New Release D3D9Client Development

[NOMAD]

I have read the instruction.

 

[Woo482]

Did you? The instructions say to keep the camera below 40 km, on the 2nd image you're over 100 km, not sure what's happening on the first image though :huh:

 

[jarmonik]

not sure what's happening on the first image though :huh:

Viewing objects through an atmosphere is not yet implemented. It will be one of the last things to do.

 

[NOMAD]

Did you? The instructions say to keep the camera below 40 km, on the 2nd image you're over 100 km, not sure what's happening on the first image though

yes，i have read the instruction,but i want to see what will happen if the camara over 40km.

 

[jarmonik]

There has been some progress with the rest of the atmospheric features but my time has gone mostly by considering different kind of implementation methods. The inline engine is already producing realistic atmospheric effects without any integrations or evaluations of exponental functions. Yet still, a physics model that is performing a heavy computations can't get the effects right. For an example producing a twilight after the sunset would require a physics model capable of running a multible scattering scenario and it's just too heavy for an average home computer but it could work for someone who wish to use the Orbiter as an atmospheric test lab of some kind. However, the twilight illumination can be easily approximate with some pretty simple equations.

I suppose a method like the Hoffman-Preetham could be a good compromise between realism and framerate. But I just don't know how well would it work. Testing a multible options is probably the only way to find out.

 

[jarmonik]

Here is a new release for testing the scattering effects. Atmospheric and orbital rendering is online so you should be able to view the Earth from the space. Great number of things are off-line or not working so you really can't play the Orbiter with this release. It took quite lot of efforts to put it together and I am not so sure about the results. Some things look good and some other things won't. There are some mathematical problems giving some trouble. For an example a bright light tends to become white. Red should remain mostly red despite of it's intensity. Selecting the best sample points for the outer (inscattering) integral is also problematic.

Currently the atmospheric haze is rendered into the planet's surface. When viewing the Earth from the space it might better to render the haze into the cloud layer instead. In the current release could layer is not effected by current lighting calculations. If the cloud layer is turned on it will produce some strange effects near the norizon like the clouds being darker than the surface.

So, what do you think of it ? What is good and what is bad ?
I suppose the real question is that how is a realistic atmosphere supposed to look like ?

Everything is raytraced in a per pixel basis and there is no need to worry about framerate. There are many ways to improve the framerate when everything else is ready and I have also an intention to keep the original model (made by Martin) as an backup. There are also some alternative ways to improve the original model without raytracing anything.


Here is a check list for running this version.
- Turn horizon haze on.
- Turn distance fog off.
- Select a celestial sphere background image and set the intensity below 0.1

This version will produce some bad side effects if the camera is below 5km.

 

[jarmonik]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I have implemented a new fullscreen rendering mode that will open a fullscreen sized borderless window for rendering. The taskbar should remain visible in a bottom of the screen and you should be able to alt-tab and run other programs at the same time with the orbiter. Activate this mode from the Video Tab. The resolution settings won't effect when this mode is selected.

It's working fine under Win 7 but does it work with Windows XP and Vista ?
Could it replace the traditional fullscreen mode ?

 

[Poscik]

That looks awesome!

 

[Bibi Uncle]

I am running it on XP with SP3 and it works. However, I have bad FPS, (~10-15 maximum) instead of at least 45-50 usually 60 in the standard rendering system. Also, when you are inside the atmosphere, there is some kind of dark disc in the sky wich does not refresh. I don't if it is normal.

Nice work, I'm looking in the source code right now. I am currently learning DX9. What a wonderful knowledge source ! :thumbup:

 

[jarmonik]

I am running it on XP with SP3 and it works. However, I have bad FPS, (~10-15 maximum) instead of at least 45-50 usually 60 in the standard rendering system. Also, when you are inside the atmosphere, there is some kind of dark disc in the sky wich does not refresh. I don't if it is normal.

You mean the new fullscreen mode is working under XP right ?

