<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Noticed today (40 minutes ago) on the Progress Tracker: Delivered: Anti-aliasing (discuss) Technical task Anti-aliasing transitioned from Finished to Delivered<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> AA in build 188? Just wet my pants.
<!--quoteo(post=1884059:date=Nov 7 2011, 06:43 AM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Nov 7 2011, 06:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884059"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I guess working ladders won't be returning in build 188 just yet. I wonder if we'll see their return soon?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not in Build 188, but I think that will be coming in the near future. The problem with ladders has to do with a bug in the trigger system, and now that we've got Dushan focusing on physics/collision related tasks we'll be able to get to this sooner.
<!--quoteo(post=1884085:date=Nov 7 2011, 10:37 AM:name=Floodinator)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Floodinator @ Nov 7 2011, 10:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884085"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->AA in build 188? Just wet my pants.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I decided to bump this up after seeing what a difference it made on my machine in Battlefield 3. My machine can only handle BF3 on low settings, but I found turning this on up made a significant improvement in the look of the game. I don't feel like it's making that much of a difference in NS2 for whatever reason, but it was easy to add; I just dropped in Timothy Lottes FXAA shader, which BF3 also uses.
So what cool frostbite 2 stuff are we still missing? ^^ (except everything that needs directx 10/11)
edit: i want reflections and this light bounce/<b>radiosity maps</b> stuff! <a href="http://publications.dice.se/" target="_blank">http://publications.dice.se/</a> (Lighting you up in Battlefield 3) Lots of interesting stuff on this website, just look trough the categories, like rendering...
edit2: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Qw05BUuss&feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Qw05BUuss...player_embedded</a><b> i want that too</b> :O Lerk wings, alien structures etc... lots of good uses for this.
<!--quoteo(post=1884134:date=Nov 8 2011, 06:47 AM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Max @ Nov 8 2011, 06:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884134"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not in Build 188, but I think that will be coming in the near future. The problem with ladders has to do with a bug in the trigger system, and now that we've got Dushan focusing on physics/collision related tasks we'll be able to get to this sooner.
I decided to bump this up after seeing what a difference it made on my machine in Battlefield 3. My machine can only handle BF3 on low settings, but I found turning this on up made a significant improvement in the look of the game. I don't feel like it's making that much of a difference in NS2 for whatever reason, but it was easy to add; I just dropped in Timothy Lottes FXAA shader, which BF3 also uses.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I didnt like the deferred AA in BF3 at it made everything blurry I've had much better experience with MLAA I understand it's more work but from my experience it provides a sharper image.
So what cool frostbite 2 stuff are we still missing? ^^ (except everything that needs directx 10/11)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMaL6j7Ry6c" target="_blank">GeForce LAN 6 BF3 Presentation</a> is similar and also very interesting. Though it is less technical, it covers a lot more topics and shows what's actually happening in the game. As far as I understand it, Frostbite 2 gets lots of its performance from massively instancing pretty much everything and lots of streaming, which unfortunately both are only feasible with DX11.
One thing I would really like to see in NS2 would be shadows cast on/by particles and lighting cast on/by particles. The visually most important thing out of those are shadows being cast ON particles, especially due to NS2 having lots of dark areas. It is most visible when you have a lerk gassing a dark area. Just look at this screenshot comparison, it looks awful without (particle shadows have been bugging me since the beginning of computer graphics): <img src="https://pickhost.eu/images/0004/8629/Shadows_on_Particles_Comparison.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Afaik Global Illumination was already tech-demoed in the Spark Engine sometime, but it still is a very costly thing to do.
<!--quoteo(post=1884157:date=Nov 7 2011, 02:46 PM:name=kabab)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kabab @ Nov 7 2011, 02:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884157"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I didnt like the deferred AA in BF3 at it made everything blurry I've had much better experience with MLAA I understand it's more work but from my experience it provides a sharper image.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I believe what they label deferred AA is MSAA (aka traditional anti-aliasing) which is not what I've done. What I've done is added in FXAA which is what they call post processing anti-aliasing. This is similar to MLAA and runs over the final image, smoothing out jaggy edges. I would actually expect more unexpected blurring with this technique than with MSAA.
