giganerd Posted September 4, 2002 Posted September 4, 2002 Is it just me or does it seem like the lighting quality between Single and Multiplayer modes is very different. In SP the lighting quality is very nice, no blotchiness whatsoever. But then it seems that the lighting quality is bastardized (yes, it's a legitimate word) in MP. I've noticed this when testing my various maps. I'll go and test my map in SP and everything is nice and pretty and then I'll go into MP the shadows are big and blocky and the overall lighting just seems dirty. Is there anyway around this or is this just a symptom of keeping maps "light" so that MP games aren't ruined by slow frame rates or other game limiting factors?
muhahaha Posted September 4, 2002 Posted September 4, 2002 I noticed it too. Don't know if their is a way around. Muhahaha
Shadriss Posted September 4, 2002 Posted September 4, 2002 There is a differance in the lighting engine. I've heard enough comments on it to know that. As to getting around it... well, since it's a part of the engine itself, I dont think there's too much you can do. About the best possible (that I know of) solution is just to BSP/Fullvis Extra and pray it isn't too "blotchy".
Bell Posted September 5, 2002 Posted September 5, 2002 Quote Originally posted by Emon Use q3map2. for single maps? where do i get it?
giganerd Posted September 9, 2002 Author Posted September 9, 2002 Ah, found a d/l link: http://shaderlab.com/q3map2/q3map_2.2.0-b12.zip
giganerd Posted September 9, 2002 Author Posted September 9, 2002 I haven't tried using q3map2 yet, but does it really make a difference what compiler you use? I can test the same bsp file in both SP and MP until I'm blue in the face and there still is a difference in quality between the two.
WhiteShdw Posted September 9, 2002 Posted September 9, 2002 Well, it's not really a fix, but using a little bit of color in your light helps. It still won't be a smooth as in SP, but i found that it looks a little bit better. And i don't think a different compiler will help the issue. It seems to me just a difference between the MP and the SP engine.
Livingdeadjedi Posted September 9, 2002 Posted September 9, 2002 hey and also ive noticed that if i have 1 room with a coloured light and another room elswhere in the map with another colour. You sometimes get that other colour appearing in other rooms with the first light LOL Oh well i do remember For ELiteForce that in radiant the light for multiplayer was perfect looks like jk2 took a step back but raven still has goto be the best company around
giganerd Posted September 9, 2002 Author Posted September 9, 2002 Yeah, when I was working on a CTF map I had a blue light by the blue base and a red light by the red base and I noticed splotches of blue and/or red appearing in other parts of my map where there should not have been any. How very strange and unfortunate...
fourwood Posted September 9, 2002 Posted September 9, 2002 It seems like JK2 MP samples the lightmap down, then stretches it back out across the surfaces, resulting in a less detailed lightmap, which would also explain the light bleeding. I've emailed Raven asking about this, but haven't gotten a reply about it. I'd love to be able to circumvent this to get my MP levels to look nice.
WhiteShdw Posted September 10, 2002 Posted September 10, 2002 Quote Originally posted by fourwood It seems like JK2 MP samples the lightmap down, then stretches it back out across the surfaces, resulting in a less detailed lightmap, which would also explain the light bleeding. I've emailed Raven asking about this, but haven't gotten a reply about it. I'd love to be able to circumvent this to get my MP levels to look nice. I'm glad someone mailed them about it. I'm still hoping they can improve the lighting engine with a patch or something. The fact is that right now i spent most of my time on a map to get any decent lighting going, which could be spent better on other stuff.
fourwood Posted September 10, 2002 Posted September 10, 2002 Alright..... I seem to have figured it out. In SP, texture compression and lightmap compression are controlled by the cvars r_ext_compress_textures and r_ext_compress_lightmaps, respectively. If you set lightmaps to 1 in SP, you get the same sucky lightmaps that you do in MP. Buuuuut, in MP, both texture compression AND lightmap compression are tied to r_ext_compress_textures, and r_ext_compress_lightmaps seems to do.....close to nothing. So.... you can turn texture compression off and have good lightmaps, BUT textures DO (as far as I can tell by checking the memory usage of jk2mp.exe) become uncompressed, thus eating up, for my small 2-room 1-hallway WIP level, 50+MB of memory over non-compressed. So.... that's how you get pretty lightmaps, but kill your computer as well, if you're not careful. So... I also emailed ChangKhan about THAT.... saying that it seems to be a bug and it'd be great to have it fixed..... hopefully I'll get a reply.
