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Just noticed that if you change video mode the special effects are all blocky until you restart the client. May be another one for you list. :P ttlanhil recently fixed a similar problem described here.

 

edit: Just in case its useful, here's a before and after screen shot.

 

Yes I noticed this one too, forgot to post it here.

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Eye candy and light: Yes, spells can cause lighting.

 

Blood effect on undead: Sorry; I can't fix that one without more information from the server, unfortunately. If Ent wanted to modify the GET_ACTOR_DAMAGE packet to also send the attacker, I'd be glad to put that check in.

 

Video mode: Ah, new bug for me to fix :P I'll look into it.

 

Cycloonx: You earlier reported a bug in which, if the framerate was low, particles would "hover" or the like. Does this still exist?

 

Ttlanhil: Where are you? I coded -DDEBUG_TTLANHIL_TRANSPARENCY just for you!

Edited by KarenRei

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Cycloonx: You earlier reported a bug in which, if the framerate was low, particles would "hover" or the like. Does this still exist?

 

It's fixed :icon13: Client runs faster, no more lag from the effects, i'm happy :happy:

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I just got a new client, the bag effect looks MUCH nicer now..it looks like the bag is melting away into the particles. The slow down in the other effects also looks really good(although i didn't see all)

 

The campfire however seems totally broken..maybe it's just my machine. All it is is a tiny little glowing ball that you can't even see beneath the wood(and the f9 fire is also very small).

 

The glowy swords, now they only make the particles when you move around?

 

#beam, can it just fade out easily? what it does now is start to fade out..then it ZOOMS back into the center of itself. Can you take that zoom part out?

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Fire effect: You have -DDEBUG_POINT_PARTICLES on, don't you? That transforms the fire effect into a single particle, for debugging. Not to be used for regular usage. :)

 

Glowy swords kick off the occasional particle when standing still. The faster they move, the more they sparkle and glow. I can adjust how much it cares about speed pretty easily if you want any defaults changed.

 

Beaming: Could you rephrase? I'm not quite following what you'd like.

 

Thanks!

Edited by KarenRei

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Fire effect: You have -DDEBUG_POINT_PARTICLES on, don't you?

 

I'd have no clue, as I got the client from someone else :)

 

 

The beam effect: Basically it is a long cylinder, with some sparkle particles in it. When it starts to fade out, both groups(the cylinder & sparkles) start fading out nicely..then all of a sudden the cylinder shows up noticeably and scales itself in to the center(this is the part i'd like to get rid of). Just let it fade out nicely.

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Oki I got a few stuffs to report:

 

1. About the "found gold bag effect", I cannot completely tell if it actually appears 1 step infront of you or at the resources because sometimes there are things blocking the tile around the resource which may make the effect to appear at closest unoccupied tile?

But however I don't like that the effect is not on the actual player, people will be mad about the effect at populated harvesting areas. "Why did you get my bag?!?"

 

2. As mentioned before, at some camera angles particles and shadows become invisible. I will try and capture this on a screenshot later but I don't see how a visual proof of it's existance can help much in fixing the "bug".

 

3. The light coming from magic spells/special effects/fire and so on, is only spread on areas not affected by objects shadows:

 

eternallands0223rx1.th.jpg

 

Note how the area that is outside of shadow from the house is getting lit, while the shadowed area is just totally unnaturally unaffected. I also tried casting Shield spell which is a very light spreading spell otherwise... it didn't affect the house shadow at all.

 

4. The mother nature hit you effect is very very BIG... should be investigated and tested by more people, especially Roja.

Edited by Beaverhunter

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Roja:

 

Beam effect disapperence: I've modified it. Tell me if you like the new version better.

 

Beaverhunter:

 

Bag of gold: Moved closer to player.

Invisible: Not sure what you're referring to.

Shadows: Correct, and unfortunately, unfixable for this release. Shadow maps just aren't capable of handling omnidirectional light sources and would take multiple iterations just to handle more than one light source. That's why shadows disappear a night, and always have. If I have time, for next release, I'll change us over to a variant of shadow volumes or the like.

Mother nature: Shrunk it a bit more.

Edited by KarenRei

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Quite odd indeed. Eye candy shouldn't have anything to do with it, but just to verify, try turning it off.

Disabled Eye Candy via the configuration option in the client. No change. Rebuilt the client without the EYE_CANDY define. Again, no change.

