Skybox like GLtron - selectable choice of movie packs

[Phytotron]

I don't think Tr2n Origins does anything differently when it comes to this stuff. Their default settings (e.g., RIM_WALL_[X/Y]_STRETCH) may be different, but that's probably about it. The only reason I suggested that program was with respect to actually changing the code, since they don't mind messing with or breaking stuff just for the sake of customisation and special features.

The other things you describe—man, you're evidently trying all these things without even understanding basics of how the graphics textures go together. For example, the "reflects the wall once, and then it repeats some blue background, both above the rim wall and below it" comes from the fact that you have the Upper Sky turned on. That's it. The blue background is the upper sky. The Lower Sky is the sky.png texture, which, if given an alpha layer, can show through to the upper sky. The lower sky is the one that can move around. All of that can be reflected in the floor.

(Control of the lower sky texture partially overlaps with that of the floor. It is enabled with System Setup > Display Settings > Detail Settings > "Floor Texture." If the floor texture is off, so is the lower sky. You can turn off the sky under "Preferences" (see below) while using the floor; or have the sky on, but turn off the floor at "Floor Detail.")

And, again, "it doesnt work correctly as the last top and bottom pixels are stretched" is because you have RIM_WALL_WRAP_Y set to 0. Set it to 1 and it'll repeat upward (and downward); although, again, this only happens with textures, not the moviepack. I already told you this. I, and others, also told you to turn both the sky textures off.

So, look, since I already went through the trouble, here's a series of screenshots of the aforementioned reflection effect. I made 15. Grrrr. This was very annoying. The forum has an upload limit of 2MB, and PNG's apparently don't compress. So I had to go through and reduce the sizes then change them all to JPEG's, so they're a little ugly.

screenshotsJPEG.zip

(1.21 MiB) Downloaded 148 times

How each was created
All:

SP_SIZE_FACTOR -5

RIM_WALL_STRETCH_X 50
RIM_WALL_STRETCH_Y 50
RIM_WALL_WRAP_Y 1
FLOOR_RED 0
FLOOR_GREEN 0.7
FLOOR_BLUE 0

System Setup > Display Settings > Preferences >

Lower Sky: Off
Upper Sky: Off
High Rim: On
[All HUD Settings: Off]

System Setup > Display Settings > Detail Settings >

Object Textures: Mipmap Trilinear
Wall Textures: Mipmap Trilinear
Floor Texture: Off
Alpha Blending: On *
Floor Mirror: Everything!

* Only necessary for screenshots 3, 13, 15

For the various views, I'm using different cameras. I also used different floors, to make evident the plane where the walls are mirrored.

screenshot_1 - Floor Detail: No Floor (FLOOR_DETAIL 0); Smart Camera, beginning of a round
screenshot_2 - Floor Detail: Just Grid (FLOOR_DETAIL 1); ", "
screenshot_3 - Floor Detail: Textured Plane (FLOOR_DETAIL 2); ", "
screenshot_4 - Floor Detail: No Floor; Smart Camera, just snapped the screenshot as the camera passed over (I'm guessing this may be what Raddakar did)
screenshot_5 - Same as #4
screenshot_6, 7, 8 - Same as #4, but with "Just Grid" as floor detail
screenshot_9 - Internal Camera; "Just Grid"
screenshot_10 - Same as #9, but I used either look or move down to tilt the camera downward; notice the grid plane of the floor
screenshot_11 - Same cycle location as the previous two, but using Custom Cam configured to an overhead view
screenshot_12 - Custom Cam set to overhead view, drove around; notice in this view the cycle will always cover the little black square seen in the earlier screenshots
screenshot_13 - More with overhead view, "Textured Plane" floor detail
screenshot_14 - Increased CAMERA_CUSTOM_RISE; "No Floor," showing the actual rim wall compared to the reflections below
screenshot_15 - "Textured Plane;" FLOOR_MIRROR_INT 0.5 to increase the mirror intensity (default is 0.1)

Now, you can try these with different sky and floor textures and combinations.

[Jonathan]

I like your textures.

</halfway off-topic>

Edit: I just thought of how you can get rid of that black square by enabling infinity in performance tweaks. Note that it isn't hacky at all and has nothing to do with performance; the setting is just there because there are/were some drivers/GPUs that mess it up.

