Improved 3D Geoscape Rendering [was: Nightime city lights in 3D geoscape]

[Muton]

onboard gfx-cards

I do own a Nvida 7050/630 chipset

Texture quality makes no difference
extreme is as fast as low
Some shader effects do came from my CPU ~50%
Lightmap setting do change things from ~7fps to ~11fps (high to low)

If i disable glshaders and than reactivate them i got ~45fps
and the glowing is gone

In battle i still have black models even if i disable an re-enable gls

rev 29455

[arisian]

If you disable GLSL, it automatically disables postprocessing (which is what does the glow), since it depends on GLSL.  Re-enabling GLSL doesn't automatically re-enable postprocessing; you have to re-select the "postprocessing" checkbox in the graphics menu as well (it's all the way at the bottom) before you'll get the glow effects again.  The thing with the black models in the battlescape is unrelated to the new features I've added, so far as I know, and I'm not sure what's causing it, as I can't replicate it (it seems to only be happening to a couple of people).  I'll try to figure out what's going on, but it's not my top priority.  If someone who's actually seeing the problem wants to take a crack at it (or whoever wrote the code in the first place), that would be great

[MCR]

Just some screenshots of the modified 'high' version from arisian (you can call it ultra)...

Features here:
Original seasons from arisian's 'high' version with resolution 8192x4096 pixel
Ultra-High Quality Multi-Layered Normalmap of the Earth's Landmasses (Original: NASA) 8192x4096 pixel
High-Quality version of the Earth's City Night Lights 4096x2048 pixel

I will try to optimize filesizes further & hope we can make this available for other people with modern gfx-cards also, because IMHO the effect justifies the filesizes...
I hope developers agree, I feel   to have this version just for me  

Take a look (night):

[MCR]

Day:

[MCR]

Day again (need more zoom ability ):

[MCR]

I am sure I am able to squeeze filesizes by reducing the color palettes, just like I did with the glowmaps, so we can get high quality, small filesizes & short loading times...

btw, there is not even 'med' in trunk afaik...

Maybe someone could correct this for those poor other players with modern hardware out there ?!  

[MCR]

& when I find out how to best squeeze all the filesizes down, I also want to have my 12 seasons back... 

[Mattn]

& when I find out how to best squeeze all the filesizes down, I also want to have my 12 seasons back... 

not in svn... the difference isn't really that big.

[MCR]

Which max filesizes would be acceptable for the whole high version to be included into trunk ?

My actual ultra version described above has (without any optimizations regarding the color palettes & with 4 seasons) around 120MB...
I can only speculate @ this moment how far down my optimizations can bring this, but I suppose 50% should be possible...

btw, afaik there is only the low res version of this in trunk. Is it okay if I prepare a med version to be included also ?

[Mattn]

Which max filesizes would be acceptable for the whole high version to be included into trunk ?

My actual ultra version described above has (without any optimizations regarding the color palettes & with 4 seasons) around 120MB...
I can only speculate @ this moment how far down my optimizations can bring this, but I suppose 50% should be possible...

btw, afaik there is only the low res version of this in trunk. Is it okay if I prepare a med version to be included also ?

i would really vote against it - nothing against offering them as separate pk3 files for download - but including them into trunk... the low version is already 8 mb - added another 20 mb isn't an option imo. but please prepare them, i will gladly upload and share them.

[MCR]

I am sure we can squeeze the low version down also without loss of visual quality, but thank you very much for the offer to host the files, I will prepare them (but this is not my highest priority @ the moment so this will take a while...).

[MCR]

First experiments to get the files small are delivering some weird results I wanted to share here for amusement...
Unfortunately I cannot report any successes here @ the moment  

[MCR]

IMHO we should enable the middle mouse button for navigation on the geoscape in addition to the right mouse button also...

Everytime I am back on the geoscape now I first try to navigate with holding the middle mouse button instead of the right right one 

I love our new navigation system arisian coded for the battlescape, but IMHO the user interface should be consistent & intuitive, so we should enable the unused middle mouse button for the geoscape also for the same function it has on the battlescape...

It would be nice if someone knowing how to do that could nake this possible & enable this...

[Sarcanth]

Just wanted to ask, are you guys going to release a separate pack for the full resolution geoscape with all twelve seasons?

[MCR]

Hello & Welcome To The Forums ! 

There will be a downloadable add-on with 4 seasons & high-res textures for sure, I cannot tell you what the final decision on the 12 seasons will be, but it seems that those are gone as this feature would...

1.) Require a code change also & not only a pack of high-res textures...
2.) The difference in graphics does not justify the long loading times & ultrabig files (x12) needed for all of the 12 seasons...

  Maybe for 2.6+ in 2014... /joke