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Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:53 am
by checkerz
JLV,
Where are we at getting more lighting sources or a lighting update? We're kind of at the limit of what we can do visually now and want to push erode more, but without more visibility, we're at a bit of a stand still.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:57 am
by checkerz
Ooops wasn't done.
Also,
With erode. Are we doing this wrong? As of now it feels like we're tuning how the bike reacts on the terrain verus tuning dirt types.
I feel like we'd be so much better off to be able to tune the hardness of the surface and the bike would react based on that. For example, a majority of our AMA nationals (less so the sand tracks) are tilled extremely deep. The top 6-8 inches at least is just fluff, just riding through it will cut right through that. Below that it is gradually getting harder. That dirt also holds you less and is easier to move. Should we be tuning this in layers like a cake versus what the tire always does across the track?
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:50 am
by ColtonD719
I've been really taking my time on my current track trying to make the best use of erode. Based on a lot of testing myself, some feedback from others, and racing the occasional erode races online, I've come to the conclusion that some built-in starter ruts are essential, at least for outdoors. Having some built-in lines gives you the opportunity to highlight them visually. I've found that baking an AO map does a lot in terms of increasing the visibility of small/shallow ruts/bumps. Because the AO is quite soft, it doesn't seem to cause any issues as the lines move and develop over the course of a race. By the time the lines have changed that much, the ruts are big enough that the realtime shading has taken over.
Speaking of AO, JLV did bring up the possibility of making AO a part of the in-game shading when this topic was briefly discussed in the
1.12 Update thread.
jlv wrote:I'm thinking about adding ambient occlusion to the terrain shading calculation. Probably the best way to make ruts stand out.
I agree that this could make a huge impact. As I mentioned in that thread, I also think some kind of tire mark visual (various examples of which you can see in any modern racing game) would help as well.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:56 am
by ColtonD719
checkerz wrote:I feel like we'd be so much better off to be able to tune the hardness of the surface and the bike would react based on that. For example, a majority of our AMA nationals (less so the sand tracks) are tilled extremely deep. The top 6-8 inches at least is just fluff, just riding through it will cut right through that. Below that it is gradually getting harder.
I've experimented with using a >1 depth for erode_limit 0 to try and get the feeling of what you described. Something like this:
Code: Select all
erode_limit 0 5 5
erode_limit .5 .5 .5
erode_limit 1 0 0
But it didn't really seem to work very well. Tended to be very choppy.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:51 pm
by barrington314
Like Colton said, what you are describing sounds like what the limit settings should be able to do. Check this convo out
http://forum.mxsimulator.com/viewtopic. ... &start=120
It's been difficult to test this IMO. I have mixed results and I'm not sure if it's actually working properly. We are going to find out Wednesday night
If it works as suggested in that thread, we should see lots of ruts early on, but the progression of the erode will slow down as the moto goes on until it finally reaches its limit and becomes fully hard and no longer erodes. Wish me luck.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:54 pm
by barrington314
Oh, also his answer to more light sources was it'd be easy to add be redundant soon enough because he wants to go HDR.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:02 am
by jlv
The erode limit stuff does work, but it's not precise because erode wears more than just the area it does the depth test on. From my testing it went around .25 - .5 feet under the limit. Not ideal but it was more efficient that way.
For the lighting, I could try some simple ambient self-occlusion when calculating the terrain vertex shading values. I'm in the middle of integrating the scripting engine right now and I'd like to get it wrapped up before I start tearing into anything else though.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:50 am
by aaronr5
jlv wrote:I'm in the middle of integrating the scripting engine right now and I'd like to get it wrapped up before I start tearing into anything else though.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:18 pm
by 808
Im not exactly a guru when it comes to this stuff, but what exactly can scripting bring to the table once its here? What are its limits?
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:36 am
by jlv
808 wrote:Im not exactly a guru when it comes to this stuff, but what exactly can scripting bring to the table once its here? What are its limits?
It's for extensibility. There are a lot of things that would be useful in a specific application but would be impractical or ungainly to hard code into the game. A good example is the scoring tower in SX. I could make it work by hard coding in a special scoreboard object but running it with a track specific script would be way nicer.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 4:06 am
by Mcguire103
but its useless to people who cannot write code/script yeah?
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:04 am
by Wahlamt
Mcguire103 wrote:but its useless to people who cannot write code/script yeah?
You'll still benefit from what others use, but if you can't script, you can always learn
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 3:20 pm
by mxsrider96
Mcguire103 wrote:but its useless to people who cannot write code/script yeah?
If I'm right about how the scripts could/will work, track creators who use them will include them in track downloads and scripts that just change something about the game could be downloaded just like a track.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:29 pm
by Wahlamt
mxsrider96 wrote:Mcguire103 wrote:but its useless to people who cannot write code/script yeah?
If I'm right about how the scripts could/will work, track creators who use them will include them in track downloads and scripts that just change something about the game could be downloaded just like a track.
Perhaps something like custom HUD too, depending on what we'll be allowed to do.
Re: Lighting and erode.
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 9:54 pm
by mxsrider96
One thing that I would love to see is the ability to set the name roll thing in the cameras to go by lap time rather than position in the race. This would be nice for qualifying being the way it currently is, so if EMF allows people to watch qualifying that aren't signed up, they dont have to run through the list to find the fastest lap