bf-blender / Official Windows 2.36 RC2 available

kakapo · Post by **kakapo** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:48 am

i think doom3 uses the 128-255 range for blue because it's easier (or more efficient) to handle in the low pixel shader versions.

the normal gets passed into the pixel shader as rgb color values (0..1) and then the _bx2 modifier brings the values into the -1..1 range. there is no way to handle the blue channel separately with _bx2.

Signed scaling with the _bx2 modifier is a combination of bias and scale so it subtracts 0.5 from each channel and scales the result by 2. It remaps input data from unsigned to signed values. As with bias, using data outside of the range 0 to 1 may produce undefined results. This modifier is typically used in dp3 instructions. An example for this is presented with the description of the dp3 instruction above. Signed scaling is mutually exclusive with the invert modifier.

http://www.shaderx.com/direct3d.net/tut ... ader3.html

Post by **ton** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:22 pm

OK. So it looks like a matter of pre-optimizing for HW shaders. Someone else mentioned ATI and Nvidia both use different standards here (for green).

For exporting such maps, there's no real issue for Blender at all, the sample .blend as provided will allow each version of normal maps you desire.

For importing other people's maps... Blender already allows some settings to map things positive or negative. I've rendered a Doom map without problems here ("Map To" Panel, press "Nor" twice for negative mapping)

For Wavk and others who were confused:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Normal_Maps.491.0.html
Re-edited the page. Hope its more clear now.

ysvry · Post by **ysvry** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:39 am

yeonil wrote:Maybe it will be wise to make some buttons allowing you to flip the colors of the normal map to fit some weird standards? It will make Blender more self-supporting.

Yeonil

yes will be a handy feature also one for blue chanel all positive or half.

another thing buggin me isevery time you load a new scene you have to retype the picture file name cant this be safed within the file ? would make life alot easier lol. It's clear how to import and set an normal map but how to render one? isnt do you have to manualy put 3 lights around the object red green and blue or is there a render normal map button/menu ?
nice additions anyway thx ton.

ysvry · Post by **ysvry** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:47 am

got it worked out a bit here is my first normal pic
http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez? ... ge=2039170

well will do some experimenting with it later
tat xyz matrix is a bit unclear why are all mapped to the x?

Toon_Scheur · Post by **Toon_Scheur** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:42 am

I know I know... the bug tracker.....
Anyway, in solid mode I can't select vertices.
F key does'nt always work in the case of joining to triangles into a quad. If I jump to object mode and back to edit mode a couple of times it appears to work again.

macouno · Post by **macouno** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:32 pm

same here toon, I never figured out the bug tracker.

I've got one here though.

When animating with automatic extentions to BMP files... it doesn't save with the .bmp extention... probably a deadeasy bug to fix.

Toon_Scheur · Post by **Toon_Scheur** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 2:43 am

Thousand forgiveness for using this forum to report a a bug again.

The loading a image texture does not work well. For instance I get no preview of the image, and using the minX(Y) and maxX(Y) buttons draws a weird border in the preview panel. I'm using 2.36 RC2 (I think)

venomgfx · Post by **venomgfx** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:53 am

Hi,

i dont know if this is a bug or what.. but well, when you go into the Face Select Mode, select a few faces, press tab, then go to the face select mode again, the faces still being selected.. in the vertices select mode too, but in the Edge Select mode, the edges get lost...

if you select some edges, press tab, and tab again the edges doesn't still being selected.. not the edges that conform a face (the face is still selected when you go into the edge mode) but the edges that are free or dont conform a face are lost...

i hope you understeandme, because is kinda borring to select all the edges again if you go out the edit mode..

As always, sorry for my poor english.
cheers

Rhysy · Post by **Rhysy** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 6:49 pm

Has anyone else been unable to use border select ? In 2.35 and right up to this build, I can't see the box that defines which verticies will be selected. The verticies do get selected, but since I can't see the box it's not a lot of use. Circular mode is fine though.

Samjh · Post by **Samjh** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 9:11 pm

Border select works fine for me.

matt_e · Post by **matt_e** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 12:42 am

Rhysy wrote:Has anyone else been unable to use border select ? In 2.35 and right up to this build, I can't see the box that defines which verticies will be selected. The verticies do get selected, but since I can't see the box it's not a lot of use. Circular mode is fine though.

It sounds like your graphics card/drivers may not support drawing dashed lines (border select now uses dashed lines to draw the 'crosshair'). Can you see the dashed lines on lamps properly?

phase · Post by **phase** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 10:52 am

macouno wrote:When animating with automatic extentions to BMP files... it doesn't save with the .bmp extention... probably a deadeasy bug to fix.

Deadeasy indeed. Fixed.... thanks for reporting.

Rhysy · Post by **Rhysy** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:26 am

It sounds like your graphics card/drivers may not support drawing dashed lines (border select now uses dashed lines to draw the 'crosshair'). Can you see the dashed lines on lamps properly?

Ahhh, that'd be the problem. I was going to report the dashed lines thing as a seperate problem. Is there anything I can do about this problem ? (been using spotlights to aim the other lamps, pretty pesky) My graphics card is some sort of "shared" thing that as I understand it uses part of the RAM. Would a driver update help, assuming I can find one ?

Rahu · Post by **Rahu** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 2:09 pm

Right-Click(Desktop)>Properties>Settings tab

Your graphics card should be in the middle.

Click the advanced botton. open the tab with the title of your card and it should say your driver version.

for nvidia cards it's 6.14.10.xxxx
xxxx is your driver version.

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 2:07 pm

Doom 3 uses the full Z range as it supports object space and worldspace normal maps. Since these maps can be seen from any angle, not just the front, there has to be a range to define the backside normals. Currently Blender only takes object space so in theory it needs the full range. You can map a (static) model with an objectspace map and have it show corredctly from the front but the backside looks seriously wrong as its normals can no longer be expessed (I used Photoshop's levels function to bring the blue channel into the proper range). Optimally, Blender would support rendering in both tangent space and object space since people might not have both maps at hand for some models (or just don't want to take the time to render out another one or need it in one specific format and want to test that). Though it should use the full Z range for both as normalmapping occurs most often in a realtime environment and doesn't use different formats for different map types (let aside that all normalmapping programs output a full Z map).

Blender.org

bf-blender / Official Windows 2.36 RC2 available

Still buggy

Load image texture bug