Lev. Editor -cant enter 0 value for transparency

[Veleran]

I still cant type value lower than 1 in the face attributes for transparency.
Any plans for updating rfeditpro to accept the 0 in the trasparency box?

And i wonder if the trees will have any transparency problems (static entity proxy trees)
if they are no collision and i use transparent bsp brushes for collision.

I mean because the transparent textures faces will somewhere intersect with the invisible brushes,
while i know that the actor itself should not have any intersecting leaves polygons.
I have nt tested yet but i will sometime.

Even then,i d prefer the editor to set the transparency to zero instead of number 1.

[GMer]

Why would you need it to be 0 instead of 1?
There is no difference between 0 and 1. (even if so, it is so minute that it is not noticeable).

[Jay]

Transparency 0 means that it is not visible any more. If you want that, you should use the sky attribute instead. The sky attribute makes the face completely vanish (The collision detection is still there), whereas transparency 0 might still have the face in place, just with transparency 0 (So there are useless polys). By the way, it's possible to optimize a level by setting all the faces the player won't see to 'sky'.

I admit the name 'sky' is a bit misleading in what it actually does. The basic idea is that the SkyBox/Skydome is outside of the level (in the 'void') and if you can look outside (the face has the sky attribute), then you will see the sky through this face.

[metal_head]

By the way, it's possible to optimize a level by setting all the faces the player won't see to 'sky'.

Yeah, I do that for all my levels

By the way, Veleran, you can also use Clip for making a brush vannish, but it doesn't work on a certain face only, it's a brush attribute

[Veleran]

Clip brushes are nice,the fastest,thwy would be my first choise but the camera wont bump on them when you are close to a wall and you have turned your back-
the camera wont zoom in and the wall will block the view.
(or when you look high up , the floor is displayed between the camera and the player)
Correct me if it is not so.

[Jay]

That's a very interesting thought, Veleran. I have not tested it, but what you say makes sense. Although i am not sure what the engine makes of Transparency 0 brushes. With actors it's like this: When the transparency reaches 0, the actor is not rendered anymore (completely). May be that transparency 0 brushes will get removed from the level. It would be very nice if you discovered a fix for the camera outside-of-level problem.

If your trees have transparent parts in their textures, better use StaticMesh with Z-Ordering turned on, or you will have transparency issues. If you put a clip brush around the actor, there should be no problems. I have turned to not using Trees with transparency because the Z-Ordering needs quite a bit of time. It is, however possible to build certain thinghs in a way that you don't need Z-Ordering on, if i remember correctly. The trick is to divide your model into groups in which the furthermost 'out' surfaces are in the last group. RF will then render the actor groups one time after another, first the 'inner' surfaces, and then proceed with the more 'outer' surfaces. This way the surfaces are already in the correct order and don't have to be z-ordered.

[Veleran]

Thanks Jay.Maybe Clip Brushes will not cause problems to the trees.
The trees ( i didnt know what the engine renders first or what the z sort is)
are for a cartoon level -just the classic umbrella like canopy (with some beveled faces projecting-not completely hemispherical) and a circular patch on the bottom to hide the hollow part.

I avoid to use staticmeshes because they crash the editor.What i do will be s.e.p's i guess.
The transparent leaves and grasses are to be placed on platforms -i plan to have one grasses actor for each of the platforms
and i hope that if i have placed the grass-flowers polygons without any intersections to the ground of the platform i wont have transparency rendering problems.

As for as the invisible transparent collision faces of the platform (the grasses wont have collision) i plan to place the grasses slightly above the collision faces.

[metal_head]

better use StaticMesh with Z-Ordering turned on

..which apparently kill the framerate...seriously, if you guys want to make a fast dynamic game, actors and TGA textures is not the best combination

[Jay]

Please read the whole post before answering...

I have turned to not using Trees with transparency because the Z-Ordering needs quite a bit of time. It is, however possible to build certain thinghs in a way that you don't need Z-Ordering on, if i remember correctly. The trick is to divide your model into groups in which the furthermost 'out' surfaces are in the last group. RF will then render the actor groups one time after another, first the 'inner' surfaces, and then proceed with the more 'outer' surfaces. This way the surfaces are already in the correct order and don't have to be z-ordered.

I recently build a tree like that that renders the same without Z-Ordering as with Z-Ordering, also my potions in Towers of Trembolon are built that way, so i don't need it.



Interestingly, i noticed a speedup of 300% when doing the forest with StaticMeshes instead of SEPs (20fps -> >60fps). The Rendering algorithm for the StaticMeshes seems to be fundamentally different from the one used for SEPs.

EDIT:
The only strange thing is that RF seems to have some problems with transparency overall.... Sometimes it tries to cut away the polys it thinks are not seen from visibilty... (but they are visible, so they kind of flicker, even with Z-Sorting on) I am not sure if this was like this in former releases. Hm.

EDIT2:
It might be my graphics card (Intel GMA). I heard they kind of have a hidden surface removal function built in. Seems it doesn't work that well...

[Veleran]

Clip brushes then to the trees (even if the leaves block some view) and transparent 1value 1 for the collision brushes.
I have not test the skybox flag on the collision brushes.

If the sky faces wont block the view the pawns will always see and chase the player and might get stuck to some corner (at least when using the default monster scripts),
so i will use transparent 1 value so the pawns wont see behind the Geometry.

The brushes to be invisible are a whole level and it helps to see some colors on the geometry instead of the sky blue,so i can place the entities on the ground etc.
Of course you could select all,flag as sky,only before running a preview.

[paradoxnj]

It might be my graphics card (Intel GMA). I heard they kind of have a hidden surface removal function built in. Seems it doesn't work that well...

Is that part of the fixed function pipeline? If not, then Genesis cannot use it. I don't quite understand why you would get the FPS increase when using static meshes. It's not like they are using vertex buffers. They are still using the same rendering method as the rest of the engine. It's interesting...I have to look at the code and check that out.

[Jay]

The GMA is a really strange graphics 'card' (it is an integrated card with low energy consum -> laptop card) . It doesn't even have a proper T&L unit and kind of shares the T&L work with the CPU. Has a pixel shader, i think. The culling seems to be part of the rendering pipeline... (I think it uses a Tile-Based-Deferred-Renderer like the Kyro series).