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T3D 1.1 B3 Rock models showing black artifacts in Deathball Desert - CONFIRMED

by Sean H. · in Torque 3D Professional · 09/23/2010 (3:29 am) · 20 replies

I'm seeing some bad artifacts on the rocks in the deathball desert level in Beta 3.

The artifacts go away completely when I get close to a rock, but when viewed from a distance, I see a black, sorta pixelated, partly transparent effect on the rocks which just looks awful.

This is happening on every rock in the level and only on the rocks. I don't see it happen for any other objects.

I also see some black artifacts when I view certain parts of the level from afar.

Whats up with that?

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Torque Owner SqHd
Default Studio Name
#1
09/23/2010 (3:48 am)
I see this as well.

Torque 3D Owner Bryan Sawler
muteki corporation
#2
09/23/2010 (4:28 pm)
I'm also seeing this - it's especially odd as if you slowly walk towards the rocks, they're having an almost "scanline" effect as they fade in, like diagonal stripes slowly turn on until it's properly visible.

Associate David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
#3
09/23/2010 (4:55 pm)
Logged as TQA-1140 for the QA team to verify.

Please report what video hardware/driver version you are using to help with the verification and replication process.

Torque 3D Owner Bryan Sawler
muteki corporation
#4
09/23/2010 (5:05 pm)
Running an nvidia GTX260 with the drivers I just downloaded yesterday (258.96)
I can take some screenshots if you think it'd help...

Associate Scott Burns
GG Alumni
#5
09/23/2010 (6:05 pm)
I'll verify it with Matt, but I'm 99% sure this is not a bug. The fade was turned into a dissolve in Beta 2 and what you're seeing is the transition between LODs.

Torque 3D Owner Andy Wright
BrokeAss Games
#6
09/23/2010 (6:28 pm)
its the lod stages on them,its noticable as they kick in pretty close and arent hidden via grass etc.

Torque 3D Owner Bryan Sawler
muteki corporation
#7
09/23/2010 (6:29 pm)
After looking at this...it seems it's when they switch to the imposter the generated imposters have bad images...
Load up art/shapes/vegetation/desertrocks/small_rock_01 in the shape editor and scale down the LOD. When it hits the size:0 (using the imposter) it's definitely broken looking.

Is this a new bug in imposter generation?

--

edit:
Seems to be any of the models with that rock material break as imposters...but other meshes seem to generate properly.

777h.org/images/fullbroke.png

Associate Scott Burns
GG Alumni
#8
09/23/2010 (10:20 pm)
Matt thinks there's something deeper going on here and that there is a bug. Bug confirmed and we'll be investigating it further.

Associate Tom Spilman
Sickhead Games
#9
03/24/2011 (3:18 pm)
FYI. The bug here was in the imposter normal map generation. It was resulting in bad normals and in turn bad lighting.

This is fixed for 1.1 final.

Torque 3D Owner Sean H.
#10
03/25/2011 (7:37 pm)
does the terrain use the normal map generation? I see this happening on terrain as well.

Torque 3D Owner Sean H.
#11
03/26/2011 (1:38 pm)
does Beta 3 use Sahara? I think that may be the reason for the terrain artifacts I'm seeing.

Associate Steve Acaster
[YorkshireRifles.com]
#12
03/26/2011 (1:51 pm)
Sahara is an add-on created by Bitgap and not stock T3D.

Torque 3D Owner Sean H.
#13
03/26/2011 (4:09 pm)
I'm not seeing the exact same problem on the terrain that I see with the imposters.

on the terrain, I'm seeing a few black pixels here and there. this happens in small groups mainly along the outer edge of the deathball terrain.

this should probably be a separate ticket.

Torque Owner Szzg007
super pig-head Studio
#14
03/27/2011 (1:03 am)
I see that, and me too,
but, hope t3d 1.1 release come soon.....today...

Associate Manoel Neto
Default Studio Name
#15
03/27/2011 (7:42 am)
Yeah, all my imposters have wrong lighting on them (usually dark or full black).

Torque 3D Owner Andy Wright
BrokeAss Games
#16
03/27/2011 (10:32 am)
Sean, do you mean where the terrain is cut off from the view distance ? you get black dots along the edge of the terrain through the fog ?

Torque 3D Owner Sean H.
#17
03/27/2011 (2:14 pm)
Thanks Andy. take a look at the images below.

is anyone else seeing this? I never had this problem in the earlier betas before beta 3.

Associate Steve Acaster
[YorkshireRifles.com]
#18
03/27/2011 (2:20 pm)
WTF!?
Look like some sort of bad masking of ... something ...

Are you sure that you've updated to the newest DirectX?

All looks fine on my GTS250, what's you're GPU?

Torque 3D Owner Sean H.
#19
03/27/2011 (4:28 pm)
Attempting to create GFX device: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (D3D9)
Device created, setting adapter and enumerating modes
Cur. D3DDevice ref count=1
Pix version detected: 3.000000
Vert version detected: 3.000000
Maximum number of simultaneous samplers: 16
Number of simultaneous render targets: 4
Hardware occlusion query detected: Yes
Using Direct3D9Ex: No
WMIVideoInfo: DxDiag initialized
WMIVideoInfo: Connect server failed.
Initializing GFXCardProfiler (D3D9)
o Chipset : ''
o Card : 'GeForce 7300 GT '
o Version : ''
- Scanning card capabilities...
GFXCardProfiler (D3D9) - Setting capability 'autoMipMapLevel' to 1.
GFXCardProfiler (D3D9) - Setting capability 'maxTextureWidth' to 4096.
GFXCardProfiler (D3D9) - Setting capability 'maxTextureHeight' to 4096.
GFXCardProfiler (D3D9) - Setting capability 'maxTextureSize' to 4096.
GFXCardProfiler (D3D9) - Setting capability 'lerpDetailBlend' to 1.
GFXCardProfiler (D3D9) - Setting capability 'fourStageDetailBlend' to 1.

Torque 3D Owner Andy Wright
BrokeAss Games
#20
03/27/2011 (6:28 pm)
ouch !
The first 4 is pretty much what i was thinking of, however the last 3... damn ive never seen it that bad, thats pretty close too considering....
whole faces missing too... i would have to say its due to the level of your graphics card. my onboard on this PC is a 7050, and it runs very poorly, with alot of random artifacts too...