[Phytotron]

I like your textures.

Heh, all but the cycle skin (available here) were made just for those screenshots. Er, "all" comprising the rim and cycle wall. Easily enough recreated (fill for rim wall is a Photoshop "colored paper").

[Jonathan]

Well, it looks cool. Tron in a box.

[Phytotron]

Well, here it be:

[Game Zone]

Thank you Phytotron for your help, it's very much appreciated.

screenshot_1 - Floor Detail: No Floor (FLOOR_DETAIL 0); Smart Camera, beginning of a round
screenshot_2 - Floor Detail: Just Grid (FLOOR_DETAIL 1); ", "
screenshot_3 - Floor Detail: Textured Plane (FLOOR_DETAIL 2); ",

FLOOR_DETAIL 2, is this a script command, put this into the .cfg and it will change the image settings for that ma rather than having to change them in the menu, so 0= no grid 1 is just grid and 2 is textured plane?

I am trying to understand these commands

Code: Select all

RIM_WALL_STRETCH_X 50
RIM_WALL_STRETCH_Y 50

This is obviously telling it how to lay the texture down, but 50 what, how do the numbers correlate.

RIM_WALL_WRAP_Y 1

What does this mean? it seems to be saying, ignore the 50 command for the Y (vertical stretch) and just wrap it once.

Is there any codes to add to the .cfg to tell it not to use 4 images for the rim walls, I am using TR2N Origins and the example packs use 4 textures, rim_wall_ the a suffix, a-d for each wall. I want the same texture on all four walls, Armagetron uses one, but TR2N Origins is using 4, I don't want that, i want to use just 1 texture. is this possible?

Is there a list of the .cfg code commands so one can see what one can change?

[17na]

gamezone how come you cant just use the 4 panel skybox format then?

[Game Zone]

Because the rim wall has lighting, if it didnt have shadows then you could do that, so if there was commands that said do not render light/shadow on the rim wall then you could use the 4 walls for a background skybox type affair, though not sure if you would get bad stretching of you made the arena bigger, also one thing that would also spoil the effect is using maps, as they are not square levels.

Also to reiterate from above on the texture commands, my rim textures are either 1024x512 or 1024x1024, I have not been able to lay these down correctly in TR2N origins yet at all, I want them to be in correct proportions, sit flush as in 100% vertical from floor to top of wall, and be the correct proportion across in relation to its height, I also want them to fit correctly at the corners of the arena, same goes for the foor, if I have a 64x64 or 128x128 floor texture, I want it to repeat an exact amount of times on the floor, I had a 256x256 floor texture, it uses this code

Code: Select all

GRID_SIZE_MOVIEPACK 4    # the grid size same for moviepack

it doesnt fit flush to the edges of the rim wall.

I would really love to get this sorted out, also so I dont have to ask another time, the bikes do use regular UV maps like any game model, just unwrap it and texture it normally, apart from the transparency thing, that can have semi transparency? so we can control the shade of team colour?

[sinewav]

Edit: I wrote a bunch of nonsense because I didn't understand the problem. I had something else in mind.

[Jonathan]

The textures are in normalized coordinates, running between 0 and 1. The texture will either repeat or end outside that interval (usually repeat, or what WRAP_Y says). What it means on the floor is that the texture will be on a 1x1 'meter' square regardless of size in pixels. You can adjust that with GRID_SIZE[_MOVIEPACK], which should probably be 500 on he default map with SIZE_FACTOR 0.

[Game Zone]

This is TR2N Origins (remember I wanted the user to have a choice in arena textures)

Here is what the same arena looks like, the size of textures is posted on them in the center of the texture, as you can see very badly aligned, in fact not aligned at all, different scale of textures are not accounted for, see 1024x512, its aligned as a square, in every case the top part of the texture is not on the wall, and in every corner different alignments so that no edge is aligned with another, so nothing will be seamless at all, also note the floor alignment in the last one.

