Terrain Normal/Spec Maps ?

[HardMace]

If the engine is DX9, why's there no support for terrain tangent space normal maps and specular maps ? Or is there ?

Seems like the multiplayer is running smoothly now - that's great !

[Nielk1]

If the engine is DX9, why's there no support for terrain tangent space normal maps and specular maps ? Or is there ?

Seems like the multiplayer is running smoothly now - that's great !

Because that would require tons of extra programming time, pain, and anguish. Changing to DX9 was very difficult and utilizing features od DX9 that did not exist before is not as simple as snapping one's fingers.

[GSH]

DX9 does not define normal/specular maps. People have implemented those things using DX9. Note the difference. When something is "possible with a lot of work," it happens less often than things that are natively supported.

Technically, you can compute digits of Pi in shaders. Or implement Pong. Or process images to find visual extents of an object, all in shaders. As above, those are not officially part of DX9. But, possible, because DX9 gives a mostly turing-complete language you can do stuff in. Just that modern games have a small team of engineers working 40+ hours a week for years dedicated to writing shaders. BZ2 is being patched in my very limited spare time. By me.

Additionally, normal maps are usually generated from ultra-high-polygon meshes. During modern game development, artists first generate the ultra-high-polygon (100K - 10 million polygon) meshes, then cut them down to what's needed in game. The 100K-10M polygon meshes are still used for generating those normal maps.

In contrast, BZ2 has no ultra-high-polygon meshes. Ever. It wasn't feasible or best practices 14+ years ago to do that. BZ2 1.0-1.3pb4a supported ~2700 (technically 8192/3) polygons per object. Terrain was built up in the BZ2 editor, which moved a few vertices -- there was no high-poly/high-detail terrain info. So, there's no high-poly data to generate any normal maps from.

What I've suggested here is that modders make higher resolution textures and/or meshes. I certainly don't have the time or inclination to do either; my talents are better spent on other things. Higher resolution textures wouldn't cause bad assets, and work right away. Higher poly meshes -- BZ2 currently supports ~20K (technically 65000/3) polys per object. That would look better.

-- GSH

[HardMace]

Well, could you add the already existing EMBM for terrain and water (with a powerful strenght) ? A grayscale 8-bit bump can look almost the same as a normal map if the engine side strenght is powerful - can get bigger smooth features/slopes to show up correctly http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/2lijysgth4 ... turtle.png .

[General BlackDragon]

I'd love if _bump maps worked on terrain

[Nielk1]

If you notice, existing bump maps are just a static light bake to the textures, pretty ugly.

[MrTwosheds]

So far I have utterly failed to make any bump textures that looks good in bz2.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

For the most part, bump textures work best when the perspective or view is perpendicular to the surface. If you use it on terrain where the view angle is extremely shallow, I can well imagine how hard it is to achieve something that looks good.

[MrTwosheds]

I have only tried it on units and it never looks good, or at least not as I expect a bump map to look, not indeed, like bumps, more like you tried to scrub half dry emulsion paint off of it.

[GSH]

That's because BZ2 (dating back to BZ2 1.0) doesn't do true bumpmaps. Just Matrox's 'EMBM' - emboss bumpmapping. I don't know the reasons how/why that was chosen, but it was probably easy to implement and/or some deal got signed. Like most other things with Matrox and 3D, it was possibly interesting, but nowhere near great. Matrox had *great* 2D cards-- I owned one or two. But, they never managed to get 3D.

1.3.5 didn't have EMBM support. But, it was added back for 1.3.5.1 and up. Basically, the biggest problem with all these requested features is that new textures/models/etc would have to be created, and existing items wouldn't have it. But, EMBM textures were on the 1.0 CD, so those objections were moot. I try and do things that benefit *all* BZ2 maps and modes, not support some new feature that *might* be taken advantage of by a modder someday. Normal maps/etc definitely fall into the latter.

-- GSH

[MrTwosheds]

Yes leave it as it is. I have no desire at all to have to go back and create bump maps for all the textures I have made and I seriously doubt that any one else does either.

[HardMace]

That's because BZ2 (dating back to BZ2 1.0) doesn't do true bumpmaps. Just Matrox's 'EMBM' - emboss bumpmapping. I don't know the reasons how/why that was chosen, but it was probably easy to implement and/or some deal got signed. Like most other things with Matrox and 3D, it was possibly interesting, but nowhere near great. Matrox had *great* 2D cards-- I owned one or two. But, they never managed to get 3D.

1.3.5 didn't have EMBM support. But, it was added back for 1.3.5.1 and up. Basically, the biggest problem with all these requested features is that new textures/models/etc would have to be created, and existing items wouldn't have it. But, EMBM textures were on the 1.0 CD, so those objections were moot. I try and do things that benefit *all* BZ2 maps and modes, not support some new feature that *might* be taken advantage of by a modder someday. Normal maps/etc definitely fall into the latter.

-- GSH

I will bumpmap and increase resolution of all the terrain textures if you can add true bumpmapping with proper strenght. I can pass you an old portfolio PDF to prove that I can offer professional quality. Sounds good ?

[General BlackDragon]

We could always use a nice spiffy set of ISDF/Scion highres textures

[Zax]

A man with a mission is always a good thing.

[Red Spot]

Still waiting for the guy that has the mission: terminate Zax
Good thing as well?