T3D 1.1 Preview - Deathball Desert visual artifacts - NOT A BUG

#1 That's not a bug, what you're seeing is the effect used for fading between LODs.

#2 Uhmmm not sure if I like it, more not then yes... At least it could depends on a poor lod design... for a lot of models it seems so evident maybe because the differents lods are... too much different!
Especially the rocks... when approaching they not only look more defined but very different in size, and this could be the reason why the transition it's so evident to be a bit nasty...

I must try with better LODed shape to see what effects cause, sorry to say that but how it looks now in the DD (Deathball desert) it's really poor looking :-(

#3 Window screening is such a travesty considering we used to have such a nice looking fade...

You'll see artifacts like that everywhere LOD to imposter is used, although it can be mitigated somewhat due to specific settings and shape design.

The horrible effect is by design. It's the basic fade in/out effect (startFade) that really got fuxxored hard by this so called "optimization" - but hey that's "improvement" for ya ;)

#4 no way to fix it? it does look rather shite..

#5 Isnt that when it switches over to an imposter ?

#6 NOT A BUG ? are you serious ????

I am lost for words, so are you telling me someone said "Hey, I know
of a greeeeeeat way to fade out objects, lets make them look all, sort of
1950's TV scan lined, that will work" ...
and the rest of the production crew said "Yeah man, thats fooking awesome,
good job"

????, am still at a loss for words :(

Peace,

Hewster.

#7 To be fair, if your that high over something, youre most likely falling so fast at it you wont notice the sieve blending :P

#8 The actual bug should be the consideration that window screening was a suitable (eg, acceptable) optimization/replacement for the old fade in/out.

#9 Andy, I can see this horrible effect from an apparent 50 yards away, on the ground... IMHO its awewful :/

#10 Yeah Andy, I tryed looking at a rock into the shape editor and it looks happening when switching to imposters...
Anyway the lowest lod has a size of 100px but around 115px it start to fade to the imposter.

Quote:if your that high over something, youre most likely falling so fast at it you wont notice the sieve blending

It's not so simple... Let's say you're on a turret not moving just looking at the landscape... you will see a lot of shapes in this switching state and it is SO SO SO noticeable!

#11 humour facepalm :(

#12 Andy , lol , soz mate, just thought you was trying to defend this situation
(seeing as Brokeass has such a close affinity to GG) ,my apologies :)

#13 Aye, such a close affinity I dont even get acknowledged on something that is far more noticable when it crops up in my opinion.

#14 Ehehe Andy, got it now... but really, you're really a good guy to not get angry considering how this could ruin the looking of your super awesome levels with sweet crafted terrains! LOL :-)

I always envy your terrains! ;-P

#15 awww, Andy, now I feel bad ... man hug ? lol
Seriously, soz, I was just venting, at (obviously) the wrong person.

:)

#16 Same here, dont think ill bother in future, why does it take provoking someone to get the reason as to why something was blanked ? Why not take the 10 seconds to fill out a short reply and highlight the error of their ways.

#17 Ego ?

#18

Quote:Same here, dont think ill bother in future, why does it take provoking someone to get the reason as to why something was blanked ? Why not take the 10 seconds to fill out a short reply and highlight the error of their ways.

It's not easy for us to catch every post, especially when they aren't using the formatting or forum tags that help bring it to our attention.

#19 The issue is that using deferred rendering with transparent objects is very tricky (there are some techniques but they cost more resources and take time that the Torque team hasn't had to implement).

So, when you have a formerly non-transparent object start to become transparent (fade) then you either have to do some crazy things in the shaders (the "fizzle" is an example) or you switch them to being rendered with the forward lighting pipeline like the rest of the objects.

However, switching an object from being rendered with the deferred lighting (nice shadows and effects) to being rendered with the forward lighting pipeline (pretty basic directional and point lights with no shadows) can easily cause a very jarring transition. In a lot of cases this transition is more jarring than the "fizzle" being used with a proper set of LODs.

This is a non-trivial problem for deferred renderers and the only way to "put back the old way" would be to go back to a purely forward rendering system (which has its own set of pitfalls and downsides).

#20 That's pretty brutal.

Too bad no one's going to be using imposters in their game due to this horrible design decision.