Transfusion Forums

i actually see a decrease is the graphics to tell you the truth.

How did I know you'd say that?
Put on your glasses, maybe you'll see better.
Certainly having maps filled with dull, uniform white lighting is better.
No doubt about that.

If you are serious it's your opinion and your problem. I don't mind.
As long as we (the team) see obvious improvement I'm perfectly fine.

a decrease? i guess if you hate color, otherwise it looks like it did before, only with fitting use of the _color field in the light entities

though i will say the liquids are way too translucent there... lava is not water, it should be thick and the concept of seeing anything through it should produce little more than a ghost of a suggestion of an image


but yeah, some people just want to complain

scar3crow wrote:i guess if you hate color, otherwise it looks like it did before, only with fitting use of the _color field in the light entities

That's not entirely true.
Colored lights were available (and used in some maps) in q1 format as well.
The main difference comes from the use of shaders - liquids and skies.
Adding some point lights to the maps (previously they mostly had uniform lighting) also adds to the atmosphere.

Besides q3bsp maps look better overall, they are also better optimized, although I agree that you can't really see it on those pics - forgetting new lighting those screens look similarly.

By the way those are quite old shots, newer versions look better. You will notice quite a big difference in appearance when you get to play beta4.

scar3crow wrote:the liquids are way too translucent there...

OK, I agree on lava, but that's just a matter of game options settings.
It can be made less translucent, no problem.

In an ancient age and on an ancient forum the Mighty Mat Oliver once asked if lava should be liquid or solid as it was in blood. Has liquid lava been chosen?

*EDIT* Thanks for those great pics Pred. Some we've seen before but the in game cultist model is a new one.

he won't be happy until the liquids reflect no matter how dirty and dense they are.

Zardoz wrote:Has liquid lava been chosen?

As of now - yes. But you know, it's a matter of simple changes in lava shader, so it can always be switched to solid if we decide it's a better idea.
I've never talked with Mathieu about it so I don't know his opinion.
Personally I'd like lava to be liquid and I've never heard anyone protest against it. So I've made it as a liquid.

Zardoz wrote:Thanks for those great pics Pred. Some we've seen before but the in game cultist model is a new one.

Yes, certainly. The first two were shown before.
It's not that I see them as super cool, I just wanted to point out to newer site members that Transfusion didn't stop at uniform white light filling many maps. That's how it was long time ago, and that's perfectly understandable for first stages of the project. But lighting has been improved by our mappers in the last 2 or 1.5 years.
Maybe I'll take a few new screens and post them on the forum sometime.

Whoa, it's kind of... strange to see that the only way to get some progress report + screenshots is to start complaining (just joking)

Anyway, screenshots looks great! I must agree that lava shouldn't be transparent - i didn't like this "feature" in Unreal, it just looks like red water :/

There are two things I'd like to ask:
1) why hud on last of screenshots with lava is transparent?
2) Why don't you turn fps counter on? I'd be delighted to see performance it gets with such complex lightning.

And obviously: can't wait to see next release Project looks really promising.

Thanks.

Yes, as I said, lava doesn't have to be transparent.

It's just that the textures we now have for lava are not of very good quality and when lava is not at least partially translucent it doesn't look very nice.
But don't worry, lava will not look like red water. I promise.

If I remember correctly, most peeps at the time were mildly for the idea, with the understanding that only liquid lava changes the game dynamic. Hell hounds can't run across that lava pit in the third episode anymore. the player's option to run across that lava field (while on fire) in the 4th episode is gone. It also opened up new and interesting possibilities: for instance, hell hounds could gain a suprise attack advantage if they jumped out of some lava as the player drew near!

Yes, that's true.
But you know - it could still work both ways. I mean even if we have liquid lava we can still create a lava field you can run across - we'll just make it very shallow, and there won't be a problem.

how did this topic get on about lava?

The topic has already been settled that the Source engine is just silly.

You can always make shallow lava pools which one can run in and out of easily, as could monsters.

As far as Hell Hounds leaping out of lava, that would be cool, but you would have to either script (but blah, this isnt Half Life, make a game, not a bad movie) or have them do a trace for target that ignores material based brushes such as lava - though on the downside this would mean that they might pursue a player who had dived into water... although I must wonder why Hell Hounds would be placed in an area with much water anyways.

The density of Lava, and liquid metals that show up in Blood should in no way be confused with water or oil.

A little research says that lava's dencity is about 2.6 g/cc. That's over 1.5 times that of water at 1g/cc. Iron is even more dence at about 7 g/cc.

Without even going into surface tention, at a guess I'd say Caleb would maybe sink to his waist in lava and probably not even to his knees in iron.

If the surface tention of the liquids is great enough, he'd not sink in at all. For arguemnts sake, we'll say Caleb can skin in. I'll guess lava would be a little harder to move around in as mud... have you ever been sunk to your waist in mud? I think my shoes are still stuck 4ft down in my front yard from when we replaced the pipe feeding water to the house when I was 8 years old. It's a tad bit grabby!

For gameplay sake I'd see no reason to change it from the way it's portrayed in Blood.

Exactly.
Lava will not be just red water.