[Melpontro]

We worked on Sky Troops a bit more

This post has been edited by Melpontro: 31 May 2012 - 09:48 PM

[Lobotomy]

Incoming wall of text:

Quote

What I'm about to say may or may not please you, but it needs to be said:

I really, REALLY fucking hate asking for this, but I need donations, and I'll explain why:
In short: I've been working with Dario FF, Chimera and TwilightZoney on the Unleashed PC project, doing general beautification. Chimera and I are also designing the hub for the project. We're going to need to generate GIA for any custom modifications we do to the game, in or outside of this project.

You can donate via paypal to [email protected]

Global Illumination Ambiance (GIA) is all of that pretty and detailed lighting and shading you see around the stage. Hedgehog Engine is one of the few game engines that use this. Unreal Engine 3 running Mirror's Edge is the only other game/engine combo that does this to my knowledge, but I digress.

The problem with GIA generation is that it requires OODLES AND OODLES of power. SEGA used a render farm to create the GIA for Unleashed. I have enough computers lying about to make my own downscaled render farm, but I don't have enough graphics cards to do it. I need at least one nVidia GTX 470 to make this work. Using the delicious CUDA Cores in the 470, along with the three others I have in other computers in my house, I can create a render farm to make GIA for custom stages. The reason I'm choosing the GTX 470 is because of it's cost/power ratio. I can get one cheaply, so I don't need a whole lot of money to reach my goal (approx. $100-$150) I plan on first using this to make Global Illumination for the Unleashed PC hub world and my port of Sweet Mountain, coming soon to a theatre near you. And know this: I'm NOT TRYING TO SWINDLE YOU PEOPLE, I HAVE A TERRIBLE JOB AND CANNOT AFFORD THIS WITHOUT HELP. IF YOU WANT A PRETTY GAME, THIS IS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST. I won't be able to use my computer for a few DAYS while the GIA is being rendered, so this isn't for lol vidya. Besides one 470 will take anything I throw at it, much less two or four.

Anyway, here's a taste on what I've done to Unleashed PC so far:
Replaced the most noticeably shitty textures in the game with stupid high quality ones (2048x2048 and higher. e.g. The grass is TEN TIMES the size of the original.)
Added Ambient Occlusion and HORY SHET THIS IS FUCKING NUTS Texture Filtering. Fucking pretty shit all up in hurr.

What's to come:
More extensive texture replacements
(If the donation is successful) higher quality shadows in Unleashed and Generations stages.
A new, much higher resolution video. The reason this video is so small is because I'm doing this all on an IDE Hard Drive from the late 1990s. If I were to record this at a high resolution, the bottlenecked transfer speeds would produce like an 11 FPS video. I'm getting a new HDD in the mail in the coming days, so expect a video around the same time.

[Aerosol]

Would love to help you out, but you know where I'm at. I hope the internet pulls through though, because Sonic Generations being even more beautiful is something I'd love to see.

[Hinchy]

I'll send $50 your way next time I get paid.

[Lobotomy]

Hinchy, on 01 June 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

I'll send $50 your way next time I get paid.

I'll suck your dick in real life. No homo. <333333

AerosolSP, on 01 June 2012 - 12:17 AM, said:

because Sonic Generations Colors being even more beautiful is something I'd love to see.

Ok.

This post has been edited by Lobotomy: 01 June 2012 - 02:36 AM

[Hinchy]

Lobotomy, on 01 June 2012 - 02:35 AM, said:

Hinchy, on 01 June 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

I'll send $50 your way next time I get paid.

I'll suck your dick in real life. No homo. <333333

I don't generally use rage comic faces but I'll make an exception for this:





Also, that Sweet Mountain still looks a bit overly orange.

This post has been edited by Hinchy: 01 June 2012 - 03:10 AM

[Lobotomy]

Hinchy, on 01 June 2012 - 03:09 AM, said:

Also, that Sweet Mountain still looks a bit overly orange.

