I added a few lines to my high detail city shader, did the appropriate tweaks app side to load the texture, and I started the game up. As the game was loading I was thinking I'll get a slight increase in visual quality, and it might look alright. "Phhht detail texturing" was running through the back of my mind.
Once the game finally loaded up I literally couldn't believe the change in sharpness, even at 800x600 my jaw hit the floor.
See for yourself...
And that's all you get for now [grin] it's still in the works.
I really haven't done much research on detail textures, I just scaled my model's texture coords by 5.0 in the shader and used those to sample the detail texture. I then just multiply the detail & model textures. I wonder the best way to blend the detail & model textures. I'll be researching and experimenting...but any advice on the topic would be appreciated as usual.
Other than that, I packed my Reflectivity/Luminance/Specularity map into a single texture. The alpha channel is still free to..oh...say....modulate the detail texture :-) It looks odd to see detail texturing on some smooth wall surfaces. I'm also going to multiply the detail texture by the inverse of the reflectivity map, that should clean up most of the shiny surfaces like windows, etc.
I'm really thinking about adding normal maps to all objects in the game, including actors. I'm gonna think about that the next day or two, and see if I can get up the courage to do it. Thing is, I'm banging on the 64 instruction limit of PS2.0, so any normal mapping of buildings will bump the "Very High" shader up to requiring shader model 3.0...or PS 2.0 extended. I can still add normal maps to actors and stay in PS2.0 land....and I think the actors need normal mapping as bad as the environment needed detail texturing.
Oh yea...just because I love this screenshot so much...imma post it again :-D
Ah...I'm all "shadered" out for one day...(wait no I'm not)...(or am I)...hmmmm.
- Dan
