[Project] D3D11Client Development

[MachJok]

The XR-2 occasionally gets sent off at random angles and velocities which prove fatal for the crew. It appears oapiMeshGroupCount and oapiMeshGroup may not be supported by the client. Thanks for the awesome client I love the lighting. I have about 1000 virtual MMU funerals to attend to now.

--
Side note, the sun appears to clip at the edge of the atmosphere when viewed from space. It is a big orb then goes to the default small sun.

[Frogisis]

It's looking a lot better for me, too - The brightness explosions are gone, and when zoomed out the planets and such take on this heavenly glow like you see in photos.
I know the idea is to simulate the eye, but photos are really the only reference most of us have as to what "looks right."

One strange thing is happening, though - I'll post a video later but I have to be getting out the door - Anyway, when the brightness level is changing, it happens in "blobs" over the surface of the planet, as if watercolor paints were spreading out from the planet's brighter, more saturated areas. They grow together into solid brightness as you zoom out, and break back apart and shrink to nothing as you zoom in. It's not a dealbreaker by any means, but it looks kind of strange to me. Maybe it's intentional, to simulate the dazzle you sometimes get from looking at, say, bright snow or sand, but my eyes certainly don't handle it that way.

I was also wondering if you planned on adding extra full-screen brightness when looking directly at the sun, since that's certainly something that causes the human eye to go bonkers.

It's looking great, though. I can't wait for all the new clouds and terrain, too.

[DaveS]

I'd like to try things out. What do I need to get to run the very latest alpha/beta?

[asmi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveS

 I'd like to try things out. What do I need to get to run the very latest alpha/beta?

You can just download latest from "D3D11Client - Terrain" branch and install it. But before you do it, please back up everything that you won't like to be lost - just in case - this is an alpha version, so something may well be wrong.
It's best to have a separate instance of Orbiter for that alpha.

If you want to test terrain as well, please PM me and I will send you links to heightmap files, but please be aware that they are LARGE (~2Gb each, there are 3 of them - for Earth, Moon and Mars), and they may be changed several times during the course of this alpha test so forcing you to re-download them - that's why we don't publish these links until we'll settle of the file format.

[DaveS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmi

 You can just download latest from "D3D11Client - Terrain" branch and install it. But before you do it, please back up everything that you won't like to be lost - just in case - this is an alpha version, so something may well be wrong.
It's best to have a separate instance of Orbiter for that alpha.

Removed previous report s it is now gone for unknown reasons. Will keep an eye on things though.

Here's the specs:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2310 2x2.9GHz
System RAM: 10 GB
OS: Windows 7 Home Edition SP1 x64
Video card:  NVIDIA  GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Orbiter version: 111105
D3D11Client version: 0.4.a.22, June 18 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmi

 If you want to test terrain as well, please PM me and I will send you links to heightmap files, but please be aware that they are LARGE (~2Gb each, there are 3 of them - for Earth, Moon and Mars), and they may be changed several times during the course of this alpha test so forcing you to re-download them - that's why we don't publish these links until we'll settle of the file format.

No need right now.

[asmi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveS

 Removed previous report s it is now gone for unknown reasons. Will keep an eye on things though.

There is a shader compilation process going on during first launch, and it can take up to several minutes. Since you interrupted it, there might be some corrupted shaders, so I'd suggest you to navigate to %TEMP%\D3D11Client_ShadersCache folder, delete everything, re-start client and wait for the compilation to be completed.
Subsequent runs use cached compiled shaders so startup is much faster afterwards.

[DaveS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmi

 There is a shader compilation process going on during first launch, and it can take up to several minutes. Since you interrupted it, there might be some corrupted shaders, so I'd suggest you to navigate to %TEMP%\D3D11Client_ShadersCache folder, delete everything, re-start client and wait for the compilation to be completed.
Subsequent runs use cached compiled shaders so startup is much faster afterwards.

No issues now. Everything including SSU is working as normal. One thing though: It seems local lights doesn't work in VC view. I tried lighting up the payload bay with the floodlights and while they did work in external view, nothing showed in the VC view.

Will continue more testing.

[asmi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveS

 One thing though: It seems local lights doesn't work in VC view. I tried lighting up the payload bay with the floodlights and while they did work in external view, nothing showed in the VC view.