<!--quoteo(post=1884158:date=Nov 7 2011, 02:53 PM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Nov 7 2011, 02:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884158"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One thing I would really like to see in NS2 would be shadows cast on/by particles and lighting cast on/by particles. The visually most important thing out of those are shadows being cast ON particles, especially due to NS2 having lots of dark areas. It is most visible when you have a lerk gassing a dark area.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is a pet peeve of mine and is planned. It isn't difficult, but I need to fix up a few other things before I can make it work.
aeroripperJoin Date: 2005-02-25Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One thing I would really like to see in NS2 would be shadows cast on/by particles and lighting cast on/by particles. The visually most important thing out of those are shadows being cast ON particles, especially due to NS2 having lots of dark areas. It is most visible when you have a lerk gassing a dark area.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is actually a pretty cool effect. I remember Far Cry where lights (with projected textures) cast onto vents blowing steam out. It adds to the atmosphere significantly.
<!--quoteo(post=1884164:date=Nov 7 2011, 05:39 PM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Max @ Nov 7 2011, 05:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884164"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I believe what they label deferred AA is MSAA (aka traditional anti-aliasing) which is not what I've done. What I've done is added in FXAA which is what they call post processing anti-aliasing. This is similar to MLAA and runs over the final image, smoothing out jaggy edges. I would actually expect more unexpected blurring with this technique than with MSAA.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Hmmm ... little disappointed here. FXAA (or MLAA) are great to suppress the high frequencies in image (which helps allot with quality of result image), but SSAA (or MSAA) type of AA have big advantage when comes to fences or thin cables in size < 1px ... especially on the lower resolutions (1024x768, etc..)
I hope in some stage of development we will see also the super-sampling type of AA. ... keep fingers crossed.
BTW: Great job to add this feature! .. .and will look forward for more ;)
as example of fences / cables ... two screen shots from mappers section: <a href="http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg" target="_blank">http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg</a> <a href="http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2_skyfalls/ms_pick_05.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2.../ms_pick_05.jpg</a>
<!--quoteo(post=1884164:date=Nov 8 2011, 09:39 AM:name=Max)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Max @ Nov 8 2011, 09:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884164"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I believe what they label deferred AA is MSAA (aka traditional anti-aliasing) which is not what I've done. What I've done is added in FXAA which is what they call post processing anti-aliasing. This is similar to MLAA and runs over the final image, smoothing out jaggy edges. I would actually expect more unexpected blurring with this technique than with MSAA.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think I got my AA's confused double check the Post AA they use i'm pretty sure it blur's the image quiet a bit! When I've used MLAA in projects it's never had that effect...
<!--quoteo(post=1884171:date=Nov 8 2011, 10:31 AM:name=ZycaR)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ZycaR @ Nov 8 2011, 10:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884171"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hmmm ... little disappointed here. FXAA (or MLAA) are great to suppress the high frequencies in image (which helps allot with quality of result image), but SSAA (or MSAA) type of AA have big advantage when comes to fences or thin cables in size < 1px ... especially on the lower resolutions (1024x768, etc..)
I hope in some stage of development we will see also the super-sampling type of AA. ... keep fingers crossed.
BTW: Great job to add this feature! .. .and will look forward for more ;)
as example of fences / cables ... two screen shots from mappers section: <a href="http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg" target="_blank">http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg</a> <a href="http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2_skyfalls/ms_pick_05.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2.../ms_pick_05.jpg</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I don't think in DX9 you can do MSAA in a deffered renderer..
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1884176:date=Nov 8 2011, 01:05 AM:name=kabab)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kabab @ Nov 8 2011, 01:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884176"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think I got my AA's confused double check the Post AA they use i'm pretty sure it blur's the image quiet a bit! When I've used MLAA in projects it's never had that effect...
Does that blurring happen in NS2?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> MLAA and FXAA both blur the image by definition, since they are post-processing effects. MLAA is somewhat slower than FXAA, while both can look better or worse than the other in different cases. As far as I can tell, the overall winner is FXAA, since MLAA can produce very strange artifacts and is slower. The only drawback of FXAA is that the game has to actively support it, while you can just throw MLAA at anything. I have yet to see this extreme blurring you claim to have seen when comparing FXAA to MLAA.
<!--quoteo(post=1884177:date=Nov 8 2011, 01:06 AM:name=kabab)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kabab @ Nov 8 2011, 01:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884177"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't think in DX9 you can do MSAA in a deffered renderer..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> CryEngine 3 can do it. It's very tricky though, afaik. Probably not worth the hassle. However, I'd like to see SSAA sometime, since it provides the best image quality possible, even though at a very heavy performance cost.
Mutliple commanders was never really a big deal for me. Never seen it used effectively, especially on the Marine side. But I thought it was one of their "big new features", seems odd to remove it.
