realbasic-games
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Multitexturing using alphas

To: REALbasic Games <realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: Multitexturing using alphas
From: Jeff Quan <jquan at mindspring dot com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 09:40:51 -0700
Delivered-to: listarchive at realsoftware dot com
Delivered-to: realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com
Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=dk20050327; d=mindspring.com; b=eak68r9xRR4t1QhSqg0sD598f4K5bg1Mf5MmLjnxSIHLztGDP0Syn1M4A8qZ0HhN; h=Received:Mime-Version:In-Reply-To:References:Content-Type:Message-Id:From:Subject:Date:To:X-Mailer:X-ELNK-Trace:X-Originating-IP;
References: <2D9BDC80-BF47-4DD7-9350-BB88F1398D71 at miensoftware dot com> <9EA87C43-65B9-4BCA-952F-CE9331D6FC0A at mindspring dot com> <46C9F356-5033-42EA-BFE4-1903775A1013 at miensoftware dot com>

On Jul 5, 2006, at 5:35 PM, Lo Saeteurn wrote:

Sort of... More like light maps, but by using multiple copies of the same model (like how you did in Renegades).

Ah. I started to do that on Renegades level 2, but level 5 is where I think it works best. In keeping with the way commercial games are done, the light maps are quite small to conserve memory.

At the time, I found that the multiple models worked best for shadows than it did for bright lights, but the current version of Quesa should help with your light map endeavor.


In your case, it seems to be memory related. When video memory is used up, it swaps it to RAM. When it is needed again, it loads it from RAM.

Hmm. My card has 256MB of VRAM (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro), so I'd hope there's plenty of RAM. I have a RB app used for Zombies to create human textures -- only a single model in the RB3Dspace and there's still a hiccup.

If you really want to pack in the VRAM efficiently, I've read somewhere about sticking a single large texture into VRAM and texturing the majority of your models with that -- supposedly speeds load time and avoids much of the RAM-VRAM swapping. Now that I think about it, it's probably a trick best suited for consoles with their fixed hardware requirements, but I think it's an idea worth pursuing.

==
Jeff Quan
jquan at mindspring dot com
http://www.jcquan.com/JQportfolio


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode:
<http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/>

Search the archives of this list here:
<http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>