Effects (Bloom, SSAO, SSDO) and VR/TrackIR Installers

[Darksaber]

Ideal was probably the wrong word to use, I'll rephrase my question

Trevor, What would you consider the best average number to use, if 51 is too high?

Your probably going to say 25, which would be the average

[Vince T]

I just took a look at the settings I use when making my renders. It used to be 35 degrees, however with the meshes becoming more detailed I think something between 20 and 30 is in order.

[Darksaber]

Yep 25

[Trevor]

You guessed it

A more detailed answer is "It depends on the complexity of the mesh" and what exactly is considered "smooth".

eg, if you expect the X-Wing engines to be smooth tubes but model with hexagonal prisms then you need a smooth angle of at least 360/6
if however you modeled the engines with a 36 sided prism then you need a smooth angle of 360/36

likewise, if you have a collum that you want to have flat sides to, the smooth angle cannot be equal to or greater than the angle between them (so for a hexagonal prism to look hexagonal, the smooth angle must be less than 360/6)

trev

[blue_max]

Alright, here's the next micro update. I've modified the headlights so that they are spot lights (i.e. a point of origin, a direction, the width of the light cone in degrees and the maximum distance, in meters). This way, they don't illuminate the cockpit and only cast light on whatever is in front of the ship. To prevent a drop in performance, the headlights will ignore any lights set by XWA. For this reason, I suggest these lights to be used only when necessary.

The headlights are activated with Ctrl+H

https://www.dropbox.com/s/79ggl0jpd31i7 ... 0.zip?dl=0

I've also fixed a few issues around the HUD and DC that were reported just a few days ago and a bug that sometimes made the screen freeze when landing in the hangar.

[keiranhalcyon7]

To prevent a drop in performance, the headlights will ignore any lights set by XWA. For this reason, I suggest these lights to be used only when necessary.

What? Do you mean turning on the headlights shuts off all other lights?

[Vince T]

I just tested it. turning on headlights deactivates static light sources like suns. However, far as I could tell, dynamic stuff like the shading effects, reflections and lights from lasers still work.
In the DS mission turning on the headlights right at the start, improved upon the default lighting and made the whole thing more believable. It actually looks like you're flying into a deep dark hole with only your spotlight for company Great job!

Edit: Oh, just a heads-up: The game doesn't store the headlight setting in film room. If you used headlights in a mission and recorded it, you need to turn them on/off manually during the film-room replay - which is actually a pretty cool feature

[Rookie_One1]

to be fair, you would use the headligts only in a place that there is no light anyway

[keiranhalcyon7]

to be fair, you would use the headligts only in a place that there is no light anyway

I'm gonna refrain from making a "where the sun don't shine" joke.

Oh, wait...

[Rookie_One1]

I'm gonna refrain from making a "where the sun don't shine" joke.

Oh, wait...

Where's a certain american president head is right now ?

[Tony Knightcrawler]

I got to wondering - and please bear in mind I have no plans to use a feature like this if it were a thing - could hooks be used to increase the number of hyperspace zones beyond 4?

[blue_max]

A few days ago, we released effects version 1.1.3.1 (see the Downloads section). In this release we have new Headlights that can be activated with Ctrl+H, and a new effect which I called "Speed Effect". This is a simple effect that adds small thin trails around you when the ship is moving. It looks like this:

speed-effect-1.jpg

Please see SSAO.cfg for more details on this effect!

There aren't many new features in 1.1.3.1, it's mostly bug fixes for 1.1.3. I think the most important bit is the stuff I learned when coding the speed effect, which I am now using to code new things.

[Trevor]

Oh nice, a replacement to "Space debris" sprites.

Trev

[Bman]

Maybe rain/snow/sleet/clouds/smoke too? Lot of applications.

[Trevor]

yeah, I think its probably more applicable to weather effects.
I was comparing the effect to the standard effect and the standard one does look a little more "debris-like" (being a sprite) but with the limitiation of not bluring with speed.