Also, on the subject of AA, I would like to see MSAA included, I've had... interesting, issues with FXAA in the past. Most notably "glass walls" -- that is, transparent (but not completely invisible) walls. Besides that, FXAA seems to actually perform less effectively than MSAA, at least that is what I observed.
(Note, I might be referring to MLAA rather than MSAA with mixed up terminology, it's whatever the more common one is!)
<!--quoteo(post=1884951:date=Nov 14 2011, 03:28 PM:name=BJHBnade_spammer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BJHBnade_spammer @ Nov 14 2011, 03:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884951"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->aww but i liked griefing as a second comm. rofl<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is probably one of the reasons it was removed. Nothing annoyed me more than troll comms in public play spending all the team res/energy.
<!--quoteo(post=1885155:date=Nov 16 2011, 12:03 PM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sherpa @ Nov 16 2011, 12:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1885155"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My two cents, random starts would mean the game couldn't be played competitively.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why?
I assume any competitive NS2 match consists of two games with swapped teams anyway due to asymmetrical sides, doesn't matter if one side gets an advantage due to random starts, as long as you use the SAME random start for both games it should be balanced.
Should be fairly easy to add a 'competitive' flag which automatically plays pairs of rounds with a seeded random start, and counts the winner at the end based on either who won both matches, or who did it fastest/with more points or something.
<!--quoteo(post=1885155:date=Nov 16 2011, 07:03 AM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sherpa @ Nov 16 2011, 07:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1885155"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My two cents, random starts would mean the game couldn't be played competitively.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In the forthcoming 188 editor, you could always make 'competitive' versions of the maps. You can select the techpoint entity and specify alien or marine only, or 'Do not use as random start'. Very easy to do.
<!--quoteo(post=1885155:date=Nov 16 2011, 02:03 PM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sherpa @ Nov 16 2011, 02:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1885155"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My two cents, random starts would mean the game couldn't be played competitively.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You play HoN and CoD, your thoughts on comp are invalid sir.
Or better yet, make mp_tournamentmode disable random hives by picking a single random hive upon first loading the map, and stick with it for any oncoming rounds.
Comments
Technical task Anti-aliasing transitioned from Finished to Delivered<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AA in build 188? Just wet my pants.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5MfDn_27X0&feature=related" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5MfDn_27X0...feature=related</a>
I AGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not in Build 188, but I think that will be coming in the near future. The problem with ladders has to do with a bug in the trigger system, and now that we've got Dushan focusing on physics/collision related tasks we'll be able to get to this sooner.
<!--quoteo(post=1884085:date=Nov 7 2011, 10:37 AM:name=Floodinator)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Floodinator @ Nov 7 2011, 10:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884085"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->AA in build 188? Just wet my pants.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I decided to bump this up after seeing what a difference it made on my machine in Battlefield 3. My machine can only handle BF3 on low settings, but I found turning this on up made a significant improvement in the look of the game. I don't feel like it's making that much of a difference in NS2 for whatever reason, but it was easy to add; I just dropped in Timothy Lottes FXAA shader, which BF3 also uses.
edit: i want reflections and this light bounce/<b>radiosity maps</b> stuff! <a href="http://publications.dice.se/" target="_blank">http://publications.dice.se/</a> (Lighting you up in Battlefield 3)
Lots of interesting stuff on this website, just look trough the categories, like rendering...
edit2: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Qw05BUuss&feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Qw05BUuss...player_embedded</a><b> i want that too</b> :O Lerk wings, alien structures etc... lots of good uses for this.
I decided to bump this up after seeing what a difference it made on my machine in Battlefield 3. My machine can only handle BF3 on low settings, but I found turning this on up made a significant improvement in the look of the game. I don't feel like it's making that much of a difference in NS2 for whatever reason, but it was easy to add; I just dropped in Timothy Lottes FXAA shader, which BF3 also uses.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didnt like the deferred AA in BF3 at it made everything blurry I've had much better experience with MLAA I understand it's more work but from my experience it provides a sharper image.
So what cool frostbite 2 stuff are we still missing? ^^ (except everything that needs directx 10/11)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMaL6j7Ry6c" target="_blank">GeForce LAN 6 BF3 Presentation</a> is similar and also very interesting. Though it is less technical, it covers a lot more topics and shows what's actually happening in the game.
As far as I understand it, Frostbite 2 gets lots of its performance from massively instancing pretty much everything and lots of streaming, which unfortunately both are only feasible with DX11.
One thing I would really like to see in NS2 would be shadows cast on/by particles and lighting cast on/by particles. The visually most important thing out of those are shadows being cast ON particles, especially due to NS2 having lots of dark areas. It is most visible when you have a lerk gassing a dark area.