It'll be fixed. Sun's in the wrong position and I used the wrong lightsource color.

This post has been edited by Lobotomy: 01 June 2012 - 03:56 AM

[sonic4dude]

Lobotomy, on 31 May 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

*snip*

Quote

What I'm about to say may or may not please you, but it needs to be said:

I really, REALLY fucking hate asking for this, but I need donations, and I'll explain why:
In short: I've been working with Dario FF, Chimera and TwilightZoney on the Unleashed PC project, doing general beautification. Chimera and I are also designing the hub for the project. We're going to need to generate GIA for any custom modifications we do to the game, in or outside of this project.

You can donate via paypal to [email protected]

Global Illumination Ambiance (GIA) is all of that pretty and detailed lighting and shading you see around the stage. Hedgehog Engine is one of the few game engines that use this. Unreal Engine 3 running Mirror's Edge is the only other game/engine combo that does this to my knowledge, but I digress.

The problem with GIA generation is that it requires OODLES AND OODLES of power. SEGA used a render farm to create the GIA for Unleashed. I have enough computers lying about to make my own downscaled render farm, but I don't have enough graphics cards to do it. I need at least one nVidia GTX 470 to make this work. Using the delicious CUDA Cores in the 470, along with the three others I have in other computers in my house, I can create a render farm to make GIA for custom stages. The reason I'm choosing the GTX 470 is because of it's cost/power ratio. I can get one cheaply, so I don't need a whole lot of money to reach my goal (approx. $100-$150) I plan on first using this to make Global Illumination for the Unleashed PC hub world and my port of Sweet Mountain, coming soon to a theatre near you. And know this: I'm NOT TRYING TO SWINDLE YOU PEOPLE, I HAVE A TERRIBLE JOB AND CANNOT AFFORD THIS WITHOUT HELP. IF YOU WANT A PRETTY GAME, THIS IS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST. I won't be able to use my computer for a few DAYS while the GIA is being rendered, so this isn't for lol vidya. Besides one 470 will take anything I throw at it, much less two or four.

Anyway, here's a taste on what I've done to Unleashed PC so far:
Replaced the most noticeably shitty textures in the game with stupid high quality ones (2048x2048 and higher. e.g. The grass is TEN TIMES the size of the original.)
Added Ambient Occlusion and HORY SHET THIS IS FUCKING NUTS Texture Filtering. Fucking pretty shit all up in hurr.

What's to come:
More extensive texture replacements
(If the donation is successful) higher quality shadows in Unleashed and Generations stages.
A new, much higher resolution video. The reason this video is so small is because I'm doing this all on an IDE Hard Drive from the late 1990s. If I were to record this at a high resolution, the bottlenecked transfer speeds would produce like an 11 FPS video. I'm getting a new HDD in the mail in the coming days, so expect a video around the same time.

Yeah, my main system has an i7 970, and 2 MSI 6950 2GBs, tell me if you need to ever use them.

[Chris Highwind]

Lobotomy, I'm in just as much a financial bind as you are right now (Fuck Social Security, Fuck Bank of America, etc. etc.), otherwise I'd donate like a mofo. My jaw dropped when I saw Generations Planet Wisp, I want the sexy bitch to look even sexier. Also, could you put the motion blur back in Speed Highway? The motion blur is really what gets me the sense of speed, and I'm a sucker for speed :P

[Dario FF]

When you said about this idea I didn't think you meant re-rendering any Generations and Unleashed stages... Which isn't actually possible at all so far without losing too much of the original data.

I haven't reached a stage where I can perfectly recreate a Generations/Unleashed stage just from a Max file... there's too much information lost, and trying to simply rerender GIA again for it is quite impossible due to having to rewrite the 2nd UV channel. The Renderer would do a complete new unwrap on the 2nd UV Channel(and since we don't have Sega's renderer we can't match the unwrapping), so as you guess, you'd have to re-export out all the meshes again.

