oktane

Signed release is here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97853 Ok so hopefully this discussion is allowed and in the right place. The generic 'addons discussion' forum is pretty busy, I thought the Arma2 Editing subforum would be a better place for it. This thread is not for a release, no addon exists. When one does, a proper thread will be made. (test release is here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1491288) If you don't have a technical, focused insight to add in regards to the following topics, this thread is not for you: GPU Shaders Assembly Code (ASM) HLSL BIShaderCache file format and specification Game's loading and handling of the shaders Here's work so far... and some things to get started. Documentation on Shader ASM and binary file format for compiled shader (output from fxc.exe, offline shader compiler get the DXSDK) Useful tutorial Tools: DXSDK Hex Workshop or other Hex editor Programmers text editor (EditPlus, ultraedit) Your favorite tool to investigate/debug binaries Patience! Here is a list of opcodes I have made (hex on left, dec on right) Here are the 'blur' shaders located in one of the BI 'shadercache' files. PS is a pixel shader, vs is a vertex shader. Shaders_DefPP.shdc: PsPpRadialBlur.ps_3_0 - when running, blurs sides of screen PSPostProcessGaussianBlurH.ps_3_0 PSPostProcessGaussianBlurV.ps_3_0 PSPostProcessGaussBlur.ps_3_0 PsPpRotBlur.ps_3_0 - some kind of fullscreen blur VsPpDynamicBlurFinal.vs_3_0 PsPpDynamicBlurFinal.ps_3_0 VsPpDynamicBlur.vs_3_0 PsPpDynamicBlur.ps_3_0 I have successfully disabled the first one on that list. I need help figuring out what the rest of them are. My personal intent was to disable the blur shaders which I had a problem with, the running edge blur (success, but doesn't help much), and the full screen Vaseline blur which I think causes the blur when you turn around. (haven't found and gotten to that one yet) FYI: I am using the 'Low' Postproccess setting. Questions: What is the difference between Shaders_DefPP and ShadersPP cache files? Why would there be two separate ones? What in game PP setting (low/high) corresponds with which shaders? If the shaders are removed from the stock bin.pbo in an attempt to load them 'uncompressed' with $PBOPREFIX$, this doesn't seem to work. This begs the question, do updated shaders in external addons (ex: beta folder) get loaded? The latest beta patches have new and modified shaders, but are they being used? What is the best way to disable them? My first guess would be 'NOP's but I tried that and the screen was black.. I think the frame register still needs to be returned to the GPU. But I don't really understand the code entirely. When this is done, how will we release it as an addon? I would prefer it be part of kju's PROPER releases. Are we able to package a modified shader, sign it, and get it loaded by the game? Why did Keg release his old shader mod the way he did? (as an overwrite, vs modfolder capable) He must have had the same issues? Example of crude modification by editing constants: Understandably, this is a touchy subject because of IP. I apologize if this thread breaks any rules (I looked first) and I understand if it is not allowed on these forums. ---------- Post added at 02:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:25 PM ---------- A quick test after restoring everything to stock: It is indeed possible to load shaders as mods. (evidenced in 'beta' folder) It is also possible to work on them uncompressed using PBOPrefix.. this will make working on them a breeze. To do that PBOPREFIX trick, make a bin folder in your root which has the shaders in it that you have modified. This will overwrite (in memory) the built in shaders. Note that they are updated frequently in beta builds, so you'd want to keep them up to date or you may have big problems with the beta exe calling shaders that don't exist. UPDATE: It is possible to load the modified shaders on the fly by using num - & FLUSH! No more restarting the game! Edit: This only works for POST PROCESSING shader file (PP). ---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:02 PM ---------- A simple script to help in finding the rotation blur shader: _man = _this select 0; _dir = 0; abort=false; while {!abort} do { for [{_dir=0},{_dir<=360},{_dir=_dir+1}] do { _man setdir _dir; // change depending on your FPS/computer sleep .0005; }; };

I will fix it, sorry mate. I will have to patch my arma2. ---------- Post added at 03:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 PM ---------- Haw, no not yet.. just been doing it manually. I get an email from qbasix's email notification and then i make one. I do have some offers for hosting, just haven't had time to sort it all out. ---------- Post added at 04:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:22 PM ---------- Here ya go mate, cheers. Should work for ya, I even fired up olde Arma2 to test it. http://506.jestservers.com/scripts/oktane/noblur/okt_noBlur_A2_retail_1.10.7z

I think that you sent this message from the future! Fixed!

Haw, he always does that. Always carrying satchels that only sometimes explode. :D Here is an old post from last year.. I really think that on the MP side, improvements with addon syncronization to help new/non technical players, as well as vast usability fixes (accessablity now a swear word too? :D) would really help. After all, while there are tons of single player users, I believe the vast majority play public or private MP with their mates. And that's just what people want these days, either story SP, or some sort of MP. The MP has always been great with the Arma series, when you see past the multitude of issues. A really big one that has always been missing is some sort of social features built into the game to find the server your buds are on, or at least keep tabs on players that you've had quality games with so you can play with them again. Right now, the game requires you to find a group to play with or a very well admin'd server to get any good public play on.. and the new users are all going to start out playing public for their first impressions and to find their style of play, favorite server, gaming group, etc. So that impression there matters, imo. I highlighted those parts below that I refer to above. Since then I've sort of taking a break from the hell that was being a public server admin, I just play an occasional 2 man coop on the LAN. :cool: Huge post behind spoiler.. clicky Cheers and keep up the good discussion! I hope that it helps the devs.. when the thread grows to 200 pages I have to assume they simply don't have the time to keep up with all of those. PS: I have always tried to explain the depth of the AI in ArmA to people. It's just when they stand there and suck up bullets is when it falls apart. But at closer range, it's really fantastic. And then as mentioned, at 50m it sometimes falls apart again but it's passable. Good luck inside buildings though, sigh.

Hey guys, there's a new one and nobody said anything! :D I think I need to subscribe to that other guy's email notifier until I get my RSS feed on a new host, heh.. Anyways, it's uploaded! (Actually two)

Couple threads similar to this with discussion and ideas: http://forums.bistudio.com/printthread.php?t=120879&pp=100 http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1625042#post1625042 I reposted some bits later on in this thread so you don't have to dig in there, some of those have 200 replies! Cheers

Thanks, will do.

Okay new one is up guys. Sorry that this is not on schedule as much anymore, the wifi is very spotty so I frequently lack teh internets.

If anyone still uses this, it doesn't work anymore.. :( The place it was hosted got shut down and it has to go somewhere else.. it's a pain to find a place to support it because it can't be on normal hosters like GoDaddy.. it needs to do an outgoing ftp connection to BIS's beta depot, and most hosters don't allow that.

http://506.jestservers.com/scripts/oktane/noblur/ okay so I will put them here for now, but someone will have to tell me when it updates because I don't know how long the RSS feed will work until I get another host for that.. and the automatic noBlur relies on it to do it's magic hands-free updates. Plus it can't upload the build after it's done. ass hurts from trip, but pir8 wifi is go. :moto: I tried to make them auto update to this new host but I think the wifi is dropping so many packets that its screwing up the transfer. Even with my -19db rubber ducky. Plus I'm doing some nasty double NAT which old-school ftp protocol really hates. Let me know if there are other problems in addition to the aforementioned issues with auto updates. These were auto-generated, and they look fine in size and such. They just failed to upload.

Oh. Seems silly to make a new EXE for that.. you'd think they'd just leave the game as it is and include the extra DLC when you install it.. hope people with reinforcements don't have any problems with my noblur.. Anyone have Reinforcements that can test? It SHOULD work fine with the okt_noBlurOA, if everything is more or less the same. And guys if the mod is broke ever, and I'm not responding here, you can always email me my forum name at gmail.com All those broken noBlurs have now been re-uploaded, let me know, everything should be GTG again.

hmm, I just happened to come here to see whats going on, for some reason I missed the email that told me people replied to this thread. Are you guys saying that the noBlur is broken now? Maybe they changed something or the script broke.. --- Oh interesting.. it looks like they changed something in the patch, the way that it works. Now there are two exe's in there, ARMA2OA.EXE.#OA (yes that extension is correct) and ARMA2RFT.EXE.#RFT whatever the hell that is?! RFT some upcoming mod or something? :j: Anyways, my script uses 7zip to look into the patch exe and extract the bin.pbo and arma2oa.exe, I'll just update it to find this new filename arma2oa.exe.#oa 7-Zip [64] 9.16 Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov 2010-09-08 Processing archive: .\beta_storage\ARMA2_OA_Build_83015\ARMA2_OA_Build_83015.exe [color="Red"]Extracting .rsrc\0\RCDATA\ALL\ARMA2OA.EXE.#OA[/color] Extracting .rsrc\0\RCDATA\ALL\EXPANSION\DTA\BIN.PBO Everything is Ok OK guys, everything should work.. it finds the exe from the patch again. (the beta exe file is taken out of the patch.exe and it's version number is analyzed, that was the only reason it was used) As usual sorry for the outage, there was nothing I could have done since BIS doesn't announce when they change something like this, lol. But I mean that it was broke for a long time, because I missed the notification or whatever. :o Cheers

