What about 3D engine ?

[Odin]

XreaL is already better than idTech4...

[your face]

Except idt4 lags less and looks about the same.

[Plague Bringer]

A larger variety of shaders in maps would be great. Interesting things. Bulging alien tubes, or water hoses. Flickering lights. Maybe there should be a shader repository (hey, MG!)

Odin: I don't know why, but I am predisposed to dislike XreaL. That screenshot is just as ugly as the rest. I can't stand the look of any of that. Just looks ugly.

[Demolution]

Agree or disagree, I believe graphics aren't the only factor that makes the game's presentation. In the infamous Call of Cthulu, what makes the game memorable was the little things. The shadows, the poster textures, the water that moves as you walk through it, the slight change of light contrast emitting in a lamp post, etc.

That was an awesome game, exactly for those reasons. Too bad they didn't manage to get the other game out.
(Sorry for off-topicness)

[David]

Maybe there should be a shader repository (hey, MG!)

Use the patch tracker?  Get a few on there and I'm sure a new category or whatever can be added.

[gimhael]

Or just add shader section to the wiki. Then you could not only paste the shader code but also explain how the shader actually works. I've seen a lot of unnecessary stuff in shaders because the mappers just copied a shader from another map (e.g. alpha blending .jpg textures - probably the original was a .tga texture).

The main problem when you want to enhance the renderer in a backward compatible way are the shaders. Additional normalmap textures in the PK3 would be simply ignored by old clients that can't render them, but the shader syntax has to be extended for all the special effects and the q3a shader parser is unfortunately not extendable (any unknown keyword will cause the shader loader to fail).

Also the q3a shader model is based on a multipass rendering model, which means that there are several rendering stages specified in the shader that are combined ultimately in the frame buffer. A significant part of the performance gain of more modern card comes from the fact that they combine multiple textures and then blend them in a single pass into the framebuffer, so IMHO we would need a new extended shader syntax adapted to the newer GL features.

A map would have to include two sets of shaders (compatibility shaders in foo.shader and extended shaders in foo.xshader). Then you could have maps that show all that eye candy on an updated renderer and still work on the q3a renderer, but this would of course mean extra work for the map creators.

[Kaleo]

Or how about we all wait a couple of years for id Tech 4 to be open source.

Or a couple of months.
Carmak announced that idTech4 would be released as OS this year.

[David]

Or just add shader section to the wiki. Then you could not only paste the shader code but also explain how the shader actually works. I've seen a lot of unnecessary stuff in shaders because the mappers just copied a shader from another map (e.g. alpha blending .jpg textures - probably the original was a .tga texture).

If you want documentation on how to make shaders and what bits do, then go for it.  If you just want a load of shaders, then that's not what wiki's are designed to do, and not something they are good at.

[Amanieu]

Something like this?
http://xreal.sourceforge.net/xrealwiki/ShaderManual

[Asvarox]

Oh, and Asvarox, that's quite biased, as (no offense to the map maker) that isn't a proper demonstration of what Tremulous can look like.

That was my point
Isn't it possible to extend current engine, to optionally execute some of shaders' keywords? So for example i go to options and check/uncheck "Use parallax bump (if possible; may slow down the game)"?

http://www.shrani.si/f/1x/1Q/1unLLeh5/xreal-20090307-153147-00.jpg

If that wall is just a simple square brush, then damn its awesome

[gimhael]

Isn't it possible to extend current engine, to optionally execute some of shaders' keywords? So for example i go to options and check/uncheck "Use parallax bump (if possible; may slow down the game)"?

Yes, it is possible to extend the engine with new shader keywords for bump maps etc, the question is what kind of compatibility do you expect.

• a new renderer with completely new data format (like XReal) -> you will have to update all maps, models etc., users of old client will not be able to play on the new maps
• a new renderer with a few extensions but downwards compatible shader syntax -> you can use old maps and models, but users of old clients will still not be able to play on the new maps
• a new renderer with new shader syntax and additional compat shaders -> you can use old maps and models, users of old clients can play on the new maps, but then the mappers have to provide two sets of shaders

[Asche]

The last idea is better, the mappers from TreMap (Mappers french community) can release all maps with old and new renderer engine, it's not a probleme.

[your face]

[Pete]

Tremulous is the one single game that makes me proud of what my graphics card is capable of running.

[Asvarox]

Tremulous is the one single game that makes me proud of what my graphics card is capable of running.

If tremulous is the most eye-candy game that your computer can run, you should really consider spending those $30 (which isn't that much even for me, polack nub) on new graphics card. You can, for example, drink less bear for some time

Yes, it is possible to extend the engine with new shader keywords for bump maps etc, the question is what kind of compatibility do you expect.

Well i would expect that if i uncheck parallax mapping, renderer will simply ignore that keyword while loading shaders, so atcs will look like atcs, with no special eye-candies. Basically making every new enchantment optional, so I can go back to today's trem look anytime

[mooseberry]

You can, for example, drink less bear for some time

Everybody should drink less bear.

[player1]

Tremulous is the one single game that makes me proud of what my graphics card is capable of running.

If tremulous is the most eye-candy game that your computer can run, you should really consider spending those $30 (which isn't that much even for me, polack nub) on new graphics card. You can, for example, drink less bear for some time

Unfortunately, not a solution for all machines everywhere. This MacBook, which runs Trem just fine, can't really be upgraded as far as gfx, as the processor is integrated, and shares memory w/ the CPU. Being able to still turn all off all of the new effects off would be just fine w/ me. Just sayin': Not everybody is playing on a box like yours.

