Something better then bumpmapping.....

[Weenuk]

Original thread.http://www.opengl.org/discussion_bo...TML/011292.html .
Demo Here (http://www.bostream.nu/tunah/offsetmap.zip ) . This technique is very impressive, but too bad it apparently needs the latest hardware. Imagine this in Doomsday (begins to drool). If the demo don't work, put the dll from this zip in your windows/system directory. Liink (http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut/glut-3.7.6-bin.zip ) . Well, I'm going to go study while you guys drool over this.

Use the mouse to zoom around. You can figure it out. Zoom in close on the regular bumpmapping then check out the other method. Textures are a little warped, but stuff like that can be ironed out.

[Tyberious]

all I can say is NIICE! Man That would be great if we could get taht into doomsday. Imagine if skyjake gives the ok for ti to be integrated into 2.0

[Weenuk]

If it could be written to accomodate a larger array of hardware, but I doubt that would be feasible. Well, maybe. Found it over at the Quake 2 Evolved Forums. They have some good stuff going on over there, both technical and art wise.

[Tyberious]

I believe its a project for the future, maybe by that time we will have md5 support as well as a faster engine.

[Weenuk]

Of course. It's nice to have support for these features, but someone still has to make all the bump/normal maps, and the textures would have to be done to make full use of the technology. Not something that could happen overnight, that's for sure.

[hurleybird]

If you build it, they will come.

[Tyberious]

I was thinking of helping building bumpmapped textures/maps to prepair for 1.8 I will need some help with it though.

[Chilvence]

I think I prefer just the offset without bump mapping, when the bump mapping is applied you can see a kind of plasticy seam between the bricks and the grout.

Nice effect though, kinda wierd how me and DaniJ666 were just thinking about this the other day.

[edit] one potentially useful fact is that the offset effect makes practically no difference past a certain distance from the object. If it could be turned off when it hits that threshold distance it could save some strain on your card.

[Weenuk]

I want to see an example of normal mapping compared to bumpmapping. Anyone got a pic. Yeah, they do kinda look like melted plastic, but you normally wouldn't be zoomed in quite like you can in that example.

Good to hear that you and Dani are thinking about this........

[Tyberious]

either one as long as it gives the walls depth.

[Chilvence]

Heh, we werent actually planning anything, just talking about general 3d stuff over in the legacy forum. Although if this sort of thing was implemented into Doomsday, it would generally be easy to paint heightmaps for most of the textures, and there is probably a tool that can generate normal maps from heightmaps.

It would definately be a great tool for fleshing out the spartan doom levels, since it doesnt add any extra geometry, therefore there isnt much room for errors to occur. I do wonder what it looks like in a corner or on a misaligned texture.

[Tyberious]

and how much bank does it cost since I assume it will be a professional app and that its nto going to easy on your wallet. If not then where do you think we could find something like this?

[Vi3tSkl11]

I doubt it'd cost much... I don't think there's any reason why amateur coders can't create their own program. I mean, after all, bump mapping and normal mapping aren't exactly [at loss for words here] specific to any company or some-such....

I think I remember reading about such a program before, but I'm not sure where...

[XeroTrace AKA sigmst]

i've said that offset BM should be put in doomsday! :D

[hurleybird]

ATI has a program that lets you create normal maps. Also bjorn3d has one too. Doesent cost a cent :)

[Wicked Anime Kid]

It's a nice technique but u think Skyjake has his hands full on coding doomsday and other things (re-writing the engine would be one hell of a job for Skyjake to do)

[Vi3tSkl11]

And yet he has it planned for the future, namely v2.0. (In fact, I believe the whole 1.8.** chain is to help him get to that lofty point in development.)

[Chilvence]

It strikes me that it is only really a different method for rendering textures on a surface, so it should be one of the easier things to add (bearing in mind that source code is available for the effect)

I read somewhere else that the effect is done by three pixel shader instructions. Anyone want to elaborate on what that means?

[Weenuk]

I just think it would be a worthwhile endeavor in improving the graphics (just look at Doom 3, those models and textures wouldn't look half as good without it). If it's a pain in the ass to do atm, well we can all wait. But it is planned, and the method that it will be done by should be decided out of all these techniques. That is what this thread is for, not to say we should have bumpmapping, but what kind of bumpmapping we should have (normal mapping seems to be the choice).

[Chilvence]

I really dig this offset mapping, probably only because its something different, but still :)

It uses the same data, so it will at least be something worth consideration in the future.

