2010-08-21, 01:23 AM
Something I really like about Som games is the 16bpp mode. I just love the posterized effect. It reminds me of the PSOne, but is also very psychedelic and has a painting like quality.
One of the best things about 16bpp mode is the items in the menu preview really come to life. They have a kind of shimmer as they spin around which I can only liken to a brushed metal pixel shader. I like 16bpp mode because everything seems so alive, morphing, and bursting with colour.
So I really freaked out today when my pet project lost its shimmer!! I don't know if something I did with my Som extensions made it disappear or what. I can't seem to get Som to go into 16bpp mode under DirectX7 to test it atm to see if I'm missing anything. So I immediately tested Dark Destiny and my testing project, and they had shimmer.... even better than anything I'd noticed before. So I did a lot of tests to no avail.
Without shimmer your items looks just static, like light is painted onto them. I think the shimmer I've been used to in the past was caused by have a very close fog distance. So the parts of the item closer to the eye would slip into the fog and that would cause a shimmer. I can detect a little bit of that, but it seems to be kind of lost right now. But Dark Destiny doesn't even have fog until way back... so I got to thinking and eventually realized its shimmer was caused by the map lights!!
The lamps you add to your map don't seem to effect "shimmer" of items. It's really a bug I think that the map lights would effect the items menu, though maybe not since under extreme lighting conditions you'd expect the same light to hit your items while examining them I suppose. But this is something I suggest authors consider taking advantage of.
First off, the ambient light will presumably change the general colour of your items in the preview (have not tested this to be sure) but it does not contribute to the shimmer effect. If you want serious shimmer, ditch fog and play with the directional lights. Until now I was of the mind the directional lights were the most ridiculous feature of the map editor. You can't actually setup directional lighting on your map with a global light unless the map is very simple and an entire side of it is occupied by the light source in question...
However you can give the environment a little bit of opalescence and three dimensionality by adding very faint directional lights... consciously not even perceivable. Because lets face it, with a perceivable directional light, if your map has anything like a cave, that totally ruins it (why is there a light outside and inside the cave and why does it always light the eastern walls of the cave for example) ...but best of all these lights will make your items really come to life, even very muted ones.
Bear in mind, every directional light you add is an extra light calculation for every vertex. And Som basically draws triangle lists, so make that every vertex of every triangle (at least until maybe I can get around to optimizing around this)
I think even one simple directional light might do the trick. To be honest in most maps in DD I did not realize there was any lighting going on. But every map seems to have some. And don't ask me what the "X/Y angles" mean. I don't actually have a clue.
In 32bpp mode the lighting of the items is less visually perceivable, but it's still worth while. With just an ambient light, there seems to be some lighting going on, but it's weird, like the light source is a satellite of the item always fixed in the same relation, and also not in an interesting position (symmetrical items will be symmetrically lit)
SO IF YOU TAKE NOTHING ELSE AWAY... add at least one subtle directional light to your maps today.
PS: On the Ex front I'd like to add an extension so you can setup a lighting arrangement just for the items preview. which would allow you to not sacrifice any performance under normal play. And surely I can set something up to let you adjust the lights in realtime in game until they're too your liking. For your maps also. And I think I would also like to sometime integrate the mouse with the item preview screen and add a key or two for adjusting the speed of the preview etc along with default settings.
One of the best things about 16bpp mode is the items in the menu preview really come to life. They have a kind of shimmer as they spin around which I can only liken to a brushed metal pixel shader. I like 16bpp mode because everything seems so alive, morphing, and bursting with colour.
So I really freaked out today when my pet project lost its shimmer!! I don't know if something I did with my Som extensions made it disappear or what. I can't seem to get Som to go into 16bpp mode under DirectX7 to test it atm to see if I'm missing anything. So I immediately tested Dark Destiny and my testing project, and they had shimmer.... even better than anything I'd noticed before. So I did a lot of tests to no avail.
Without shimmer your items looks just static, like light is painted onto them. I think the shimmer I've been used to in the past was caused by have a very close fog distance. So the parts of the item closer to the eye would slip into the fog and that would cause a shimmer. I can detect a little bit of that, but it seems to be kind of lost right now. But Dark Destiny doesn't even have fog until way back... so I got to thinking and eventually realized its shimmer was caused by the map lights!!
The lamps you add to your map don't seem to effect "shimmer" of items. It's really a bug I think that the map lights would effect the items menu, though maybe not since under extreme lighting conditions you'd expect the same light to hit your items while examining them I suppose. But this is something I suggest authors consider taking advantage of.
First off, the ambient light will presumably change the general colour of your items in the preview (have not tested this to be sure) but it does not contribute to the shimmer effect. If you want serious shimmer, ditch fog and play with the directional lights. Until now I was of the mind the directional lights were the most ridiculous feature of the map editor. You can't actually setup directional lighting on your map with a global light unless the map is very simple and an entire side of it is occupied by the light source in question...
However you can give the environment a little bit of opalescence and three dimensionality by adding very faint directional lights... consciously not even perceivable. Because lets face it, with a perceivable directional light, if your map has anything like a cave, that totally ruins it (why is there a light outside and inside the cave and why does it always light the eastern walls of the cave for example) ...but best of all these lights will make your items really come to life, even very muted ones.
Bear in mind, every directional light you add is an extra light calculation for every vertex. And Som basically draws triangle lists, so make that every vertex of every triangle (at least until maybe I can get around to optimizing around this)
I think even one simple directional light might do the trick. To be honest in most maps in DD I did not realize there was any lighting going on. But every map seems to have some. And don't ask me what the "X/Y angles" mean. I don't actually have a clue.
In 32bpp mode the lighting of the items is less visually perceivable, but it's still worth while. With just an ambient light, there seems to be some lighting going on, but it's weird, like the light source is a satellite of the item always fixed in the same relation, and also not in an interesting position (symmetrical items will be symmetrically lit)
SO IF YOU TAKE NOTHING ELSE AWAY... add at least one subtle directional light to your maps today.
PS: On the Ex front I'd like to add an extension so you can setup a lighting arrangement just for the items preview. which would allow you to not sacrifice any performance under normal play. And surely I can set something up to let you adjust the lights in realtime in game until they're too your liking. For your maps also. And I think I would also like to sometime integrate the mouse with the item preview screen and add a key or two for adjusting the speed of the preview etc along with default settings.