Of course, what's the trouble in reexporting? You lose a lot of information. Vertex blending of the original stages, the original normals because Max is stupid and regenerates the normals on its own, and even the vertex count will vary wildly, most likely being higher in all cases. Not to mention I can't even recreate the visibility tree, which would be totally incompatible if an stage of that magnitude happened to be re-exported. Editting a current Generations stage is only something that could really be done with only just ONE tool, Max being in the middle just screws up the process badly. I'm afraid that without Sega's source files and tools, this idea of re-rendering everything is next to impossible or just with an incredibly sloppy result.

I'm not saying don't throw money his way, I'm just saying that this part...

Quote

(If the donation is successful) higher quality shadows in Unleashed and Generations stages.

...is not feasible right now, and it's not likely to be in the future due to the middle-tools available(Max being one of them).

His rendering farm would work wonders for any custom stages anyone does though, which could save you a really good chunk of time. I know the above paragraph seemed a little damning in editting a Generations stage, but making one from scratch is a much easier process that is less likely to screw up.

I just don't want people throwing money at a promise that can't be upheld.

EDIT: Besides, let's not forget there's still a memory limit for GIA data, it's not like the game can just load 4096x4096 textures for every single thing you're seeing. The amount of high-resolution in near objects would probably make it load the horrible, lowest resolution one for the next objects. It's not even feasible to pull off in the game engine actually.

This post has been edited by Dario FF: 01 June 2012 - 08:38 AM

[Dude]

Quote

His rendering farm would work wonders for any custom stages anyone does though, which could save you a really good chunk of time. I know the above paragraph seemed a little damning in editting a Generations stage, but making one from scratch is a much easier process that is less likely to screw up.

Well his rendering farm will definitely get some use because I'll use it. I plan on making plenty of levels.

[Andrew75]

I haven't been keeping up on this topic much,
However I have a Question,

Have you guys figured out a way to replicate the placements of the original radiosity lighting positions and settings like multipliers and colors ?
Also I'm assuming you are using the Quicksilver hardware renderer, if so I would stay away from that less accurate joke and go with mental ray or the expensive V-Ray Plug-in.
Also you will need more CPU power not GPU power if using the later 2. GPU would only benefit the shit-tastic Quicksilver renderer.

P.S. Maybe I can help with renders if you need help, check my sig for specs.
( Its a new system, still waiting for the final 2 components to arrive, The case http://www.coolermas...product_id=6792 and the final GTX 680 card)

This post has been edited by Andrew75: 01 June 2012 - 03:10 PM

[Sky The Destroyer]

Hey guys, I have a problem with importing levels into Generations: When I import this level into Sonic Generations, it simply does not work (I'm doing it as practice before I try bigger levels). I'm new at this level importing business, so please bear with me. What I did was this:

1. Imported the .obj file of the stage into Blender.
2. Exported it with an addon that let me export it as a Ogre 3D .scene file.
3. Opened SGLvl and cleared the terrain geometry.
4. Imported the exported .scene file into SGLvl.
5. Generated the terrain groups with the default settings.
6. Repacked the terrain geometry with the default settings.

This is how it looks in SGLvl (I would love an explanation on how to use the Material Editor too): http://oi49.tinypic.com/19ny28.jpg
How it looks in Generations (it has the geometry of Modern Green Hill still, though like 95% of it isn't showing): http://cloud.steampo...36F60057EFD20D/

[DustArma]

Lobotomy, on 31 May 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

Added Ambient Occlusion and HORY SHET THIS IS FUCKING NUTS Texture Filtering. Fucking pretty shit all up in hurr.

How are you planning to do that on AMD hardware? AFAIK only Nvidia graphics cards let you force Ambient Occlusion on games.