[ToXiCFLUFF]

I really dig this offset mapping, probably only because its something different, but still :)

It uses the same data, so it will at least be something worth consideration in the future. Yeah, it looks great. At the end of the day, there's enough talented artists in the Jdoom community to provide the media which these advanced graphics effects need. If the capability was there, I bet you guys would cook up the fuel for it pretty damn quick.

[DaniJ]

Considering each technique (and the engine in question), if it was up to me I go for normals. The problem with bump mapping is that a model must be lit at all times to look good.

Normals require the same but because of the extra dimensionality they still look good with next to no lighting. The problem though is in maintaining a consistent look. Doom3's monsters only look as good as they do because of the combination of pixel shaders at work. Eg they would look shite without the other less noticeable passes like specular and diffuse.

Creating normals by hand is a very painstaking opperation and not one I'd like to even attempt. My personal choice would be to create very hi poly models and bake down to the in-game models.

I'm totally stoked about the upcoming MD3 / Skin Shader features as they are going to make a whole world of difference. The reasons I've not attempted very detailed models upto now is purely down to the limits of MD2.

I just hope Skyjake will at the same time add support for different LOD models rather than the reduced poly versions at present.

[Weenuk]

How much of a pain in the ass would it be to make high poly models and then come back down to lower poly models. One, if we were doing high poly models, how high would we have to go? 250,000+ polys like Doom 3/Quake IV then reduce them. Or, make how it would be ingame then detail it up to that. I think the later sounds appropriate.

Yeah, there is a lot more to it then bumpmapping, no doubt. Those shaders and stuff add a lot. Just play Elite force 2 and look at the borg levels. The walls have those neat effects, like power going through it. That game looks great and no bump mapping. The stencil shadows look neat but don't seem to work quite right (is it just me, tested it on a Geforce 2 and a 9600 XT (mine)). Shows what good artists can do with the resources they have.

[DaniJ]

Whether you model up or down totally depends on your normal maker. Some of them depend on "common" vertices.

ORB is a good one.

ZBrush is my current favorite hipoly making thingy but it's native only till the new version comes out. It's a bit tricky to get used to but it's capable of some stunning results.

[ToXiCFLUFF]

Yeah, there is a lot more to it then bumpmapping, no doubt. Those shaders and stuff add a lot. Just play Elite force 2 and look at the borg levels. The walls have those neat effects, like power going through it. That game looks great and no bump mapping. The stencil shadows look neat but don't seem to work quite right (is it just me, tested it on a Geforce 2 and a 9600 XT (mine)). Shows what good artists can do with the resources they have. Q3 engine right? The model stencil shadows are usually a bit screwy in it. And especially often in the games with skeletal animation (such as Alice).

Considering each technique (and the engine in question), if it was up to me I go for normals. The problem with bump mapping is that a model must be lit at all times to look good.This could be sorted out with a small amount of ambient lighting though. It'd look really cool if sector lighting could be set to be directional in Jdoom - under-lighting always looks so spooky.

[Sin4U]

Play Tenebrae, then look at a model in a corner that is totally in shadow, or far from any light sources (you should have no stencil shadow) to see what he means. It degrades to a totally regular skin. It depends on DIRECTIONAL lighting, which ambient lighting doesnt support. You probably know this, of course. Normal mapping suffers exactly the same effect. Im wondering something, you know the Quake engines' LIT program? (or something...) If the source is available for one of those, would anyone be willing to implement directional information, so radiosity calculations can be used in ppl? I mean each point in the lightmaps should contain a "micro-map" of about 4x4, so 3x1 would be how bright the top right of a pipe corner texture would be. This would mean pre-calc-ed lighting can propperly illuminate PPL surfaces. Would probably best be done for Tenebrae first, (proof of concept) as it would DEFINATLY benefit from this. plus, it uses monochrome light, so it would be a bit easier to implement. Just an Idea, and wont help models at all, (unless someone is very clever and does a spatial version (lightmapping the level VOLUME)) but makes the level prettier, and could help Doomsday 2 (conceivably) if it uses static maps.

[ToXiCFLUFF]

Play Tenebrae, then look at a model in a corner that is totally in shadow, or far from any light sources (you should have no stencil shadow) to see what he means. It degrades to a totally regular skin. It depends on DIRECTIONAL lighting, which ambient lighting doesnt support.I've seen games where there is a map-wide ambient light applied to models from a set direction. But I'm likely using the wrong terminology here. Anyway, directional sector lighting would be a simple, but effective solution on the whole. It'd look pretty damn awesome with the models as they are, come to think of it.