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This Could Be Very Interesting - AnKor's Shaders

931314696185952343.jpg

A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 3 Other Add-Ons - Effects

Description: These files are installed into the CFS3 main directory the same way as AnKor's previous versions.

This package includes some of my personal modifications, including new water files in the Effects folder, and a couple of adjusted .fx files (the originals are included with - Copy added to the names) in the Shader30 folder. These adjusted .fx files include several new variables near their tops that will let you fine tune the look of some of the effects. The suggested values are listed in the comments for the variable.

The foamamount value in SeaWater.fx is dependent on the water files you're using and is the cut-off brightness that switches the rendering animation from water to foam. Using a different set of water files than the ones I've included will most likely require you to change this value.

The TextureMagic.ini file has the list of my animated gunsite files already included too. The bottom of this file is where you can make edits to customize what will be included or not in the new auto-adjustemnt of special effect brightnesses at night to fit your particular installation.

I've also edited several settings in the d3d8.ini like the FOV that you may want to change to fit your particular set-up better since I'm running at an extra wide 3440 x 1440 resolution.

Changes:
- fixed bug with reflective textures not working with bump map
- improved performance of label rendering (previously there was a measurable FPS drop with many labels onscreen, at least for me)
- improved performance of aircraft model rendering (nothing dramatic, but managed to offload a bit more work to another CPU core)
= fixed an issue some people were having with terrain textures rendering as black when seen from a low angle.

The updated files since the 13 Jul 16 version are:
d3d8.dll

Generally I'm seeing a bit better balance on the CPU load between the two cores I'm using, and there is a measurable increase of a few FPS (up to 5) in the over all display rate.

The label text boxes show a more visible outline along their top and bottom than with the previous version.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit AnKors_Shaders_22_Jul_16.zip
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.
 
I just noticed an issue which might be effecting some of you. The environment reflections require a certain type of environment map in order to show up in some situations, even though the environment map texture itself is not displayed. Here is one that I have tested and know it works - at least for me. Maybe it will help some of you as well.

It goes in your effects/skybox folder.
 

Attachments

  • panoramic_cubic_test.zip
    426.5 KB · Views: 0
Me being the technical minded annoyance as I am, I have a new question.

In this image the shaders are turned off, look at the airfields and the river:

shadersoff.jpg


In this one everything is the same but the shaders are on:

shaderson.jpg


Thick dark "shadowing" appears to both the airfields and the river. Is this normal, are others seeing the same thing, and what causes it? My logic says that the runways and the river (roads do the same) are layered on top of the other stuff and they somehow gain a shadow too. The real reason is probably something entirely different.
 
That's the terrain bump mapping feature. It's tuned prey well for with the WOFF scenery, but can look a bit odd in places when using other scenery.
 
Another question, this time about the sun effect. Is it normal that half the sky is bright white when looking in the direction of the sun, and can it be tuned somehow? I've tried looking in the effect files but nothing stood out as a quick fix. Sure the sun is bright but in real life it's still a bright spot in the sky, not an overwhelming mass of light.

I may have the tweaked suneffect.xml made some years ago by someone who I don't remember. And I have no idea if it's affecting the situation somehow.
 
I suspect is has mostly to do with the values in suneffect.xml.

There is a setting in d3d8.ini where you can turn the sun glare on or off, you could try that to see how much AnKor's shaders are changing the effect.

There are also some parameters in skybox.fx in the Shaders30 folder that would have an effect on this, but I have not tried to change any of them so I'm not sure which one you would want to change.
 
Hi!

Here is the latest version of shaders as I promised:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/d3d8.20161126.zip

It includes WOFF UE features, but it is not exactly the same build - I've a few minor tweaks and rebuild it with Visual C++ 2015. It might no longer work on WinXP, but I hope nobody really needed it.

This version fully replaces stock cfs3 ground shadows with DX9 ones. However you must turn off shadows in cfs3config or you will see double shadows.
There are also some performance improvements and bugfixes (among them is a fix for black spots appearing on water at low angles).

The archive doesn't include d3d8.ini and TextureMagic.ini -- you can reuse your existing ones. However there are a couple of new settings supported in d3d8.ini.
FakeDriverVersion=1
Will stop cfs3 from asking to rerun cfs3config after each driver update. It will simply report fake driver version 9.0.0.0 Instead of actual driver version.
AlphaToCoverage=1
Experimental technique for rendering trees transparency. Works better when multisampling antialiasing is enabled. However it is not tuned well, so might look worse than normal rendering.
 
Thank you so much for this!

p.s. In comparing these to the ones from late July the FPS has dropped from 82 to 75 in my standard test scenario. It does not seem to be related to the cfs3 configuration setting for shadow rending as I get the same 75 FPS either way it's set. I'm still trying to sort out what the issue may be.
 
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Adding AlphaToCoverage=1 to the ini file gets me up to 77 FPS.

This is probably just the way the new DX9 rendering is supposed to work, but based on the WOFF UE comments I sort of expected that the FPS would be going up rather than down.

p.s. A reboot of my computer put things back at 82 FPS with the new shaders, but the July ones are now getting 87!
 
Sorry I haven't looked into the gunsight issue yet, but I'm busy with a new big feature which should be ready for testing soon.

The slight drop of FPS is most likely caused by terrain shader being more complex now as it has to handle aircraft shadows.
 
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