Just look at this screenshot comparison, it looks awful without (particle shadows have been bugging me since the beginning of computer graphics):
<img src="https://pickhost.eu/images/0004/8629/Shadows_on_Particles_Comparison.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Afaik Global Illumination was already tech-demoed in the Spark Engine sometime, but it still is a very costly thing to do.
I believe what they label deferred AA is MSAA (aka traditional anti-aliasing) which is not what I've done. What I've done is added in FXAA which is what they call post processing anti-aliasing. This is similar to MLAA and runs over the final image, smoothing out jaggy edges. I would actually expect more unexpected blurring with this technique than with MSAA.
<!--quoteo(post=1884158:date=Nov 7 2011, 02:53 PM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Nov 7 2011, 02:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884158"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One thing I would really like to see in NS2 would be shadows cast on/by particles and lighting cast on/by particles. The visually most important thing out of those are shadows being cast ON particles, especially due to NS2 having lots of dark areas. It is most visible when you have a lerk gassing a dark area.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a pet peeve of mine and is planned. It isn't difficult, but I need to fix up a few other things before I can make it work.
This is actually a pretty cool effect. I remember Far Cry where lights (with projected textures) cast onto vents blowing steam out. It adds to the atmosphere significantly.
Hmmm ... little disappointed here. FXAA (or MLAA) are great to suppress the high frequencies in image (which helps allot with quality of result image), but SSAA (or MSAA) type of AA have big advantage when comes to fences or thin cables in size < 1px ... especially on the lower resolutions (1024x768, etc..)
I hope in some stage of development we will see also the super-sampling type of AA.
... keep fingers crossed.
BTW: Great job to add this feature! .. .and will look forward for more ;)
as example of fences / cables ... two screen shots from mappers section:
<a href="http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg" target="_blank">http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2_skyfalls/ms_pick_05.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2.../ms_pick_05.jpg</a>
I think I got my AA's confused double check the Post AA they use i'm pretty sure it blur's the image quiet a bit! When I've used MLAA in projects it's never had that effect...
Does that blurring happen in NS2?
I hope in some stage of development we will see also the super-sampling type of AA.
... keep fingers crossed.
BTW: Great job to add this feature! .. .and will look forward for more ;)
as example of fences / cables ... two screen shots from mappers section:
<a href="http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg" target="_blank">http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4965/watertreatment2.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2_skyfalls/ms_pick_05.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.nicholashillyard.com/images/ns2.../ms_pick_05.jpg</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think in DX9 you can do MSAA in a deffered renderer..
Does that blurring happen in NS2?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
MLAA and FXAA both blur the image by definition, since they are post-processing effects.
MLAA is somewhat slower than FXAA, while both can look better or worse than the other in different cases. As far as I can tell, the overall winner is FXAA, since MLAA can produce very strange artifacts and is slower. The only drawback of FXAA is that the game has to actively support it, while you can just throw MLAA at anything.
I have yet to see this extreme blurring you claim to have seen when comparing FXAA to MLAA.
<!--quoteo(post=1884177:date=Nov 8 2011, 01:06 AM:name=kabab)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kabab @ Nov 8 2011, 01:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884177"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't think in DX9 you can do MSAA in a deffered renderer..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
CryEngine 3 can do it. It's very tricky though, afaik. Probably not worth the hassle.
However, I'd like to see SSAA sometime, since it provides the best image quality possible, even though at a very heavy performance cost.
NNNNNNNNNNooooooooooooooooooooooooo..........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<img src="http://troll.me/images/y-u-no-guy/noooo.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://alextrower2ndblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/yessss.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
But I think for now they have accepted it didn't play out as hoped.
and it is better removed for less confusion.
(Note, I might be referring to MLAA rather than MSAA with mixed up terminology, it's whatever the more common one is!)
This is probably one of the reasons it was removed. Nothing annoyed me more than troll comms in public play spending all the team res/energy.
Why?
I assume any competitive NS2 match consists of two games with swapped teams anyway due to asymmetrical sides, doesn't matter if one side gets an advantage due to random starts, as long as you use the SAME random start for both games it should be balanced.
Should be fairly easy to add a 'competitive' flag which automatically plays pairs of rounds with a seeded random start, and counts the winner at the end based on either who won both matches, or who did it fastest/with more points or something.
In the forthcoming 188 editor, you could always make 'competitive' versions of the maps. You can select the techpoint entity and specify alien or marine only, or 'Do not use as random start'. Very easy to do.
You play HoN and CoD, your thoughts on comp are invalid sir.