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FPSC Classic Product Chat / Help w/ Normal Maps and Shaders!

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JroX
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Posted: 1st May 2007 00:17 Edited at: 1st May 2007 00:23
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I'm pulling my hair out trying to get this to work! No matter what I try, (and I've been experimenting for many hours)I cannot get normal maps to render correctly!

I have a good understanding of the way the file system works, texture naming procedures, and .fx application in FPSC. I have no problem getting either the floor or the walls in my segment to display the normal map, but when I try using the shader effects on both at once, it always messes up the floor normal map rendering.

I've tried EVERYTHING I can possilbly think of, and can't figure this out!

If anyone out there has any advice I would greatly appreciate your time!

..is there anyone on here that has a correctly rendering fully normal mapped segment that they would be willing to post? A working example would be great to compare to what I'm trying, and might help me figure this out!

I've attached a pic to display what I'm talking about. Notice the walls are normal mapped, but the floor is not, and I have the same effect applied to all sections of the segment..!?

*EDIT*

I have spent countless hours reading every single post about normal maps and shaders, I have gone thru every single FPSC-related post in regards to 'normal map' as my search criteria. I just wanted to note this on the side so others don't think I havent bothered to take the time to search on here to look into it.

Thanks again.

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Nighthawk
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Posted: 1st May 2007 01:06 Edited at: 1st May 2007 01:09
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Quote: "Notice the walls are normal mapped, but the floor is not"


it is, but the light is just at a bad position

(btw: the floor looks more like it is normal-mapped and the walls got a standard bump shader)

normal maps on segments often produce too bright scenes


again: the segments in your pic ARE 'normal mapped'
just the lightning casts the shadows in the wrong direction

try the standard 'bump' shader or create your map as an entity

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JroX
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Posted: 1st May 2007 01:12
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Quote: "it is, but the light is just at a bad position"


I have to disagree with this, only because I have ran tests with both using the shaders and not using them. When I disable the shaders, the texture on the walls appear exactly the same as the floor does in the above pic. I hope that makes sense..?

Anyone have a properly working normal mapped segment to share that I could study from..?

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Smitho
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Posted: 1st May 2007 01:17
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Theres a post directly below this one exaplaining it..

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Nighthawk
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Posted: 1st May 2007 12:16 Edited at: 1st May 2007 12:16
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first thing: try to disable the Ambient Light (set to 0)

second thing: make a copy of the _d2 and the _N texture and rename the _d2 copy to _default_colorandalpha and the _N copy to _default_bump

that means you must have the following files in the directory:

_d2
_N
_default_colorandalpha
_default_bump

(that's the trick we use in our Team)

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fallen one
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Posted: 1st May 2007 14:00 Edited at: 1st May 2007 14:01
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just had a go at that, files as follows.

Test_d2.tga
Test_N.tga
Test_default_colorandalpha.tga
Test_default_bump.tga

one wall is the same as when its done the normal bump way, all the rest are grey, didnt try it ingame, just in the segment editor.

I have yet to see bump or normal maps work, they change the texture but its not a bump or normal, it doesnt change on you walking around it, and they are flat, there is no depth at all, the texture is still flat.
They plain dont work, if someone else has done it then id like to see it working.
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Nighthawk
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Posted: 1st May 2007 14:02
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Quote: "didnt try it ingame, just in the segment editor."




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fallen one
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Posted: 1st May 2007 16:14
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Tried it in game, still doesnt work.
Anyone with a working version please put it online as I have yet to see any depth effects working in fpsc.
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Nighthawk
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Posted: 1st May 2007 17:14 Edited at: 1st May 2007 17:24
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maybe you think in the wrong direction... the normal map shader in FPSC, aka "bumpcubereflectalpha" doesn't have such a heavy depth effect.
"bump", "bumpbone" or "bumpent" may have a better result, if you want something in that direction.

Thats really normalmapping in your Screen(!)

Maybe you can get heavier effects in other engines, but it's quite good in the FPSC


if you want effects like this



you need to modify the Sourcecode of the Engine

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fallen one
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Posted: 1st May 2007 17:26 Edited at: 1st May 2007 17:28
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Ive tried it with the bump fx filter, and the other bump one, forget the name of it, their is only 2 that come as standard, its so faint as not to be seen at all, the segments that come with the game, the sci fi ones have some shaders, but the bump effect is so slight one can question its there, its not really noticeable, the depth if it does work is about the thickness of a seam, so its very slight, that's if its even there at all, plus it wont do floors, they get screwed up with an odd black effect, there is another topic on these forums that shows the effect, just look on the same page as this, its under normal maps and examples I think, all my efforts don't produce anything that looks like anything, I also get reversed stuff going on, what should be highlighted is shadow and vice versa, plus stuff looks like its upside down, shadows should be at the bottom not at the top where a highlight should be, perhaps one should turn the normal map upside down, I haven't looked into this at depth because I figured bumps just don't work in fpsc at all, Ill believe so until I see an example online, Ill download it and see it for myself.
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Nomad Soul
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Posted: 2nd May 2007 05:56
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@Nighthawk

Quote: "try the standard 'bump' shader or create your map as an entity"


I've demonstrated that neither of these changes solves the problem in parts 6 and 7 of my thread.

Quote: "try to disable the Ambient Light (set to 0)"


Changing the ambient light value to 0 won't actually change the amount of ambient light in game until a light source is introduced otherwise a higher value is set by default. The rendering issues occur at the point a light source is introduced otherwise the normal mapped room is lit by the pre determined light in the bumpent.fx shader and gets exaggerated by the amount of ambient light present.

Quote: "make a copy of the _d2 and the _N texture and rename the _d2 copy to _default_colorandalpha and the _N copy to _default_bump"


To my knowledge there is no evidence or documentation to suggest that these suffixes would do anything for textures in FPSC. Perhaps you could elaborate on this a little.

@Fallen One

Normal mapping does work in FPSC but as mentioned the intensity of the effect will differ from engine to engine depending on the shader files being used. However it is still a marked improvement over what we otherwise have which is just standard base textures which have less visual impact. Jrox's screenshot at the top of this thread and a few of those in my thread clearly show that additional texture mapping and shaders can make your FPSC game graphics much more interesting than using just a standard texture.

Some benefit can be gained from using the illuminationent shader with illumination texture maps and such but I am focusing on the bump shader side of things as this is more the type of effect I'm hoping to achieve in my environments.
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fallen one
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Posted: 2nd May 2007 12:12
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Quote: " illuminationent shader with illumination texture maps "


Never heard of those. Do you mean self lit texture like one with a light set into part of it.
Someone should post an example of working shaders so we can see what works and to the extent they work, by that I mean put map files or segments up, then we can see what actualy works and by how much.
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