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constructive Criticism

Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 9:38 pm
by Flashbang232
Suggestions for Ta3d engine:
___________________________
New Fbi/Script tags support that can help create true teleporting (without massive scripts), sheilds (without massive scripting/script+weapon manipulation)
Better graphics (this will surely improve as we head down the road of progression or something)
side note on graphics:
(for improvement)
shadow quality-lacks something but i cant say what, i want to say real-looking shadows but they do look realistic (sorta)
water lines on coast (been there before :P)
texture/explosion animations quality-the textures, if i look closely, look pixelized. Is this right? Also, I think its good we work on diff ta textures because its a 3d engine, not 8-bit graphics engine. :P It should look uber cool.
tech1-12 (:P jk :P)
DDraw/Dplayx/ddraw.map (ta demo recorder components)-needs support for these files because quite a few of mods use these.
(ESC, ta:xs?, tawp, talon, etc.....)
Ironing out all the buggy ta coding. (Savegame glitches, Pathfinding, unit bugs)
Eliminate 3-weapon limit found in OTA /mods (even with 3 weapons, the limit of scripts ta can use at once is major as well, that is why ta xs commander minigun jams. aim/fire scripts dropped due to script limit)
Eliminate script limit.

Now im going to eat some breakfast. Helps me brainstorm. ;)

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:24 am
by zuzuf
Flashbang232 wrote:Better graphics (this will surely improve as we head down the road of progression or something)
It won't be that easy because of all the rendering paths for legacy hardware it's getting difficult to add new lighting effects.
Flashbang232 wrote:texture/explosion animations quality-the textures, if i look closely, look pixelized. Is this right?
These textures are 8bits palletized sprites, 32bits textures should not be pixelized.
Flashbang232 wrote:Eliminate 3-weapon limit found in OTA /mods (even with 3 weapons, the limit of scripts ta can use at once is major as well, that is why ta xs commander minigun jams. aim/fire scripts dropped due to script limit)
Eliminate script limit.
Most limitations found in OTA are gone in TA3D : you can have as many weapons as you want on a single unit and as far as I know there is no limit in Lua code size.

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:16 pm
by Durand
http://www.ta3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2239

The big ship in the bottom of the thread use 4 weapons.

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:09 pm
by Flashbang232
These textures are 8bits palletized sprites, 32bits textures should not be pixelized.
Probably just my graphics or something.....
I still feel there should be improved ones though, it would go with the mixed feel of ta & ta3d.
It won't be that easy because of all the rendering paths for legacy hardware it's getting difficult to add new lighting effects.
Umm, i mean like slightly more detail on certain stuff.

Water (maybe able to view only strong currents?)
Trees (look somewhat bland)
Grass/ground (looks bland again)

I swear we need new explosions though. It would be cool to view a nuke that surpassed even supreme commanders nuke!!!!

Also, Ta Demo Recorder Component support is needed, Lots of mods come with this, but yet how would this be done properly.
(is there a failsafe way at all or is it not possible or is there a 50% chance of it happening....?)
It would be cool to view ta escalation in 3d. :D

Also please use matmans guis, they are Pro.
I can't make that batch file, its really hard and i can't fix it up properly, it never works right for some reason.

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 8:07 pm
by zuzuf
Flashbang232 wrote:Umm, i mean like slightly more detail on certain stuff.
Details is not a problem as long as it doesn't require changes to the various rendering paths. Actually the only lighting effect that could be done without disturbing things too much is SSAO(Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) (since it would be implemented as a post-process pass).
Flashbang232 wrote:Umm, i mean like slightly more detail on certain stuff.
Water (maybe able to view only strong currents?)
[/quote]
water code is separated from the rest, so adding things in it can be done without adding bugs to the rest of the renderer.
Flashbang232 wrote:Umm, i mean like slightly more detail on certain stuff.
Trees (look somewhat bland)
Grass/ground (looks bland again)
[/quote]
adding a light map to model textures or maybe SSAO could make it.
Flashbang232 wrote:Umm, i mean like slightly more detail on certain stuff.
Also, Ta Demo Recorder Component support is needed, Lots of mods come with this, but yet how would this be done properly.
(is there a failsafe way at all or is it not possible or is there a 50% chance of it happening....?)
It would be cool to view ta escalation in 3d. :D
[/quote]
I can't tell you for sure as I haven't seen the code of the demo recorder but if it's possible then an interface that would make some conversions from TA engine world to TA3D's world will be required.

