Forums » Suggestions
Names, or callsigns, or generic strings do not need to be created as graphic objects at all. Where I wrote that? Frontier rendered them as flat, simple polygons slightly above ships' surfaces, using a string-to-polygon or string-to-texture renderer akin to a trivial 3D font engine. Something professionally trained 3D graph programmers would learn in their career more or less when wannabe US lawyers learn about constitutional amendments.
The colored strings can be easily rendered portably by OpenGL at runtime. You wouldn't want a static overlay for every possible string in the game (would be braindead to load them from disk when you need to render B12 frag fests), you just create the graphic object from the string when you need to show it. The actual data content would be the ASCII string and an RGB coded color. A few bits per ship, at worst, piped down the link only the first time you encounter a "new" ship. Then the font renderer would create ad hoc overlays - most likely in hardware, with smoothed edges, antialiasing, outlines, what have you. If coded wisely, created only the first time the ship comes within 1000mt of your OGL viewpoint, or by the detail distance user preference setting. Then cached, and treated like any cache object: reused if needed, erased by GC if you need cache room, recreated on the fly if you dumped it too early and re-encounter the same ship.
Impact, while present, would be negligible in performance, download, data size, gfx heap/memory usage.
But hey, it's not like I'm raping anyone's mom to have this dandy and frankly useless feature in the game. :) It's just applying very, very old graphic programming practices, developed when performance/size constraints were much harsher than now. I was just thinking about how coders solved the same problem presented by LeberMac, without resorting to bizarre (player provided decals, or "Hillaries") or inefficient (one static image per overlay) ways.
The colored strings can be easily rendered portably by OpenGL at runtime. You wouldn't want a static overlay for every possible string in the game (would be braindead to load them from disk when you need to render B12 frag fests), you just create the graphic object from the string when you need to show it. The actual data content would be the ASCII string and an RGB coded color. A few bits per ship, at worst, piped down the link only the first time you encounter a "new" ship. Then the font renderer would create ad hoc overlays - most likely in hardware, with smoothed edges, antialiasing, outlines, what have you. If coded wisely, created only the first time the ship comes within 1000mt of your OGL viewpoint, or by the detail distance user preference setting. Then cached, and treated like any cache object: reused if needed, erased by GC if you need cache room, recreated on the fly if you dumped it too early and re-encounter the same ship.
Impact, while present, would be negligible in performance, download, data size, gfx heap/memory usage.
But hey, it's not like I'm raping anyone's mom to have this dandy and frankly useless feature in the game. :) It's just applying very, very old graphic programming practices, developed when performance/size constraints were much harsher than now. I was just thinking about how coders solved the same problem presented by LeberMac, without resorting to bizarre (player provided decals, or "Hillaries") or inefficient (one static image per overlay) ways.
I like the way Syylk thinks. But I don't know if the Vendetta game engine has that kind of shit built-in. You mentioned OpenGL, does DirectX9 and 10 have the same kind of thing?
It would just be nice to be able to determine the SMV Nemesis from the large "01" designation on its lower fin thingy. Wouldn't that be neat?
It would just be nice to be able to determine the SMV Nemesis from the large "01" designation on its lower fin thingy. Wouldn't that be neat?
"Hillaries" - I like that
"Obamas" could be decals which look like real decals, but everyone pretends aren't there because they were made by another company. Copyrighted material if you will.
"Obamas" could be decals which look like real decals, but everyone pretends aren't there because they were made by another company. Copyrighted material if you will.
Syylk:
(1) Your first post, to which Whistler replied, failed utterly to mention the issue of loading burdens and how they might be less of a concern than Whistler assumed. If you want to get defensive, try to not leave a gaping hole in the coherence of your first post. Nice try at recovery, however.
(2) My point related not to graphics and legal training, but to your prior and similarly non sequitur claim here ( http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/15869?page=3#201353 ), regarding the RoC.
(3) "professionally trained 3D graph programmers" mentioned in the same sentence as actual attorneys (students from non-top ten schools and 'ambulance chasers to be' need not be considered)... oh, wow. Although my sides will hurt for days, I thank you for making me laugh.
(1) Your first post, to which Whistler replied, failed utterly to mention the issue of loading burdens and how they might be less of a concern than Whistler assumed. If you want to get defensive, try to not leave a gaping hole in the coherence of your first post. Nice try at recovery, however.
(2) My point related not to graphics and legal training, but to your prior and similarly non sequitur claim here ( http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/15869?page=3#201353 ), regarding the RoC.
(3) "professionally trained 3D graph programmers" mentioned in the same sentence as actual attorneys (students from non-top ten schools and 'ambulance chasers to be' need not be considered)... oh, wow. Although my sides will hurt for days, I thank you for making me laugh.
Currently we are able to select the color of the ship when purchasing it. One color on a predetermined stencil.
If we segment the stencils into 16 different section which can take a color each and increase number of different stencils per ship to 16. Thats 256 stencil/color combinations per ship. I think there are 256 colors available in the palette (not sure). Thats still 65536 different combinations per ship. So the overhead would be 4 bits for the template plus 8bits per color times 16 (number of segments) = 16.5 bytes. Not much overhead there!
The decal idea sounds good, but is not workable unless it is somehow incorporated into the stencil. However, even without decals, there is still plenty of permutations to customise the ships.
JS
If we segment the stencils into 16 different section which can take a color each and increase number of different stencils per ship to 16. Thats 256 stencil/color combinations per ship. I think there are 256 colors available in the palette (not sure). Thats still 65536 different combinations per ship. So the overhead would be 4 bits for the template plus 8bits per color times 16 (number of segments) = 16.5 bytes. Not much overhead there!
The decal idea sounds good, but is not workable unless it is somehow incorporated into the stencil. However, even without decals, there is still plenty of permutations to customise the ships.
JS
There's some background noise around here. Maybe it's some shark farting... As usual, just ignore it and be happy about the D before 61631.
Nice to hear about this from people who know as opposed to people who just like to get attention.
I'm with Leebs, tho: can DX do the thingie OpenGL can? VO's OpenGL driver doesn't, um, convince me at all.
I'm with Leebs, tho: can DX do the thingie OpenGL can? VO's OpenGL driver doesn't, um, convince me at all.
Jex, remember that DirectX are Windows specific. Would defeat the cross platform goal of Guild devs.
Anyway, assuming you're on XP, open your Desktop properties (right click on an empty desktop area, last item is "Properties"), select the third tab "Screen Saver", and pick "3D Text" from the dropdown list. Click "Test".
Here, your builtin DX TrueType-to-3D renderer. Do you think it loads all the graphics from disk?
Anyway, assuming you're on XP, open your Desktop properties (right click on an empty desktop area, last item is "Properties"), select the third tab "Screen Saver", and pick "3D Text" from the dropdown list. Click "Test".
Here, your builtin DX TrueType-to-3D renderer. Do you think it loads all the graphics from disk?
Syylk:
If that test is done in software rendering, it won't be of much use. Have you tried running a game entirely in software rendering mode?
It chews up your RAM and shits it out in little pieces. Not literally, of course, but performance-wise...
If that test is done in software rendering, it won't be of much use. Have you tried running a game entirely in software rendering mode?
It chews up your RAM and shits it out in little pieces. Not literally, of course, but performance-wise...
The original Unreal/Unreal Tournament had a terrific software renderer. It was blazing fast, ideal for unaccelerated X11 graphic cards. Of course couldn't beat an hardware solution, but, still, supreme programming at work.
Clarification: I was suggesting that it might not be a good idea to try to run VO under a software renderer. :P
NEVERMIND Player decals, how about capital-ship-only customization?