Tge + Lk Vs Tse ???

#1 There will be a TLK for TSE I beleive :)

#2 Yeah, there is one already in the works by *John Kabus. there a vid of it on works somewhere on the forums.

right now TLK+upgrades can make your game look just as good as TSE, the only thing you wont have is the new atlas terrain, but a more stable engine.

here an example:

This is stock TGE

This is stock TSE

This is upgraded TLK

There's also DRL which is a also a good upgrade to get. Here's some screens from Alan James stuff, which he implements the best upgrades into 1.
www.garagegames.com/blogs/45734/10393

edit: Corrections.

#3 .

#4 You can have normal maps in TGE, its an add on. look for the resource dot3 bump map. as you can see on the third pick the 3rd pic is being normal maped. the only problem is there is no spec map appiled to it. but you can surely fake one by baking it into the texture. here's an example.


By baking it in, it makes it look more embeded, or 3d, but in the down side of that. the shadow position will not always position correctly.

This is the difuse textures.

Theres also adding detail textures in that can help make it look more better
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=23812p

Unfortuantly right now there is no normal map support for DTS objects, such as the player, or static meshes. There is howerever a bump map resource available. but it only works on Nvidia cards, which isnt really good. I myself am on works on trying to hey normal maps working on DTS objects tho.

Dont get me wrong TSE is and will be ultimetly better, but as its current stage of condition, i would say TLK+upgrades might be your best bet. But then again, you could always upgrade down the road.

#5 Kevin Johnson is not working on a "TLK for TSE".

#6 TLK for TSE would be John Kabus of Synapse Gaming who produced TLK for TGE.

- Alan

#7 My appologies. i just remember a john name being in there somewhere, thanks for the correction.

#8 .

#9 Someone can correct me, but I was under the impression that "stock" TSE would include many of the features only available with the TLK. Dynamic shadows, for instance, are supposed to be part of TSE.

#10 Stock TSE, is the current TSE MS3.5 with no other modifications.

#11 @Mark:

Correct. But you have to consider that TSE is in EA right now and does not include the features you speak of. It will in the end, but we're not quite there yet.

#12 .

#13 Stock TSE 1.0 will have lighting features very, very similar to the TLK for TGE.

Other advantages to TSE are:
- As of release 3.5, it's much more efficient (and therefore faster) than TGE regarding the GPU
- Procedural shader generation means you can set up your materials once and they will work across SM 1.1-3.0+.
- Atlas (no editors yet though)
- Other special effects (refraction, glow, specular effects)
- There is a framework for adding your own custom materials/shaders
- Normal mapping works on .dts shapes (including skinned meshes)
- Lightmaps interact properly with the shaders / specular effects
- etc..

#14 .

#15 That's been discussed all over before Berserk, and I think they settled on Shadowmaps. Do a search.

#16 (One reason we don't just flat out say is because we want to reserve the right to change our mind. If we go everywhere saying "we'll use cubemapped shadowmaps" then when it turns out that they e.g. don't work very well on PS1.0 hardware, then everyone feels bad - we feel bad cuz we mislead the community, and the community feels bad because what they were lead to believe isn't the case!

So for some things, it's better to be vague until we know for sure.)

#17 The best solution would be featuring both stencil and shadowmaps, and letting the developers choose which one to use in a given project, no? Depending on the game and target hardware, each method can be more advantageous than the other.

I at lest expect the facilities required for whatever shadowing method make it easier to implement other ones.

#18 Yeah, we'd eventually like to support both and have them work together. That is not likely to happen on 1.0 release however. Right now the wind is blowing towards shadowmaps.

#19 Maybe a slightly upgraded version of TGE's projective shadows alongside the true shadowmapping could make up for the 1.1 and 1.4 hardware. Using shaders it's fairly straightforward to get projective shadows to cast onto DTS shapes.

Sure, there wouldn't be self-shadowing, and shadows would overlap, but at least a tree's shadow would cast onto a character properly, and that's always a wow factor.

#20 .