Image here, sorry its a bit big, I am on my mac book and its hard telling what size things are.


level settings here for all of them

Code: Select all

RIM_WALL_STRETCH_X 1024
RIM_WALL_STRETCH_Y 1024
RIM_WALL_WRAP_Y 1
FLOOR_RED 0
FLOOR_GREEN 0
FLOOR_BLUE 0

GRID_SIZE_MOVIEPACK 4    # the grid size same for moviepack

MOVIEPACK_NAME "TEST" # Movie pack name
mOVIEPACK_BY Testing Settings # Creators Sig

I have tested with wall stretch 50 and still get the same results, (but I will test again) I put 1024 to test if you tell it this is how big the texture is as I dont know what else wall stretch could refer to.

arena size is minus 2.

I found this

The standard grid is 500x500m. So the perimeter is 2000 meters, and the area is 250,000 square meters. By adjusting SIZE_FACTOR, you can change how big the grid is.

So the problem may be that textures have to be not 65-128-256-512-1024, like all other games, buy 50 pixels or 100 pixels or 1000 pixels, otherwise it does not align correctly. I have no idea if the wall stretch thing can correct that, or what on earth you do with it, as I have played around with it and it does nothing at all.

If anyone wants to test here are textures
256x256
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/8816/256x256s.png
512x512
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5950/512x512.png
1024x512
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/8391/1024x512.png
1024x1024
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2687/1024x1024.png

To save time - Can someone just tell me how to get these to display and what to do, I do not code, I do not design game engines, so I do not know what you are saying with vague instructions or code speek, I understand, stick that there, or paste this and it will work, I make graphics, lots of them, incredibly fast for games, but I do not code them, and have not played with this engine for years or months as some here may of done.

I just want to get nice textures on the walls, 1 texture, not 4, but 1, thanks for the option TR2N, but I want 1 texture, aligned looking nice, not squashed, or compressed so bad in quality on the off chance someone will play the game on a i386.

[Jonathan]

Do what I said.

[Game Zone]

The textures are in normalized coordinates,

I have no idea what normalized coordinates are, and probably do not need to know as I am not coding this game engine, so most likely do not need to know anything about this bit at all

running between 0 and 1.

So this means nothing to me here either

The texture will either repeat or end outside that interval

I do not know what an interval is, again this is code speak, I am guessing coding is your hobby and you are assuming it is mine as well.

(usually repeat, or what WRAP_Y says).

Again no idea what you are saying, perhaps something to do with repeating the texture on the walls floor, or stretching it vertically in some way I have no idea, I changed numbers in y, see my example script, I changed the mumbers to many things, it did nothing.

What it means on the floor is that the texture will be on a 1x1 'meter' square regardless of size in pixels. You can adjust that with GRID_SIZE[_MOVIEPACK], which should probably be 500 on he default map with SIZE_FACTOR 0.

Can you just tell me to put what where, I am not a coder, or know anything what so ever about how the engine works, I am a artist and designer. My problem is simple. I want large textures aligned on the wall, either square or a half square. My textures are large because I want them to look good and not compressed, when I make games I use sizes like so 256 - 512 - 1024, perhaps this engine is different and they have to be a different scale say 500 or 1000 pixels or they screw up on the walls. I have no idea, so someone just tell me what to do in plain English to get my textures on the wall without it looking like garbage and going off to learn coding for a year and then coming back so I can tell whats being said. It will save so much time to just say, here is your cfg file, make your textures this size or it mess it up, here you go, job finished.

Otherwise its back and forth, random comments, people all suggesting different things, not even understanding properly what I am doing, and people repeating things they read in their collage programming books that go straight over my head and then disagreeing with each other, then going off topic and god knows what, and still the problem not solved and me being even more confused than ever, and getting very frustrated as it is so simple what I want. I have been in this position many many times before, and this is always the direction it goes, it is solved by either testing their theories do work, that's why I include the textures, otherwise you get random people pointing you in a million directions, or someone just includes the script that works, saves so much time, as otherwise days can go by on the tiniest of problems.

[sinewav]

If you are using textures that are twice as long as they are tall, then you should set the RIM_WALL_STRETCH_X to twice the value of Y. Actually, you can keep adjusting X back and forth until you get them aligned correctly. But keep in mind, they will only be aligned with that map and that size factor. This is where Armagetron is drasticaly different than glTron.

[Jonathan]

You'll want to try values like 500 for STRETCH_X and GRID_SIZE, and 250 for STRETCH_Y, probably. That is, for the default map at SIZE_FACTOR 0.