Shadows (banding) on ODS Terrain in AF...Need help pleas

[Sherlock]

I've been working for nearly a week to figure out why the banding/shadowing is occurring on the SP install of ODS when installed into F4: Allied Force. Common knowledge says its a terrain normals problem. I've tried about everything I can think of to fix it (LxNormalFix, rebuilding the terrain with the LP installer, etc.). Nothing I've thought of seems to work.

Here are a couple of pictures of what I am talking about:



Does anybody know what will fix the blasted shadows please?

[Sherlock]

@Snake Man,
SM do you still have the original 2-Byte .L2/.O2 terrain file for ODS (before the 4 Byte conversion)? If so, could I get a copy please?

Thanks.

[Sherlock]

Guess I am talking to myself again...

[Snake Man]

I'll search my F4 DVDR archive for the ODS file, but dunno what it might be as I dont remember

[ranger822]

Sherlock - - I am sorry I can't be of much help on the AF side. Never heard of S-tiles. Also, your pics are not showing up in the forum. So, I am having trouble understanding the problem.

The difficulty you are having is just another example of one of those "issues" that drove SM out of game for us. . . we should have had just one development group and one way to do things - then we would know how to fix a problem and this forum would have probably already answered that question years ago ... instead we have so many exe's and tools floating around that it is hard to make heads or tails out of anything. In most cases you may find yourself doing a lot of talking to yourself - until you go crazy or you figure it out.

[Sherlock]

Hi again Ranger,
My pics aren't showing? They are hosted over at PUTFILE.com and you should be seeing a thumbnail image you can click on and it will pull up the real image. Let me know if you are still having problems.

[ranger822]

still not showing for me . . . maybe my Army network is blocking your site? Maybe ask some others -- you can't really get a good idea about what you are talking about if everyone can't see it. Obviously you must see so it is working for you.

[Sherlock]

Ok, just wanted to update this thread for any future Allied Force modders...

The banding is definitely a Terrain Normals calculation error. As you probably know by now, the original F4.0 way of calculating terrain normals was always "broken" and so the X2 and X3 values weren't used. Hence, the banding (the ODS, Balkans, Israel, etc., terrains, for instance, didn't have the properly calculated terrain normals--that is why Dr. Fred "BaldEagle" Balding, created LxNormalFix.exe for FF, to fix the normals on the terrain [Lx/Ox] files for BMS and FF). Flash forward to 2006. The old SP theater terrains still have miscalculated normals but Lead Pursuit (LP) has fixed the normals calculation in Allied Force. They also (and here's the important part) extended the X3 angle (pitch, phi) to range from the original 0-63 values to the new AF range values of 0-255. So they normalized the phi angle (angle of the light source from the plane of the terrain of interest) to a new range of 0-255. That is why LxNormalFix 1.5.2 doesn't work; because it still uses the old range of 0-63 for it's X3 output settings. The heading angle (theta; X2) remains at 0-255.

The calculation of X1 (color index; palette) remains a mystery still. My theory is this however...based on offset (tile) color palette and as a function of altitude, this value is calculated.

Sherlock

[ranger822]

Have you approached Lead-Pursuit? Could someone answer your questions and support your efforts. You seem to know quite a bit of the nitty-gritty details and surely they can respect that and your interests.

Along the same lines, and this really perhaps strikes at the systemic problem with Falcon development. LP could go a long way to re-energizing the Falcon community with a release and open-sourcing the source code for some of Julians's Tools; Tacedit and F4Browse being the main ones, but certainly several others. . . Oldtimers will acknowledge that it was a direct result of Julian Onions, Rick Prior, and Fred Balding that serious development could actually take place. Without the basic tools none of us would have much of anything besides Korea to play with. Without tool development and support, IMHO, the development community is living on borrowed time.

Development must go whereever the tools and exe can continue to be modified and improved. If you are not getting that sort of support then you will continue to struggle.

[Sherlock]

Hi Ranger,
Unfortunately, Chris "Washout" Carter (LP VP)said:
"If a fully featured theatre was submitted to Lead Pursuit, we would consider releasing it, but as development on the next product proceeds we do not have the spare resources to test a theatre addon or perform what would be a lengthy integration project to get the campaigns, extra database entries, ATC voices, models and textures etc that a fully featured theatre would include.
Also due to commercial reasons Lead Pursuit is unable to release internally developed tools for use by our customers at this time."

I would love for Codec to release the source code for TacEdit, F4Browse, TerrainView and the other 1/2 dozen apps he created. It would be a winfall for the Falcon community (or conversely, update them to be compatible with Allied Force). But I don't see this happening any time soon.

Sherlock

[ranger822]

I doubt any such tools will be released in the forseeable future. Happily, we can do plenty without them.

I still haven't been able to view that banding you have been talking about . . maybe send me an e-mail?

ranger822@earthlink.net

[Sherlock]

Thanks to BaldEagle modding his LxNormalFix application the shadowing / banding problem is now solved. Contact him for the download. New theaters (or old, rejuevenated theaters) can now be brought into AF without the shadow problem.

[Snake Man]

Great to hear. Could you arrange the file for us here?

[Sherlock]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Great to hear. Could you arrange the file for us here?

I'll ask Dr. Fred and let you know.

Sherlock

[Sherlock]

@ SM
Dr. Fred said you could host it.
Where should I sent it to?

Sherlock

[Snake Man]

You can email it to falcon at... fuck it, its already spammed so much there is no point of hiding it nospam

[Sherlock]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
You can email it to falcon at... fuck it, its already spammed so much there is no point of hiding it nospam

SM....check your mail. Should be there.

Sherlock

[Snake Man]

Added to the download page and made a topic to the theater tools area. Thank you guys.

Oh I repacked it with rar as zip is so old technology already, I'll do the same for the rest of the downloads when I have some time. Alot of changes will happen here soon, so watch out.

[Sherlock]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Added to the download page and made a topic to the theater tools area. Thank you guys.

No...thank you! You've done way more for Falcon Theater building than I can ever aspire to do!

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Oh I repacked it with rar as zip is so old technology already, I'll do the same for the rest of the downloads when I have some time. Alot of changes will happen here soon, so watch out.

Sounds great. Lookin' forward to what you have planned!

Cheers!