Urban_V1

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 07:21

This is a basic test of some stuff with SM3. I'll be the first to say that it's not perfect, nor nearly as pretty as it should be. I had a lot of trouble getting Spring to not be a royal pain about making the heightmap look horrible when zooming out, among other things- I think that the SM3 renderer is being waaaay over-cautious about the amount of tesselation to use.

All of that said... this is a competition-style, simple and straightforward map, with ruined buildings and stuff. I will probably not "fix" it further at this time- the gameplay is actually pretty good, and I have other things to do, besides make maps in the <3MB range that still look pretty good and render at 90+ FPS

Click here to download.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Mar 2007, 07:48

trying it now argh. I will give feedback.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 07:52

Okie doke. Don't worry too much about the aesthetics of it all, though- it was a quickie, I'll be the first to say. Had to wrestle awhile with the map format to get it to run, too- I should probably post some notes about that later, so that maybe JC will take a look at some issues in terms of what order things get read from the SM3 file, and some of the settings- it actually can cause some pretty silly crashes.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Mar 2007, 07:53

It is cool, I am willing to give it a whirl!

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Mar 2007, 07:59

Ok, I got 18 fps which is not unplayable. I also get these weird squares... see screenshot.

Fang and I were going to play on it but he gets a non-specific crash. Any thoughts? His crash happens when he is "generating trees."

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:00

I cant load this map, in the current version of spring, here is my error.. I must be doin it wrong cause smoth can load it..

Map: Urban_V1.sm3
Mod: "Balanced Annihilation V4.7." from Expand&ExterminateRedo.sdd
loading heightmap (Maps/urbantextures/height.png)...
heightmap size: 1025x1025
initializing heightmap renderer...
generating terrain normals for shading...
initializing texturing system...
parsing texture stages...
loading textures and blendmaps...
loading texture dirt from Maps/urbantextures/dirt.png...
loading blendmap grassBlend from Maps/urbantextures/grassblend.png...
loading texture grass from Maps/urbantextures/grass.png...
loading blendmap streetBlend from Maps/urbantextures/streetBlend.png...
loading texture street from Maps/urbantextures/street.png...
loading blendmap buildingTopBlend from Maps/urbantextures/buildingTopBlend.png...
loading texture buildingTop from Maps/urbantextures/buildingTop.png...
loading blendmap buildingEdgeBlend from Maps/urbantextures/buildingEdgeBlend.png...
loading texture buildingEdge from Maps/urbantextures/buildingEdge.png...
loading blendmap metalBlend from Maps/urbantextures/metalBlend.png...
loading texture metal from Maps/urbantextures/metaltex.png...
loading bumpmap grass from Maps/urbantextures/grassbump.png...
loading bumpmap street from Maps/urbantextures/streetbump.png...
loading bumpmap buildingTop from Maps/urbantextures/buildingTopbump.png...
loading bumpmap buildingEdge from Maps/urbantextures/buildingEdgebump.png...
generating blendmap mipmaps...
loading blendmaps into OpenGL...
initializing terrain node shaders...
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
Vertex shader build succesfully.
deleting temporary blendmap data...
Index buffer data size: 55488
Number of damage types: 15
Spring 0.74b3 has crashed.
Exception: Access violation (0xc0000005)
Exception Address: 0x695596d0
DLL information:
0x00400000 spring
0x7c900000 ntdll
0x7c800000 kernel32
0x77dd0000 ADVAPI32
0x77e70000 RPCRT4
0x73f10000 dsound
0x77c10000 msvcrt
0x77d40000 USER32
0x77f10000 GDI32
0x774e0000 ole32
0x76b40000 WINMM
0x77c00000 VERSION
0x68b20000 GLU32
0x5ed00000 OPENGL32
0x73760000 DDRAW
0x73bc0000 DCIMAN32
0x76c90000 IMAGEHLP
0x71ad0000 WSOCK32
0x71ab0000 WS2_32
0x71aa0000 WS2HELP
0x10000000 SDL
0x7c340000 MSVCR71
0x00b00000 DevIL
0x66fc0000 freetype6
0x61b80000 zlib1
0x003d0000 glew32
0x016e0000 EGRNAPX2
0x77120000 OLEAUT32
0x5ad70000 uxtheme
0x016d0000 ctagent
0x69500000 nvoglnt
0x03560000 ua_lsp
0x77fe0000 Secur32
0x71a50000 mswsock
0x662b0000 hnetcfg
0x71a90000 wshtcpip
0x76f20000 DNSAPI
0x76fb0000 winrnr
0x76f60000 WLDAP32
0x76fc0000 rasadhlp
0x76c30000 WINTRUST
0x77a80000 CRYPT32
0x77b20000 MSASN1
0x72d20000 wdmaud
0x72d10000 msacm32
0x77be0000 MSACM32
0x77bd0000 midimap
0x73ee0000 KsUser
0x59a60000 DBGHELP
Stacktrace:

