White border around trees

[Bananimal]

Hey all. I'm having some issues with the newest Germany tree mod. Actually, all the tree mods exibit this issue. I get a white border around my trees. It only happens to trees in the distance that have another tga behind them. I have changed the settings in the Data file to SRC. That helped but the border is still there. I don't have any issues with flickering. Just the borders.

 

I have taken the new Germany tree mod and scaled the trees to the right height. They are now between 35' and 114' instead of 225'. You want to talk about illusion of speed? It's great. I always thought the trees in the game were too big and cause the game to look like it was scaled wrong resulting in a loss of the perception of speed. If I can lick this white border thing I'll ask permission from the authors to release the updated rescaled trees. Oh, and there's a lot more trees without a hit to FPS. What used to be a TGA with 4 trees now has about 14. In fact, another thing that helps is you no longer need to run your horizon out to 15. The deafult of 5 does just fine. The trees all but disappear and blend (well they would if I could get rid of the white border) into the distance. At 8000' you can barely see them but they are there. It adds to the illusion of height immensly. It's just looks right. As it should be IMO.

 

Anyway, I've tried all setting on my graphics card. The only thing that helps is to run the sim in Supersampling mode. That kills my FPS. All other settings have no effect. I'm runing a default German Data file with the exception of the vertex settings. I cranked them to 16288 or whatever. Changing that has had no effect either. Is this a limitation of the game engine? As mentioned it only happens when one set of trees is in front of another. Two TGA's back to back cause the white border. That means every tree spline has a white border on it.

 

Thanks for the help.

Edited November 24, 2008 by Bananimal

[Lexx_Luthor]

In terrain data file, I think one of these helps control the white border, BUT....fixing it causes another issue exactly what I forgot though. Experiment.

 

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial]

DepthBufferCheck=TRUE

DepthBufferWrite=TRUE

RenderedInOrder=TRUE

AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE

:

:

[Bananimal]

The only thing that has an effect is AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE but doing that causes clipping in the trees and other objects. Not a viable fix.

 

If I turn off MipMapping then I get the shimmers big time. I've changed every setting in the

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] group and nothing is getting rid of the white border. Guess I'll fool around with my graphics driver settings and see what I can come up with.

[malibu43]

I think mipmapping is what causes the white borders. It's always been there for me. I also get pretty bad shimmering without mip mapping.

 

Really looking forward to the reworked trees. I better illusion of speed would be awesome. If you want, you can send to me now and I'll let you know if the white borders are worse...

 

[+Stary]

In your terrain _DATA.INI

 

find

 

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial]

 

and replace

 

BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA

 

to

 

BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA

 

this eliminates the border

[Panama Red]

Bananimal:

Looking forward to your reduced tree size mod.

 

Panama Red

[FastCargo]

In your terrain _DATA.INI

 

find

 

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial]

 

and replace

 

BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA

 

to

 

BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA

 

this eliminates the border

 

Does this have any other consequences (ie something else gets messed up when the white border is fixed)?

 

FC

 

PS Actually, just checked it to answer my own question...it sort of doesn't make the trees look quite right. They look a lot more 'solid' than they should be.

[+Stary]

None that I noticed, but you shauld have following setions set to true:

 

DepthBufferCheck=TRUE

DepthBufferWrite=TRUE

RenderedInOrder=TRUE

AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE

 

Edit: of course the above apply to [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] section.

 

@Bananimal: Good news you work on those, I set those to ridiculous heights that time. All my threemods up to Cuba terrain have to big trees. Matter of visuals vs. objects numbers; the time I was working of those I had old computer.

Edited November 24, 2008 by CA_Stary

[+Dave]

White border around trees?

 

Snow.

[FastCargo]

Actually, not to totally hijack the thread, but that's something the terrain could use is some 'seasoning'...but that would involve a massive amount of repainting for all the textures.

 

FC

[Bananimal]

None that I noticed, but you shauld have following setions set to true:

 

DepthBufferCheck=TRUE

DepthBufferWrite=TRUE

RenderedInOrder=TRUE

AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE

 

Edit: of course the above apply to [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] section.

 

@Bananimal: Good news you work on those, I set those to ridiculous heights that time. All my threemods up to Cuba terrain have to big trees. Matter of visuals vs. objects numbers; the time I was working of those I had old computer.

 

Hey CA,

 

I've gone through the entire DATA file. Nothing makes a difference.

 

What application did you use to setup the alpha mask on the trees CA? I'm wondering if this is a byproduct of my editing the files in Photoshop. Then again, the originals have the same white border. I suspect Nvidia. I have an 8800GTX. Nothing but problems with visual quality with this card. I'll never buy another Nvidia as long as I live.

