduced that made the realtime-lighting switch a 'enable black models for ATI' switch ;)
I will try to find out exactly which revision destroyed rendering on ATI, so maybe this will help you with bugfixing this...

I will attach a screenshot here from this last 'ATI compatible' version to demonstrate you that rendering on ATI was already working in a advanced version...

I do not want to check a new gfx-card ;), ATI is technically not that bad (GDDR5, theoretical compatibility to OpenGL 4.0, low noise, low power consumption, advanced chip-technology)...

/offopic off
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-24 10:48:56) ======

Tractor incl. glowmap & normalmap on ATI gfx working perfectly (v2.3 Apr.27th)
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-24 11:16:48) ======

Forget my previous comment regarding the 'black alpha glow anim issue'...
Further testing has shown these findings to be incorrect - the texture below is 'overwritten' with black color in any case, even with glowmaps using black background instead of empty alpha...
So this also means that I cannot change this behaviour of the rendering system just with changing the glow-textures...
====== arisian (2010-07-26 14:13:40) ======

I'm still working on this; I haven't had as much time for UFO:AI this month as I had for the previous few, but I will fix this stuff eventually. In the mean time, go ahead and keep working on creating assets and we can work to make sure they get rendered properly before we add them to trunk. Keep up the good work, and keep those bug reports coming ;)
====== mcr2010 (2010-07-27 09:52:10) ======

I do not know anyone, who has more or less than 24 hours a day available & in theory we all are free souls, who also should have the freedom to decide how to use that time...
But I know that this is just theory... ;)

Thanks for honoring my work, I do respect your input & vision here very much also & I know what we CAN achieve if we finally start to work together...

Unfortunately I am really getting motivation problems, when I see & feel how some other devs here act in terms of ignorance, arrogance, disbelief & childish jealousy & how much respect you get from those for hard the work & the long time you already invested here...

So currently my frustration level is very high & like you I also have no problem with finding many other important things to do, where my work is respected, needed & honored...

Still I love UFO:AI & can see its potential...
====== mcr2010 (2010-08-05 14:25:30) ======

Arisian, I am increasing priority here a bit, because I want you to COME BACK ;)

We really need your skillz here & there & everywhere...

Mattn is on holidays & improving stuff @ almost incredible coding speed, so if you want your talk, now is the best time ;)

PLEASE HELP US IMPROVING STUFF !!!

WE NEED U !!!