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:19

Ach, I can see I'm not going to get much sleep tonight anyhow... so lemme go ahead and post a few things:

1. If you wanna build neato hills and stuff in L3DT or whatever, I'd strongly suggest then converting the heightmap into a 3D terrain, and then uvmapping with a planar map straight down, so that you can do almost-realtime edits of your map's textures. Then you can set up your textures as a file with a bunch of masking layers, and paint onto a 3D object with proper previews. While L3DT will, no doubt, do a fair job of initial passes, having looked at TwoSeas... I was quite underwhelmed by just how much spotting it does. Spotting is very inefficient with this map format, because each new layer must be rendered per polygon, per pass.

In an ideal world, you'd have no more than two textures per polygon. This would allow for some bland base texture + whatever pretty texture you're using for a given area. Obviously, real-world workflow rarely allows for this, but try to keep that in mind.

2. Texture sizes reeeeeaaaaally matter. This is sort've a "duh" thing, but I think it's worth repeating- keep tile sizes as low as humanly possible.

3. As an article I read recently about painting for Oblivion discussed... with normalmaps, the normal texture is often as important, if not more important, for giving the underlying texture its essential character in terms of value and feel. I've tested using normalmaps at 2X the size of the texture, and it works just fine- so it's quite possible to, for example, create a 128 texture with a 256 normalmap to give it a lot of pop and detail. In this example map, I'll be the first to say that most of the normalmaps were made very quickly and not very well, but if I were being serious, I'd spend quite a bit of time working on them to get them really snazzy. nVidia's tools for previewing and editing normalmaps are quite useful and really help you get a pretty good idea of what it's going to look like in Spring.

4. Need a really specific graphical thingamabob somewhere? The easiest way to place it, by far, is to make a version of your thingamabob as a repeating tile with a black background or mask, and then post a scale version of it onto your map's heightmap at true rez (x2 -1) to see where it's going to land. Then adjust the tile until it's exactly where you want it, delete all copies but the one you need, and delete the mask. Voila... you now have what looks like a perfect hand-painted widget, with a blendmap!

Just keep in mind that each time you do this, you're adding another layer. That's one fundamental limitation of this format that we're never going to get away from, unfortunately.

5. Large normalmaps will quickly saturate a video card. I've done some tests, and if you keep the numbers down, performance is actually pretty good, but it is a problem. Perhaps as JC moves forwards with CE, he'll address this fundamental problem- larger normalmaps would allow for more flexible use of certain types of techniques.

