CAT's Afghanistan Revisited

[Landwarrior87 0]

keeep up the good work!

[Tomislav 0]

Great island! But i've a very strang bug with Dxdll. He acivate and desactivate all the time. Someone have a ansrew about this?

do you only have it on this island?

if not ask in the dxdll thread

[Spark 0]

Yes, i've some others islands, but it's the only island where is the problem precisely. It's why I post here.

[ag_smith 0]

Hmm, I fail to see any specific reason that might cause dxdll problems when using this island. It runs fine for me.

[honchoblack 2]

Hi Ag_Smith -

Just wanted to ask 2 things, or rather mild suggestions, no demand, just that they bug me a little on the map

1. Could the airport tower be changed, i mean the white monster , it is quite unusable

from the mission maker side, since no ladder leads up to it, and i think its kind of big

2. Could something be done about the flickering that appears on some buildings, when

looking at them from a certain distance, the flickering appears on the windows of the building only

keep up the good work

[Itseme 0]

Will you use the old textures which were used first on the island or will you keep bis textures in?

[ag_smith 0]

1. Could the airport tower be changed, i mean the white monster , it is quite unusable

from the mission maker side, since no ladder leads up to it, and i think its kind of big

2. Could something be done about the flickering that appears on some buildings, when

looking at them from a certain distance, the flickering appears on the windows of the building only    

Ad1. In the new version there's a ladder in there.

Ad2. I'll have to look into it, however I haven't noticed this effect so far.... or maybe I forgot...?

@Itseme, read back this thread, somewhere around page 5.

[honchoblack 2]

Ag_Smith -

to point 1. great, that will help

i hope point 2. is not due to my graphic card, i use a gainward gs 6800gt with nvidia driver 7120-[Guru3D.com].exe and nvidia driver 67.02_win2kxp_international.exe

but i never had any problems with other buildings, bis default for example, and its only the windows of some buildings, the big ones

i do have problems though, once i use all reflections in dxdll, some object reflections tend to fragment, but playing your map i got all dxdll reflections set to 0 as default

[Gordy 0]

Ag_Smith -

to point 1. great, that will help

i hope point 2. is not due to my graphic card, i use a gainward gs 6800gt with nvidia driver 7120-[Guru3D.com].exe and nvidia driver 67.02_win2kxp_international.exe

but i never had any problems with other buildings, bis default for example, and its only the windows of some buildings, the big ones

i do have problems though, once i use all reflections in dxdll, some object reflections tend to fragment, but playing your map i got all dxdll reflections set to 0 as default  

Quote[/b] ]Z-buffer:

Z-buffer issues are manifested by flickering mesh and/or sharp borders/lines running through the mesh. this could happen if two separete objects are too close to eachother and/or are intersecting. it can also happen if the transparency sorting is not working properly, hence making objects to appear in a strange order in relation to one and other.

[honchoblack 2]

Gordy -

Thank you for clearing that up

[ag_smith 0]

Gordy, does it imply it's object related problem or graphic driver problem?  

I have this problem too with my AGS_inds addon and the cinema from AGS_build. I don't know of any feasible solution to it, unfortunately...  

[honchoblack 2]

Ag_Smith -

My guess would be object related, since it doesnt occur with the bis default

buildings, but addons are not my field of expertise, so i am just guessing

or arccording, to what Gordy posted, even placement related, and as i remember,

the flickering appears, when two "Big" buildings are standing close to each other

[Gordy 0]

The quote suggests that it is a game engine rendering problem but it can be easily solved by doing (placing) the object (addon) correctly.

All you ever wanted to know about modelling for games but feared to ask.

[ag_smith 0]

Ok, let's see:

It always happens when two faces are very close to each other. In our case, the underlying face has the wall texture on it and the other face has the window texture on it. When viewed from distance, the "window face" is flickering. It doesn't happen to BIS buildings (even though BIS uses the same technique), but it does happen to my custom buildings. Why...?

The article you pointed gives only a general answer. I need to know how to solve it in OFP..

Any suggestions much appreciated.

[Gordy 0]

Ok, let's see:

It always happens when two faces are very close to each other. In our case, the underlying face has the wall texture on it and the other face has the window texture on it. When viewed from distance, the "window face" is flickering. It doesn't happen to BIS buildings (even though BIS uses the same technique), but it does happen to my custom buildings. Why...?

The article you pointed gives only a general answer. I need to know how to solve it in OFP..

Any suggestions much appreciated.

I am sorry, I can't help you here. All I can do is to show you the way.

MAybe that's the problem. They are addons not objects brought with the game. Just guessing.

[dm 9]

The issue is caused by the less acurate z-buffer being used (but thats for a different thread)

Have you compared your models to the BI models?

The window faces might be slightly further away on the BI buildings than yours.

Also, it has a lot to do with scale, the smaller the face the sooner it begins to flicker. That might be what is making it more noticeable on your buildings.

[wheres my rabbit ? 10]

on the middle eastern mosque the easy ways to fix this would be to

either romove the polygons that the black windows are on and edit the wall texture to include the windows.

or cut the wall up so the mesh shape of the window is part of the wall mesh then slap the texture in that. then you wont have 2 surfaces trying to compete for the same space..

just wondered smith if your still planning to make 2 textured versions of the island cos i was looking thru my old screenshots folder yesterday and found some old afghan shots of V3 and

got a bit gutted that it was gone well not gone but you know what i mean. (hopefully not for good )

[ag_smith 0]

on the middle eastern mosque the easy ways to fix this would be to  

either romove the polygons that the black windows are on and edit the wall texture to include the windows.

The windows have to stay there. And I'll not modify the texture itself, because I've already used it on other objects plus it'd have to be in higher res to be the same quality after the windows are added

or cut the wall up so the mesh shape of the window is part of the wall mesh then slap the texture in that. then you wont have 2 surfaces trying to compete for the same space..

