Idea that might improve the graphics of CM and CMBB (HUGE PICS)

[pritzl]

Maybe I'm going against the grain a little bit, but I much prefer the current look of vehicles. The increased contrast between the horizontal and vertical surfaces of these vehicles undoubtedly makes the overall shape of the object much easier for the eye to distinguish, but it is also less realistic. Point of fact, these object were painted in dark, drab earthtones to avoid the this very effect. Light is obsorbed rather than reflected and cast shadows are less noticble allowing the objects to appear flattened and blended into the surrounding background. The only reason they appear heavier is due to the darkening of the verticle surfaces which are viewed directly next to lighter surfaces. The contrast provides an optical illusion of weight but is not a realistic representation of what the eye would see. It's the same as how light colors appear darker when placed over a lighter ground, while the same color appears darker when over a dark ground. darker hues are generally percieved as both cooler and heavier, but I think it makes the polygon count far too obvious, and defeats the purpose of the camo paint. It does enhance the visual accuteness of the object, (i.e more eye catching) but makes it look more like vehicle in a video game. Like somebody mentioned already, armor from a Talonsoft game. So, it's not that it's good or bad, just depends on what you prefer. Realism, or visual accuteness, etc.

Color theory is fascinating stuff.

[sbg2112]

It would be tres kewel if CM could had a toggle that enabled this kind of rendering. Let the game engine figure out the vertical and horizontal surfaces, without requiring a massive mod effort.

However, that's crazy talk best ignored until the rewrite, by which time I'm sure they'll be implementing fully dynamic lighting, with flares at night, etc. (Maybe that's why BTS hasn't had anything to say on this topic.....)

In the meantime, as somebody sorta implied, perhaps the best the CM community can do is assemble a list documenting which BMPs can benefit from this and

whether they're horizontal / vertical. With this, we could then apply your lighting technique to any set of MODs. Maybe CMMOS would be interested in adding that kind of function, so that you'd have a little checkbox somewhere that said "Apply George-III's lighting", with the lighting applied as the mods are copied into the CM BMP directory (assuming it does that sorta thing at some point).

[al hernandez]

can this work on some of the Hi Res moded vehicles?; show pictures please.

mod muncher :mad:

[George-III]

Originally posted by al hernandez:

can this work on some of the Hi Res moded vehicles?; show pictures please.

mod muncher :mad:

There is no reason why it wouldnt - you are just making the texture darker. I cant show pictures because I havnt tried it with the hirez mods yet.

[AndrewTF]

Originally posted by al hernandez:

can this work on some of the Hi Res moded vehicles?; show pictures please.

mod muncher :mad:

It will work when applied to anything, pretty much. As Pritzl explained earlier the exaggerated contrast creates an optical illusion suggesting greater depth. I'd like to see what this looks like in a low-light situation (i.e. dawn/dusk, rain, night, etc.) where the CM engine does alter the values of the textures. The technique does seem to work much better with the German vehicles than the OD allied ones.

On a personal note, I spend a great deal of time on my mods getting the values on the different textures to work right so that they give the best overall impression of the vehicle in all different game conditions. Arbitrarily darkening various BMPs sort of destroys the effect I was trying to obtain. I'm probably not the only modder that feels this way. Of course, once you've downloaded them they're yours and you can do whatever you like to them...

[George-III]

Originally posted by AndrewTF:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

I'd like to see what this looks like in a low-light situation (i.e. dawn/dusk, rain, night, etc.) where the CM engine does alter the values of the textures. The technique does seem to work much better with the German vehicles than the OD allied ones.

</font>

[Priest]

I like what I see so far but will be honest, the vehicles look better but out place on the terrain. I would rather have the whole picture look better than just part of it look superb. Just my opinion, although like the fog picture!

[al hernandez]

can you show us; how did do this wonderful idea;

with pictures please.

[George-III]

Originally posted by al hernandez:

can you show us; how did do this wonderful idea;

with pictures please.

See my new thread:

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=025184

[Thomm]

Originally posted by pritzl:

MThe increased contrast between the horizontal and vertical surfaces of these vehicles undoubtedly makes the overall shape of the object much easier for the eye to distinguish, but it is also less realistic.

Maybe this picture makes you reconsider your assessment:

(It's geocities served, so you will have to click on it?!). Picture courtesy of Armor in Focus http://www.armourinfocus.co.uk.

Guess nobody can argue with the `realism' of a photo!

Regards,

Thomm

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by pritzl:

MThe increased contrast between the horizontal and vertical surfaces of these vehicles undoubtedly makes the overall shape of the object much easier for the eye to distinguish, but it is also less realistic.

Maybe this picture makes you reconsider your assessment:

(It's geocities served, so you will have to click on it?!). Picture courtesy of Armor in Focus http://www.armourinfocus.co.uk.

Guess nobody can argue with the `realism' of a photo!

Regards,

Thomm</font>

[-Havermeyer-]

I like em. I think the polygon count issue is legit, but they do look good. However, they look too good for the terrain.

