PSX Flaming Sky

[Nash]

Hi.
OH GOD NO, NOT THE HACKS

That's both impressive and terrifying. o_O

[Graf Zahl]

WTF???

I hope nobody ever considers this for use in a real mod...

[Enjay]

That's... That's...

I mean, it's impressive but it could also be one of the grossest gross hacks ever.

[Rachael]

WTF???

I hope nobody ever considers this for use in a real mod...

Well I can't speak for anyone here, but it is my belief that if an alternative isn't provided, the hack will be used instead, and it will end up in a mod. You know you and I agree on like ... 95% of stuff... but this is the 5% where I have to say, performance killer or not, GZDoom could benefit from this, no matter how it's implemented - even if it is GLSL only.

Now, I am not saying you have to do this, or support it if it's done. But I am saying - if a feature is wanted badly enough and no support is provided for it, it usually ends up being done anyway in the form of such hacks.

[Gez]

Okay, so, this is done through a camera texture, with the camera looking at a "canvas" made of 4096 separate one-unit-square sectors that serve as individual texels.

That's a terrifying hack. It's kinda beautiful, in a horrible way. I can't wait for this to be done in pure ACS so that it works on Zandronum too.

[gramps]

Hmm, wouldn't it be possible to avoid sector hack by hudmessaging a camera thing some "pixels" (colored with the font colorer?) and then setcameratotexture?

Or not hudmessage, but that other thing that prints stuff on the screen, that I can't remember the name of?

[Caligari87]

Hmm, wouldn't it be possible to avoid sector hack by hudmessaging a camera thing some "pixels" (colored with the font colorer?) and then setcameratotexture?

Or not hudmessage, but that other thing that prints stuff on the screen, that I can't remember the name of?

congratulations, you just invented scripted textures, which was what this thread was discussing in the first place.

[gramps]

So... you're saying that won't work, printing stuff on the screens of cameras?

[Caligari87]

Have not tried, but I kind of doubt it. If it does work, then yes, that would be another (only slightly-less hacky) way of doing something like this.

[Rachael]

If that was currently possible people would be doing it, I can promise you that.

Camera textures are pretty much the equivalent of the world view that gets drawn before the weapon sprite is put on the screen.

[gramps]

Heh, didn't realize this was such a wanted feature.

I wonder how explicit support for this would work? A new class of camera thing might make sense, then you could use all the existing cameratexture stuff. The new camera thing wouldn't really be a camera at all, it would be tied to a zscript actor with a pixel buffer and some methods to manipulate it, and maybe another virtual method to update everything, like Tick but it would only be called when the camera texture is visible.

[Rachael]

It's been wanted for a very long time now, and I only see the desire for it increasing as time goes on. If this feature request goes unanswered, I do honestly expect that the hacky methods like the camera texture will make its way into mainstream, if not now, at least eventually at any rate.

[Marisa the Magician]

A new class of camera thing might make sense, then you could use all the existing cameratexture stuff. The new camera thing wouldn't really be a camera at all, it would be tied to a zscript actor with a pixel buffer and some methods to manipulate it, and maybe another virtual method to update everything, like Tick but it would only be called when the camera texture is visible.

So... basically what Unreal Engine 1's ScriptedTexture (the texture itself) and ClientScriptedTexture (the actor painting to the texture each tick) classes already do?

[Graf Zahl]

It's been wanted for a very long time now, and I only see the desire for it increasing as time goes on. If this feature request goes unanswered, I do honestly expect that the hacky methods like the camera texture will make its way into mainstream, if not now, at least eventually at any rate.

That doesn't change the fact that such a texture is a first grade performance killer that pretty much defeats any attempt at render optimization for a map using it, not to mention that such a grid may cause the node builder to output bad nodes.

Actually, the most important thing of what would be needed is already there. The camera textures provide the needed infrastructure to create such textures so what needs to be done is a way to define what source data they use for rendering and a shader.

[Rachael]

not to mention that such a grid may cause the node builder to output bad nodes.

Actually - it quite literally did that, when the grid was expanded to 256x128, if I understood Phantom correctly.

Actually, the most important thing of what would be needed is already there. The camera textures provide the needed infrastructure to create such textures so what needs to be done is a way to define what source data they use for rendering and a shader.

This was the idea I had when I originally conceived of the idea way back when. I just never got around to it.