The new effect also does not stop when you go into map (it keeps zooming by despite being static)

Trev

[blue_max]

The new effect also does not stop when you go into map (it keeps zooming by despite being static)

Ah, the map... I always forget to test the map. I can fix that. Thanks for reporting the bug!

[bazr]

These are awesome, I can probably throw away my reshade for this!

Will some of these effects be put into XvT and older games? I was thinking specifically the glow effects and maybe explosions. I have toyed with the idea of putting a 1080p cockpit as an overlay with transparency using reshade since in those games the cockpit is a static image mainly.

It would be good to have a hook of some kind that could bring an external high res image for the cockpit even if it had to work around the existing dynamic cockpit elements.

I'm definitely going to be playing more XWA now anyway thanks to this mod and it didn't need tweaking much to run smoothly on my old 660 ti.

[blue_max]

Will some of these effects be put into XvT and older games?

Sorry, looks like I missed your comment. No, these effects are exclusively for XWA, at least for now. I have no plans to tackle XvT or older games.

Back on-topic, here's a preview of release 1.1.4. This has several bug fixes, including metric VR reconstruction and wireframe CMDs:

EDIT: Link removed, see below

[korekwerner]

@Blue_max testing time . Thank you.

[blue_max]

@Blue_max testing time . Thank you.

Looking forward to a new video!

[blue_max]

A few people reported some bugs in the wireframe CMD display yesterday. I just fixed that. Please re-download the preview here:

EDIT: The wireframe CMD was disabled in MSAA mode. This has now been fixed. Please download the latest version here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xczgvonrcjo2y ... 0.zip?dl=0

[MichelangeloS]

A few people reported some bugs in the wireframe CMD display yesterday. I just fixed that. Please re-download the preview here:

EDIT: The wireframe CMD was disabled in MSAA mode. This has now been fixed. Please download the latest version here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xczgvonrcjo2y ... 0.zip?dl=0

I entered the forum back because of this.
I'm trying to play using the Steam installation and the modded install of XWAUP. I downloaded this last file from jul-10 extracted the file in the directory. added teh SteamVR in the VR mode vrparams.cfg, I have SteamVR running and the game never starts at all and it doesn't give any error.
I just see the Alliance launcher and I select to start the game and nothing happens and it closes automatically as I can see it stopped running in Steam.

What I'm doing wrong? sorry if I didn't understood but also I didn't saw any official step by step detail of how to make this running
is there any way to check this ? (a simple step by step example of how to run it in vr)

[blue_max]

What I'm doing wrong? sorry if I didn't understood but also I didn't saw any official step by step detail of how to make this running
is there any way to check this ? (a simple step by step example of how to run it in vr)

I think you're missing the installation of the "Effects by Blue Max's Version 1.1.3.2". You can find them in the Downloads section. The installer should configure your files correctly if you choose "SteamVR". So the step by step process is:

1. Install XWAUP 1.6
2. Optional: You can check that the regular game is working properly at this moment. It should run and play well.
3. Install "Effects by Blue Max 1.1.3.2", select SteamVR during installation
4. Download the update I posted above and configure VR_Mode=SteamVR in VRParams.cfg. This step is temporary and won't be needed once version 1.1.4 is out.
5. Optional but highly recommended for VR: Install the Dynamic Cockpits (also in the downloads section)
6. Run SteamVR
7. Run XWA (you do not need to run Steam at all, you can run XWA directly).

Yes, you're right. I need to make a post with these steps somewhere so that people can find it easily.

You may also install other updates, but I think the above is the bare minimum to get the game working in VR.

[Luke_Skywalker]

So I found a problem with the TrackIR implementation. If you start the game via launcher, TrackIR initializes but quits once you click "play". Starting from the XWINGALLIANCE executable solves this problem, but it would be nice to see this in the readme for others who might not have figured this out. Sometimes I have to relaunch XWA to get the hook to initialize but I haven't pinned down what the cause is.

[EDIT] So apparently TrackIR doesn't actually stop until I've relaunched XWA. Then I have to quit and launch it again.

[Ace Antilles]

I've moved this topic into the XWA VR Help section to make it easier for Blue Max and everyone.
It still has a Shadow link in the Editing forum though.