Comments - Daemonjax

Since Fok.dow-mods.com is dead, how about you just tell us the password for the file?

I went through all the changes in this mod's files, and none of them would change the health modifier for difficulty levels. AFAIK it's hardcoded in DC and SS, so can't be modded out. In winter assault and original DoW, it was easily modifiable -- but then in DC and SS the game doesn't actually call those functions in the .ai files so it must be hardcoded. And those same functions weren't updated to include the races when it builds the entities list, so we know they don't work anyways.

Great mod. I read through the entire readme. Thank you for documenting all changes. I found that some changes are questionable. In particular the changes to Fire on the Move penalties. I haven't decided if I'll revert them (yet), but it seems to me the original balance took the unit's speed into consideration -- faster units had more of a penalty, and slow units had less (or none). Another is the addition of moral damage to some weapons that seem to be done for sake of "realism" or, perhaps, consistency. Also the changes to units' weapons ranges, in particular for stealthed units. Some DPS calculation changes. I should probably make a real list somewhere.

> I see you're still not done with my shaders ;-)

I can't seem to leave well enough alone. ;)

> As for shadow jittering, that's not my code. It's already been part of Shaders MAX. To my knowledge it originally comes from LURK. I know it's buggy, that's why I always used to leave it disabled by default...

Shadow jittering works perfectly now -- Especially at higher shadow res. Overall, it looks better than the tweak I made for 16 shadowing passes. Try it out! :D

> Regarding filters, feel free to add your own stuff...

I'll probably end up doing the Vignette and FXAA anti-aliasing. I have the code for it, I just need to stick it in there. ;)

Also... haha I wish there was a forum...

I think farnearlerp was an attempt to correct the sunshafts problem at the far/near boundary. My fix just turns it off after that boundary line, and so you have to increase the contrast to hide the lack brightness added by ss_intensity. But it's just a hack.

I may take another look at it and get it working properly.

Also... I have no idea why KERNEL should be .6 per 1024 res, or even that's the perfectly correct value... It could be 1 for all I know... or .68378. But, at least it's configurable in shadersettings.txt now.

BTW: Your jitter code in shadowtest_sun and shadowtest used a hardcoded magic number of 2.0 and 2.7 for it. ;) Made things particularly tricky for me to track down, heh. That was close to the 2.4 I think they should be at 4096 shadow res.

Hey, I solved the custom shadow resolution problem.

I dare say, that no one has been using high resolution shadows... this bug goes back to the code in Shaders Max.

There's a hardcoded definition (KERNEL and XKERNEL) which must be increased as you increase the custom resolution shadowmap size. They were at .6 by default... which is fine for 1024x1024...

So, anyways... problem solved. I kinda lost track of which files were modified at this point, so here's my zipped up shader folder:

Dl.dropbox.com

^ High res shadows working

I tweaked the SSAO algorithm, but I kinda gave up on it... it looks pretty awesome when at about 32+ samples (~5+ loop iterations... 8 is sweet!)... but it overheats the shader unit on my card eventually. I'll have to take my gpu apart to fix it (stupid stock cooling).

Regarding the filters I mentioned... Well, film grain would be on all the time ala Mass Effect. :D It's actually a poor man's substitute for AA, but I also happen to love the effect. It's just a noise filter.

Vignette... When? ALL THE TIME :D It just darkens the edges of the screen, so it looks more cinematic. It's a subtle effect. That should be pretty easy... I could do it myself (and I'm not a shader guru like you), so don't worry about it. If I want it bad enough, I'll just do it. ;)

SUGGESTION: Add a forum here for this mod. :P

Made some more tweaks... this time for SSAO.

12 samples (when quality was set to 2), looked like crap for me... and quality set to 3 would crash my card after a little while. So, I changed your algorithm somewhat... unrolled the loop... removed the branch...

I can run with 36 samples now... 42 still overheats my gpu shaders after a while. ;)

common.h: Dl.dropbox.com

combine_1.ps: Dl.dropbox.com

Game looks great. I think I'm done tweaking these shaders. Thanks again!

made some more tweaks... jitter and shadow sampling options.

shadow.h: Dl.dropbox.com

Previous links updated.

>1. Smap size...

Yeah, it's weird. Dunno why I can't actually change it. I have mine set to 1024 (the default) now, since that works correctly for all the calculations.

>2. Sunshafts... new...

Cool, looking forward to them!

>3. Film grain and Vignette filter.

Ahh well... if you're not too excited about them, then don't bother. :P

>4. FXAA...