Lots of beta's done today.. some old backlog too. The task had stopped running because I changed my windows password.. doh. :o D:\Arma2\!!okt_noblur_workdir>rssRunCmd rssRunCmd - oktane 2010 Tool for running action when new RSS item is detected in feed. Processing 82407 (Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:27:05 -0500) OK Processing 82346 (Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:44:26 -0500) OK Processing 82282 (Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:09:47 -0500) OK Processing 82128 (Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:00:57 -0500) OK

I sympathize with you AVBIRD. I think I know exactly what you want. I call them usability improvements. Like a friends list in game.. so you play with a dude, you can click a star next to his name in the player list and then you can see what server he's on or send him a chat. Basic tools to keep the community connected. Right now there are friends playing arma.. but they aren't necessarily playing together. And maybe you'll meet someone that you'd like to play coop with again.. but the game doesn't help you remember who that was. AVBIRD, have you used Steam at all? I'd say it's a bit like that. More channels of communication between players other than the standard join server + chat way... because you can't always GET ON the server.. (addons, locked, full, etc) New players don't know where forums are or what TS server to join. The BASIC, i say again BASIC features are required in the game itself, out of the box. The integration is already there.. it was in ArmA1.. for the canned 360 version. (hit esc, see 'Friends' list) I'll go crawl back to my hole.. I stopped caring for a good reason, that is no matter how much you care, you can't get the community to agree on anything, nor get BIS to take notice anyways. I have some of the highest voted CIT tickets still open.. nothings really happened on them in years.

Apparently you need to read the original post at the beginning of the thread or start your own rage thread about lack of PvP players. (which is an entirely different subject, yet has valid overlap into the coop one. There are shared problems for both.) Regardless, a mod will close it because there are already thousands of them. But shitting on everyone who disagrees with you is a great way to work things out. Eagerly awaiting Sfigokolarios' PvP military sim, made entirely by Sfigokolarios himself since he can't get along with anyone else. Tighten up those graphics on level 3... PS: I love PvP, and Coop.

Hey guys, If you LIKE this idea, here's the CIT ticket you can VOTE UP on, it is already pretty popular... http://dev-heaven.net/issues/5520 Supposedly, if it gets enough votes it will be looked at by the team seriously. Try to keep the discussion here though, the Issue Tracker isn't like a forum so much. :) Addon synchronization is the only way to bring together new players with the old players that like addons. (read here and here) Maybe the OP can put this in the first post if he wants, depends on if this thread has legs. Cheers

Because addons are the heart of this series. If OFP did not have addons capability, I doubt there would have been such success with the series past 2005 or so. And BIS has pretty much made clear they are marketing a sim platform to their community, from outward appearances a normal game, but trying to keep both old and prospective camps happy. If addons were not important to BIS, I do not think they would fix compatibility issues when they break things such as islands, in the beta patches and such. (they fix these 3rd party issues they cause frequently) There has always been a huge issue with addons, and lack of standardization. The answer is clear to me, who had previously been helping people set up addons for 8+ years.. if BIS wishes to bring the old players together with the new players (that a new release brings), they must take action by standardizing an addon delivery method, or at least improving the GUI so that new people are not totally confounded by this very complicated process. It's irrelevant if you can figure it out fine and quickly Zipper, the fact is, most people cannot. Maybe you play vanilla, half the community doesn't. And we should not abandon those new people who have trouble, because they help the MP pool grow. Old players want addons, new players don't know about them. So something has to be done, or history will repeat itself yet again. And hopefully a large scale, MP community fragmenting clusterfuck like the A2/OA Standalone/CO MP debacle doesn't happen again.

