Twinkling mods

[Pud]

Im beginning to think I have a bizarre system bug, most of the popular mods I download and view from "3" up, become very pixelated and twinkle like a christmas tree when I pan the camera around. If I edit the mod to "soften" it the mods look great from any camera angle. Anyone else having this?

FYI

system specs - P3-1g, 512ram, Gforce3Ti

monitor setting - 1024*768*32*85hz

[theike]

Nope, no problems here.

And beats me what it could be...sorry

Good luck, though

[Snarker]

Use anti-aliasing if possible but it may not work properly depending on the version of your video driver. Stops the twinkling.

[Pud]

I have tried setting it to x4 anti-aliasing, make some difference but not much. I found the same thing with my previous card as well (Gforce2GTS) does anyone else with gforce cards have this effect?

[Juju]

Anisotropic filtering will go some way in eliminating the sparkling.

[Kwazydog]

Pud, Id suggest you are seeing two problems here.

CM will do this is you use a high resolution mod (thus with lots of pixels) and/or one that has reasonable high contrast in the textures. I spent hours making sure that CM out of the box didnt do this, as it can really be hard on the eyes, particaully when finding troops.

Dan

[Pud]

Thanks Dan

Yep your spot on. Its only on those mods which are Hires and have high contrasting textures (which seems to be the "in" style of modding though ). No great drama though as softening the textures fixes it and has no real effect on viewable detail as I never play at camera 1 anyway.

[Juju]

Originally posted by KwazyDog:

I spent hours making sure that CM out of the box didnt do this, as it can really be hard on the eyes, particaully when finding troops.

Dan

I was wondering how you do this. I saw MikeyD mention something about it recently, but it wasn't too clear. Does it work negatively on close-up detail, this technique? Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

also, is this thing Pud has dependend on what type of card he has? I don't see the problem in-game much myself.

[ January 14, 2003, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Juju ]

[MikeyD]

I think the proper term might be Moire pattern.

The normal computer screen resolution is 72 ppi. If you've got strong lines equally spaced in your mod, as you zoom in the ever-increasing lines-per-inch of the art is going to occassionally correspond with the screen resolution (72 ppi, 144 ppi, etc.). This causes the moire effect.

Same thing happens on TV. Have you ever seen someone being interviewed on TV wearing a tightly striped shirt or tie? It looks like moving Pop art!

[Edited after I spotted my name in the posting just above! I may have been talking about an old CMBO log bunker mod I did once. Strong vertical lines, tightly spaced. Oh the horror!)

[ January 14, 2003, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Rob Murray]

I seem to get the same " christmas tree " effect though not with mods. It twinkles on the ground if I'm looking down from higher camera elevations ( 3 + ). It disappears if I move the camera or change elevation. I'm using a 64 MB DDR Nvidia GeForce4 MX 420 video card. The text is fine - not blurry, etc. How do you turn off Anti-aliasing? Thanks.

[Pud]

Heres what I see, remembering that its 3 times worse than this when moving. (Normal above, softened below).

Its appears that the contrast between any white line (edges) or any white "dot" like a rivet, and its adjacent dark texture.

No offence to the modder on this, as its a case of "its not you , its me". Your work is superb and keep it up.

[edit - typo]

[ January 14, 2003, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: Pud ]

[Kwazydog]

Heya guys,

Juju, yes, it does tend to be at the expense of the texture detail. If you take a texture that is a problem and half its res, you probably wont see the effect any more

The trick to making higher res textures work fine is to reduce the sharp detail and contrast between colours within the texture itself. I origionally made tree bases that looked great up close, just like long grass around the trees, but they were so bad from a distance due to this problem that I decided to start from scratch. This problem will unfortuatnely be pretty much unaviodable with detailed textures at resolutions above those in CMBB, particually on systems in lower resolutions.

Rob, I would suggest trying to run CMBB in a higher resolution if you are seeing this problem with standard textures, as this should help.

Pud, yup, that is the effect you will see when textures have sharp detail at high resolutions.

Dan

[Juju]

Thanks, Dan and Mike, for the quick reply.

[Rob Murray]

KwazyDog:

Thanks for the tip. The "X-Mas tree" effect was reduced considerably when I changed the screen resolution to 1024x768. Still get a little bit but I can live with it.

[mchlstrt]

Information like this is invaluable. Someone(else) should gather all this in one Thread or something, like the 'Useful Threads, especially for Newbies'-type thingie in the 'Tips & Tricks' Forum. Oh, Mod Forum, Mod Forum, wherefor art Thou...

strt