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Author Topic: Graphic Enhancement Thread  (Read 113592 times)
Draxas
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #165 on: March 28, 2007, 08:19:34 pm »

If the assumption is that sometime in the distant future these enhanced graphics will be inserted into the game, then yes, they will only need the standard 16 orientations.
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #166 on: March 29, 2007, 12:16:12 pm »

I, for one, would use unlimited orientations (graphically they seem unlimited, but the game considers them to be 16 orientations really. Something like the Slylandro Probe's orientations in the latest version of Elvish Pillager's Crazy Mod).
Also, the background, the weapons, the planet, the asteroids and the sounds need to be enhanced to fit with the improved ship graphics.
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #167 on: March 29, 2007, 03:28:27 pm »

one at a time Wink
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #168 on: September 20, 2007, 01:50:18 am »

I was bored so i put the new chmmr in my physics engine.

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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #169 on: September 20, 2007, 06:18:46 pm »

Was any of this ever going to be implemented in the game as a mod?
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #170 on: September 20, 2007, 08:30:49 pm »

It was my understanding that the UQM code needed a serious overhaul before any high resolution graphics could be used. I don’t know what progress has been made on this, however.
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #171 on: September 21, 2007, 02:09:06 am »

I would think that you'd have to basically port the whole game over to a new engine. By "port" I mean rewrite entirely... I don't think DOS ever supported higher than VGA graphics, did it? Probably need to move over to a DirectX-based engine.

I, for one, would love to work on a modern SC remake. The only problem is justifying the time commitment, ya know?
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #172 on: September 23, 2007, 04:09:39 am »

I don't think DOS ever supported higher than VGA graphics, did it?

A bit of off-topic nitpicking... it sure did, as long as you had proper drivers (which Windows also needs in order to support higher-than-VGA graphics).  Just the natural result of the fact that VGA was the last video standard to gain total acceptance with manufacturers.

By the way, I've been working for a while now on quite a different "graphic enhancement" project (which would *not* require a total rewrite of the code, more like an add-on).  Might post the results soon, so stay tuned...
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #173 on: September 23, 2007, 03:16:30 pm »

I don't think DOS ever supported higher than VGA graphics, did it?

A bit of off-topic nitpicking... it sure did, as long as you had proper drivers (which Windows also needs in order to support higher-than-VGA graphics).  Just the natural result of the fact that VGA was the last video standard to gain total acceptance with manufacturers.
Nitpicking a bit more: graphics were never really anything DOS had much to do with. Most of the time, programmers used the video BIOS and direct hardware access. A typical use case involved getting the BIOS to set up a suitable video mode (possibly tweaking it further with direct hardware access) and then using it by writing directly to video memory (calling BIOS functions to draw stuff is slow). To get slightly back on topic, this is essentially how SC1 and SC2 on PC worked: use the video BIOS for basic graphics setup (and as a compatibility option in case the ultra-fast palette manipulation code confuses your graphics card), then essentially ignore the video BIOS and write directly to the card.

Naturally, all this fiddling with direct hardware access meant that graphics cards had to be compatible on the hardware level. This worked well as long as everyone was following IBM's lead (MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA), but after that, manufacturers started to add their own extensions ("Super VGA"), for which a video BIOS extension (VBE) was later developed by VESA. SC3 (on PC) is one example of using VBE to go beyond VGA.

However, this was too little and too late to prevent manufacturers from developing hardware to specifically meet the needs of Windows ("Windows accelerators"), and 3D accelerators such as the 3dfx Voodoo (whose Glide API was available to both DOS and Windows software). Grand Theft Auto, for example, did 3D acceleration under DOS this way.

So, in conclusion, DOS-based software can and did support quite advanced graphics hardware, far beyond VGA. However, once Microsoft got DirectX sorted out (and consumer graphics hardware started to support OpenGL in a meaningful fashion), little reason remained to access graphics hardware directly, especially since using a (relatively) high-level API allowed for hardware to change rapidly without losing compatibility.
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #174 on: September 23, 2007, 04:05:39 pm »

Note that none of this is relevant to UQM. UQM uses SDL, which uses whatever backend is available (which is how UQM can run on such varying platforms).
The only thing which ties UQM to legacy video is the resolution. The position of many objects is based on this resolution. The problem isn't just the hard-coded values used for everything, but also one of the in-game coordinate systems.
The location of your flagship when exploring a solar system, for example, is maintained simply as its position on the screen. So if you load a game saved on an UQM with a different internal resolution, the ship has moved.
And the range of some weapons in Melee are expressed relative to the screen size.
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #175 on: September 24, 2007, 08:20:57 pm »

Well this is pretty nit-picky! You have indeed explained the scenario in my head: that Windows took over games by the time anything beyond SVGA became feasible for games development. Naturally, hardware is essentially OS-agnostic if you know how to write a driver for it. Smiley

I look forward to your results. I personally have to resist the charms of Star Con. On the one hand, I 'd love to re-write it with a modern engine. On the other hand, I don't want competition with my own project! Smiley
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #176 on: January 09, 2008, 03:07:18 am »

I took the androsynth and threw it into my engine. This demo shows off the new bump mapping feature of the Graphics library I'm writing to complement my engine. The bump map was auto generated so it’s not that great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0G8cU2pqNA
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #177 on: January 09, 2008, 04:15:50 am »

Just one little snag... I'm looking at tiny Androsynth Guardians at youtube quality...
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #178 on: January 09, 2008, 04:27:46 am »

maybe this will be better:
http://physics2ddotnet.googlegroups.com/web/FoundTheAndrosynth.wmv
You may have to refresh it after it tells you the file cannot be found.
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Re: Graphic Enhancement Thread
« Reply #179 on: January 16, 2008, 09:16:38 am »

Good to see this thread popping up every now and then  Cheesy

Is that dynamic lighting? it looks good!

I always intended on adding little texture and detail to the Androsynth, but never got around to it. Truth is, the version I put here is much bigger than how it would look in-game, the Androsynth being a tiny ship and all, so I didn't bother with the details in the first place.
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