High Resolution Pack discussion thread.

[NightFright]

Originally Posted by Radar1013

will this engine support .AVI format for the end level scenes?

And what does "Polymer" stand for?

Answer #1:
TerminX said he wouldn't add video support unless someone came up with a ready-to-use piece of highres art which justified the feature.

Answer #2:
Polymer is the name of the new renderer. Once it is issued, you guys will probably forget about Polymost pretty soon... To put it briefly: Polymer = Polymost 2.0.

I also have to admit I have been knowing about this for more than a year. However, I had a "non-disclosure agreement", so I couldn't tell anyone.

[The Commander]

Originally Posted by NightFright

I also have to admit I have been knowing about this for more than a year. However, I had a "non-disclosure agreement", so I couldn't tell anyone.

I must also admit I stumbled across this accidentally when Plagman sent me a picture of something totaly unrelated over a year ago. I only let one person I trusted also know about it, but I think he knew about it any how. But im still surprised how it was able to be kept this quiet and on the low.

[Spiker]

Originally Posted by The Commander

I must also admit I stumbled across this accidentally when Plagman sent me a picture of something totaly unrelated over a year ago. I only let one person I trusted also know about it, but I think he knew about it any how. But im still surprised how it was able to be kept this quiet and on the low.

We all knew it but we just didn't want anyone else know it

[NightFright]

What surprises me actually is that there seem to be guys who *REALLY* didn't know...!

[Tea Monster]

Hellbound told me about the project, but that was about 18 months ago at least, if not even more.

But that much time had gone by with no notice, I thought that they were either winding him up or that it had died a death like so many other Duke projects.

[gt1750]

^ Same here, he told me about 2 years ago. Later I thought it was abandoned

[The Commander]

Originally Posted by gt1750

^ Same here, he told me about 2 years ago. Later I thought it was abandoned

Many secrets reside in the Duke community.

[NightFright]

Yeah. And this proves it is a good one. Because its members are reliable and don't disclose confidential insider information.

[Parkar]

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

It will look a lot different from the original game, but so does the HRP, and I don't see what that has to do with it being a mod. Of course, I will start updating Duke Plus to take full advantage of the new renderer as soon as it is released.

Branching them off is a good idea for several reasons, one reason being that the new one will require a better system to run.

There is just more and more problems with making lights work without using con code so without a mod a lot of things probably just won't work. Here is just a few things that causes problems.

Sector lighting being turned off or turned down to be replaced by dynamic lights will also turn down the brigthness of sectors thats suposed to be fully lit. It gets even worse though since some of this are light textures that should go from dark to bright as you flip a switch.

Making sprites cast light is another issue thats hard to do right. Take the fire sprite for instance. It will always light things up since there is no way for the engine to understand that at this point this wall you can blow up means that the fire should not yet exist and thus not cast light.

Muzzle flashes that lights things up won't work without con editing.

It goes on and on. Surely you could make a HRP without a mod but for it to really shine you will most definatly need a mod to put in lights and make them behave right in all cases.

You could also come up with a way to make a lot of the things work by making the light hacks more advanced etc but I think there is going to be so many special cases that it just ain't feasible.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Parkar

There is just more and more problems with making lights work without using con code so without a mod a lot of things probably just won't work. Here is just a few things that causes problems.

Sector lighting being turned off or turned down to be replaced by dynamic lights will also turn down the brigthness of sectors thats suposed to be fully lit. It gets even worse though since some of this are light textures that should go from dark to bright as you flip a switch.

Making sprites cast light is another issue thats hard to do right. Take the fire sprite for instance. It will always light things up since there is no way for the engine to understand that at this point this wall you can blow up means that the fire should not yet exist and thus not cast light.

Muzzle flashes that lights things up won't work without con editing.

It goes on and on. Surely you could make a HRP without a mod but for it to really shine you will most definatly need a mod to put in lights and make them behave right in all cases.

You could also come up with a way to make a lot of the things work by making the light hacks more advanced etc but I think there is going to be so many special cases that it just ain't feasible.

I think I understand now. I had assumed that all of that stuff had somehow been worked out, and that the task of the CON coder was just to add some neat additional effects (like coding search lights that can be placed in a guard tower).

Your list reminds me of some of the stuff I wrestled with for my sector based dynamic lighting -- especially the first point about sector lighting. If you nuke all the shading in a map, you get rid of the shadow shading (that's good, because you want the dynamic lights to cast shadows, you don't want shadows hard shaded into the map), but you also destroy information about light sources, since in build shading (or lack thereof) IS light.

I don't think there is any good way to extrapolate the light sources from the shading in a map. One reason is the maps are made by human beings with different shading styles, they are not robots following a strict set of rules on how to shade. And even if they had followed strict rules, it would be a very difficult problem. I guess the solution is to wipe out the sector shading when the map loads and then replace it. For the original maps there would be light hacks -- a def file that specifies light sources at various coordinates. Maybe that is what you are already doing. It seems like you are going to have problems in outdoor areas, though (where there is ambient light but no identifiable light source).