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 3:51 pm
by Flashbang232
Can we find what sort/form of code the components use?
Then find someone with coding skills (Xpoy?) to maybe give examples on how it works.
Once we figure that out, use a decoder lua file or something like how you guys can use ta COB or Ta3d LUA files for scripts? (how it doesnt matter what you use, in other words, you got a choice. :) )
Then the ta3d engine can "detect" the components, and so now we can play escalation and excess mod and all that!?!?!

I can most likely work on the water, i already gotta test this afternoon, im going to reinstall ta3d tho. I want to make completely sure i got everything right.
We can probably make a script that controls shading/shading animations of objects/features/units?

And is there a way to boost ta3d performance, i love the game, but yet it lags on my computer, even when i have the graphics really crappy.
My system is faster than hell, i restored it to factory settings about 6 days ago....

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 7:50 pm
by zuzuf
Sorry for the performance issue, it's mainly related to debug mode (last packages are built in debug mode).

Regarding effects like shading (or any other effect you might want to add using scripting techniques), what would you need to do ? I mean what kind of information do you need to get from the engine ? What kind of tasks would you want the engine to do (rendering, GUI, ...) ?

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:49 am
by Durand
I have no problem in lagging. What is your system ?

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:37 am
by Flashbang232
Speaking in terms of unit shading.
Probably replacing shading with a real good different 'ta 3d' shading style. (while maybe taking up a 2-4% extra performance. Its easy.
but before i explain, can you tell me this: Does ta3d use like virtual lighting (a virtual sun) or are the stars/sources of light in the skybox itself?

Also, ota shading kind of sucks. Its some sort of manipulation with the textures, they have differently shaded textures that are the same otherwise, it mimics shading. (it's not that good either)
I want ta3d to be the best, the most popular, bug free and Awesome with a capital Q :P which is why i say a lot on it.......

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:27 am
by zuzuf
TA3D uses a directional light (the sun), it doesn't use any environment map for lighting.

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:38 pm
by Flashbang232
Okay, so then maybe a small script to where any unit obstructing light makes a shadow of themselves? And the side of the unit not in the light gets darker?
Aaannddd, (wait, thats not all! :P), it makes a SUPERDUPER REALISTIC SHADOW!!! (because the shadows are now the problem for me, lol.

Hey, if you want to make every feature white/gray textured, mess with the 3do_shadow.frag and wherever it says '2d' make it '3d'. :lol:

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:07 am
by MattyWS
I fail to see how the shadows aren't already doing all these things
Image

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:04 am
by Flashbang232
its like windows 7 without smoothed screen font :P
although it does look realistic, still, it is like the comment above. :P

But good, very good. :) :D

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:19 am
by Durand
Actually, you can see with non-textured units that sides not facing light source are darker. This is REALLY well done : I can actually play with non-textured units (you can't really do that in Spring).

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 12:05 am
by Flashbang232
Now that you mention it, yes they do, but if it took me about a day to see that, i think it should stand out more.
and on top of that, it shouldn't look like windows 7 screen font without smoothing :p
just a suggestion.......

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 12:26 am
by zuzuf
You can enable anti-aliasing :)

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 1:29 pm
by MattyWS
And if your computer cant do AA, then you cant complain about ta3d's graphics, but you can complain about your computers graphics. :P

Re: constructive Criticism

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:21 am
by Flashbang232
My computer can do anti aliasing, i was talking on terms of that pictures quality above.
However, i do despise my computers performance a bit, and im going to see what i can do RAM wise.......