New Feature: "Glow" textures

[MCR]

Updates 

[arisian]

For the record, I can basically eliminate the flicker (and improve the overall smoothness of the glow to boot), but there's a performance cost to doing so.  On my system, the framerate drops from 60fps to 30fps when I use the flicker-free version (due to vsync, there isn't any middle ground, so that's not actually quite as bad as it sounds; it just means that it crossed below the threshold at 60fps).  I've attached a patch if you want to try it, but I'm not sure we want to put it into the SVN because of the performance issues.  We could add an option to the graphics menu that let the user select what level of glow-smoothness they wanted (ie. low, med, high) or something, if people think it's appropriate, at which point I would be more comfortable including the patch, since it would effectively be optional anyway.

[geever]

We could add an option to the graphics menu

Well, my opinion is that we should put every shiny feature that may not work or slow on old hw/sw on switches one-by-one.

I liked the geoscape features you did on screenshots very much but actually I lost every other GLSL features we had before too just because my driver (the open-source radeon driver) doesn't support FrameBuffer Objects... so for me (and probably for some other players) your features are regressions at the moment.

Would it be possible to separate the features and link them to cvars? I can help with menuscripts to have an UI for them. Thanks!

-geever

[arisian]

@geever, I thought we had done that; there are already separate menu options for GLSL and postprocessing.  If you disable post-processing, it shouldn't use any framebuffers.  Can you tell me what, exactly, breaks on your system so I can try to fix this?  Actually, go ahead and open a bug in the bugtracker for this and assign it to me, and put your info there. 

[MCR]

I am always FOR additional graphic options to let the user customize everything, but there also should be a reasonable default chosen for each system also, because many users won't bother going to a graphic options submenu...

There were also suggestions (very good idea) to make a submenu to the normal graphic options where all the details could be configured... We could name it something like 'Advanced Graphic Options', a feature available in countless other games also...

I cannot tell you anything about why Mattn actually changed the glow-strength & how he removed or reduced the flicker effect, I even was a little surprised as I was adjusting the glowmaps to the default glow we had...

The new glow looks good in-game also, but could imho be a little bit stronger like I already wrote before...

[MCR]

I think I just made the most important of all glowmaps 
Take a look:

[arisian]

Man, it's a good thing the aliens don't really understand the concept of a "sniper"...

[MCR]

Man, he needs his cigar, otherwise his hands are shaking too much & he is not able to zero in on the target... 

[DiDiT]

MCR, thats what diazepam is for.

Now, whoa... All this awesome glowing is making my dizzy... 

[vedrit]

I dont quite understand what it issue is for animated glow maps. Cant it be done in just the same way as the regular animated textures?

[arisian]

For the most part, yes.  In the places where we have animated textures now, you can use animated glow-maps.  I think the issue is more that currently you can only have animations associated with materials, which means things like soldiers, aliens, weapons, dropships, etc. can't have animated textures (with or without glow).  Mattn and I are in the process of trying to make the rendering system more uniform so that there are fewer things than only work for certain types of objects, but it's a fairly major project, so I expect it will take some time before we really get everything the way we want it.

[MCR]

I almost forgot to post a screenshot of the most important glowmap for the girls out there  ...

So here it is. 

Our black beauty with the most important accessory for girls to have on the battlefield...

...Aliens won't shoot @ her, because she is so beautiful  

[MCR]

btw., the dropship in the background is showing the ongoing work of arisian & mattn who are upgrading our 3d engine here big time...

RESPECT !!!

[MCR]

I am quite sure you will not like that one  , but I have to tell you it really looks great,   & creepy to the maximum in-game, so I'll share 3 screenshots with you, to see what you are thinking about this (the screenshots were made @ a time the glow was adjusted to maximum):

[Kildor]

Ugly.

You are mixing up genre of the game. This is not horror, this is Sci-Fi, and the game is trying to convince logic and physics.