Bell Posted September 10, 2002 Posted September 10, 2002 great thanks for the info!! I guess you know what the next question is lol; how might one turn texture compression of? sorry my c+ is a d-.
giganerd Posted September 10, 2002 Author Posted September 10, 2002 Yes, perhaps someone with sufficicent programming experice could write a loader or such to bypass/modify the neccessary variables and make the MP lighting look like SP. Even better if we could get the game developers to fix this in a patch.
fourwood Posted September 10, 2002 Posted September 10, 2002 WARNING: Depending on the level you load, this could have adverse effects to the performance of your system, possibly resulting in a crash. There are 2 ways. 1. Open your JK2\Gamedata\base\jk2mpconfig.cfg file in a text editor. Find the line "seta r_ext_compress_textures "1"". Change 1 to 0. Save the file. Done. 2. While in-game, hit shift+` (or ~, next to the 1 key) to drop down the console. then type 'r_ext_compress_textures 0' and hit return. Then quit out of MP and restart the game. For an example: In SP mode, kejim_post took about 150Mb of memory with textures compressed, whereas it took about 250Mb uncompressed. So... I wouldn't be surprised if it causes problems on a lot of systems.
Emon Posted September 11, 2002 Posted September 11, 2002 The crappy MP lightmaps aren't a bug. I think they turned them on by default to reduce CPU and RAM usage, because in MP, your system also has to do all the network stuff, so having the better lightmaps would kill MP performance.
fourwood Posted September 11, 2002 Posted September 11, 2002 Quote Originally written in e-mail by James Monroe: Yes, unfortunately that bug snuck in and shipped. So yeah. James emailed me back with a test jk2mp.exe to try out to see if it fixed it, and sure enough, it did. So.... YES it WAS a bug, and YES they're fixing it and, from the sound of the email, are looking to release it when they know it works right.
Gonkish Posted September 11, 2002 Posted September 11, 2002 just reading.. Q3map2.. 2.2.x does NOT support JO.. try the latest 2.3.x-alphas.. they're working quite nicely..
WhiteShdw Posted September 11, 2002 Posted September 11, 2002 Quote Originally posted by fourwood So yeah. James emailed me back with a test jk2mp.exe to try out to see if it fixed it, and sure enough, it did. So.... YES it WAS a bug, and YES they're fixing it and, from the sound of the email, are looking to release it when they know it works right. That is so cool. Hope they fix some of the other MP bugs as well, like some of the MP entities that don't work correctly. But Lighting is probably the best fix they can make, because it will make all the current maps look better. I guess Raven are quite good at listening to us (well at least to Fourwood ).
Emon Posted September 11, 2002 Posted September 11, 2002 WHOA, you mean there will be another patch??!?!
Gonkish Posted September 12, 2002 Posted September 12, 2002 fourwood = win.. and I must say.. the results of said thingy are very..very....just..amazingly sexy.. compared to the leaking we deal with right now.. *begins humping four*
fourwood Posted September 12, 2002 Posted September 12, 2002 Quote Originally posted by Emon WHOA, you mean there will be another patch??!?! Here's the full email. Interpret it how you will. "Yes, unfortunately that bug snuck in and shipped. I fixed it, but I'm not sure what else might have changed since it shipped. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, I CANNOT GUARANTEE THIS WILL SOLVE ANYTHING OR EVEN WORK, etc. But do let me know if it does work, and I'll ask if I can release it on the web." Last bit there.... if it works, he'll see if they'll let it out as a patch. Oh.... and... if anyone is wondering what the difference will be.... run with r_lightmaps 1 on in SP and MP mode of a single map. The MP lightmaps will (hopefully) soon look like SP's.
giganerd Posted September 12, 2002 Author Posted September 12, 2002 Sweet! It's good to see that the game/community is still being supported (unlike Red Faction, for those of who may have mapped for it). We should all be sure to thank them that they care enough to release another patch so late in the game (pun intended ).
WhiteShdw Posted October 1, 2002 Posted October 1, 2002 Any news on this issue? Are we gonna get a new .exe file or what?
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.