Fingernail on 8/9/2004 at 16:31
Quote Posted by Hemebond
Normal maps.
Thought this might confuse you. Sorry to patronise, but 'Bumpmap' is more commonly understood.
So just to clear up: a normal map defines the direction in which the surface is facing, to calculate real time shadows. So if a light is at one edge of a surface, the engine looks at the normal map to see which pixels are intended to be pointing (their 'normals') away from the light, and shadows them accordingly. It's a trick to make a 2D texture seem more 3D - so a flat wall can look as if little pipes, boxes and bricks stick out slightly.
Doom 3 (the engine), from what I can tell, is mostly about visual trickery. The models are low-poly but look high-poly due to the highres textures, normalmaps and specular maps.
Oh yeah, a specular map defines the shiny parts of a texture, so if you are facing at the correct angle between a light and the shiny part of a floor, say, then it will appear shiny. It's a cool effect, as it changes depending on position relative to the light.
Textures have changed.
Sorry for the long description. And probably lots is not technically accurate enough, but it's an 'all you need to know' kind of definition.
Thirith on 8/9/2004 at 16:58
So far I haven't really found any good explanation about what the practical difference is between bumpmapping and normalmapping. Both are used to 'cheat' surface structures, right? Bump maps define how 'elevated' a pixel is compared to the others, whereas normal maps define what the surface normal on that pixel is, but what's the practical difference?
DeepOmega on 8/9/2004 at 18:34
Normal maps contain more information.
Take a big square polygon. Imagine it is 20 pixels by 20 pixels. It is on the XY plane, so the normal at each pixel is just straight up along the Z axis, yes? A bump map simple distorts the magnitude of these normal vectors. A normal map changes them in all three axes. Thus, there is more information, and you can create, say, hill-shapes instead of plateau shapes. The difference is subtle, but definitely noticeable.
Thirith on 8/9/2004 at 19:45
Do you have a screenshot somewhere? I can understand the difference in geometry, but not in how they're actually rendered.
Fingernail on 8/9/2004 at 19:56
Not really. Doom 3 uses normal mapping check out some of those screenshots, bearing in mind that most of the surfaces are flat geometry with clever textures.
Bump mapping is different, not widely used. However, virtual displacement, or parallax, mapping will become more common. Instead of making the surface look bumpy within the geometry, it kinda pulls out the bumps further but without actually adding extra geometry.
Hemebond on 8/9/2004 at 21:20
Quote Posted by Fingernail
Thought this might confuse you. Sorry to patronise, but 'Bumpmap' is more commonly understood.
No confusion. Bumpmap may be "more commonly understood" but it's inaccurate to use it here. Doom 3 uses normal-maps on models, not bump-maps.
Quote Posted by Fingernail
...explaination on Doom 3's texture usage...I understand how Doom 3 works.
io organic industrialism on 9/9/2004 at 02:22
i might be interested in making some music for the mod eventually. i have been writing electronic music since about 1998 and some of the stuff i do could fit the theme. i will post some links to some sample mp3s when i have time to encode and get them online
Domarius on 9/9/2004 at 04:07
Quote Posted by Thirith
Do you have a screenshot somewhere? I can understand the difference in geometry, but not in how they're actually rendered.
Well you're in for a shock - download this document and prepare to be amazed;
(
http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/3DcWhitePaper.pdf)
The most amazing comparison is the last 2 pictures of the orange old looking man.
If you don't want a 2mb download (it's worth it, trust me, I'm on 56k too) then try this page;
(
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1583549,00.asp)
Not as impressive in its examples, but better than nothing.
Just think of it as BumpMaps, but 100 times better looking, honest to goodness fooling you into thinking your looking at a pre-rendered 3D model from like, Final Fantasy the Movie, except at the edges of the model, you can see the angular lines of the TRUE polygons, (but it hardly matters).
Sound PropagationThis is for everyone still confused about this.
EAX has always been about giving developers the TOOLS to simulate realistic sounds. There's no such thing (yet) that's anything like creating some level in the Doom editor, playing a sound in it, and EAX does the rest. EAX has no idea how your level works. It's not supposed to. All game level data is different and customised to the game.
Remember in DromEd, how you have to create "Room brushes", and tell them what effect to apply (Hall, Dead Room, etc)? It's the same thing (but a lot more complex).
EAX can make it sound like the object is coming from around the corner, or through a wooden door, or from across the farm yard, but the game developer has to tell it all of that information - there is a door here, the player is outside, etc.
So, for sound to PROPAGATE correctly, you have to have some system set up where the computer can decide how and when a sound can travel from room to room - a la the Room Database you have to build in DromEd before you can play the level and hear sounds correctly.
EAX does not "automatically" work out where the holes are in your rooms, what's possibly blocking them (glass, or wood or whatever) and decide where, when and how sound can travel.
Your sound card has no idea what the hell a "room" in your game is. Just how to make things sound pretty.
EAX is a set of tools.
Domarius on 9/9/2004 at 04:26
Quote Posted by Scarlett
...
After testing on my Audigy card (and thus enabling EAX 4.0 Advanced HD), i've come to the conclusion that that Creative's claims of terrain influenced occlusion and positioning is bullshit. It really does no different on my Live! card. Maybe i'm just missing something?...
Yep.
Remember the part on that page where it says "To fully enable EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD on Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, please download the latest patch from here."? That probably suggests that the game doesn't support it without the patch, and therefore, "the game needs to support EAX", not "EAX magically makes every game sound cool" :)
And if you go to the main EAX 4.0 page
(
http://www.soundblaster.com/resources/read.asp?articleid=86&cat=3)
It says down the bottom "EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD games are now available.", which probably means they weren't previously, and therefore you need a game that actually supports EAX 4.0
And at the very bottom of that page, it says;
Quote:
* The EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD driver is currently available for the Sound Blaster Audigy (Windows 2000 and XP only), Audigy 2 and Audigy 2 ZS (Windows 98SE, Me, 2000 and XP). It is not available for the Audigy LS and the USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX.
So of course it didn't make a difference on your SBLive! card.