[Parkar]

So far you can place lights and set their properties up. It's planed to add flags that make their intensity get adjusted based on the sector lighting and making them follow a sector. It should also be possible to specify how much of the sector lighting should affect things.

With these it should at least be possible to get simple stuff like light switches working.

Just thought of an idea that might work. adding a light hack that lets you specify a list of walls, floors, ceilings and sprites that should keep their original light behavior. This would at least let you make sure thevisible light source does not go dark.

[Hendricks266]

Originally Posted by Parkar

Muzzle flashes that lights things up won't work without con editing.

No, it could very easily work in the source, but Plagman hasn't gotten around to adding things into actual game (or CON) code yet, AFAIK.

[Tea Monster]

I've got a small complaint. I've just played a few levels with the new HRP. Congratulations to all who worked on it. It looks really good!

One small thing. By default, under the video options, the textures are set by default to be at half quality. This really babs up the sky boxes and makes everything generally look very 8 bit and horribly pixellated.

I was wondering around the level at first thinking something was wrong with my installation. A quick check revealed what was really wrong.

I think at first boot with the HRP, people should see it with the textures at full quality.
I don't know if this is a decided policy or just an oversight. I doubt that many will know to look in that menu to change the settings when they fire up the HRP.

Maybe this is why some of the HRP havers out there don't like it?

[The Commander]

Thats the default setting of Eduke32. You could make it start on High if you included a .cfg file with the HRP, but im not to sure if people would be happy with that.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Tea Monster

I've got a small complaint. I've just played a few levels with the new HRP. Congratulations to all who worked on it. It looks really good!

One small thing. By default, under the video options, the textures are set by default to be at half quality. This really babs up the sky boxes and makes everything generally look very 8 bit and horribly pixellated.

I was wondering around the level at first thinking something was wrong with my installation. A quick check revealed what was really wrong.

I think at first boot with the HRP, people should see it with the textures at full quality.
I don't know if this is a decided policy or just an oversight. I doubt that many will know to look in that menu to change the settings when they fire up the HRP.

Maybe this is why some of the HRP havers out there don't like it?

I agree that full quality should be the default setting. Reduced quality is fine for most things, but that minority of things that it f*cks up, it f*cks up real bad. For a lot of stuff, full quality is overkill imo, and you can reduce it without compromising the visuals very much while getting a nice performance boost. But some stuff has just the amount of detail it needs, and when you reduce it, the result is crap.

Like I said in the other thread, there is a variety of reasons why some people don't use the HRP. In my opinion, the HRP has been improving steadily and the current version is quite good. Of course, there is plenty of room for improvement.

For example...No offense to whoever made these models, because I'm sure it is very difficult and I know I couldn't do it myself, but the faces on these (apparently steroid enhanced) "babes" (the ones on the bed) are kind of frightening. The bed textures are nothing to cheer about either, imo:

http://hrpupdate.duke4.net/images/hrp4_e4l7.jpg

[ProAsm]

After downloading the HRP4 I must say it looks fantastic and well done to all involved.
I play at least one user map every day of my life and immediately noticed the difference.
I must however I agree with DT about the babes, Duke is all about the babes and considering such an excellent job was done with Duke himself, the same professionalism should be applied to the babes.
Otherwise an excellent job

Regarding the reason why people dont use the HRP is because many people today use only a laptop and in many instances the graphics card is somewhat something to be desired.
I used to have a LRP on my site but now it comes inside a complete Duke3dw Shareware installation and I have more downloads of this file than any other file on my site.
Its all the laptop users that want this LRP (50 megs) which I'm now gonna update with the new stuff.
I've recently moved my site because I was being charged heavily for exceeding my bandwidth each month and a lot of it was due to this file.
Unfortuneately my new site I have no control panel access (cheap) hence cannot monitor downloads, but at the time of moving (last week) this file topped over 17000 downloads since October 2008, so someone somewhere out there finds the LRP very interesting, and I do get a number of emails regarding it.
We have a Shadow Warrior HRP which is in a .RAR format and its staggering the number of people I get emails from that ask me how to unzip it as they have never heard of a .rar file.
I think the problem is we here have become so complacent with all the technicalities and expertise available amongst us that we have forgotten about the real people and the real gamers out there.

[Parkar]

As mentioned, that's the default settings of EDuke32 and while I did consider adding a cfg with turned up graphics I thought it would be better to keep default the eduke32 default. Maybe an option in the installer should be added to the next version that turns up the settings to what is recommended for the HRP.

[lycanox]

When you start Eduke, it automatically opens a window where you can define things like preferred screen resolution, polymost and custom mod directory.

Why not add a module where the player can select their preferred graphics quality settings in minimal, medium and high.
Because I doubt that most people know what each setting in the graphic options menu does, let alone what they have to turn of and on to have optimal speed or graphics.

[Tea Monster]

@ - ProAsm - 17K? Wow!!

@Parkar - I think thats a good idea. I didn't know that the graphics were set to .5 quality out of the starting gate. I bet a lot of others don't either. A button on the start-up screen for the graphics quality would be great. Thanks!

[vtribes]

Originally Posted by lycanox

Why not add a module where the player can select their preferred graphics quality settings in minimal, medium and high.
Because I doubt that most people know what each setting in the graphic options menu does, let alone what they have to turn of and on to have optimal speed or graphics.

