2010-08-17, 04:08 PM
I'm not positive how many ways Som can be immediately improved visually without any loss or input from authors. But I came up with a goody today, and I can think of at least a few more, and I have a feeling if everyone just listed their pet peeves that might lead to some others. I'd like to restrict any discussion to improvements that don't require setup by authors and would be an all around improvement with only negligible cons if any.
My number one pet peeve is the map pieces disappearing along the flanks in wide open vistas, especially in widescreen mode. The factors that lead to this are potentially many but it's safe to say I think that Som was never intentionally meant to be played in any aspect ratio other than 4:3. Even though there were other aspect ratios for monitors, and even PAL for TVs, Som seems to be hindered by an NTSC-J (ie. Japanese console games) mode of thought. I've got no lead on this but it's high up on my list. Most likely if a fix exists it will require interfacing with Som's memory to some extent.
Another problem is the object vs. map pieces lighting mismatch. Theres no way to integrate an object with map pieces if the lighting setup is complex because Som only computes shadows etc for map pieces. But if the lighting is simple the colours should fuse as much as possible. I'd like to see if the object lighting can't be calibrated to improve upon this. However best results (with the traditional lighting model) would come from a tool that could fuse static objects into map pieces (making a new custom piece)
I would like to see if the 4 lights per object limit cannot be exceeded by forcing all lights in the map to light objects/monsters.
Finally I want to report on a very simple fix which fogs transparent objects. I've tested it with DD and it's a radical improvement even in the area with the white fog. Whether the effect is perfect or not depends on the order the fog is blended (if perfect it's added to the object's colour which is then blended with the current pixel colour -- if imperfect the object is blended then the fog is added on top of the summed pixel) either way by forcing transparent objects to have black fog you get much better results whether your fog is dark or light (the entire spectrum of fog)
I will attach a screenshot. Obviously the best thing about this is your transparent water sheets blend into the fog like everything else, instead of being constantly bright and then suddenly disappearing with a hard edge. Which is a big improvement (just to be clear)
For instance the seaside cliffs in DD, or the water realm in DoM. This will be available in the next SomEx.dll release, by adding "do_alphafog = yes" to the [Options] section.
UPDATE: Added a brightened version of the same attachment/image.
My number one pet peeve is the map pieces disappearing along the flanks in wide open vistas, especially in widescreen mode. The factors that lead to this are potentially many but it's safe to say I think that Som was never intentionally meant to be played in any aspect ratio other than 4:3. Even though there were other aspect ratios for monitors, and even PAL for TVs, Som seems to be hindered by an NTSC-J (ie. Japanese console games) mode of thought. I've got no lead on this but it's high up on my list. Most likely if a fix exists it will require interfacing with Som's memory to some extent.
Another problem is the object vs. map pieces lighting mismatch. Theres no way to integrate an object with map pieces if the lighting setup is complex because Som only computes shadows etc for map pieces. But if the lighting is simple the colours should fuse as much as possible. I'd like to see if the object lighting can't be calibrated to improve upon this. However best results (with the traditional lighting model) would come from a tool that could fuse static objects into map pieces (making a new custom piece)
I would like to see if the 4 lights per object limit cannot be exceeded by forcing all lights in the map to light objects/monsters.
Finally I want to report on a very simple fix which fogs transparent objects. I've tested it with DD and it's a radical improvement even in the area with the white fog. Whether the effect is perfect or not depends on the order the fog is blended (if perfect it's added to the object's colour which is then blended with the current pixel colour -- if imperfect the object is blended then the fog is added on top of the summed pixel) either way by forcing transparent objects to have black fog you get much better results whether your fog is dark or light (the entire spectrum of fog)
I will attach a screenshot. Obviously the best thing about this is your transparent water sheets blend into the fog like everything else, instead of being constantly bright and then suddenly disappearing with a hard edge. Which is a big improvement (just to be clear)
For instance the seaside cliffs in DD, or the water realm in DoM. This will be available in the next SomEx.dll release, by adding "do_alphafog = yes" to the [Options] section.
UPDATE: Added a brightened version of the same attachment/image.