Bump Mapping isn't showing up...

[Forboding Angel]

oddly enough, now that i look at it, it is rendering another texture layer on the attributes map in 2.3d when I had that one disabled...

I uninstalled 2.4.17 and everything in 2.3d seems to have gone back to normal. I'll know in a few minutes.

After that I will try 2.4b and see if anything has changed there.

A little odd that 2.4.17 could be affecting 2.3d... That's just bizarre.

Sorry for my outburst earlier. I was a little upset because I have not touched 2.3d, as I wanted to have it so that I could fall back on it if I ever needed to, and the thought of being all jacked up is more than I cared to think about.



On a side note... Aaron, remember that I render my maps witht he heightmap the same size as the final texture. Like the map I'm testing everything on is 6144x10240 (smallish compared to my norm 10240x10240).

Man, this whole deal is just plain bizzarre.

[Forboding Angel]

I'm going to destroy something beautiful soon.

Why the hell is it using my "Green Test" climate from 2.3d (my normal greenworld climate) Yet using textures from the temporate climate?????? (This is in 2.3d btw)

omfg, this has been one fucking hell of a nightmare. I'mma uninstall 2.4b and see if things revert back to normalicy

[Forboding Angel]

Nightmare update. Got the bumpmapping for rock3 to show up... grass bump still does not show (in 2.3d). I have killed the climate, reregistered it, reloaded it. Done a map from scratch. What the heck is it doing? BTW the rock3 bumpmap texture isn't even the right one, and I imagine that it's using the one from the temporate climate, which just makes no sense whatsoever.

I'mma try a real small map that I can do quick with one of my other climates.

[Aaron]

Hi Forboding,

This sounds very strange indeed, as the two versions use completely different climate files, and in different directories to boot (by default at least.) I'll dig out an installer for 2.3d and see if I can induce the behaviour you're seeing.

On a side note... Aaron, remember that I render my maps witht he heightmap the same size as the final texture. Like the map I'm testing everything on is 6144x10240 (smallish compared to my norm 10240x10240).

Yeah, I did remember this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reasoning for using this over high-res textures was that they were either too slow (with per-pixel land types) or too blurry (without). The situation has changed a little now with the introduction of high-res attributes mapping.

What you could try now is keep your heightfield at 1280x1280, generate an attributes map at 4x resolution, and generate your lightmap and texture map at 8x resolution (without per-pixel land types.) This approach should overall be faster than operating on a larger heightfield, and it won't be blurry or noisy either.

Besides, L3DT's bump-mapper and texture renderer does a better job when the texture is larger than the heightfield, as it can bring-in the extra high-res layers.

Anyway, gimme an hour or two and I'll post some screenshots comparing the two approaches (bigger HF versus high-res TX), along with calc times &c.

Sorry for my outburst earlier.

No need to apologise. In fact, I should probably apologise for promising earlier that the upgrade would go smoothly. I certainly thought it would, and no-one's reported problems like this before, but that doesn't change the fact that the poop appears to have hit the fan.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Forboding Angel]

got some interesting results.

uninstalled all commercial versions, reverted my license key to the eval I had before taht I got from you a long long time ago. It was doing the smae thing. So I rendered using my lunar climate that I made. Bumpmapping worked. Rendered a new map with green and lo and behold it works.

Fuck me if I know what's going on but I have an idea now and I'm seeking concrete evidence now. I think I know how to trick 2.4b now. Lets see if this works.


Oh btw here are screens of my lunar and green climates on a similar map in 2.3d

Lunar:


Green:


BTW I'll happily take your word on the small heightmap x8 texture dealie. SO I need to do att map at x4 lightmap at x8 and tex map at x8 for best results correct?

Some side by side comparisons would be grand

I'm off to try and trick 2.4b into doing my bidding. I think I know how to do it now.

