Alpha problems with terrain objects

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

Does anyone know what causes this?

 

I'm playing with Wrench's Palestine terrain. I don't have the desert.cat file and I'm using FE Gold, so I've been piecing it together from from the wwiVerdun.cat and various downloads from SF. I just noticed that often, far objects show right through the trees. I cannot figure out how to fix it. It doesn't happen in any of my other First Eagles installs. Has anyone come across this problem before?

 

[+Stary 2,427]

Stephen, check your terrain's _data.ini and look for these lines:

 

[solidObjectTextureMaterial]
EffectShaderName=terSolidObject.fx
DepthBufferCheck=TRUE
DepthBufferWrite=TRUE
RenderedInOrder=FALSE
AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE
CullMode=CLOCKWISE
LightEnabled=TRUE
SpecularEnabled=FALSE
EmissiveEnabled=FALSE
FogEnabled=TRUE
AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
ZBufferOffset=0.000000
BlendOp=ONE
NumTextureStages=1
TextureStage[01].TextureName=
TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE
TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE
TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE
TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP

[AlphaObjectTextureMaterial]
EffectShaderName=terAlphaObject.fx
DepthBufferCheck=TRUE
DepthBufferWrite=FALSE
RenderedInOrder=TRUE
AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE
CullMode=NO_CULL
LightEnabled=TRUE
SpecularEnabled=FALSE
EmissiveEnabled=FALSE
FogEnabled=TRUE
AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000
ZBufferOffset=2.0
BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA
NumTextureStages=1
TextureStage[01].TextureName=
TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE
TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE
TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE
TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE_BLEND_TEXTURE_ALPHA
 

marked in red are my settings that work ok in various SF2 titles

 

be warned that still alot of alpha-type objects (usually -trees) will render in wrong order but that's the engine's fault and we have to deal with it

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

Thanks, I'll try that.

[Wrench 9,806]

Stephan, if you have SF1 (1stGEn), you can use it's desert cat, placed in the main core installs /Terrains folder.  To bring it up to FE2/SF2 standards is fairly simple. You'll need to extract the data ini and make the changes for the DX10 shader statements. And of course, have a /Desert sub-folder for the edited inis in you FE/FE2 install

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

Stary - Thanks, that helped. I also discovered that the threshold numbers at the top of the data file affect the overlapping too. You have more problems if the numbers are too high, these are working for me now. Ground object that use a TGA skin are still causing problems, but all the terrain objects are behaving correctly. 

 

[TerrainMesh]
TextureThreshold=0.80
LowDetailMeshThreshold=0.50
MedDetailMeshThreshold=0.30
TileToHeightGridRatio=4
RenderMeshVertexCount=4096
RenderMeshIndexCount=6144
SolidObjectVertexCount=4096
SolidObjectIndexCount=6144
AlphaObjectVertexCount=2048
AlphaObjectIndexCount=3072

 

Wrench - Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't have SF at all, which is why I'm doing it this way. Beside problems with the rendering, my biggest problem is that I don't have any of the stock terrain objects or TODs, but I've been able to find downloads for almost everything so far. 

[Wrench 9,806]

do you have of the original cats? (VietnamSEA, GermeanyCE??) It works the same with them, too. Maybe even IsraelME -- all the terrain object buildings and such are resident in ALL the Original 4 Terrains ™

Edited December 6, 2013 by Wrench