Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BE + JR released)

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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by Rebel »

They're really sweet screeshots, T.I. Combining the grass meshes might work, at least it sounds like it should -
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by machf »

TheIdiot wrote:So a little while back, I decided to start anew on Beach HD using entirely plants from MegaJungle, as well as some entirely new assets...

Image Image

Unfortunately, I had to take these screenshots in TresEd as the level itself simply will not load due to the amount of overlapping transparent objects, and I haven't been able to fix the error in the time I've had for modding, which has prevented me from moving further into the level. I know what the error is because deleting the grass meshes allows the level to load, but sadly I'm not really willing to remove them as they are a crucial detail to prevent things from looking flat. Although I do have one idea as to how I might be able to fix this bug (namely, placing and then combining all of the grass meshes in an area), I haven't had the time for it recently, so for now the best I can do for screenshots are these rather ugly TresEd ones. However, I just wanted to show the beginnings of what Beach HD Mk. II might become, as well as some of the new assets, like the cliffs and Cuban Palms, as well as the new way I've been layering TrnObjs, which is based on the way the PCGamer IJ level did it - a layer of dirt overlapped by increasing levels of "cover" objects.
Just wondering if something like "bool NoCacheAlone = true" or "bool NoCache = true" would have any effect on the grass clumps... it's worth a try. Adding one or two flat LoD meshes to the clumps would probably help, too.
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by Draconisaurus »

Damn grass-crash. Guess that's the latest bug nemesis...
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by TheIdiot »

machf wrote:Just wondering if something like "bool NoCacheAlone = true" or "bool NoCache = true" would have any effect on the grass clumps... it's worth a try. Adding one or two flat LoD meshes to the clumps would probably help, too.
I tried "bool NoCache = true", haven't tried the other, but it had no effect. The LOD thing I've thought of as well, but haven't tried as I feel it would pretty much make whole point of the grass redundant since the LOD meshes would evidently have to load in at a distance of around 30, since the grass already culls out at 50.
Draconisaurus wrote:Damn grass-crash. Guess that's the latest bug nemesis...
A nemesis which at least can be solved with careful object placement. I actually have to go back and move some trees around in RTJP as well now that we know about this as this bug was causing crashing in a couple of areas - having just watched ShadeFyre's latest video of JPDS Plains, I'm pretty sure this is also in part what causes the crashes in that level as well. Luckily now that we know about it, it can be easily avoided.
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by Draconisaurus »

Thanks for the heads up on Shadefyre's vids, I'll watch those when I can..
..so uh TI, any chance you're going to make/release grass models with LODs? Sorry my brain isn't quite catching the verdict of what you're saying should be done about the grass crashes..
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by tatu »

I still don't understand the "overlapping transparent objects". Does it mean that there are too many objects using transparent textures in the same area (like a lot of grass instances) that causes a crash?
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by TheIdiot »

Draconisaurus wrote:Thanks for the heads up on Shadefyre's vids, I'll watch those when I can..
..so uh TI, any chance you're going to make/release grass models with LODs? Sorry my brain isn't quite catching the verdict of what you're saying should be done about the grass crashes..
No, I'm not going to make LOD grass meshes. The grass is already super low-poly, there isn't a whole lot I could do other than delete some of the clumps for the LODs, which I don't think would do a whole lot.
tatu wrote:I still don't understand the "overlapping transparent objects". Does it mean that there are too many objects using transparent textures in the same area (like a lot of grass instances) that causes a crash?
That seems to be the case, yes. machf knows a bit more about it than I do, but from what it seems, the more overlapping transparent objects, the higher the chance of a crash. It noticeably also lowers the game's performance when you do this.
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by machf »

tatu wrote:I still don't understand the "overlapping transparent objects". Does it mean that there are too many objects using transparent textures in the same area (like a lot of grass instances) that causes a crash?
No. It means that there are several objects with partially transparent areas which intersect each other. And if object A partially blocks the view of object B and partially doesn't, and at the same time object B partially blocks the view of object A and partially doesn't, because of the way they are placed (crossing through each other), the engine enters into an existential crisis or something trying to figure out what to draw and what not...

There's no problem if you have a partially transparent object IN FRONT OF another one or NEXT TO another one, the problem is with intersecting ones...
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by machf »

TheIdiot wrote:
Draconisaurus wrote:Thanks for the heads up on Shadefyre's vids, I'll watch those when I can..
..so uh TI, any chance you're going to make/release grass models with LODs? Sorry my brain isn't quite catching the verdict of what you're saying should be done about the grass crashes..
No, I'm not going to make LOD grass meshes. The grass is already super low-poly, there isn't a whole lot I could do other than delete some of the clumps for the LODs, which I don't think would do a whole lot.
The problem isn't with them being low-poly, it's the transparency as I said. And you only need to add a LoD mesh to the "base" -00 object, which will automatically add themto every other one... just make it a flat rectangle (4 triangles if two-sided, 2 triangles if one-sided with bool AlwaysFace = true), since from a long distance you don't need it to be 3-D, only when seen closely.
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by darren_r_w »

This is the sort of stuff the original developers would have done had they had a Cray XMP that was being used to set the office alarm and then they got to work on the real computer they were using.