Also note that, I am doing some rendering experiments at a moment those are causing the low framerate and many side effects like the black sky. The latest stable release is in the first post of this thread.

 

[FordPrefect]

Hmm... something isn't working properly here on my system. I have an ATI graphics card. Any ideas?

 

[edsupagood]

Same on mine, I have nVidia.

 

[DaveS]

Everything looks A-OK here! I do hope that the sun will make a come-back as right now, it isn't visible except for when it interacts with the horizon.

BTW, the sun-rise/sun-set color on vessels is not quite correct. Currently it is too red. It needs to be shifted more towards the gold-yellow color.

 

[Frankynov]

That's very impressive !

But I still have the Earth's rotation moving veeeeeeeeeeery slowly. I have to accelerate the time by x10000 to be able to see the Earth rotating.

 

[jarmonik]

That's very impressive !

But I still have the Earth's rotation moving veeeeeeeeeeery slowly. I have to accelerate the time by x10000 to be able to see the Earth rotating.

That must be some kind of installation specific anomaly. Earth's rotation period is normal on my computer. Are you able to reproduce the slow rotation with D3D7Client ?

The reason for the slow rotation must be solved but I am currently focused working with the graphics, atmosphere and lighting issues.

---------- Post added at 17:03 ---------- Previous post was at 16:59 ----------

BTW, the sun-rise/sun-set color on vessels is not quite correct. Currently it is too red. It needs to be shifted more towards the gold-yellow color.

Ok, I'll take care of that. And the sun will be restored as well as many other things those are disabled at a moment.

BTW, Does the fullscreen mode (described in post #287) work on Windows XP ?

 

[FordPrefect]

BTW, Does the fullscreen mode (described in post #287) work on Windows XP ?

Yes, works great here - as advertized. Jarmonik, do you have any idea what is causing the increasing brightness near the terminator as I had shown above? Thanks for your feedback and as always, thanks for your hard work on this beautiful new graphics engine!

 

[jarmonik]

Yes, works great here - as advertized. Jarmonik, do you have any idea what is causing the increasing brightness near the terminator as I had shown above? Thanks for your feedback and as always, thanks for your hard work on this beautiful new graphics engine!

There are several reasons those could cause it. A few scaling issues has changed therefore hardcoded parameters won't work. A proper Earth.scatter.cfg file is needed like the one in the package. But I have a better one included in this post. Also delete every Earth.scatter.dds image from the root folder. If there is an old file present in the root the D3D9Client won't recompute a new one. The DDS files can be manually recomputed in the adjustment mode by pressing "U". Enter into the adjustment mode by pressing "P". Also an extensive sun output power "ESun" can cause the horizon to become white.

There is an implementation error that will cause a thin brown-red line in the horizon with the parameters below but everything else should be fine.

Also note that different kind of display settings like contrast, brightness and saturation will effect in results.

Replace values in Earth.scatter.cfg with these ones:

Mie 0.000036
Rayleigh 0.000910
SunIntensity 82.350693
Exposure 0.869840
RayPow 4.000000
MiePow 1.000000
Henyey 0.997820
ScaleDepth 8500.000000
SkyDomeAlt 30115.248047
UpperAtmAlt 150000.000000
Red 0.650000
Green 0.570000
Blue 0.475000

 

[Bibi Uncle]

You mean the new fullscreen mode is working under XP right ?

Yes, the fullscreen mode in the latest release works like a charm on WinXP SP3.

 

[FordPrefect]

Also delete every Earth.scatter.dds image from the root folder. If there is an old file present in the root the D3D9Client won't recompute a new one. The DDS files can be manually recomputed in the adjustment mode by pressing "U".

Thank you jarmo, that did the trick! Looking good now, very good. Will play around further with the adjustment mode.

 

[Frankynov]

I've set up a clean Orbiter installation without anything more than the client.
I confirm the earth's rotation is now fully working