Sky The Destroyer, on 01 June 2012 - 01:47 PM, said:

Hey guys, I have a problem with importing levels into Generations: When I import this level into Sonic Generations, it simply does not work (I'm doing it as practice before I try bigger levels). I'm new at this level importing business, so please bear with me. What I did was this:

1. Imported the .obj file of the stage into Blender.
2. Exported it with an addon that let me export it as a Ogre 3D .scene file.
3. Opened SGLvl and cleared the terrain geometry.
4. Imported the exported .scene file into SGLvl.
5. Generated the terrain groups with the default settings.
6. Repacked the terrain geometry with the default settings.

This is how it looks in SGLvl (I would love an explanation on how to use the Material Editor too): http://oi49.tinypic.com/19ny28.jpg
How it looks in Generations (it has the geometry of Modern Green Hill still, though like 95% of it isn't showing): http://cloud.steampo...36F60057EFD20D/

I had that issue before, you need to delete the vissibility-tree.vt file from the stage's ar files in the packed folder.

[Lobotomy]

Alright, seems I have some 'splainin' to do.


TL;DR I'm not pleased to inform you that I can't re-render Unleashed maps, but I do want to set the record straight. I CAN STILL GENERATE GIA FOR CUSTOM STAGES AND OTHER ENGINE PORTS.

Dario FF, on 01 June 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

I haven't reached a stage where I can perfectly recreate a Generations/Unleashed stage just from a Max file... there's too much information lost, and trying to simply rerender GIA again for it is quite impossible due to having to rewrite the 2nd UV channel. The Renderer would do a complete new unwrap on the 2nd UV Channel(and since we don't have Sega's renderer we can't match the unwrapping), so as you guess, you'd have to re-export out all the meshes again.

Ah, fuck. Well, the render farm was more for custom stages than anything anyway. Maybe someday I will reexport and modify the SEGA stages to my liking, but for right now I suppose this isn't an option.

Dario FF, on 01 June 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

I'm not saying don't throw money his way, I'm just saying that this part...

Quote

(If the donation is successful) higher quality shadows in Unleashed and Generations stages.

...is not feasible right now, and it's not likely to be in the future due to the middle-tools available(Max being one of them).

His rendering farm would work wonders for any custom stages anyone does though, which could save you a really good chunk of time. I know the above paragraph seemed a little damning in editting a Generations stage, but making one from scratch is a much easier process that is less likely to screw up.

Thanks for not completely shutting me down. And yes, it is good that you clarified. I don't want to be swindling anybody.

Dario FF, on 01 June 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

EDIT: Besides, let's not forget there's still a memory limit for GIA data, it's not like the game can just load 4096x4096 textures for every single thing you're seeing. The amount of high-resolution in near objects would probably make it load the horrible, lowest resolution one for the next objects. It's not even feasible to pull off in the game engine actually.

That is something I'm currently playing with, as you know. If the RAM limit can be increased, this won't be a problem. (And on paper it can, as you showed me, dunno about in-game, but I'm coming up with a test for this, so I'll show you the results when they happen.) As for 4096x textures, of course not all of the GIA can be 4096x, I'm more concerned about the shadowmaps than anything. Those are my primary goal.

Andrew75, on 01 June 2012 - 01:31 PM, said:

Also you will need more CPU power not GPU power if using the later 2. GPU would only benefit the shit-tastic Quicksilver renderer.

I'm not using the GPU, I'm using the CUDA Cores from the card. The CUDA in one 470 outperforms what my CPU alone can do 20 times over. I have tested this, it does work.

DustArma, on 01 June 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

How are you planning to do that on AMD hardware? AFAIK only Nvidia graphics cards let you force Ambient Occlusion on games.

Of course I'm not, why the fuck would you use an AMD card when even the lowest end modern nvidia cards can do more. But the nvidia tweaks will be included separately and with the texture pack once I'm done optimizing it. This end is for nVidia cards exclusively.

This post has been edited by Lobotomy: 01 June 2012 - 04:09 PM