6. Lastly, here are two things that can cause nasty, repeatable crashes. The first thing should just not be happening, imo... the second one really should fail softly, with more information sent to the mapper, but meh, here's what causes it:

Error 1: "blah blah, typemap X is non-existant or bad"

This is caused, weirdly enough, by not keeping the following all together in the file:

Code: Select all

[MAP]
{
	Description=Two large land masses separated by two equally large oceans with a narrow pass in the centre
	TidalStrength=25;
	Gravity=155;						//in units/sec^2
	AutoShowMetal=0;                                        // 0 no show 1 show
	MaxMetal=2.00;						//how much metal a map square with the maximum metal value gives
	ExtractorRadius=80;				//radius that a single extractor(mine) extracts from
	MapHardness=1000;

	GameAreaW=2048;
	GameAreaH=2048;

	[INFOMAPS]
	{
		metal=Maps/seatextures/metal.png;
		type=Maps/seatextures/type.png;
	}

If you move the [INFOMAPS] section further down, it causes this crash. Took me nearly half an hour to find that one

Secondly, if you get errors about "blah blah, texture stage X does not have a texture", or you get a fatal error saying "misaloc_9", then you've hosed the number and order of texture stages.

This section is extremely important:

Code: Select all

		NumTextureStages=6; 
		AutoBumpmapStages=1;

The NumTextureStages is equal to the number of [texstages] +1. So, if starting at 0, you get to [texstage6], then NumTextureStages = 6. Pretty easy once you know it's vital.

The AutoBumpmapStages thing seems to be almost completely useless, tbh. Setting it to zero results in no bumps, at least for me. Setting it to higher than 1 always seems to cause errors. And on the setting of 1, I see the normalmaps on all texture stages.

Anyhow... getting all of the files properly identified and in the right order is super-vital. I took at least an hour just getting that all figured out and debugged- about as long as I painted this map, frankly. Now that I know what I'm doing, though, it wouldn't be very hard at all. Just make sure to use a new maps/whateveryouarecallingyourtextures folder for each new map, to prevent Spring's very literally-minded filesystem from ever grabbing the wrong texture!

ralphie · Post by **ralphie** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:20

I'll see smoths' squares and raise him some golden mountains.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:26

Great!

Yes, that's good that you're having these weird problems. Maybe now JC will start to see what's happening, and we can get these things fixed.

One question for everybody: in your Spring Settings.exe, what is the number "Max texture layers (for SM3 maps)" set on? I use the highest possible- and I have a feeling that if it's set too low, then Spring's literally skipping textures!

Fang, I'm guessing here... but... um... there aren't any trees on the map at all, so I'm guessing you have the "Never use shaders (when rendering SM3 maps)" setting on, or you don't have 3D trees on. Or maybe it's something completely different? It just seems awfully strange that it's crashing when trying to look for Features, when... um... there aren't any!

Ralphie, from what I can see on your screen, you're having severe problems with the normalmaps. Is "Never use shaders (when rendering SM3 maps)" setting on? If not, and you have a pre-DX9 card (DX8 had normalmaps, but pretty crude support tbh, and few games of that era used it a lot) try turning it on and let's see if you get normal textures, even without bumps.

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:34

actually I had 3d trees on and never use shaders not enabled, when I switched 3d trees off and enabled never use shaders it worked, im not sure which one caused it..

enabling 3d trees causes me to crash loading sm3 at trees at least this map.. why this is.. is beyond me..

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:37

Wow, Fang... that is a really weird bug. Maybe I need to specify an empty [FeatureTypes] to prevent that error from occuring? I'm just kind've mystified why that only happened on your machine, and not everybody else's, and why turning trees off helped... very weird!

Oh yeah, and Smoth... one quick thing that will probably help performance considerably is to turn anisotropic filtering down. I think that, on most modern cards, the default is like 4X, which is just fine at low resolution but adds up super-fast, in terms of framerate-sucking. I wish I had a SLI rig- they're pretty much designed specifically to handle that issue. On 4X, my 7800 definitely takes a hit, so I figure this will happen for everybody whose hardware is a little slower. It really makes the overall image quality skyrocket, though.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:42

anistropic off /// no change, what else do you suggest?