[Forboding Angel]

Another side note. I apologize for making so many repeating posts, but I figure that if I don't make a running log, then no one in the future can be helped by it, and maybe in the end of all this mess I/we/whoever else may have found a picky spot in l3dt (there are a lot in 2.3d, but once you know them, you can manipulte them to wonderful ends ;p).

BTW, having multiple levels of Attributes map rendering and the light map is made of total Win.

[Forboding Angel]

ok, I'm pretty sure that the bumpmapping is working now. There is a lot of crappy looking darkish pixels in the preview window (just like in 2.3d) which generally say "Bumpmapping" to me.

Ya know. That render you did before was at an angle of 45 right? I generally used 60 without casting shadows due to the fear of making a hillside unbelieveably dark. Can I now cast aside that fear and use lower (like 45 for example ) angles (which should up the stark lighting and contrast of my bumpmapping I imagine)?

Whew. Lets hear it for run-on sentences and crappy grammar.

[Forboding Angel]

ok aaron, all fixed now. Thanks for all your help. I rendered a map and it is very very beautiful. 2.4b makes my crappy climate look better than ever. Very nice.

I will post a screenie soon of the map in spring.

[Aaron]

Hello Forboding,

Ahah! I'm not sure if this is the entire problem, but in v2.4b+ the horizontal scaling stays the same when you resize the map. So, when you were going from a 1280x1280 heightfield to a 10240x10240 heighfield, the dimensions of the map increased by a factor of 8, and so the steepness decreased by a factor of 8. Thus, with everything flat, bump-mapping looked shitty. Was it this way in 2.3d? I can't recall. Anyway, I'll put this on the to-do list for fixing.

As for the promised comparison screenshots, they should only be a few more minutes away (I got distracted this evening with Notareal's request about file paths).

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Aaron]

Okie dokie, here come the images, and sorry for the huge size:

First, using 8x textures (512x512 heightfield, 4096x4096 texture):



Now, the same map, with the heightfield resized to 4096x4096 and using a 1:1 texture:



Here's another view (8x texture):



..and using 1:1 with an 8x heightfield:



Now, I've over-cooked the high-res bump-mapping in this climate a bit, so it looks a bit too pixellated on the rocks in the 8x images. That aside, though, I think it's pretty clear the 8x texture maps are better.

As for speed; 8x was actually a bit faster too (I didn't time it, but it was noticeable). This was because:

• The normals map was only 512x512, and not 4096x4096, as it would have been with the larger HF.
• The attributes map was only 2048x2048, not 4096x4096.
• The high-res attributes map calculation is more efficient than the 1:1 attributes map calculation, so for the same AM pixel count it will be faster.

SO I need to do att map at x4 lightmap at x8 and tex map at x8 for best results correct?

For best results, you might also do 8x AM, but it takes longer and isn't absolutely necessary. I use that setting when I'm going for the all-out screenshot (actually, I use 16x everything in those cases.)

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Aaron]

Was it this way in 2.3d? I can't recall. Anyway, I'll put this on the to-do list for fixing.

To answer my own post; no, rescaling worked properly in 2.3d. I very recently re-worked the resizing algorithm to allow resizing of mosaic maps, and to be more memory-efficient. In those changes I used the input scaling on one of the swap maps when I should have used the output scaling. This has been fixed for the next release.

Edit: Resizing is fixed in v2.5.2.19, released on 9-dec-06.

[Aaron]

That render you did before was at an angle of 45 right? I generally used 60 without casting shadows due to the fear of making a hillside unbelieveably dark. Can I now cast aside that fear and use lower (like 45 for example ) angles (which should up the stark lighting and contrast of my bumpmapping I imagine)?

I've not changed that much in the light-mapping algorithm, so hillsides will still be just as dark if they're shadowed. However, you can decrease the shadowing strength by decreasing the 'Sun/Amb ratio' in the light-mapping wizard (to say, 0.5).

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Forboding Angel]

good deal, good deal. Hehehe, you should see the terrain I rendered last night.

I'mma put it into spring tonight. If it lo0oks decent I'll post a shot ;p