Yes right now local lights are not supported for VC at the moment. For VCs honestly this idea really stuck in my head, so I'm thinking of implementing that thing, which will greatly expand capabilities of VCs.
For now I will get to vessel lighting soon, and then I'll implement local lights support.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveS

 Will continue more testing.

Thank you for your help in testing!

[DaveS]

Here's another big VC item. It seems like VC meshes are rendered over other meshes essentially hiding them from view. I don't know if you can see it in the D3D11Client screenshot but if compare the two I think you'll see the problem.

STS-1 with DFI pallet in the payload bay (D3D9Client):


STS-1 with DFI pallet in the payload bay (D3D11Client):


---------- Post added at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 AM ----------

After playing around with things I have gotten an impression that the D3D11Client is much darker than either the default D3D7 or D3D9Client. Even local lights which are plenty powerful otherwise lose much of their power and brightness in the D3D11Client.

Also on the whole VC darkness issue: Could it have something do with the emissive material settings? That is how VCs are "lit up", they make use of very high emissive settings. It almost seems like that isn't used on meshes that are loaded as VC meshes.

[SolarLiner]

For the Space Shuttle, I have something like FSX's cockpit view: The cockpit mesh is in the very front of the camera, hiding all others objects.

[asmi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveS

 Here's another big VC item. It seems like VC meshes are rendered over other meshes essentially hiding them from view. I don't know if you can see it in the D3D11Client screenshot but if compare the two I think you'll see the problem.

That's exactly what's going on - VC meshed are drawn on top of "regular" ones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveS

 After playing around with things I have gotten an impression that the D3D11Client is much darker than either the default D3D7 or D3D9Client. Even local lights which are plenty powerful otherwise lose much of their power and brightness in the D3D11Client.

Also on the whole VC darkness issue: Could it have something do with the emissive material settings? That is how VCs are "lit up", they make use of very high emissive settings. It almost seems like that isn't used on meshes that are loaded as VC meshes.

I've fixed emissive lighting - pls take latest and try it out.
But I think using emissive settings for VC is fundamentally wrong - unless they are actual "real" lights, they shoud be lit up by local lights. I'm working on adding local lighting support so it will be implemented soon.

[DaveS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmi

 That's exactly what's going on - VC meshed are drawn on top of "regular" ones.

Isn't this wrong? Both the DX7 and D3D9Client works differently and draws the DFI pallet mesh on top of the VC mesh. I believe you are leaving out the MESHVIS_EXTPASS parameter when drawing meshes. This causes the meshes to be drawn in a separate external pass which allows other meshes to obscure it.

See page 467 of the Orbiter API Reference Manual for a description of this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmi

 I've fixed emissive lighting - pls take latest and try it out.

But I think using emissive settings for VC is fundamentally wrong - unless they are actual "real" lights, they shoud be lit up by local lights. I'm working on adding local lighting support so it will be implemented soon.[/QUOTE]
I agree but since local lights are pretty new, using emissive materials are still the default way of lighting up VC meshes.

[dumbo2007]

Ok, I was trying out the client today after Nvidia finally came out with a beta driver for my card(630M) and what can I say ...it looks beautiful especially the new atmosphere.

I only had some missing textures a few times when I was trying to play the Brighton Beach scenario which I have shown in the video. Otherwise frame rates are good(about 130 for me on a laptop) with full PP and 2xAA.

I would love to have those links to the height maps so I can start testing out terrain.

D3D11 client - YouTube

D3D11 client - YouTube

By the way is the faint flickering fixable.

[Bibi Uncle]

I wanted to test the D3D11 client, but my computer still runs Windows XP and the video card doesn't support DirectX 10. So, I thought about my parents computer, which is much more recent. I installed Orbiter [v. 111105], DirectX June 2010 update and the client (node 5583c998327f9eacacd399373046701f60bb87e4). However, when I click on the "Video" tab, I get a "Device creation error : 0x887A0004, meaning that my hardware doesn't support DirectX 10 (see http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthr...led#post331996 ). Starting a scenario only creates a blank window.

But I'm sure that the computer does support DirectX 10. Running DxDiag reveals that it supports up to DirectX 10.1. The computer is a Toshiba Stallite P300, with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650.

[SolarLiner]

You need to have DirectX 2011 for working. And for that, youmust have Win7 (I thinl, I am not really sure).