Or at least two buttons: One 'Default', one 'Best quality'.

[Sang]

Originally Posted by NightFright

Yeah. And this proves it is a good one. Because its members are reliable and don't disclose confidential insider information.

Lol, so this is why people started telling other people they felt they could trust, who in turn told it to other people they felt they could trust? On this page alone like 5 people or so admitted to having known about it for some time, perhaps there are more.

[MusicallyInspired]

I didn't know . But I was pleasantly surprised anyway so it's all good.

[Tea Monster]

MusicallyInspired - I was praising your work, and NOT faintly!

"In physics, a quantum leap or quantum jump is a change of an electron from one quantum state to another within an atom. It is discontinuous; the electron jumps from one energy level to another instantaneously." (my italics)

What I was saying is that you have very measurably changed the Duke experience.

[MusicallyInspired]

In the wrong thread, I think, but thank you, Tea Monster .

[NightFright]

Is it a coincidence HRP contributions have come to a complete halt after Polymer announcement? The texture/model threads are pretty much dead right now. Of course, there may be other reasons as well, season-related and all that. Not that I had anything against some cooldown time after the revisions speedrace right before latest HRP release...

[Tea Monster]

Originally Posted by NightFright

Is it a coincidence HRP contributions have come to a complete halt after Polymer announcement?

Nope.

[marked]

Right before the latest HRP release I turned in all of the textures I felt I was capable of making from the Wiki list. The rest are beyond my skills. So I have been quietly creating a few for SW and Blood just in case those games start to get activity again. Also I'm taking time to learn map making.

I did submit one this month. The April Fools joke milk carton with Obama on it.

[NightFright]

Fair enough. However, this means there will be no HRP update for May 1. Not enough contents. Anyway, I had planned normal maps for the first update pack, so it will be postponed until further notice.

[Nimoy]

Originally Posted by marked

Right before the latest HRP release I turned in all of the textures I felt I was capable of making from the Wiki list. The rest are beyond my skills. So I have been quietly creating a few for SW and Blood just in case those games start to get activity again. Also I'm taking time to learn map making.

I did submit one this month. The April Fools joke milk carton with Obama on it.

I think some of the Shadow Warrior players would appreciate it if you released those new arts.

[Tea Monster]

For those of you who don't know what a normal map is and/or how to make them, check out this site. Kats Bits is a gold-mine of info on next-gen game techniques. The site has info on how to bake normal maps off of models and how to construct normal maps from previously done textures, so we can get some stuff going for the Polymer renderer.

Unfortunately, without a copy of the renderer, we can't test anything.

[marked]

And my video card won't support it so I couldn't test out the textures even if I started modifying them.

[Tea Monster]

That sucks. Can't you pick up an old GeForce 6000 series or something? Its not cutting edge, but it will at least run it.

[marked]

I'm pretty limited with my AGP 8X slot for a video card. I'll take a look to see what is the best I can slap in there. I have a Geforce 4 TI-4200 in there now. For now I'll just have to enjoy the occasional screenshot or youtube video.

I already have the money set aside for a whole new setup, but this one has been running fast and problem free on its original install of XP for over 6 years now. I am hesitant to replace something that is running so well.

[MusicallyInspired]

I've got an aging motherboard with an AGP 4x slot myself (currently sporting an ATI X1650 Pro). I'm missing out on all this PCI-E stuff. That plus the fact that I'm only running on 768 MB of RAM. Really need to get a new machine...

[The Commander]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

I've got an aging motherboard with an AGP 4x slot myself (currently sporting an ATI X1650 Pro). I'm missing out on all this PCI-E stuff. That plus the fact that I'm only running on 768 MB of RAM. Really need to get a new machine...

I haven't tested my X1650 Pro, but my HD3650 works pretty good with the new render apart from mirrors and portals. (this is a known ATI issue) The only problem I could see it having on your end is if their are to many spot lights being used in any given scene.

[escapist]

Originally Posted by NightFright

Is it a coincidence HRP contributions have come to a complete halt after Polymer announcement? The texture/model threads are pretty much dead right now....

well, in my case...
a few weeks ago burglars broke into my house and got away with my cash, valuables and my computer.
(Man! I REALLY felt like ripping someone's head off and $h1TT1nG down their neck.)
i'm using my kids' crummy old computer now to visit the forums and it may take awhile before I'll be all set up again.
but just as well, looks like i'll need some time first to study them polymer, normal maps, etc. anyways.

[Tea Monster]

Holy crap, I'm sorry Escapist. Did they get the guys?

[alandog]

sorry to hear escapist... hope you'll get some refund by assurance...

however, I think that is because of the recent release of hrp 4.0 that work has slowed down... personally, I don't want to push anyone but I hope that soon we'll see some new model, especially the girls need to be finished...

[Rider]

Heh, I'm hoping everyone's secretly working on Million poly models of everything to create the ingame models off of

[marked]

Sorry for your loss. Did you have important stuff backed up on CDs or external drive stashed away or is it a 100 percent loss?