NormalMap Request

[TheV]

Normalmap is possible in some new futures AssaultCube?
Well, normalmap will increase the quality texture, will add more depth in texture.

-> I think is really hard to do the C++ of this, ...but worth being.
will not more do shadows and shines in textures, the normalmap will auto render the texture.

.... that branch "http://ac-akimbo.net/archive/index.php?thread-1051-1.html" ..it is one step to normalmap, because he need one focus of light (lights of sun or a lamp)

Well, what you're think about it?

Thats the normalmap in GTA San Andreas (a mod) ... The GTA:SA default dont have normalmap.

[PhaNtom]

Yeah this would be fantastic...

[Ronald_Reagan]

We need more G-Strings as well.

[Mr.Floppy]

Of course that would be nice, though there are no applicable light sources at the moment.
The cube engine's lights are cylindrical and of theoretically infinite height. Therefore they lack the height parameter, which is needed to calculate a proper normal map.

However, even without that world light feature you're pointing at, or maybe just some dummy-entity that holds the required values (zero userfriendly-ness), we could already make use of the shadow orientation value. This is already there and can be configured per map. But, it is a global effect and has no relation to the actual light sources around an object. While global aligned shadows may not distract that much, incoherent normal maps can make things look terribly wrong and weirdly unrealistic.

...and before even thinking about normal maps, we need higher resolution textures anyway. It is about impossible to create normal maps, that do serve their purpose on the current resolution.

[TheV]

sure !!! Assaultcube have 32pixels by poly (in mapping), maybe change it to 64p, 128p and 256p... The max texture can be 4096x4096 (i never saw a texture with this size on AssaultCube)

this on Blender render.

[PhaNtom]

^

<333333333333333

[Ronald_Reagan]

Well, I'm not sure how hard it is to move from OpenGL 1.x to 2.x, but I think that would be needed in order to use shaders. That alone is a big step which might be too big. A big part of AC is targeting lower end computers, while I think it is a great idea to make a version with normal maps, I think AC still needs to target lower end machines which cannot run a newer version of OpenGL.

Note this is all from memory and I could be completely wrong about every aspect of what I just said.

[Mr.Floppy]

Well, I'm not sure how hard it is to move from OpenGL 1.x to 2.x...

As far as I know, that upgrade wouldn't even be required. I'm not sure about the OpenGL history, but there was normal map support on DirectX7 already and this has been fixed-function-pipeline as well. You won't need shaders to achieve this I guess. Besides that and as you mentioned already, you'd break with low-end compatibility, which is not desired as far as I know.

About the resolution, that particular screenshot up there doesn't even look that bad, to be honest. Though, you can almost see the single pixels which are 'altered' to create the 3D lighting effect, which makes things look even more square-ish, than smoothly rounded. After all it's a per-pixel effect and in my opinion 64 x 64 pixels would be the least resolution needed, to get some results that actually enhance the look.


-- edit --

I'm not perfectly sure, but most likely normal mapping does rely on hardware lights when computed along a fixed-function pipeline. OpenGL.org has stopped pretty much any support for pre 2.1 versions. At least I couldn't find 1.x documentation on a quick research.
However, let's pretend that was indeed the case. The engine in its current state doesn't make use of hardware lights, but software lighting. So, not only do we lack the height parameter, we don't even have the required entity to pass all values through.

There might be some more or less nifty hacks to get around this, which, if at all possible, will most likely have negative impact on performance. That wouldn't be an issue with modern shader access of course, yet the upgrade isn't quite a solution either like said before.

[Alien]

this is best lobby of implementing something :D

[Mr.Floppy]

Well, after looking at those GTA screenshots once more...

In fact, that 'default' model isn't even lit. It has just one unifom light value applied all over. You would get better results with this particular model on AC when vertex lighting is enabled (per-model configuration). The belly portion is really the only part of the model, that is visibly enhanced by the normal map. And this kind of detail is really what normal maps are there for, to fake some 3D depth into a flat surface. In this case the breast portion and arms would look just the same even without normal mapping.

This doesn't mean, it wasn't a beneficial feature worth considering. Just trying to point out, that the real normal map effect is rather small in this example.

[+f0r3v3r+]

Looks like normalmap grows armpit hair too...

Which is ok for some I guess...
* will pretend it really is just shadow...

[Ronald_Reagan]

Real test is to import this exact player model into AC.

Floppy, looks like you know a lot more than me about this. You better double check that I'm right that it is 1.x ;)