 

Any idea on the possible cause. Current build options are:

 

FEATURES += AFK_FIX						 # fixes afk messages to count only PM's, and store and count local messages if the option is selected
FEATURES += ALPHA_ACTORS					# (undocumented)
FEATURES += ATI_9200_FIX					# flickering fix for ATI 92xx
FEATURES += AUTO_UPDATE					 # enable minor automatic file updating
FEATURES += BUG_FIX_3D_OBJECTS_MIN_MAX	  # Just a small work around for the new frustum with the buggy 3d objects. This is not nessecary if you have correct 3d objects or use the new file format.
FEATURES += COUNTERS						# enables kill/production/etc counters in the client
FEATURES += CUSTOM_LOOK					 # allows you to customize your look.
FEATURES += CUSTOM_UPDATE				   # allows autoupdating of custom look information
FEATURES += FONTS_FIX					   # dynamically loads all fonts with the filename in the format font*.bmp, and makes them accessable in the options
FEATURES += FUZZY_PATHS					 # (undocumented)
FEATURES += MASKING						 # (undocumented)
FEATURES += NEW_ACTOR_ANIMATION			 # (undocumented)
FEATURES += NEW_ALPHA					   # (undocumented)
FEATURES += NEW_FRUSTUM					 # use new frustum culling (AABB trees)
FEATURES += NEW_TEX						 # use new texture coordinates for enhanced actors
FEATURES += NEW_WEATHER					 # new weather effects
FEATURES += NOTEPAD						 # enable in-game notepad
FEATURES += OPTIONS_I18N					# make option labels & descriptions translatable
FEATURES += PNG_SCREENSHOT				  # make screenshots in W3C's PNG format in game
FEATURES += SFX							 # experimental visual spell effects
FEATURES += SIMPLE_LOD					  # enable a simplistic distance culling to improve performance
FEATURES += USE_INLINE					  # (undocumented)
FEATURES += USE_SSE						 # (undocumented)
FEATURES += USE_SSE2						# (undocumented)
FEATURES += USE_SSE3						# (undocumented)
FEATURES += ZLIB							# Enables being able to read gzip compressed files, requires -lzlib/-lz
FEATURES += ZLIBW						   # Enables being able to write gzip compressed files, requires -lzlib/-lz

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Thats a problem in the model that was exposed by ACTOR_ALPHA. I've brought it to Roja's attention also. With how black the skunk is the code is making it transparent.

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Possibly a new one for you, or a different slant on the possible building up of effects in console mode. I was AFK while in the DP reading library. Not in console mode, but with the el client window minimised. There's a cauldron in the room normally with genital smoke rising from the pan. When I reopened the window, a huge cloud of thick black smoke rose from the pan and headed upwards. It's as if all the smoke had built up until the window was reopened. Here's a screen shot. I'm using standard debian etch and the gnome desktop. The big cloud is repeatable if you wait long enough.

 

Edit: This is latest CVS as of now.

Edited by bluap

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Bluap: That's not a building up of effects. Rather, it's due to the unusually long "frame". Most frames are, what, a thirtieth of a second? A sixtieth of a second? Depends on your video card, right? Let's say 40 fps. Well, unminimizing is causing a system load -- perhaps for a quarter of a second, your system isn't giving CPU time to EL. Eye candy gets it's next frame and ten times as much time as usual has passed, so it creates ten times as many particles, moves its existing particles ten times as far, etc.

 

If it's a problem, I could hard-code a "minimum framerate" (so that even if twenty seconds passed, it'd pretend that only some small, hard-coded amount had passed), but this is expected behavior as it currently stands.

 

Learner:

 

Seems kinda crazy that we're using indexed transparency, this day in age. Are there plans to use true transparency/translucency in the future?

 

Other:

 

To follow up on an earlier report: people had mentioned that eye candy textures got funky when you changed video modes. I hadn't tried changing video modes on my debugging laptop because it always crashed when I did so (even before eye candy); I just assumed that it was my buggy video card. I went to my PC and tried it, and was able to reproduce the problem -- however, it was clear that the textures themselves were somehow getting messed up, which concerned me. I then ran things through valgrind, and EL crashed on my PC when changing video modes. Most concerning was the fact that the stacktrace was messed up; it jumped into a bizarre looking address when in some normal-looking EL function call and immediately crashed there. This really looks like a buffer overflow if I ever saw one, and it's probably one that's been there for a while, but hasn't gotten many people because people change video modes so infrequently.

 

I'll probably look more into it this weekend, but be warned that it seems to be there, and it seems to exist whether eye candy is there or not (it's just usually, but not always, asymptomatic without eye candy)

Edited by KarenRei

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Bluap: That's not a building up of effects. Rather, it's due to the unusually long "frame"....

OK, though it does not happen if I simply minimise the window and open it again soon afterwards. It only occurs if I leave the window minimise for several minutes. There is no lag of the window displaying even when the big cloud happens.

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Bluap: That's not a building up of effects. Rather, it's due to the unusually long "frame". Most frames are, what, a thirtieth of a second? A sixtieth of a second? Depends on your video card, right? Let's say 40 fps. Well, unminimizing is causing a system load -- perhaps for a quarter of a second, your system isn't giving CPU time to EL. Eye candy gets it's next frame and ten times as much time as usual has passed, so it creates ten times as many particles, moves its existing particles ten times as far, etc.

 

If it's a problem, I could hard-code a "minimum framerate" (so that even if twenty seconds passed, it'd pretend that only some small, hard-coded amount had passed), but this is expected behavior as it currently stands.

 

Learner:

 

Seems kinda crazy that we're using indexed transparency, this day in age. Are there plans to use true transparency/translucency in the future?