Yeah, was just a suggestion... since there's already an AA option. I don't think it's an FXAA algorithm, though. I can do FXAA through dll injection... but then I lose vsync, since I have to us D3Doverrider for that. I can force MLAA through my drivers, but then I get a weird border around my screen. sux2bme I guess.

Someone else already made this EXACT same mod 2 years ago:

Strategyinformer.com

You should list all the mods you compiled together, since Particle Paradise *looks* to be a simple compilation of others peoples' work.

Not to be mean, but I still have no idea what your mod does that hasn't been done already.

Perhaps if your screenshots/video actually showed anything original... anything at all... :/

Upon further investigation, your shader code is doing everything it should. It's just that my game refuses to accept any changes to the smap size. Even the -smapxxxx switch has no effect whatsoever. Dunno why. Oh well.

The pdf that comes with it gives instructions on how to change head bobbing back to vanilla settings.

RTFM ;)

This mod is still pretty solid. I used it as a base for my own personal mod.

Updated versions:

accum_sun_far.ps: Dl.dropbox.com
accum_sun_near.ps: Dl.dropbox.com
shadersettings.txt: Dl.dropbox.com
and my user.ltx just in case: Dl.dropbox.com

I split the existing ss_contrast into two seperate settings:
#define SS_NEAR_CONTRAST
#define SS_FAR_CONTRAST

... so I have more control over the brightness in those two ranges. It's important as SS_INTENSITY increases.

I may add fxaa soon, just for the lols.

Hey, so I made a quick fix for #2.

Replace accum_sun_far.ps with this modified version:
Dl.dropbox.com

And add the following line somewhere in shadersettings.txt:
#define SUN_SHAFTS_FIX

Solved it for me. YMMV. Here's my complete shadersettings file incase it helps any:
Dl.dropbox.com

> Shadow maps above 2048 have no effect

Thought I should add that increasing the shadowmap setting does reduce shadow blur... but the resolution of the actual shadowmap does not actually increase.

Perhaps this is just the way it's supposed to be, and it is what it is. If that's the case, I've found that 2048 looks best -- the shadows are more defined, yet are still soft.

Great stuff, and thanks.

Bugs I noticed:

1) Shadow maps above 2048 have no effect, or actually make shadows look worse. Since the default is 4096, I thought you should know. Same thing happens with the Shaders Max mod. Engine limitation? Dunno.

2) Sun shafts play with the shadow edge boundary (the distance at which shadows are created -- determined by the r2_sun_near setting. Mine is 40.) in a bad way. When you look at the spot on the ground where the the shadows start to draw, it causes extremely noticeable darkening.

Feature requests:

1) Film grain filter.
2) Vignette filter.
3) FXAA filter.

Anyways, great work. I have everything turned on and tweaked, and it looks great... excepting when sun shafts screw up, which is often... but, whatever. Still looks great.

I'll see if I can push the shadow draw distance further back, but I spent a lot of time tweaking settings to make shadows look good at a distance of 40... If I could increase the shadow map texture size to something over 2048 (and make it work), then I know that would help.

Then you're in luck! :D

Version 2.x is going to focus on everything except world environment textures -- including the sound files... yes, I can actually improve the audio, too.

Version 3.x will be a rolling release of updated high resolution textures (up to 4096x4096), which will include height and bump maps where appropriate.

These textures will all be .dds files, so if you don't like them, then just delete that one file and the game will use whatever is in the .utx files. Although, I'm a fairly competent graphics artist.

Version 3 should be release sometime in April, so you won't have to wait years for this stuff, like some other mods ;).

Thanks! :D

The final version looks better... I'm just tired of updating the photos everytime I improve something.

Updated with new images...

I improve significantly at making these HUD elements with each one I finish... and so I go back and touch up the ones I already completed -- using the new techniques I learned.

I also learned a trick I can use on the new fonts to add shadows... although that will take some work, it allows doing that to be practical.

I'm shooting for a 3/11/2011 release date for 2.1

OR... I implement pickpocketing without using BioMod's code... which is possible, since I never looked at it.

Version 1.01+ looks better.

Hey, I'm here to help :D

All the text shown has updated high resolution fonts.

The background menus in version 2.0.0 are left untouched, except for being scaled up to twice the original size by doubling each pixel with its nearest neighbor... e.g., it looks exactly the same as if the engine scaled it up.

2.1 will update the HUD background textures, while 2.2 will do the same for the persona screens (such as the inventory screen shown above).

Thanks ;)

I'd have to get permission from the creator of Biomod to rip his code, unless I somehow make biomod a requirement for Deus Ex Enhanced to run.

Thanks... I was beginning to think no one cared. ;)

That's what server-side storage is for :D

Screenshot Slideshow (high resolution): Picasaweb.google.com