We need doodads for individual blades of grass.

Get on it, Kwazy.

[Tarquelne]

The man in the background used as scale reference makes the tank look smaller than the real thing, don't you think? just curious

Look at what he's standing on.

[von Murrin]

Gee, Thanks George-III. You've singlehandedly managed to delay CMBB as Dan scrambles to retexture all the graphics.

Seriously though, that's easily the most original and effective mod idea I've seen in months!

[Steiner14]

Wohoo! It's becoming even better!

Great idea and work, George III.

With this idea, the models create a 3dimensional impression for the very first time in CM.

Battlefront: please delay CMBB for 2 (or a few) days and add this effect to the new models and offer it as an additional install-option!

[kmead]

I apologize, but I just am not seeing this as a improvement. Most of the detail in these is just going away in the deepened shadows. I personally do not use high res textures myself so I live with lower quality, but this really is not the way I wish to see the vehicles. The one screenshot that looks good to me is the night shot, giving the appearance of moonlight and deep shadow on the off sides. Beyond that this is clearly not for me.

Dan, kindly do not change any of the textures one iota, especially not in this direction.

[al hernandez]

I was asking my self ; if you are going to release a shadow pack for all of those that don't have photopaint or photoshop?; please do

[George-III]

Originally posted by al hernandez:

I was asking my self ; if you are going to release a shadow pack for all of those that don't have photopaint or photoshop?; please do

I dont have a web-site so I cant put anything up. But if someone who has a web-site wants to host I can put something together. One thing to keep in mind is that all the vehicle bmp's zipped come to just over 13 megs so it would be a huge download. If you can host just send me an email or post a reply and I will get in touch with you.

P.S...

To those who dont think this is an improvement: Keep in mind that this is very much a work-in-progress. As you can see from the series of screens I have posted Im still trying to work out the best way to use this idea.

The reason that so many vehicles have been modded is because I divided up the bmps into 2 folders (verticle and horizontal) and then used the batch processor in photo-paint to process all the files at once. Thats why some of the models look better than others.

If I were going to release this as an official mod I would want to go thru and adjust the values for each individual model. Because the first few tests produced such dramatic results I decided to put the results on the board right away rather than labor thru a painstaking adjustment to each model.

My goal here isnt to force my idea of what the graphics should look like on anyone. I just want to put this on the table so better modders than me (and BTS) could have the option of using this ,if they wanted to, to change the way the models look. I have confidence that BTS will make the right decisions about the graphics in their game. If they decide not to use this idea as part of thier game I will support that because everything else they have done so far has been right-on. I would assume that they had good reasons for not using it. I do hope, however, that they take a look at it because I like what I have seen so far.

I am currently doing some experiments using high-rez textures to see what they look like after adding the shadows. I might post some screens later but Im rapidly burning up my bandwith on my ftp server (the ftp is for photos only so I cant put files on that either) so I will wait until I can put something interesting together.

[ June 18, 2002, 10:39 PM: Message edited by: George-III ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The man in the background used as scale reference makes the tank look smaller than the real thing, don't you think? just curious

Look at what he's standing on.</font>

[Franko]

Magnificent work. I think it looks wonderful. I think you outdid CMBB, even before it was released.

Frank

[Olle Petersson]

Regarding weather or not this shadowing is realistic, and how marked it should be, there seems to be only one option:

Multiple shading variants for each texture!

One to use in clear weather (sun or moon), with significant shadowing.

One to use in overcast, with less shadowing.

One to use in rain/snow/fog, with no shadowing.

That's two additional sets for each texture to be handled by CMMOS (and use up space on the HD)...

Cheers

Olle

[MSBoxer]

I really like the way this adds depth to the models. For the first time vehicles look like 3 dimensional opbjects rather then paper cutouts. i don't mean to denegrate the great work of BTS or the modders, I love CMBO and have downloaded just about every mod there is. But up until now the models looked like they were too evenly lite, as if they were surrounded by an invisible sphere of spotlights.

I do agree that it appears that it washes out some of the details on the verticle surfaces, but this would be true of items in the shadows. Perhaps the answer is to dramaticly lighten the highlighted areas on the sides of the vehicle before applying the overall shading. This could add even more 3d effect, as if the items were poking just out of the shadow. While this would require more work on the modders part, rather then jsut applying a shadow gradiant, it may be well worth it.

[Thomm]

WAIT A SECOND!!!

The night screen shot proves that CM is capable of statically shading textures.

Why could the static lighting proposed in this thread not be applied in the same way that the textures are darkened for night scenarios????!!

The surface normal of the polygons could be calculated at compile-time and the polygons could be darkened just as for night scenarios, just selectively so.

Little effort for maximum effect.

Or so I think ...

Thomm

[-Havermeyer-]

I like the fog one. It looks particularly nice. If I had to guess, Kwazy probably has an opinion on this....

[xerxes]

Would this work for non-vehicle units? (guns, infantry)

I like the effect very much. I think it would still add to the vehicles when the view is zoomed out.