Detail textures

Post by **scott** » 2004-09-12, 08:11

Will the new shader system allow us to have detail textures on regular textures? Or will it be limited to terrain textures only? It would be a alternative for textures where a bump map wouldnt look good, like on cloth. Now lets just say the answer to the above question is yes, is it possible to have a material with bumpmaps and a detail texture? I cant say I've ever seen this done anywhere.

Post by **Kai** » 2004-09-12, 20:03

The answer is no and yes

No > because there is no support so far.
Yes > the material system is based on maximum flexibility, so if you need such a solution, it is of course very easy to implement.

So the main answer is "Yes"

You can create all combinations of materials you want, if you code the specific shader.
Carsten will support a few basic shaders, so you can have a look at them and code some new if needed.

Post by **scott** » 2004-09-13, 05:32

So what can you tell me about programming in custom shaders, is it going to be in some sort of high level language like c++ or will it be with the scripting language that the shader system uses?

Post by **Kai** » 2004-09-13, 12:29

The new shadersystem is having some sort of a hierarchy

1. basic textures > all kind of images you want to use as a texture

2. cmat file > A textfile that is similiar to the Doom3 system. You describe what material is made of texture(s)
You can also use features like panning or pulsating a specific texture and some other special flags like "noshadow) etc.

3. shader > Every material will have slots like bump,normal diffuse , another shader will control materials using only diffuse,bump and luma and so.

The techdemo will ship with some shaders, same for the default walls, floor, some water and maybe some other stuff. Creating new shaders will require c++ knowledge, but you can code whatever shader you want

However this is not a very detailed explanation since Carsten is concepting/coding all this

So here is some text from the new Matshader pdf, that is still unfinished and so, not yet released.

In general, the MatSys is a collection of Renderers. A renderer is a library of computer
code that handles all rendering tasks of Ca3DE for a specific graphics platform.
Also CaWE and all other graphical tools that come with the Ca3D-Engine employ the
Material System for their rendering. For example, there is a renderer for OpenGL 1.2, a
renderer for graphics boards with NVidia NV2X (and higher or compatible) GPUs, one
for NV3X (and higher or compatible) GPUs, one for ATI Radeon 8500 (and . . . (you
get the idea)) GPUs, and so on. These renderers are currently all OpenGL based, but
in the future it will be easy to add renderers for DirectX, software rendering, consoles,
etc. All renderer modules are “physically” located in the Renderers subdirectory.
After program start, each program that employs rendering via the Ca3DE MatSys
usually first looks into the Renderers subdirectory for all available renderers. Then, it
either picks a specific renderer, or it selects whatever it considers to be the best renderer
automatically, or it offers the user the choice over which renderer he wants to employ.
This process is simple or even fully automatic from the users perspective, and aided by
the fact that each renderer is capable to determine autonomously if it is supported on
the current computer and graphics system, and how well it compares to other available
renderers with respect to quality and performance.

Post by **scott** » 2004-09-13, 14:57

HMMM well lucky I'm planning to take a few programming classes soon, it may help me.

To save making a new thread, I have one last question, with the next demo are we going to be able to configure our controlls, adjust resolutions etc etc?

Post by **Kai** » 2004-09-14, 16:28

with the next demo are we going to be able to configure our controlls, adjust resolutions etc etc?

I don't know, this is up to Carsten and (of course) depends on the time

Post by **Shadow** » 2004-09-17, 22:27

anybody who has a bit of time and some basic c++ experience could code those features. the dmatch code comes with the mdk so ya... just involve some vars and an extra screen or 2

Post by **scott** » 2004-09-19, 16:23

Its a shame I cant program

Post by **Carsten** » 2004-09-20, 09:35

Hello Scott, hello all!

I'm back home now, and will now of course continue Ca3DE development full steam ahead.

First: Kai, thank you very much for already providing detailed answers to Scotts questions. There is not much left for me to say:

scott wrote:Will the new shader system allow us to have detail textures on regular textures?

Yes.

Or will it be limited to terrain textures only?

No. For terrains, I'll provide a detail textures shader right from the start that can equally be applied to arbitrary other surfaces, too.
As Kai already pointed out, the new MatSys will be very flexible in this regard -- implementing even detail bumpmaps (as seen in some of the NVidia demos) later is no problem either.

is it possible to have a material with bumpmaps and a detail texture?

Yes.

Post by **scott** » 2004-09-21, 05:03

Welcome back. Well thats good news, especially the detail bumpmaps being possible, I never even considered that an option, developers are going to be able to go crazy with this engine

Post by **Shadow** » 2004-09-24, 04:35

scott r u learning to code with c++ and ca3d?
i am currently learning it and getting close to the point where i could add those features but ya school is started now so its slow work

Post by **scott** » 2004-09-24, 15:29

I've been planning on learning to program, I've even gone out and got 5 books on the subject, I'm just not motivated enough to try and teach myself. I plan on taking a few classes on it once I have saved up the money, its something I would really like to learn.

Detail textures

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