Comments on: Software vs GLQuake: Texture filtering

http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/ The greatest Quake 1 Singleplayer site on this planet. Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:15:18 +0000 hourly 1 By: Bad Sector http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1211 Bad Sector Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:15:35 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1211 Another minor difference is that software quake doesn't use perspective correct texture mapping for 3D models, making model textures "wave" a bit depending on the viewing angle. Also i think that for small on-screen triangles another rasterizer is used that basically draws a blob of pixels approximating the triangle instead of performing a full triangle rasterization. This has the side effect that some small objects or object far away appear to stand out more in the software renderer than the OpenGL renderer. By: Spirit http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1190 Spirit Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:15:18 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1190 Thanks again for these explanations, metl. Particles, waterwarp and transparent liquids are things for later chapters. I don't think that I will go into third-party features. By: metlslime http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1171 metlslime Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:47 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1171 I just wanted to point out, software quake can't be perfectly emulated with any of these. The closest you can get is GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_NEAREST (or perhaps GL_NEAREST) with anisotropic filtering turned up as high as possible. The main reason is, opengl determines which mipmap level to use based on distance and surface angle, so that sharper angles (floors in the distance) get a smaller mipmap than surfaces perpendicular to the camera (wall facing you at a distance.) The software renderer will choose only based on distance, and doesn't look at the angle. This means that walls facing you will be similar in both renderers, but floors will be noisy in software quake and blurry in glquake. Anisotropic filtering helps sharpen those angled surfaces, such as floors, which are too blurry when using opengl mipmapping. The other, more minor difference is that software quake only uses 4 mipmap levels, so anything super far away will get noisy because it has no smaller images to mip down to. Opengl generates mipmaps all the way down to a 1x1 image. By: gb http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1170 gb Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:54:37 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1170 and also, transparency, which is apparently impossible in software Quake >:-( (Quake 2 and Hexen 2 do it, though) By: gb http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1169 gb Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:47:58 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1169 I like the antialiased edges in GLquake. The better looking decals, logos, and things like skyboxes, fog and colored lighting. I don't like its weird flat lighting, the fact that it makes flames, torches and candles look bad (do a comparison, I suggest playing coag3_gb in software for once to see the intended lighting), and the fact that it smears the floor textures in front of me :-( Also, there's no waterwarp in GLquake... GLquake can in some cases even make walls have entirely different colors than in software. Mostly textures that are only dimly lit. I have said this elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here: The idea to remove the software renderer from engines, "because it's 1999, man!1!", seems really dated today. Software rendering is not per se worse than GL. Oh if we only had one engine to worry about... By: onetruepurple http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1167 onetruepurple Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:11:48 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1167 You may also want to add cvars for how particles look - so you can alternate between nearest + pixels and linear + dots. In fitz, that's r_particles 1 and 2. No idea about others.. By: deus http://www.quaddicted.com/software-vs-glquake/software-vs-glquake-texture-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-1162 deus Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:09:28 +0000 http://www.quaddicted.com/?p=719#comment-1162 nice observation and well presented.