I don't want to do that, as this would siginificantly incrase poly count. I'd rather have a few flickering windows than more lag. Hope you understand.

just wondered smith if your still planning to make 2 textured versions of the island cos i was looking thru my old screenshots folder yesterday and found some old afghan shots of V3 and

got a bit gutted that it was gone well not gone but you know what i mean. (hopefully not for good )

Uhmmm yes... but I'm gonna need your help. IIRC it was you who offered to help to create transtions in Visitor, right? I think I'm gonna need your help. I tried to install Vistor but I gave up after 3 hours of constant failures with importing the island. So I need somebody to do this transitions for me. If you want to help, that'd be great! Stay tunned for more info soon.

[Schoeler 0]

Ok, let's see:

It always happens when two faces are very close to each other. In our case, the underlying face has the wall texture on it and the other face has the window texture on it. When viewed from distance, the "window face" is flickering. It doesn't happen to BIS buildings (even though BIS uses the same technique), but it does happen to my custom buildings. Why...?

The article you pointed gives only a general answer. I need to know how to solve it in OFP..

Any suggestions much appreciated.

I set the second face a hundreth of a millimeter above the primary face and it eliminates the flicker. The flicker only seems to occur to me when the two faces are right on top of each other.

[ag_smith 0]

Ok, let's see:

It always happens when two faces are very close to each other. In our case, the underlying face has the wall texture on it and the other face has the window texture on it. When viewed from distance, the "window face" is flickering. It doesn't happen to BIS buildings (even though BIS uses the same technique), but it does happen to my custom buildings. Why...?

The article you pointed gives only a general answer. I need to know how to solve it in OFP..

Any suggestions much appreciated.

I set the second face a hundreth of a millimeter above the primary face and it eliminates the flicker.  The flicker only seems to occur to me when the two faces are right on top of each other.

Even when they're a couple of centimeters apart, they still flicker.

[Kin Hil 0]

Is a bigger city with pavement roads possible, and perhaps a highway?

Love the island.

[ag_smith 0]

Is a bigger city with pavement roads possible, and perhaps a highway?

A highway? Ain't no such thing in Afghanistan.

One major road has been "upgraded" to asphalt, but it's not in a very good shape, you know. And that'd be about it.

[Kin Hil 0]

Well thats what I meant, a long asphalt road.

Is there going to be more vegetation and villages?

[Schoeler 0]

Ok, let's see:

It always happens when two faces are very close to each other. In our case, the underlying face has the wall texture on it and the other face has the window texture on it. When viewed from distance, the "window face" is flickering. It doesn't happen to BIS buildings (even though BIS uses the same technique), but it does happen to my custom buildings. Why...?

The article you pointed gives only a general answer. I need to know how to solve it in OFP..

Any suggestions much appreciated.

I set the second face a hundreth of a millimeter above the primary face and it eliminates the flicker.  The flicker only seems to occur to me when the two faces are right on top of each other.

Even when they're a couple of centimeters apart, they still flicker.  

Try making a really thin sided box object and setting it a thousandth away from the underlying face. It adds polys, but not too many and should get rid of the flicker.

[wheres my rabbit ? 10]

on the middle eastern mosque the easy ways to fix this would be to

either romove the polygons that the black windows are on and edit the wall texture to include the windows.

The windows have to stay there. And I'll not modify the texture itself, because I've already used it on other objects plus it'd have to be in higher res to be the same quality after the windows are added

or cut the wall up so the mesh shape of the window is part of the wall mesh then slap the texture in that. then you wont have 2 surfaces trying to compete for the same space..

I don't want to do that, as this would siginificantly incrase poly count. I'd rather have a few flickering windows than more lag. Hope you understand.

just wondered smith if your still planning to make 2 textured versions of the island cos i was looking thru my old screenshots folder yesterday and found some old afghan shots of V3 and

got a bit gutted that it was gone well not gone but you know what i mean. (hopefully not for good )

Uhmmm yes... but I'm gonna need your help. IIRC it was you who offered to help to create transtions in Visitor, right? I think I'm gonna need your help. I tried to install Vistor but I gave up after 3 hours of constant failures with importing the island. So I need somebody to do this transitions for me. If you want to help, that'd be great! Stay tunned for more info soon.

yer i forgot to mention that cutting up the walls would add more faces raising the poly count .maybe make 2 version of the wall texture 1 with windows (i dont think it look too bad if the where scaled right)and one plane wall to keep for whatever else you used it on.or just leave it i can live with it, its a great improvment on how the mosque was anyway.

visitor cannot import wrp files so you cant edit the textures directly onto your map

i think theres 4 texture in orig CAT island that need transition making, but more might crop up as you start retexturing the newly made bits of your version with CAT textures

wot you have to do is start an island off in visitor and start texturing it with the textures from CAT that need transistions visitor will then freeze up once you add second texture and so on, as it is creating transitions.when it comes back to life all the created transition will be in the island folder.everytime a new transition crops up it creates them so try and and not texture the island but make a little system with patterns that you think will cover all needed transitions .take the newly made textures and get wrptool to sort out the transistion.

note. visitor will only make transitions if the base texture has a 2 letter name.

i think that makes sense..

i did fix the single missing transition on your revisited version ..

worked out the missing texture set up visitor and created it only to find the texture was already in the pbo it just wasn't working corrrectly seems wrptool will not use as a transition cos it was in a different folder (i think ) so the transition tool in wrp tool would not find it i had to reset all transitions then get it try and do it ,it would then leave the dodgy transition selected then used the replace texture tool to put the correct texture in the selected cells then save..

gimme a shout if you A cant be arsed with vistor or B havent got time and i'll make transistions for you ..