requestes

white tiger · Post by **white tiger** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:46 pm

hi all.
I would like to request these features for irrlicht 1.2. All of these is implemented currently in OGRE and not in irrlicht (why?):

-cg shader support

-built-in lighting shaders to improve render quality. Yeah this mean that old computers can't run irrlicht application, but you can leave the user to choose if use or not lighting shaders. On new computers an irrlicht game uses 1/1000 of the resource of the GPU and this has no sense. Built in lighting shaders (including global illumination shader) improve graphics and use those resource that otherwise is no used. Old computers simply don't run the shaders.

-spot lights

-OGL AA

-material script

EDIT:

-a class to management quaterinons
-a class to management a 3d homogenous coordinates

Thanks and bye

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:10 pm

I wouldnt recomend cg it uses billions of uneeded api calls per frame which you cant prevent, just learn hlsl or glsl or even better do cg and have the cg compiler convert it to ogl / dx asm, that way you have 100% control

(i hate high level languages now since no vendor provides decent drivers, which is really annoying as ppl shouldnt resort to asm when we have high level languages)

Yes irrlicht is really old in terms of rendering tech, even if evryone complains niko wont change it since its target is to have a wide dev demographic rather than just pretty,shiny games.

btw i would keep GI on your cpu rather than gpu till evryone has 100% sm3 compliance.

sorry if i sound harsh but we have been down that road before and sadly anything intensive/ modern wont be included in irrlicht to perserve portability and wide hardware base

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 9:14 pm

I checked Cg and it creates lots of dependencies and provides a crappy interface. So I think it's quite a good idea to stay with the current state unless someone really needs it and provides a simple extension which can be kept separate as much as possible.
I don't know what kind of special requirements your shaders have, what is missing in the current API?
Spot lights were planned for 1.2. Unfortunately, the new admin of my former employer killed most of my development files in a weird case of arrogant ignorance. So I don't think that I'll manage to get in working again before the next release (I currently have exactly no time left for such things

). Maybe Xaron or Spintz can provide some code (I'd need a solution with three light scene nodes

)
OGL AA is done under Linux, I was waiting for the windows implementation to be sent in, but apparently that guy simply forgot

Even if I had time for that I guess it would be suboptimal as I don't know all this windows stuff that good. So maybe also someone from the community could provide a patch?
Material scripts are quite a huge wish, maybe in Irrlicht 2.0?
Quaternions are supported since 0.3 or so, homogenous 3d coords are just not made public, but are supported since the Apfelbaum renderer was added.

white tiger · Post by **white tiger** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:12 pm

i see now quaternion irrlicht interface

modern render tecniques

sorry but I absolutely disagree with wich you said. I don't understand why modern render tecnique don't preserve portability, a tecnique is indipendet from the OS, isn't it? irrlicht graphic is very old that the moder graphic engine. for the wide hardware base, I think that if someone have got an old computer, simply don't use the feature. on the modern computer use 1/10 GPU power has no sense. Have you ever seen some screenshots of other engines also free (like OGRE)? to be honest I don't now the exact tecnique that it uses, but they are cool. I think that a good graphics make the engine a good engine. So how about? better render quality will be implemented in irrlicht?

cg shader

cg is a c-like shader language that allow you to create a shader indipendet from dx or ogl. yes cg shader support make the irrlicht dll dependencie by another dll (the cg compiler) and increase the size of irrlicht, so there is the question "do the user download a 2 mb graphic engine dll?" if this is the problem, I think that the answer is yes. I think that users prefer features to dll size however someone can provide a compiled irrlicht dll that don't support cg shader, or make a test, release a irrlicht version wich its size is big (but provide also a cg shader example) and if the users who download it is little, provide its support as a separate pack.
I also don't understand why its interface is "crappy". the users that don't know irrlicht simply think that irrlicht don't support cg, no that it do that because cg creates lots of dependies, and download another graphic engine

Bye

Xaron · Post by **Xaron** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:30 pm

hybrid wrote:Maybe Xaron or Spintz can provide some code (I'd need a solution with three light scene nodes )

Sure, I already did this for my modified Irrlicht 1.0. So hang on, I could post the needed code changes here.

But, hybrid, you could just apply this old but still working patch:

http://parsys.informatik.uni-oldenburg. ... ghts.patch

I did it that way.

And yes, there is an API change but a useful one. But you can use it without an API change, too...

Regards - Xaron

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 4:10 pm

The old patch was not really clean in that the interface was not clearly separated into three light scene nodes, but merged everything into one node, with some unnecessary attributes depending on the currently chosen light type. But yes, it might be a starting point (again

)

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:15 pm

Sigh cg has a cg compiler which generates the asm code for dx or ogl the api does that for you, you can use cg.exe to do it yourself.

NO HARDWARE HAS EMBEDED CG SUPPOURT

If you want better rendering quality at least mention or reseach what these technologies are.

And for anyone who complains about irrlichts ancientness read my sig.

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:18 pm

Yeah btw i hope people dont throw around words like cg and .fx without fully justifying their need in their specific situation.

noreg · Post by **noreg** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:17 pm

I think so too omaremad. There are enough of feature (over) loaden engines that it is a pleasure to deal with something more solid. Portability is important now and even more in the future. Maybe Irrlicht programs are the only ones which aliens get running after they found this devastated planet a few hundred years after Day Zero.