[Annihilation]

You can, for example, drink less bear for some time

Everybody should drink less bear.

Bear, better than fierce grape gatorade!

[BriareoS]

To my understanding, a large part of our playerbase enjoy Tremulous because it will run and run well on old shitty computers (such as mine).  Increasing graphical quality significantly lowers performance, which will have the potential to drive off such players.

... And players with good computers will look to some better looking game and give up with trem....
I think that a bit modernized engine is quite needed, also since all the q3 oldness can make the game run not that well also on low end modern graphic cards.

It will be a good point in the engine discussion the possibility to have the engine "rollback" to near-q3 graphic level, so that players with older pc can continue enjoying the game.
For XReal ( for example ) during the port a good idea can be heve all the ShaderModel3 code wrapped in some cvar or direcly disabled at runtime if the GLOption is not found.

About "looking like plastic/crap" i think it's due to a overusage of blooms/reflections, things that, once already in the engine, can be fixed quite easly setting the "special effects" to a lower level, having a smoother looking game.

I think that a newer engine and reworked game ui can give a new life to this great game, attracting some new players. Also people that is more used to modern looking games that probably think that the current game is quite bad looking.

[David]

If you want a good looking game, go play a good looking game.
I prefer good gameplay to good graphics.

[Hendrich]

If you want a good looking game, go play a good looking game.
I prefer good gameplay to good graphics.

Take heed to this wise man's words of salvation. +1

[CATAHA]

If you want a good looking game, go play a good looking game.
I prefer good gameplay to good graphics.

Correct me if im wrong, but discussion not about 'lets make better graphic instead of good gameplay' ^_^

[kevlarman]

If you want a good looking game, go play a good looking game.
I prefer good gameplay to good graphics.

Correct me if im wrong, but discussion not about 'lets make better graphic instead of good gameplay' ^_^

actually, that's exactly what it amounts to, since it would take up so much developer time to remake the game almost from scratch on a new engine.

[mooseberry]

Well, honestly, if it's been about 3 years for 1.2, how long would a new trem engine take...

[Odin]

Odin: I don't know why, but I am predisposed to dislike XreaL. That screenshot is just as ugly as the rest. I can't stand the look of any of that. Just looks ugly.

At this point it's not what it "looks like." The gun model is WIP(and might be completely replaced), the level is WIP, and the HUD is WIP. The screenshot I posted was for depicting the current features of the shader system in XreaL. You should rather imagine what is possible, since XreaL lacks a lot of media to make it a full game at this point of time. XreaL is still being developed and its list of rendering features is impressive(just look at the shader manual). It has probably the best HDR rendering of any open-source engine I have ever seen, as well as full support for Diffuse, Normal, Bump, Height, Cube, etc, texture maps in TGA, PNG, and JPG. If you really want to get anal with screenshots:

http://www.xreal-project.net/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/mic_modeltester/xreal-20090215-143040-000.jpg
http://www.xreal-project.net/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/mic_modeltester/xreal-20090216-233728-000.jpg
http://www.xreal-project.net/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/mic_modeltester/xreal-20090217-123634-000.jpg

Recent engine updates have brought Epic's PSK model format support:
http://www.xreal-project.net/base/wip/xreal-20090316-134627-000.jpg (UT2004)
http://www.xreal-project.net/base/wip/xreal-20090317-123110-000.jpg (UT3) (Professionally-designed Model/Textures being rendered here)

Except idt4 lags less and looks about the same.

idTech4 has trouble rendering large rooms with lots of models. It effectively cannot render large outdoor scenes because of this. Its netcode also caps the maximum connected players to 16, and suffers lots of network lag issues. Graphically it does not support bloom, HDR, SSAO, etc, that XreaL supports. idTech4 is also written in C++ which incurs a slight performance hit compared to XreaL/Q3A which is programmed in C. This characteristic would actually make it a bit easier for the devs to port everything over to, if they wanted to.

[Plague Bringer]

Environments are not fluid. Everything looks disconnected, and very little flows well. I see much potential, but at this time, a new engine for Tremulous is a mistake. In fact, I think that at any time, if Tremulous is released officially on a new engine, it will be a mistake (unless, like NS2, it's a COMPLETE revamp and doesn't look like shit). Tremulous doesn't need a change like this. I can play Half Life 2, full settings, and I won't argue that next generation games are amazing looking, but Tremulous can be just as beautifully immersive as any game. (Except Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. Shit, that's fuckin' amazing.)

[player1]

From just a brief glance at the XreaL shader manual, it seems as if some of the most plastic-looking and too-wet textures in some of the screenshots that folks find objectionable just have the specularity of the shaders a bit too high, like the mappers or shader artists were just too enthralled with that aspect of the renderer's features.

I agree that it will probably be the community, and not "official" development which embraces such visual tweaks, and that there will probably be another offshoot of Tremulous that more fully explores eye-candy and the integration of a renderer like XreaL. Thanks to Odin, Amanieu & David for their informative replies.

Cheers.

[mooseberry]

I like it. I'm sorry it's "too plasticy" for you....

It looks much nicer than it did before.

[cactusfrog]

the thing if we stay on the q3 engine tremulous will never die because soon people will be able to play it on cell phones.

[your face]

the thing if we stay on the q3 engine tremulous will never die because soon people will be able to play it on cell phones.

Yes!