 

No settings in NHancer resolve the issue. Supersampling just reduced it but does not get rid of it. Yes, mipmapping causes it but without it the trees shimmer. I even clamped the LOD in my driver and that doesn't stop the shimmering.

[malibu43]

Can you post a screenshot maybe? Is it anyworse than the white lines that already exist around Mip Mapped trees?

[+Stary]

Hey CA,

 

I've gone through the entire DATA file. Nothing makes a difference.

 

What application did you use to setup the alpha mask on the trees CA? I'm wondering if this is a byproduct of my editing the files in Photoshop. Then again, the originals have the same white border. I suspect Nvidia. I have an 8800GTX. Nothing but problems with visual quality with this card. I'll never buy another Nvidia as long as I live.

 

No settings in NHancer resolve the issue. Supersampling just reduced it but does not get rid of it. Yes, mipmapping causes it but without it the trees shimmer. I even clamped the LOD in my driver and that doesn't stop the shimmering.

 

It's normal 32-bit .tga, created in Photoshop 5. Strange, as using the BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA eliminates the borders in my case, maybe try it with older, nonedited version to see if it works? I'll do test myself here. I have 8800GT and everything works fine, here's a screensht taken with above settings in patched SFG:

 

 

 

Blocky effect in the background created by using mipmaps, here's my settings from the shown israel2 data.ini:

 

 

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial]

DepthBufferCheck=TRUE

DepthBufferWrite=TRUE

RenderedInOrder=TRUE

AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE

CullMode=NO_CULL

LightEnabled=TRUE

SpecularEnabled=FALSE

EmissiveEnabled=FALSE

FogEnabled=TRUE

AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.00000

DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.00000

ZBufferOffset=2

BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA

NumTextureStages=1

TextureStage[01].TextureName=

TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE

TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=FALSE

TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE

TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE

 

 

TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled= should be set to true btw.

 

EDIT: Bananimal, do you happen to have your trees graphics painted on white background? That can give such effect using mipmapped textures.

Edited November 24, 2008 by CA_Stary

[mppd]

I tried FastCargo's recommended fix and it works GREAT for me!

 

Many thanks,

Mike D.

[+krizis]

Sorry guys for offtopic but is there any tree mods for WOI?

[TurtleHawk]

mppd,

 

Do you mean FC's reference to CA_Stary's post?

I'm just trying to make sure I'm trying the right fixes.

Thanks,

TH

 

 

I tried FastCargo's recommended fix and it works GREAT for me!

 

Many thanks,

Mike D.

[mppd]

In your terrain _DATA.INI

 

find

 

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial]

 

and replace

 

BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA

 

to

 

BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA

 

this eliminates the border

 

Sorry, it was CA_Stary's post. I didn't try any other fix - just this and I'm really happy with the results. I too was bothered by the white outlines, but just to have all the trees was a great improvement so I never bothered to speak up. Now it's even better. You guys are just awesome!!

 

Thanks again,

Mike Druzolowski

Edited November 25, 2008 by mppd

[TurtleHawk]

Thanks for the clarification, Mike.

Gonna give it a try!

[FastCargo]

It's normal 32-bit .tga, created in Photoshop 5. Strange, as using the BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA eliminates the borders in my case, maybe try it with older, nonedited version to see if it works? I'll do test myself here. I have 8800GT and everything works fine, here's a screensht taken with above settings in patched SFG:

 

 

See, that's the effect I was getting with BlendOp=BLEND_DST_ALPHA parameter. The near trees are too 'solid'.

 

Verses this:

 

 

The trees look less 'solid' at the edges...which is more like what you would really see. I guess the 'white' border doesn't stick out quite so much to me...

 

FC

[Bananimal]

Interesting. When I set it to DST I get worse white outlines that introduce hellacious shimmering to boot.

 

This issue appears to be some kind of Z-buffer or clipping issue. the further away the trees are the worse the white border. I can get rid of it by turning off mip maps but nothing I do in my graphics driver kills the shimmers. How frustrating. Nvidia sucks!

 

I would post a pic but I don't have any webspace to do so.

 

CA, I painted them onto a blue background. Even then the originals do the same thing.

 

The problem with the white really becomes noticable at altitude where the trees in the distance turn to a silver color. I guess because there are more of them and they are smaller. I need this to go away otherwise the popup effect in the distance is unbearable.

Edited November 25, 2008 by Bananimal

[FastCargo]

See, it can't be your card, several others have similiar cards and aren't reporting that issue.

 

Post your pic here as an attachment. Or upload it to the Gallery.

 

FC

[+suhsjake]

I see an F-5 two seater.

[FastCargo]

I see an F-5 two seater.

 

This is not the F-5F you're looking for.

 

 

FC

[FastCargo]

Don't make me smack you ST!

 

FC

[WDH]

Don't make me smack you ST!

 

FC

 

GULP Not sure who to root for...