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[WxTech]

About flickering of textures. I suspect the increased opacity enhances the visibility of the inherent flicker. I'll look more closely at texture size (via reduction of the .tga to 512 pixels), to see if this is a factor as well. Has anyone tried the hi rez clouds, which use a 2048 pixel .tga? I note that its textures are quite translucent indeed, which perhaps helps on the flicker front. What if one boosted the brightness of their alpha channel, until the brightest parts are just reaching full white? I can't play with the hi rez stuff, myself, else I would delve into it...

If increased cloud opacity is the flicker-enhancer, I can begin to see a reason for the two-layer approach, and the building up of clouds from numerous textures. Many translucent textures overlapping have increased opacity where superimposed, thus making up for the singleton's gauziness. And the second layer builds a superimposed cloud with all textures now doubled up.

For higher-end machines, one might profitably exploit the second layer, by having its draw distance increased. These textures can be quite small; certainly 64 pixels individually, probably 32, and possibly 16 ( for 4x4 matrices of 256, 128 and 64 pixels, respectively.)

By such an approach, one may employ more semi-transparent textures if indeed this is the antidote to prominent flicker.

[SAS~Malone]

hi Wx, i've merged your effects topics into one thread, and cleaned it up a little.
hope it's okay - if you feel it's too confusing having everything in one thread, it's no big deal for me to split them again, but i think we should give it a go as it is.
you should now be able to modify the thread as you prefer, so maybe just adjusting the initial post to include the latest d/l links for the individual mods should suffice.
good to have you aboard, and thanks for the nice mods!
 

[santobr]

Taking a look at java Sunglare and LightsGlare, the glare02.tga_asis is for the searchlights.


santobr.

[WxTech]

Good hint! I'll look at this and see if a change might be worthwhile. In the meantime, anyone can make a copy of glare01.tga_asis, rename the copy to the 02 version in the same folder, and fire up the game to see how that might improve or worsen the *effect* of searchlight glare in your eyes. In this instance, that a blazing light is stabbing at you from out of the gloom, the dazzling should be worse than sun glare due to the great contrast between lamp and enveloping dark of night. And so the same kind of reduction I strove for with sun glare will likely not be the preferred strategy.

[santobr]

I extracted the clouds folder, I think it is complete:
https://www.mediafire.com/download/d08o2eiaaz3b40k/Effects.zip

The "cloudata.cld" is a very interesting file, but I don't know if it is relevant.
The "Cloud4x4_nosort.mat" file is for far clouds.
I think the "Cloud.mat" is for online and PTO, I don't know for sure, ntrk tracks were recorded with it.

I hope this helps your great work.


santobr.

[WxTech]

Thanks, santobr.

The cloud.mat file handles the single-cloud image for the game's 'simple', or basic clouds. I've already created a .tga which gives these clouds an appearance along the lines of the set I've released here for the 'improved' clouds. The tracks which ship with the game indeed were created with the 'simple' clouds. Now these tracks have more definite clouds when I watch them.

Thre clouddata.cld file may (?) have been introduced more recently than 4.08.

I thought the clouds4x4_nosort.mat file was only a version of clouds4x4.mat which had the nosort parameter altered, and was intended to be renamed. I could well be wrong...

Time to experiment; thanks for the goodies to play with!

[santobr]

I've already tested the "clouds4x4_nosort.mat".


santobr.

[WxTech]

The cloudata.cld file seems to do nothing for 4.08. As a test I very severely trimmed away lines of text, to no discernible effect.

I tried cloud4x4_nosort.mat, by assigning a pure yellow color to the .tga, so as to readily see if it did anything. No effect.

I did alter my cloud4x4.mat with the three differing parameters in _nosort:

tfShouldSort, from 1 to 0.
Frame, from 1.0 to 0.0.
tfAnimatePalette, from 1 to 0.

In addition, I changed tfDoubleSide from 1 to 0.

I don't know which of these changes are responsible, but the texture flicker does appear to be lessened, in the FMB at any rate. I'll check things out in flight later...

So, santobr, what did you observe in your test of _nosort?

[Mick]

Hi WxTech,

I am glad that you now have the Modder status and also your own section in the Visual section, BUT we now have to browse through the (current) 6 pages of your topic to make sure we are not missing, say , the latest update about your Clouds mods for example, since all your mods are now somehow merged into one and only topic ... 

May be you should edit your very first post, and divide it into as many parts as you have mods currently being released and/or being updated, and only give the latest downlod link and change log ...? 

It could look like something like this:

****************************************************************************

SUN GLARE mod:

Latest update:

Change log:


http www ..blablabla

*****************************************************************************

BIG CLOUDS Mod:

Latest update:

Change log


http www blablabla ...

******************************************************************************

etc ...

What do you think ...?

[vpmedia]

Good idea, I edited the first post for you.

[Epervier]

Thank you for your mods !

Good idea, I edited the first post for you.

Thank you !
We had really need clarity! 

[SAS~Malone]

guys, any confusion with the thread is entirely my fault, and not WxTech's.   
i merged his topics into one thread, and did mention a few posts earlier that it might need to be made a little easier to browse: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=40413.msg455547#msg455547
as Wx now has control of the thread, he is able to edit it to something easier, however if he likes, i can try to do it, as well.
as Mick has suggested would be the best solution, i think. 
i just needed to mention this as it is my doing, and not Wx's, so please don't be upset with him