JIP (Join in Progress) ruined everything, as far as people setting aside the time required for long coop matches, and being totally invested in it. Now'a days, people are in a huge hurry, if they aren't entertained pretty quick, they go somewhere else where shit is blowing up. But if they hadn't done that, maybe the game would be dead, who knows. I'm just adding this nugget of info as an old flashpoint player... when you played with people, they stuck around, because it took a long time to get in a match and there was a certain value to getting a slot on a good server like Karr's (RTS) or Radishville. You sat and waited, sometimes for more than an hour, for a new mission to start. There was no spectating, just a simple screen with the player list, mission timer, etc. It really weeded out the impatient people, griefers, things like that. But it was a different time. So more to the point, I do not think you will ever get anything close to flashpoint/res MP coop gameplay or even the behavior of those players (patient gentlemen for the most part) ever again. Besides that, without these gaming groups ('clans', swearword round here) that you disregard, those old flashpoint servers wouldn't have existed. What makes those servers exist in the first place is groups of guys getting together to shoot the shit, shoot guba's UAZ and each other, drink some beer, make new friends, etc. They donate to pay for the server. (unless one was an IT guy with a server under his desk at work.. :D) That aside, even hosting your own coop brought in people that were more patient and respectful that you would get today. You may sit in the mission start screen for 15-30 minutes before someone showed up. (remember, no JIP) But when you started it, chances are they would stay with you till the end or you died. (sometimes no respawn on the better coops) They knew not to dick around and shoot needlessly, shoot out the tires of cars, spam the guns in choppers, those are all signs of impatience and boredom, typical today. To play good coop in todays world, you need to find some guys to play with, simple as that. There is no successful public coop now, unless an admin is there constantly kicking dummies off and the mission can handle such setbacks as FF, satchels in the base, etc. Without investment and sacrifice on the part of the player, there will not be quality gameplay... pretty simple. (in time, patience, etc) Also, EVO/Domi is not the boogieman here.. Xeno made that map because people like it, it's what his fans wanted. It is more of a symbol of the modern times, or the new player base of the game. It is possible to play it old school, realistically.. it's very adaptable, quite fun that way. But most will use all the gimmicks to save time, get to the action, like I said, investment, sacrifice. (crawling 20km wounded on your belly, unheard of!? Just respawn stupid!) This disconnect (patient folks who take it a bit more serious so that it means a bit more vs the folks who like the action all the time) is what causes the problems. Nobody wants to flog themselves when other people are taking the easy, action packed route, it's frustrating. Everyone working together, playing in the same 'style' if you will, is what works. I'm an old fart, when I want to play a good no-respawn coop for 4 hours straight, I do so on the LAN, because I have given up on trying to find those quality players with that discipline is futile these days. :o There are groups of course, but they are kind of intimidating to a person with little gaming time. Cheers PS: Remember.. Operation Flashpoint and Resistance were pretty arcadey if you look at it from a sim prespective. What made it different was the AI, freedom of choice, MP with time investment, huge scale, community addons..

Yeah this is pretty sad. It's been 3 years. It makes me lose a bit of faith in the CIT.. that or BIS has just too much pride for their shader effects, so they won't give any more work into it. On/Off is just not enough fine grain control for all the shaders. Nor is Off/Vlow/Low/Med/High, but they don't seem to agree. I could care less about half those options. I love the other effects, I just want to be able to disable the blur. Only because it makes me ill after a while, and when the FPS drops, it smears the screen so horribly. There was another thread where Suma said they were working on it, we said even the simplest provisions will help, such as hidden INI options. But that was over a year or two ago, no changes. Not having blur is also pretty important for making clear gameplay videos for youtube and such, imo. The compression does horrible things to a fullscreen blur.

Okay, it's up. I'm in the process of moving so I'm trying to keep it up as much as possible. But sometimes my computer is sleeping and I'm 200mi away. Once I get my network squared away, I'll be able to WOL it. (wake on lan, remote wakeup) Cheers

New beta's out. Note that 81774 is bugged, it had no shaders in it.

Are you willing to share the dll? (I requested in PM's a few times, without reply)

Okay, it's up! Sorry for the slight delay. http://www.506th-pir.org/scripts/oktane/noblur/okt_noBlur_OA_retail_1.59.7z

Yes, except, I do not automate the major patch releases! I rely on you guys to tell me. :) The reason I cannot modify it, because there is not a simple page that lists latest patches which I could scrape the data off. I will do this ASAP. Edit: Sigh.. 500 megs, and download got corrupted, trying again..

Feint: Thanks, fixed. (also I forgot to edit the other readme, there are actually two :) ) PogMoThoin: Something went wrong with my RSS feed, I think something to do with the fact that they released a A2 beta. edit: Took quite a while, but fixed.. had to move backend web scripts to other host because of a hd failure. RSS and noBlur are back now. (noBlur autoscript depends on beta RSS feed)