This is the best that I can describe the bug.
Whenever EMBM is enabled, in mission isdf04.bzn, there's terrain .xsi models on it. Whenever you get close and look at it wrong, a scion texture appears on it quite obviously. This probably happens with all terrain (at least pluto terrain).
Edit: Oh, and, terrain must be set to high in graphics.
Edit(CmptrWz): Changed "Major" to "Known" as this is by no means a major bug, and is quite known.
This is a known issue, BZ2 has always been like this with EMBM enabled , it's one of those bugs where it's more trouble than it's worth to fix it.
if it bothers you, turn it off....
thats what i do...:)
The EMBM support is very marginal. Getting that to work correctly would take some serious work on the graphics engine. I'm half-tempted, but I've never written a D3D application and I know I'd break all kinds of things.
Hey, what the heck, give it a whirl as a side project. If it doesn't completely pan out, you'll at least have expanded horizons. I know Overmind likes to program in D3D and he would love to work on it too. (Down OM, down!)
I suppose converting BZ2 over to a nice clean implementation of DX9 would be good for modders, but I'd have to tear out pretty much the whole rendering system. The current one is pretty heavily fux0red. :-D
(Getting rid of software T&L would certainly be nice.)
That would *really* be nice. I think it would cool off my den by at least 10 degrees due to my CPU running cooler. :-)
Depending on how easy it would be to tear out the rendering system, plugging in something like Ogre would allow both D3D9 and OpenGL, plus it is quite simple to use.
Now that is something I'd give a try to. :)
LOOK OUT....CODE ELF ON THE LOOSE!
QuoteGetting that to work correctly would take some serious work on the graphics engine. I'm half-tempted, but I've never written a D3D application and I know I'd break all kinds of things.
Ahhh wow I live in hope, wait till I win Lotto and I'll pay u and Nathan to do it :-) :-) :-)
Go on Ken take a punt and do it!!!!
If you think things are flaky now, just wait until I break everything by replacing the renderer. :-D
That's one good reason to stay away from it, no matter how much I'd like to. Still, hardware T&L. :)
(I do have a partial DX8 conversion that was a prototype for what eventually became Star Wars: Clone Wars, but it was not full-featured.)
Hey, ya gotta break some eggs to make an omelette, right? :wink:
Replacing out render code is easy to get the first 50% done. The last 50% takes the other 90% of your copious free time. And more. Rewriting things just to do things right goes a lot faster when you don't have to be bug-for-bug compatible with glow maps in the middle of local fog.
-- GSH
Any chance you could unleash OM on some of it? He's just nutty about that stuff in a "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" kind of way.
Sure would be nice, Oh well at least you considered it :-D :-D
Cheers Guys
Actually, I've just always wanted to make a straight conversion of BZ2 into a completely new engine (and without all the flatness of the BZ2 class hierarchy). Would be nicer if it could even use the same data, a literal drop-in. That would allow you to then extend/expand it however you wanted, make new object types, etc... etc... Wouldn't actually take that long, if I had all the info on all formats (most I have, things like the sprites, havn't even looked at...). Definitally wouldn't be bug-for-bug, and a lot of the workaround people use for things (negative hover used to make elevator? - ZST) wouldn't work, but could be implimented in a new 'correct' way. Think TASpring for TA... Wouldn't actually take that long if we had a few programmers on it, mabye a few years (due to being in off-time) for something usable.
Before everybody starts assuming I'm going to DX8- or DX9-ify the game, it would be in a hypothetical "version 1.4", if even then. As I mentioned before, I've never written a D3D application before, so it would pretty much be a disaster if I tried with BZ2. :)
Hey, what better place to give it a whirl. Definitely be a good challenge. :-)
Nathan is already concerned that I've raised people's hopes unnecessarily. It's amusing to contemplate, but I'm not going to go tearing into anything that before 1.3 is final, and probably not even afterwards. There's too much of a "Nathan fixes things, Ken breaks things" pattern for me to start ripping up large-scale systems like the renderer. Little tweaks are fine, but I need to coordinate with Nathan to bring 1.3 to a close. He has other things to do with his life than BZ2, and frankly I'm surprised he's stuck with it as long as he has... :)
Personally, just updating the renderer would seem a waste of time to me. It would not allow further draw distances then so forth tiles, would not allow for self-lod'ed or paging terrain, probobly wouldn't even fix the bug of transparent mesh draw ordering issues, would just increase the speed due to hardware TnL, and I already get many hundreds of fps, so whats the point. Really, to get use out of a good upgrade, you'd need to update the terrain system so it would not be limited to specific amount of tiles drawn at once, update the object system to give more power in full abilities, new vehicle AI system to allow people to make them, an overhaul of the networking system to prevent that full gamestate transfering, etc... etc... At that point, why alter the old one, just make a new one. Considering that, no point making changes, everything minor (and a few major's) are complete with 1.3, anything more would take far too much time.
BS-er is attempting a new BZ style game, if people want to help, asking him would probobly be best.
Yeah. Considering BZII has kept such a long-standing community, it is a great game. Perhaps, if another game was made very similar to BZII, only overhauled by modern graphics... That probably would work and make great sales with proper advertising.
I was more syaing that it would be a good way to delve into DX than anything, as a side/personal project. We'd be more than happy to help you test it. :-)
I delved into DX; I figured out how it works; it is not an easy/fun thing with all that com stuff (good idea from microsoft, *bad* implimentation in my opinion). However, take an abstraction layer like OGRE (Object-oriented Graphic Rendering Engine I think...), which is just a pure renderer, no game code at all, is an absolute wonder to work with compared to anything I've dealt with before, they did a very good job with it. It can be used for open-source to commercial projects at no cost (and no need to release your code either as OGRE is under lgpl, so only any source that needs to be released is if you change anything in OGRE itself, not necessary at all, any add-ons, your code, and everything else do not have to be released).
Quote from: Ultraken on March 06, 2006, 07:19:31 AM
Nathan is already concerned that I've raised people's hopes unnecessarily. It's amusing to contemplate, but I'm not going to go tearing into anything that before 1.3 is final, and probably not even afterwards. There's too much of a "Nathan fixes things, Ken breaks things" pattern for me to start ripping up large-scale systems like the renderer. Little tweaks are fine, but I need to coordinate with Nathan to bring 1.3 to a close. He has other things to do with his life than BZ2, and frankly I'm surprised he's stuck with it as long as he has... :)
Heh heh heh... I was wondering who this Ul-traken guy was.
So, OM, you'd say use OGRE instead of DX?
Ogre is a graphical abstraction layer, removes all the main headaches from both DX and openGL, and let's you just start *doing* stuff. In addition, because it is an abstraction layer, it can use any rendering solution that anyone writes a rendersystem for, so far they have a DX7 render system (been antiquated though), DX9 render system, and an OpenGL render system, so you can use any...