Alpha Graphics?

Chris0132 · Post by **Chris0132** » Fri, 21. Oct 11, 15:11

Also most games look far worse in shots than in motion, you aren't supposed to sit looking at a static shot of it for ages.

Zetoss · Post by **Zetoss** » Fri, 21. Oct 11, 15:49

I might be mistaken but my Nvidia control panel has separate settings for AA on objects and AA on transparency and they seem to default to off for transparent stuff and as such would override any program settings... Actually there doesn't seem to be a way to hand over control to a program at all for this as I can't even find any way to do it??

Duke Flipside · Post by **Duke Flipside** » Fri, 21. Oct 11, 20:16

Given that X3R and X3TC are exceedingly pretty games, I'd give Egosoft the benefit of the doubt as far as the graphics go regardless of the quality of any early screenshots...

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Fri, 21. Oct 11, 22:43

zetoss, grab nvidia inspector as you get far more control with it.

Killjaeden · Post by **Killjaeden** » Fri, 21. Oct 11, 23:21

The thing with the rough edges is not because of lacking Anti-Alising as far as i can tell.
The solid edges of a model look smoothed. But the details that come through the bump/normalmap look jagged (the rippled pipes in the cockpit for example). Same with lattice. That's not caused by the Objects LOD (LOD only affects the polygoncount of the object, not textures), but by Mipmaps of the textures. You can see it on this picture. Check the shadow of the panels on the tube. The left one is ok, the right one is jagged, because the textured piece is further away from the player.

@NS & +1
I know that they are not done, but i dont know if they are not already done in this particular area.

View it like a suggested improvement on a game feature , not like a "this game is bad"-rant

Aydan · Post by **Aydan** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 00:02

This is pure speculation.

What you can see on Screenshots like this i not only a plain 3d screen like we're used to it from other games. In X games there's always that fish eye effect which is applied to have a better view

You'll certainly know that from screenshots containing planets at the border of the visible screen. Although i expect to see a similar format for transparency like in the games before, the 1 bit alpha, i think these effects are coming from the fish eye effect and stretched textures due to that effect. If the textures on these large objects are still in 2048x2048 or smaller, it would get visible if they are calculated by a camera effect, rather than applied to the model itself.
If the model is stretched, the calculation will set the colors differently and if the alpha channel is defined as usual as 000000, than you may get these steps in a certain resolution, maybe even due to the 16:9 format, which is even wider than the old 4:3. The engine may be new at this point, but if the old perspective is used, developped for 4:3 it may get visible around edges. Pure speculation, but as i had similar effects on my custom fighter textures when taking screenshots, it looks somewhat familiar to me. I don't think it's only alpha channel related.

If it would be alpha channel related it would be an effect with very sharp edges, like on the Reavers upper antennae texture, which looked so irritating. The picture with the SPP textures doesn't show an angle which should let you see an edge, so i think it's the fish eye perspective which is stretching a texture applied too small for this effect. These effects are appearing in areas where the perspective may affect them. In the centre focus of the image, it's not visible. As we haven't seen the new engine working, this is only pure speculation.

Skillzfire · Post by **Skillzfire** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 00:50

Scoob wrote:We can always apply additional AA and apply Super Sampling at a driver level. I do this with TC, 32xAA and 8xSS make a smooth looking game.

4xAA is still the biggest jump vs. none, but if you have the GPU power why not use it.

TC really does look very good with additional AA over and above the 8x available to the engine.

Remember, all these shots are from "pre-alpha" so just in house testing, nothing final yet.

Scoob.

i find it looks good without any AA, aslong as your not to close to things, i have to run it at the lowest on my laptop, not because my laptop cant handle TC but because the loading times are crazy if i put any effects on, plus its all just shinyness which i dont care about, plus some of the low res textures look surprisingly good form a distance

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 02:15

With regards to a previous poster about fish eye effect.

If ES still has fish eye bowl views in these new games im going to be really disappointed.

With a totally new engine not just gfx engine they shouldn't have any reason to have that horrible warped view that makes planets look odd when at the sides of the screen. And no it isnt a limit of code or whatever it is the fov they use that causes most of that because i have played many space games and very few have the effect ES had in. Most space games use a proper normal view which is far nicer on the eyes.

frymaster · Post by **frymaster** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 02:53

Skeeter wrote:it is the fov they use

you know you can change that in X3TC, right?

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 03:01

Yes but its not a proper fov well not like other games.

Regardless they messed up and never fixed it even tho most ppl didnt like it and wanted a normal space view in the game. Here is hoping they will sort it out if they havent allready with rebirth.

Killjaeden · Post by **Killjaeden** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 03:08

the jaggy edges have absolutely nothing to do with fish-eye effect

The angle of view has nothing to do with that either. Only distance.

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 04:18

Yep kinda obvious that the fish eye thing is nothing to do with the aliasing. I dunno why that other poster posted about it either i only replied because he said it was good effect which i showed i disagreed.

Also fov doesnt effect the aliasing either just the fish eye issue to some degree which i only base that info on from star trek legacy having a slight fish eye view which is fixed if the fov was altered a bit. Trying it in X3 TC didnt do squat all but it could be tied to how the fov is coded in x3 and before games i think.

Anyhow back to the topic at hand. Alpha textures. The screenshots would have been alot nicer if they just enabled multi or supersampling at the driver level to smooth out them bits in the game. As without it it makes them very jaggied and ruins the screenie.

supahfly · Post by **supahfly** » Sat, 22. Oct 11, 22:59

Skeeter wrote:Yes but its not a proper fov well not like other games

What are you talking about? Just set your fov to any number of degrees you want. Not a proper fov? Now what is this I don't even

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Sun, 23. Oct 11, 12:33

Disregard the comment i made, its not what i meant really as it sounded.

ryeeson · Post by **ryeeson** » Sun, 23. Oct 11, 16:33

Nahh.. without 'real' gameplay, there is no point to talk about it.

robalexhall · Post by **robalexhall** » Sun, 23. Oct 11, 17:17

Rebirth is a PC game not a console port so presumably it will rely on drivers for antialiasing.

So it's as simple as deciding whether you can afford to turn on antialiasing for transparencies or not. i.e. whether you have a high end or only a mid range card.

With my GTX 460 I'm guessing I'll probably prefer to have them off to maintain fps as per usual.

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Alpha Graphics?