Re: MTM2 Beta Patch 0.48 - and we have Dx11

[KF2416]

Yeah that looks correct. So the problem was another .pod messing up the stadium!

Yep.

For those who podded MTM1 stock tracks after other custom pods instead of stock pods and had a issue about TWA backdrop, pod MTM1GAME.pod at the very first of the list right after stock pods using pod program like cowpod.

[Ford-chan]

For those who podded MTM1 stock tracks after other custom pods instead of stock pods and had a issue about TWA backdrop, pod MTM1GAME.pod at the very first of the list right after stock pods using pod program like cowpod.

My GAME.POD is podded after the stock PODs as well, so that's interesting to know, and putting Fila's mind to ease at last!

[OG_RuDeE]

Fila, not sure if you've made something like this already: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I had copilot turn suggestions / bug reports on each page into a csv and made this sheet so I could keep track of what still needs to be tested. Let me know if you want editor access. If you think it's a good idea, I can give everyone access and they can add their suggestions there too. Otherwise, I can just keep adding to it as new suggestions come in for my own pleasure.

[Fila]

That's kinda what the suggestion thread was supposed to be, I just haven't gotten around to clean it up and make it tidy

[OG_RuDeE]

Fair enough. I will add a page on that sheet with the suggestion page so far. Note that the spreadsheet I linked above is only stuff from this Beta 0.48 thread (I had mistitled it). It includes suggestions along with bug reports.

[OG_RuDeE]

I have a couple questions regarding the new shadows:

Since extreme shadows were added it takes much longer to get through the baking process, no matter what level of shadow draw distance I choose. So, with low, high, or extreme chosen, the black screen still takes the same time. Is this right?

As I mentioned above, loading a track with dusk weather is almost instantaneous. Shadows of objects appear on the ground, but no shadows are computed on faces of objects. Is this intended? I think it would be nice to have shadows rendered on objects still even in all but pitch black weather. (As an aside, I've been running tracks mainly in dusk weather to take advantage of the faster loading times )

[Fila]

Well... so in theory the objects should still self shade and actually some do but it was too spread out (made it too soft), however while researching this I also found an actual bug that was overseen by AI, me and everyone testing

So in short, I think the loading times were shorter because of the bug. We'll see once I fix.

[Fila]

Rudee, I tried the background in the original unmodified game and it works the same, so that was always bugged.

[OG_RuDeE]

Ok, thanks, and how about my other question: should the black shadow baking screen take equally long no matter what level of shadows I choose, e.g. low, ultra, extreme, etc... (talking in Day weather here)?

[Kmaster]

For those who podded MTM1 stock tracks after other custom pods instead of stock pods and had a issue about TWA backdrop, pod MTM1GAME.pod at the very first of the list right after stock pods using pod program like cowpod.

My GAME.POD is podded after the stock PODs as well, so that's interesting to know, and putting Fila's mind to ease at last!

this was my inspiration for the new jpodman update. SIT/TRK name conflicts between PODs are now visible

[Fila]

I hate working on shadows. They're now broken and I can't seem to fix them.

[OG_RuDeE]

Oh no! Sorry, Fila.

[Fila]

Actually has nothing to do with the loading the level per se and has to do with the bug I noticed while I was doing the loading level, which turns out had nothing to do with how long it took. So it was an inherent bug in the shadow code that just so happened it only affected a few edge cases and when I tried to fix the edge cases it blew everything else up. lol

[Fila]

Outside of that, loading has been improved.

[OG_RuDeE]

Great that you figured out the loading times. Hoping you'll be able to figure out the other part.

While you're on the shadow quest, I notice when I pause the game, even if I change no settings, it has to recompute the shadows all over again (dx11, no amd shadow fix). So, I'm wondering if it's possible to only have it recompute shadows if you change shadow settings while paused in the menu? If no shadow settings get changed, can baked shadows be stored in ram and reloaded after unpausing?

[Fila]

https://www.mtm2.com/~mtmg/misc/Beta0.48hotfix3.zip

These are the correct files, I swear! And unless something catastrophic happens, I will catch some sleep tonight!

Anyway, changes to this hotfix

- Mal's backdrops are not fixable from a visual parity point of view. turns out they didn't work correctly in the original game either. Might spend time trying to fix these later but they basically need a special fix just for the backdrop itself. (weird how he never caught it)
- I fixed the missing water texture at terrain-wrap-around
- I never had any issue with the water mirror reflection at the same spot so I wasn't able to replicate. Let me know if it still happens, if it does... not sure how to approach it. But considering it is a minor thing I will probably leave it be for now (do mention if it is an issue though just so i know)
- I have brought a first glimpse of multithreading. Whenever you load levels now, it uses multithread to load... so the more cores you have the faster it will load. (works for pause/unpausing too)
- In addition, I have also brought in level caching. So what it does is, it saves the baked shadows. When you run the game it's going to create a folder named LevelCache. DX11 level cache is 4mb, DX9 cache is 1mb. (they are also separate so running the same track with both renderers will issue two separate files). For now I have put a limit of 1gb for the folder (can fine tune later, might even make it user adjustable when I redo the menus) which means, when the folder reaches 1gb it's going to delete the cache for the track that hasn't been used in the longest. Also works for pause/unpause
Note: There is no in-game multithreading. This is strictly level loading only but it will make loading faster.

So between the multithread and the cache, levels should load at almost the same speed as the original game. The first time you load a level, you might still get a bit of a black screen depending on your CPU power but after that, you should barely feel the black screen (since the cache has been created and it's just reading from there instead of doing math). Hopefully Rudee's HDD won't die since it apparently doesn't like MTM2 :p

- i semi-improved a shadow edge case but it's not fully fixed because it's a pain in the *beep* do fully fix
- i semi-fixed another edge case (the one that broke all my shadows today). The bug still happens but now it's an edge of an edge of an edge case and I think I can live with that.
- I added the self-shadowing back to Dusk. It was supposed to be there, it was a mix of too feint to see it and some objects actually bugged out in addition to that.

And I truly hope I haven't broken anything else. lol

[Fila]

Oh and I never answered the question when it was pointed out Extreme Shadow Size reduces the FPS in half.

Sadly that is a hardware limitation. The nature of the shadow size quality is pretty much exclusively dependent on the video card.

Note: I have looked into potentially optimizing the extreme shadow size. There are some potential solutions but I will have to put them on the backburner for a bit. They can break a lot of things with the shadows again so it will require quite a bit of time investment to make sure it works correctly.
With that being said, the extreme shadow size IS a very FPS hungry option, so while I can improve the FPS, I don't know by how much.

[OG_RuDeE]

Super excited to try all of this in the morning. Thanks Fila. Hope you get some rest.

[Ford-chan]

MTM1's stadium backdrops have appeared to be given the shadow treatment.

Before...


After...


One side of Cale's Pontiac backdrop appears to be shadowed than the other side, other backdrops like RCA Dome, the shadowing effect appears at the ceiling of the stadium. Not really sure if this was intended, nor can I figure out where I am on the fence with this? So I'd like to see your opinion on it.

Oh, and this is all on the DX11 renderer running.

[OG_RuDeE]

Level loading is much faster for me now, almost don't even need the cache.

I added shadows to Quid Pro a while back, and there is an interesting new issue since hotfix 3. It looks like Malibu rotated fences randomly for visual variation, but since the new update about half of the fences show shadows on the correct side, and half on the wrong side. It happens in all weathers:


In snow weather, the ground now looks like a sudo-checkerboard:


IMO, all weather should have some shadows on the ground---maybe less contrast for cloudy, foggy and more contrast for day, dusk, night (or whatever), but some shadows nonetheless.

Sky reflection in water still flickers on and off when the map's seam is within the viewable distance of the camera, e.g. toward the end of Kryptik Mountains and at various points on Skull Islands. I was parked watching the trucks drive up the invisible bridge on Orient Express and the reflection would cut out when the trucks would come into view in the distance, I think I have it set to 60.

Lots of flickering palms (all instances of maybe two objects) now on Kryptik Mountains, this wasn't a custom model (that I remember) so probably affects other tracks using it.

The two bridges near the beginning of Skull Islands are invisible to me, also the bridge near the end of Treasure Bay 2 disappears and reappears. Something to do with not getting rendered because they are partially underwater? This has been an issue for some time, maybe even before beta 0.46.