noisenormal & waternormal questions

[squid]

I tried to use steelflanker's noisenormals ( http://combatace.com...__1#entry531238 ) but it seems something (i am doing) is wrong and i can't figure out what . The normal applied looks like a lot lower resolution that it should. At that zoom level as this SteelFlanker's demo T-62 i only get those low res blurry black pixels i show in the M163 screen . And with some of those normal.bmps i get just very low resolution big black rectangles as seen in the F-16 screen.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2011 by squid

[squid]

And, regarding waternormal, Is there a way to get an improved resolution water effect ? To avoid those low res square pixels at this height at least ? -->

 

 

 

 

 

And at the same time is there a way to eliminate the shimmering on the water ?

[Wrench]

don't use them, in that case.

[steelflanker]

Hi squid :-)

 

Noise textures show up better with rather flat & lifeless terrain tiles...... Stock Israel Ect

 

Using noise textures with Starys highly detailed terrains can be a bit of a hit & miss as there is so much detail painted on already.

Seams some times the noise texture is over shadowed by or conflicts with the detail already there.

 

- Make sure your Terrain Detail & Terrain Texture are set to High & Unlimited respectively!

- You could also experiment with some of the others to see if you get better effect.

 

If you want higher resolution you going to have to create a new bmp at 2048 for example & tile it with noise effect of your choice.

Should'nt have much FPS hit if any.

Regarding the water normal, you could try tiling it to high resolution and/or softening it by adjusting the contrast PS or an other editor.

 

 

SF

 

[+Stary]

in a given terrain's DATA file try changing this value:

 

 

[HeightField]

DetailScale=1.0

DetailFrequency=1.0

MaxHeight=1000

MinHeight=0

 

 

lower to 0.5 or increase to 2.0 to see if there's effect on the way noise map tiles, IIRC used to work such way back in series 1

[squid]

in a given terrain's DATA file try changing this value:

 

 

[HeightField]

DetailScale=1.0

DetailFrequency=1.0

MaxHeight=1000

MinHeight=0

 

 

lower to 0.5 or increase to 2.0 to see if there's effect on the way noise map tiles, IIRC used to work such way back in series 1

 

DetailScale didn't seem to change something (tried 0.1 - 10)

 

Retiling the normal bmp to 1024 px or more gave me the result i was looking for but at the expense of shimmering that cant control from the GPU driver panel

 

Tried making a DDS out of it , (in hopes of reducing shimmering) but at first trials SF2 doesnt seem to read DDS normals , or maybe i havent set up the DDS correctly ? (lots of settings in the nvidia photoshop plugin , and all totally unknown)

Edited December 15, 2011 by squid

[+Stary]

oh no, normalmaps must be in bitmap format

[squid]

[NoiseTexture]

Size=256

MinColor=229

MaxColor=255

Frequency=1.7

ResolutionFactor=4.0

StartFadeDistance=200.0

EndFadeDistance=500.0

 

is this possibly controlling anything maybe related to noisenormal scaling / tiling ?

[+Stary]

try fiddling with frequency

 

start end fade distances are just for that -overlaid noisenormal effect fading settings

[Fubar512]

It's all shader dependant. Statements within the shader (*.fx file) determine how many normal maps are rendered per tile....among other things.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Fubar512

[squid]

It's all shader dependant. Statements within the shader (*.fx file) determine how many normal maps are rendered per tile....among other things.

 

Did you do any editing there maybe ? for example in your screenshot here :

 

http://combatace.com/files/file/9665-t-80bv-mbt/

 

noisenormal map looks like a lot more higher resolution (or scaled ) than how it looks in my stock SF2 installs

 

 

 

[Fubar512]

Did you do any editing there maybe ? for example in your screenshot here :

 

http://combatace.com/files/file/9665-t-80bv-mbt/

 

noisenormal map looks like a lot more higher resolution (or scaled ) than how it looks in my stock SF2 installs

 

Yes I did, but that image was taken under DX9, so it used a different shader.

[squid]

i see, know maybe which statement and in which .fx file controls the normal tiling in DX10 ? :)

Edited December 17, 2011 by squid

[Fubar512]

i see, know maybe which statement and in which .fx file controls the normal tiling in DX10 ? :)

 

NoiseScale =

[squid]

TERTERRAINEFFECTxyz ?

 

 

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Constant Buffers
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cbuffer cbConstant
{
static const float	EndFadeDist1 = 2500.0;
static const float	EndFadeDist2 = 8000.0;
static const float	NoiseScale = 0.003;
static const float	StartFadeDist = 800.0;
}

 

[Fubar512]

All of them. There's two for terrain, and two for water.

[squid]

Thank you !

 

About water normals, why when i replace the stock normal with a higher resolution one (up-tiling of the stock one) i loose the animation ?

[Fubar512]

Of course not...unless you screw up the specific statements within the shader that determine the animation.

[squid]

without touching the shaders, i only replaced the stock water normal with a 1024 one (tiled the stock 4 times) and there was no water animation ..... *scratching head*

[Fubar512]

Then I suggest you keep at it, and keep note of whatever changes you make along the way....that's how you'll arrive at an answer.

[squid]

I tried values from 4 to 0.000001, no change. Do i need maybe to alter the values in the dx9 files too ? ..

[Fubar512]

I tried values from 4 to 0.000001, no change. Do i need maybe to alter the values in the dx9 files too ? ..

 

Are you running the series under DX9?

[squid]

Are you running the series under DX9?

 

Win 7 here so i guess DX10. Long shot i guess but couldn't help wonder

Edited December 18, 2011 by squid

[+hgbn]

Depends on your graphic card. If its Dx11 capable your are most likely running it in Dx 11

[Fubar512]

Depends on your graphic card. If its Dx11 capable your are most likely running it in Dx 11

 

Uhhhh, not really. A title may be coded in DX7, and (if) you can still run it under a Windows 7 environment....it doesn't mean that the game's now capable of taking advantage of DX11 coding, shaders, (etc.)...it's still a DX7 game. SF2 titles are coded for both DX9 and DX10, and operate exclusively under one API, or another.

 

Keep in mind that TK has stated that SF2NA and it's successors will be DX10 only.