3 max texture stages gave me a black map

10-20 renders the same.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:50

Hmm... well, try my current settings, if you have nVidia hardware. I think I recall you have a 6800, yes? If so, it should support all of these settings:

These settings make a really huge difference, and multiple other people have tried them and had good results. I can't say I've seen any real problems with other (modern) games, but I certainly haven't tested with everything that's out there, so be aware that some of these may cause flickering or other annoying behaviors, especially in older games.

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:51

the texture does visibly tear when leveling ground for buildings.. this is a very good shot of it..

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:53

:\ no change

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:56

Good catch. That's a pretty nasty bug there, and I dunno if there's anything I could've done that would have avoided it, other than making map hardness really ridiculously high. I am pretty sure that what you're seeing there is the same thing that's annoying me when I zoom out- the map's polycount isn't nearly as high as it probably should be. Problem there is pretty simple- I'm not remotely qualified to address that, and I'm not sure I can come up with a workable test to duplicate it for JC to see it repeating, either.

I've set my view of the map's geometry at max, and it doesn't seem to help with this, where as with .SMD that meant I was viewing the map's heightmap at 100% resolution at all times.

Drat, Smoth. Hoped that might help. I don't suppose you've left your BIOS un-optimized? I hate to get into that level of tweaking with you, though, since unless you know what to do if things go horribly wrong, you're kind've stuck. I never saw performance that bad with the 6800 I had before I got this card, though, and iirc, you have a faster processor than I do...

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Mar 2007, 08:59

Nice readme, yet weak.

I see someone actually cares enough to try releasing sm3 stuff to catch bugs. That is good.

Took a look, didn't find any issues. The blocky hills look pretty wierd, but other than that it was ok.

You might wanna specify a minimap image btw.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 19 Mar 2007, 09:02

...that'd require that I make one, and frankly, I'm not sure it's worth it. It's not the worst map ever painted, but it's certainly not full of win and awesome. I will probably use it as a starting model for one of the concepts I'd like to see for my current project, though.

And yes, if this is ever going to be a useful format, it has quite a ways to go. That's why I'm bothering- I think that this is potentially a very hot format, but it definitely has some serious issues, and mainly it's obviously not been tested enough. Since everybody has been rather reluctant to get their hands dirty and post stuff in public, I figured that it might be useful- I'm not exactly worried about my reputation as a mapper or anything, and everybody knows I can paint.

I think JC's test maps were too full of gentle hills, and I was pretty peeved when the texture splatting didn't really go nicely down the sides of my buildings- they were originally only semi-wrecked, but I had to convert them to ruins when it was obvious they were going to look like crap as abandoned buildings.

While I'm complaining about stuff... the way that water currently renders is really bad. From the OTA POV, it's nearly clear, meaning that you've gotta use a sea-bottom texture that's some fake, lame shade of blue or whatever so that it looks remotely right. That really bugs me- the variables that supposedly alter RGB values based on height don't seem to work worth a gosh-darn with this format. I had some problems with that when tweaking NanoArena, but this is far, far worse. I know that for gameplay reasons, it's important to be able to see subs or whatnot, but if mappers simply cannot create muddy or at least dimly-lit water, that's really a problem, and it's put the issue of why water looks so fake on most maps into sharper perspective for me.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Mar 2007, 09:05

fang and I are talking on team talk.. we are not really sure.. he is getting anywhere from 70-3 fps on different spots..

I get 1-30 depending with a frequent 18 fps everywhere.

nothing you can do about the damn tearing that is a problem with the format.

AF · Post by AF » 19 Mar 2007, 10:55

the texture does visibly tear when leveling ground for buildings.. this is a very good shot of it..

I and someone else (I thought that was you smoth) got jelmer to fix the tearing and the fix will be in v0.75. Jelmer also says he'll remove bump mapping in 0.75 which he says is the main reason behind sm3 amsp having low framerates.

Spring RTS Engine

Urban_V1

Urban_V1