The landing gear on the beach; the plane wreckage just off the shore cliffs... I really wasn't expecting any of that.

It shows what this HD version of the Beach is proving as it was in the past. Push the limits.
Unfortunately, nobody in the business likes falling down cliffs with no soft landing at the bottom.


* post update

When you run this in 800x600 (1920x1080 native) and it's still pretty much the same performance as it was before.
It needs heavy optimization.
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by TheIdiot »

darren_r_w wrote:This is the sort of stuff the original developers would have done had they had a Cray XMP that was being used to set the office alarm and then they got to work on the real computer they were using.

The landing gear on the beach; the plane wreckage just off the shore cliffs... I really wasn't expecting any of that.

It shows what this HD version of the Beach is proving as it was in the past. Push the limits.
Unfortunately, nobody in the business likes falling down cliffs with no soft landing at the bottom.


* post update

When you run this in 800x600 (1920x1080 native) and it's still pretty much the same performance as it was before.
It needs heavy optimization.
Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it!

Not much I can do about the optimization, though, without destroying the graphical fidelity of the level. I think this level pushed the limits to their maximum, actually, with the CE engine. Tres was never meant to handle this level of detail, so it's going to run like garbage unless I remove a lot of detail or reduce the draw distance to the point that plants suddenly pop up 5 meters from your face. I'm amazed the level runs at all, to be honest - in my earliest posts I seem to recall doubting this would work. :P
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by darren_r_w »

TheIdiot wrote:Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it!

Not much I can do about the optimization, though, without destroying the graphical fidelity of the level. I think this level pushed the limits to their maximum, actually, with the CE engine. Tres was never meant to handle this level of detail, so it's going to run like garbage unless I remove a lot of detail or reduce the draw distance to the point that plants suddenly pop up 5 meters from your face. I'm amazed the level runs at all, to be honest - in my earliest posts I seem to recall doubting this would work. :P

The biggest mistake the PC x86 industry ever made was brute force to do anything. It's not moore's law; it's moore trying to lift Thor's hammer.
The CE engine doesn't need improving if you're not thinking x86; all it needs is to run on an optically constructed silicon chip where the local optical photonic cache is far larger than the size of the trespass.exe sitting in main memory sending out messages to a gpu that's sleeping on top of just that one single cpu and a photonic optical connection of 100 Terabits/sec; instead of this mindless 50+ cores 'spread it thinly, spread it more'.

So... software renderer and watch infinity unfold.
2030 at a guess.
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by killer89 »

TheIdiot wrote: Tres was never meant to handle this level of detail...

Tres's marketing material was designed to handle that level of detail, not the actual game. :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8iS1X4qY7U
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by Draconisaurus »

Was running through my various mod folders, and bumped into the Trespasser HD one... So today, I played it. I noted to myself as I began that I was playing in software mode, and thus likely to get low FPS or a crash. However as I played, neither was the case!... In fact the moving palm fronds were more visible in the pixelated environment. What's more, I came to the wood bridge and all the physics were intact... I walked all the way to the end, and found physics there too. It's a very pretty level! Sad that JR has no equivalent.....
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Re: Trespasser HD - Beach / Jungle Road (BEACH RELEASED!)

Post by TheIdiot »

Draconisaurus wrote:Was running through my various mod folders, and bumped into the Trespasser HD one... So today, I played it. I noted to myself as I began that I was playing in software mode, and thus likely to get low FPS or a crash. However as I played, neither was the case!... In fact the moving palm fronds were more visible in the pixelated environment. What's more, I came to the wood bridge and all the physics were intact... I walked all the way to the end, and found physics there too. It's a very pretty level! Sad that JR has no equivalent.....
Thanks for playing! Glad to hear you made it through without anything going horribly wrong (other than the level being unfinished).
The level does actually work for me without any issues in CE's hardware mode, though it may be due to the massively increased memory settings I use. Luckily I somehow had the foresight while making this level to not have any of the groundcover clipping together, which I believe is the only thing keeping this level stable.

JR DOES technically have an equivalent, but it's only very lightly worked on. I'll have to upload it at some point...the Mayan Face area is one of my favourite things I've ever made.
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