Some way for sector skies to avoid being affected by SSAO

[Marisa the Magician]

oh... oops.

[Major Cooke]

Assuming you plan on doing the rework soon, I'll leave this thread open.

[Marisa the Magician]

Wouldn't have my hopes up for that "soon" part though.

[Tormentor667]

Sorry for bumping this, but has it been already added as a feature somehow? We still have the problem in Blade of Agony that the AO is applied skybox sectors. So I wonder, how this can be solved by now.
https://user-images.githubusercontent.c ... 7a28cc.png

[Rachael]

The only way I can think of is to force the sky cube to project a completely flat normal somehow.

[Tormentor667]

You mean mod-wise using normal maps in materials? Does this even affect AO?

[Rachael]

No, I mean programmatically. TBQH I have no idea how to do that.

[Marisa the Magician]

This can be solved by using GL skyboxes.

And if you want to have details in the sky, using a sector skybox that itself has a gl skybox.

I could cite as an example the setup I had in the abort_m titlemap.

The main view is a little city scape, which has a skybox picker set to match a sector skybox, and then, the sector skybox itself references the normal sky. The end result, is this piece of art:

The giant ouch face is in the sector sky, so it looks like it's huge and far away.

[Enjay]

Yup, been using that technique myself for years to combine texture skies with geometry skies - even before SSAO was an engine feature: full six-sided sky defined in GLDefs and used as the sky in a map-constructed skybox, then the map-constructed box used elsewhere in the map.

And, of course, in this case it might actually be desirable to have SSAO on the geometry in the skybox, but not on the sky texture, so you get the best of both worlds (kind of literally).

Examples:
Everything that you can see through the window is not really there - it's a skybox on the other side of the map entirely - GLDEFS sky in the background, the rest is a geometry skybox.


This is one that I amused myself making one afternoon this summer. Everything above the foreground walls is another texture and geometry combination skybox.

[Tormentor667]

I simply don’t get it why it is so difficult to add an exception to the shader responsible for the ambient occlusion to not apply for the sector based skybox - maybe a MAPINFO flag that exactly does that. The reason is: It would take ages in Blade of Agony to set up the skybox definitions and add appropriate changes to all of the 30 maps in the mod.

By the way Enjay, awesome shots, when can I get my hands on them?

[Rachael]

I simply don’t get it why it is so difficult to add an exception to the shader responsible for the ambient occlusion to not apply for the sector based skybox - maybe a MAPINFO flag that exactly does that. The reason is: It would take ages in Blade of Agony to set up the skybox definitions and add appropriate changes to all of the 30 maps in the mod.

I mean if it's so easy, you're welcome to submit a pull request and show us all how dumb we are.

[Enjay]

By the way Enjay, awesome shots, when can I get my hands on them?

To be fair, you've probably already played the maps. They are not mine, I was just amusing myself adding stuff to existing maps to help me learn GZDB (later UDB, of course). The skyboxes and some of the texturing is new, but the playable parts of the maps are still the same as released by their respective authors.

The second is Kinsie's Null Face to Face.viewtopic.php?f=19&t=59100 (One of my favourite mods of recent years - shame Kinsie had to cancel it.)

The first one is... a really old classic map set on a space station. Unfortunately, I can't find the original file to get the details right now, but I'll try to track it down.

[Tormentor667]

I mean if it's so easy, you're welcome to submit a pull request and show us all how dumb we are.

Well, I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate what coders are capable of (and what I am not ). As far as I understood, the engine checks how many portals are supposed to be affected by the ambient occlusion (there is an option for that in GZDoom). So all I can imagine is telling the engine to “skip” the skybox portal (according if there is a skybox viewpoint) in case a certain flag has been set for the map in the MAPINFO lump for the specific map. No idea if that is doable though.

@Enjay, I thought it’s another content from your Aspects teasers I wonder: Are you currently working on something or getting ready for a release of your work? I really always appreciate your mods and I am eagerly waiting for a new map set from you

[Enjay]

@Enjay, I thought it’s another content from your Aspects teasers I wonder: Are you currently working on something or getting ready for a release of your work? I really always appreciate your mods and I am eagerly waiting for a new map set from you

Quick reply because I don't want to take this thread off topic:

I'm not working on anything simply because my actual work is really hectic at the moment (well, not today obviously). While the Scottish government's policy is still the default that everyone should be working from home where possible and socially distancing, their policy is also that schools should be open and all pupils should be attending. However, because of local lockdowns, minor Covid outbreaks and individuals who are shielding or self-isolating, delivering courses in their entirety (or as close as possible) is particularly difficult this year. Not only do we have to do that, and have the daily hassle of nagging kids about mask wearing, hand washing and, of course, having the stress of being in close contact with several hundred people per week when most people are not, we also have to modify how and what we are doing at the drop of a hat and we will also have the responsibility for submitting robust exam estimates to our qualifications authority too because the exams have been cancelled for 2021 and it's all down to us now.

So, when I can, I amuse myself by "doodling" in UDB, but that's all it is really: just doodling in the editor when I get a chance. There is nothing complete, cohesive or releasable: just my own UDB-sketch book. There is certainly nothing going on with Aspects: that's long gone and the resource WAD really just serves as a blank slate of extended textures etc for me to doodle with.

But thank you for the compliment.

[Tormentor667]

I'm not working on anything simply because my actual work is really hectic at the moment (well, not today obviously).

Thanks for the detailed information, I already thought that your job will be challening lately. Though, I really hope for another Enjay release in the (near) future, I really do! [/offtopic]