There is true transparency & translucence, it's just that when it was enabled for actors , the skunk didn't have a specific alpha map created for it, so one was auto generated and the texturing has always had a minimum threshold. Thats why I said I pointed it out to Roja so a proper alpha map could be created for that texture to fix this problem.

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Ah, well, that would mean that ec_idle isn't being called while the window's minimized. EL probably doesn't give anything CPU time when it's minimized. So, it resumes and it's several seconds or more later.

 

I'll patch it up to have a minimum assumed framerate.

 

There is true transparency & translucence, it's just that when it was enabled for actors , the skunk didn't have a specific alpha map created for it, so one was auto generated and the texturing has always had a minimum threshold. Thats why I said I pointed it out to Roja so a proper alpha map could be created for that texture to fix this problem.

 

Ah, okay. Good to hear that. :omg:

Edited by KarenRei

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bluap:

Yes, as KarenRei explained, it's your comp with it's HDD and Ram that is trying to get back at a running state after being idle. For example when idling alot and then maximizing your window again and then quickly move somewhere, you pretty much run! Yay, running in EL... But actually you walk, it just looks like you run because of "lag".

Also if you are idling alot then coming back and changing map quite quickly, your most likely going to see a "Resync with server" message.

This is all "normal".

 

KarenRei:

Invisible shadow: Well basicly it's a shadow of a palm that was visible pretty much 360º except for one angle where it dissappeared and other shadows were visible and so on, but not that one. It's not really a major problem but well maybe good to be aware of. Same thing seems to apply to particles sometimes.

 

Bag of gold+Mother Nature: Oki, nice I'll check them out when they happen.

 

Shadows Mapping: Ouch, that's quite bad... That ruins alot of the effect from the new lightning "spreading". Would be nice to fix later.

 

Request in matter of time:

1. Is the darkness problem looked into? I have like 1 hour daylight, 2 hour evening, 3 hour pitchblack =/

 

2. I have heard a guy playing on his Notebook (not very fancy hardware) but not seeing any real LOD changes no matter what situation he is in (He runs fine when not populated areas, but FPS drops alot when ppl come in). Is the FPS calculation still causing problems?

 

A question:

What patch made the objects and the whole world of EL much more sharp and good looking? I barely see any big edges and so on like on official client...It's like some kind of anti-alias but without actually using it:D Has rendering been improved?

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Darkness: Sounds like you're getting lots of clouds from new weather. I can make new weather clouds have even less of an effect if you'd like. How dark are we talking about? It shouldn't be giving you pitch black any more -- it should be lighter than the shadows. Have you tried disabling NEW_WEATHER? Under NEW_LIGHTING, it's sunrise from 0 to 1, full daylight from 1 to 3, sunset from 3 to 4, night from 4 to 6, and defined as "day" from 0:30 to 3:30, all as usual. However, lights go off at 0:05 and on at 3:55 in order to let you enjoy the rosy sunrise/sunset shadows instead of 0:30 and 3:30, respectively. So, if you're getting darkness at some other time, it's either due to NEW_WEATHER clouds or some unknown bug.

 

Shadow mapping: Yeah, I know. Wish there was a way I could "hack" it, but there isn't, really. Well, if we had vertex shaders I could, but that'd be an even bigger addition.

 

FPS: I haven't heard of any FPS/LOD adjustment problems, nor seen any. Have your friend come over here and report it, and I can look into it. :omg: It'll probably take a bit of Q&A, perhaps a few debugging statements, to figure out what's going on in his case. Note that even on LOD=1, it's still possible to lag your system -- just not as easy. Set the whole screen ablaze with F9 fires, and even a good vid card will be slowed down.

 

Sharpness: That's probably my NEW_LIGHTING you're referring to. :hehe: Unfortunately, Learner has decided that since it's enough of a change to count as a new feature, they're not going to put in the new release. I can understand that, but still, nice, isn't it? :P

Edited by KarenRei

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bluap:

Yes, as KarenRei explained, it's your comp with it's HDD and Ram that is trying to get back at a running state after being idle. For example when idling alot and then maximizing your window again and then quickly move somewhere, you pretty much run! Yay, running in EL... But actually you walk, it just looks like you run because of "lag".

Also if you are idling alot then coming back and changing map quite quickly, your most likely going to see a "Resync with server" message.

This is all "normal".

Well, I don't agree this is a lag problem or an idle problem. The "running" thing occurs if you map walk too, it's nothing to do with being idle; it's more to do with how the server/client update your position. Anyway you both sound convinced, so who am I to argue :omg:

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Ttlanhil: Where are you? I coded -DDEBUG_TTLANHIL_TRANSPARENCY just for you!
sorry, I've been busy for about a week, a little bit to catch up on, but about to start testing with that
Ah, well, that would mean that ec_idle isn't being called while the window's minimized. EL probably doesn't give anything CPU time when it's minimized. So, it resumes and it's several seconds or more later.
in the main render loops, there's a check if EL is currently being drawn. you could add an idle before that check if you needed too (as long as it's light on resources, which I assume it already is)

 

ed: finished uploading the piccies to http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/ttlanhil/eye-candy/

Edited by ttlanhil

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