Was it mentioned already? I know it's not the best time to report bugs, but anyway, it's weird. Look at MAX [kursk]'s name. For some reason it's behind the fence/trees.
Last edited by MandulAA, .
I don't think it's such a big deal as long as you don't see the bugs while racing / on track. The first image by Scawen can be easily seen from the TV camera, but now you won't notice the bug unless you focus on it. Of course the smoke now appears in front of the fence, but I guess it's still better than no smoke.
No, there is no way to get this perfect in real time graphics.
All the alpha textures objects are no longer writing to the z buffer. They are only reading it.
Each individual puff of smoke could be added to the alpha sorting tree if you want slow things down for no reason. But then there will still be problems because of the radius of the sorted objects. The sorting in the binary sort tree is not perfect, as you see in the other images of the fence behind a fence.
There are always going to be sorting problems. It's just a case of which type of sorting problem do you prefer.
I did choose a specially odd case as a demonstration but I suggest you aren't going to see these things.
I request that you see it live before making any more requests. Sorting of individual smoke puffs is so far down my list, it's not even on a list!
"Aliasing" looks way better, but smoke on front of the fence is a bit glitchy on the second scrrenshot... As for normal racing I would prefer like this (your test version).
Strangely, although the smoke is not really related, that does appear to be fixed with the new system, because it does not write to the Z buffer during the sorted alpha pass of the frame (when all the transparent parts of objects are drawn, from furthest to nearest, after all the solid parts have been drawn).
You can see a suggestion like that by Ped7g in the post following the one Flame linked to.
There is a side effect. In fact the smoke behind the fence is overwriting the fence you are looking through. But usually this isn't a visual issue as you see in the first image of doughnuts at Blackwood. There is a slight problem as you can see in the second smoke image. I'm guessing this won't often be noticeable but we'll see when when you get a test version, or if there are any other side effects of not writing to the z buffer during the sorted alpha pass.
I think the only time you will see visual errors from this, you would have seen a visual error anyway. For example in the 3rd image, this missing fence is how it has always been (because of a limitation of the high speed sort, in this case the fence behind was not drawn first). In the 4th image, the new system looks better. but if you look closely, the fence behind is overwriting the fence in front.
EDIT : The 3rd and 4th screenshots were taken before the edge smoothing was done, so that's why the trees still look rough.
EDIT 2 : The fence behind a fence thing is more noticeable in a weather option that illuminates the fences.
You can see a suggestion like that by Ped7g in the post following the one Flame linked to.
There is a side effect. In fact the smoke behind the fence is overwriting the fence you are looking through. But usually this isn't a visual issue as you see in the first image of doughnuts at Blackwood. There is a slight problem as you can see in the second smoke image. I'm guessing this won't often be noticeable but we'll see when when you get a test version, or if there are any other side effects of not writing to the z buffer during the sorted alpha pass.
I think the only time you will see visual errors from this, you would have seen a visual error anyway. For example in the 3rd image, this missing fence is how it has always been (because of a limitation of the high speed sort, in this case the fence behind was not drawn first). In the 4th image, the new system looks better. but if you look closely, the fence behind is overwriting the fence in front.
EDIT : The 3rd and 4th screenshots were taken before the edge smoothing was done, so that's why the trees still look rough.
EDIT 2 : The fence behind a fence thing is more noticeable in a weather option that illuminates the fences.
Last edited by Scawen, .
That is because I disabled writing to the Z buffer with those letters. The reason I did that was because of the way they are now drawn in 3D, there was a Z buffer issue with the letter é because the e and the accent were having a Z fight!
Anyway, the result is now that the nearby letters can sometimes be seen as if behind a nearby fence, as you pointed out. But in those situations before, there was a ghostly alpha outline around the letters. So they were wrong then anyway. I'm not really sure what's worse of those two, but the Z fight was definitely bad. Hmm, maybe there is another solution, will consider...
I think in helicopter view the names should be aligned with the cars. They just need something to align with in 3D space so they don't change with head angle. Using "vertical" as a reference is usually good but not in helicopter view where it is close to the viewing direction.
Anyway, the result is now that the nearby letters can sometimes be seen as if behind a nearby fence, as you pointed out. But in those situations before, there was a ghostly alpha outline around the letters. So they were wrong then anyway. I'm not really sure what's worse of those two, but the Z fight was definitely bad. Hmm, maybe there is another solution, will consider...
I think in helicopter view the names should be aligned with the cars. They just need something to align with in 3D space so they don't change with head angle. Using "vertical" as a reference is usually good but not in helicopter view where it is close to the viewing direction.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG