Oolite Bulletins

Something about nav buoys in sunlight that doesn't look right to me, and GPU usage shoots right up to 75%.
Not noticed either problem before my break. This in 1.91 (and it looks the same in 1.90) with lights down.

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:14 pm

Something about nav buoys in sunlight that doesn't look right to me, and GPU usage shoots right up to 75%.
Not noticed either problem before my break. This in 1.91 (and it looks the same in 1.90) with lights down.

Buoys in the core game don't have a normal map, just like everything else. Maybe that is what looks off?

Looks the same using core buoys and OXP buoys. Something about the lighting just doesn't 'feel' right. Is it only me?





I've put this in the wrong thread for some reason.

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:34 pm

Looks the same using core buoys and OXP buoys. Something about the lighting just doesn't 'feel' right. Is it only me?
I've put this in the wrong thread for some reason.

Could be the lighter and more saturated colors present in both buoy styles. The buoys, new and old, both seem to clash a little with most other ships, which have darker and duller textures. I’ve noticed the same thing with some ships I’ve made.

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:14 pm

[...]with lights down.

Just checked this OXP and in 1.9x it does the opposite of what it claims: it raises the ambient light to 0.25, when the current default is 0.1. Apart from that, the radiance of the light source in 1.9x has been upped five times compared to previous versions. This is mainly because of many complaints we were getting of ships not being visible at long distances. If you want to adjust light source intensity, open up the oolite-default-planet.fragment and oolite-default-shader.fragment and play with the MULTIPLIER_LIGHTSRCRADIANCE and NULTIPLIER_EXPOSURE (yes, it has a typo there in one of the two files) values.

another_commander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:44 pm

Just checked this OXP and in 1.9x it does the opposite of what it claims: it raises the ambient light to 0.25, when the current default is 0.1. Apart from that, the radiance of the light source in 1.9x has been upped five times compared to previous versions.

Ah - that would fit with my general impression that Griff's ships don't look as good as they did. Oh well, a-tinkering I shall go!

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:53 pm

another_commander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:44 pm

Just checked this OXP and in 1.9x it does the opposite of what it claims: it raises the ambient light to 0.25, when the current default is 0.1. Apart from that, the radiance of the light source in 1.9x has been upped five times compared to previous versions.

Ah - that would fit with my general impression that Griff's ships don't look as good as they did. Oh well, a-tinkering I shall go!

The first tinkering I did after installing 1.90, cutting down the light. Most ships textures didn't look well in the latest release.

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:53 pm

Ah - that would fit with my general impression that Griff's ships don't look as good as they did. Oh well, a-tinkering I shall go!

Careful there, Griff's ships have their own shaders and are not affected by changes in the core game's ones. They may profit a bit from reducing the ambient level though.

another_commander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:04 pm

They may profit a bit from reducing the ambient level though.

In my personal planetinfo.plist I have this: ambient_level = 0.025; - more tinkering, methinks!


One of the gripes I have with managed OXZs: before, I'd have Griff's shipset in a meta-OXP which was a cinch to disable in order to compare with core. Not nearly so straightforward now. I may have to revert to the original OXP versions (or shunt the OXZs into AddOns).

another_commander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:44 pm

This is mainly because of many complaints we were getting of ships not being visible at long distances.

I'd argue that the need for things to look 'right' at short distances trumps that of visibility at long distances (which is not a problem I had).

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:38 pm

another_commander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:44 pm

This is mainly because of many complaints we were getting of ships not being visible at long distances.

I'd argue that the need for things to look 'right' at short distances trumps that of visibility at long distances (which is not a problem I had).

I certainly agree to that, I got various scanners to check long distance but on short distance the ship should look well.

montana05 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:45 pm

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:38 pm

I'd argue that the need for things to look 'right' at short distances trumps that of visibility at long distances (which is not a problem I had).

I certainly agree to that, I got various scanners to check long distance but on short distance the ship should look well.

Agreed, but to this I'd argue that the ships do look well at close distances, when they comply to the new lighting model. I think that most of the material I am posting here at the screenshots thread looks good enough and I'm using even higher light intensities than the defaults. It's just a matter of correctly using the light model and I'm afraid that in this regard there are many OXP ships that have not been brought up to date. Those would most likely look weird. Note that the default core ship set is not excluded from this. For ships that comply to the current model (and without trying to plug my OXP, it's just the only example I know of), refer to the normal+specular+gloss maps OXP for 1.88 and later.

We could consider updating the core shipset to be what it really should be, with proper normal, specular and gloss maps, in which case we would require artists' help and would be moving a bit further away from the low-end systems support.

Oh, and one more thing: One of the biggest issues we've always had with any light model is the total lack of shadows (not talking about the unlit parts of things, I'm talking about shadows cast by stuff on other stuff). IF we could have this, you would see a huge improvement in pretty much everything.

another_commander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:57 pm

We could consider updating the core shipset to be what it really should be, with proper normal, specular and gloss maps, in which case we would require artists' help and would be moving a bit further away from the low-end systems support.

That's understood, and not likely to happen. A pity, but so it goes! Shadows? I'd love shadows!


If my GTX 770 (old but has grunt) is taking a heavy hit, how are low-end systems handling it?

Thanks for moving it, Admiral.