Oh, thats cool.

I sort of understand how it works by looking at the code.
But does it let you run more than one mod at a time? You didn't make that clear, and I lack the experiance in C++ to see it in the code.

This probably isn't something I should be sticking my nose in since I'm such a noob, but I'm just curious since I had an idea like this a while back, but don't have the skill in programming to do it yet.

If you want a realistic 3d experiance check these out:

https://edimensional.com/index ... a0fa7766b6a4afcdc27e97d52

They work with any graphics card and any monitor provided it goes above to or above 70hz refresh rates.

It does look odd in FPS games because the heads up display is still 2d and seems to float infront of you, but it doesn't cause that much of a problem.

I know I want a pair of them!

This is exactly what I was going to suggest at one point.

I haven't done much work with programming (some c++ with DX9sdk and currently learning Turbo pascal)
so I can't help much other than to suggest that you use a unit system.

Its the same thing as you posted above, but I'll right it out in simple terms for referance. (so I understand it as well)

D3D8.DLL is simply a loader file that runs all the normal functions and uses a calling list (say units.ini) to call the other DLLs for each mod
(for example the motion blur DLL) and run the functions from them.

Only problem I can see, is loading more than one. You'd need to re-code and re-compile each DLL to work as a unit instead of a d3d8.dll file.

The way I see it, you can't use the original DLLs for the mods no matter how you code the loader because many of them use the same functions for different things. (not all people code the same way)

Like I said, it's not hard to use an archive file for Skins_x. And it'll reduce the file size if you compress it. Although compressing it will increase load times for skins just by a bit.

The one game that got me into racing was F1, came with my 8mb
ATI AIW PCI graphics card. I loved that game, it was very realistic for it's time, and the music, just killer! :rock_band ROCK AND ROLL!!

I have it still, somewhere
When I find it I'm loading the sound track to LFS
and then reinstalling it for the memorys.

I was just looking at the HDR in HL2 (screen shots of course)
and I noticed alot of upper contrast clipping, in lost coast you can't even see the clouds around the sun because its so clipped off.

And yet people say that looks realistic?

Thanks guys, I figured it had something to do with the smoothing.
I'll have to correct that.

As for the yellow interior, I have a light inside the car where the dome light would be, it lights up the interior a bit.
The interiors are actualy brown leather too, I used my custom interior for the texture.
I also have a red tint on the windows too.

This is the first render I'v done of a car from LFS.

[attach]27931[/attach]

This probably doesn't look like a first render, but I'v had other experiances in 3d studio max so it shoulden't look to bad.

The reflections are a bit off on the hoods, but I coulden't figure out why, or how to fix it.

If you've seen this anime, you'll understand the details on and under the lights.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Tue 15 Jan 2008, 18:45.

Quote from RedQuad :

Well I am not that smart, but I am smarter than you when it comes to the human body.

In fact if you shut one eye you loose your ability of stereoscopical depth perception.

That's the reason why some animals have their eyes in the front of their faces. Because they need to guess distances.

You completely missed the point, the image does loose depth when you shut one eye, I didn't say otherwhise, but it still doesn't look like an image, it still has some sence of dimension, more than a computer screen does. This dimension is needed to give a true 3d image. Basicaly you need to actualy create the world for it to be truly 3d.

Animals that have there eyes on the side of there heads don't have any less depth perception than you or I, they have there eyes there so they can see more around them. When they look at something they still see the dimension AND depth of it.

I realize you've taken classes, but that doesn't mean you know more about creating a 3d perspective from a screen.

I'v worked with sterioscopic imaging before.

Now lets get back on topic, shall we?

I played with the settings a bit more, and I'v found that I'v managed to limit the clipping to a very minor amount and still get the nice contrast, it actualy looks like an HDR photo rendered to
8bit.

Quote from RedQuad :

First of all: You are wrong, I am right.
This is because you got an opinion about that topic and I have profound knowledge.

If you take a look around in the REAL WORLD EACH EYE JUST SEE'S FLAT IMAGES. Period.

I DID NOT dispute that, what I am saying is that the image on your monitor is still FLAT. however the world is NOT flat, no matter how your eyes see it, and because of this you can't get a true three dimentional
image from your monitor.

Just think about how it works, sure it looks 3d but it isn't
The only way I can think to describe this is, stand at a corner, if you reach out, your eyes when working together can see that the walls leading away from the corner are progressively farther away from you, on a monitor image they arn't but your mind percives them as such because the images your eyes are sending it tell it that the corner is pressent.
But that doesn't change the fact that the corner isn't there, it's still flat on the screen.

If the world was the same way the glasses worked it would look like a video game when you shut one eye, it doesn't because the world is 3d, the monitor's screen doesnt change shape to make up the objects so it is still a perspective trick.

Edit: and I don't care if you are the smartest person on earth.

I still think you'r not getting what I'm saying, The real world is 3d, no matter what each eye sees it as.

your monitor image is FLAT no matter what each of your eyes see.

You can not get the same depth with an imageing trick as you can with the real world.

If you had the glasses you'd see it, some things still seem flat, they just look layered with gaps in between, thats all.

I don't have them, but I' heard alot about them. Don't get me wrong they work, but they still can't give you that true 3d realisim that you experiance every day. No matter the detail of the game, it's still rendered as a flat image.

Quote from evilgeek :

do i have to spell it out?

ok. here is my addition:

don't label your thread "must read" unless it's actually important, and no, cranking the hell out of your colour settings and making them look stupid isn't important.

is that better?

Well, someone's been having a bad day, damn.

And to some people it is, if it wasn't there'd be no posts here.
(thats includeing the posts like "that isn't HDR", which is kind of the point since it's supposed to fake it)

Quote from Shotglass :

it doesnt matter at all as the image youre eyes capture is flat as well
there is 0 difference in the image on your retina in a true 3d world and with imax or other 3d systems (assuming your glasses are perfectly aligned to the filters on the projector ... but the slight missalignments you get irl arent really worth mentioning)

I know, thats what I'm trying to make clear.

all the system does is trick your brain into thinking you have one perspective per eye coming from the monitor, your brain then does it's job.
Turning the two images into one.

It's still not true 3d because the world you look at is actualy 3d, but on the monitor it is still just two flat images.

Quote from evilgeek :

when i saw "Must Read" in the title, my gut told me not to, and i tried to resist. now i wish i had tried harder.

If it looks bad to you, It's the difference in monitor settings.

Edit: why'd you even bother posting if you have nothing to add?

I think we need a sticky or something, with all of the cars and what they and there interiors are modeled after.

This way new people won't be posting things like:

"Did you know the XRT is modeled after the Starion?"
or
"Is the XRT modeled after a 944?"

I know that I personaly thaught it was modeled somewhat after the 944 when I first started playing.

You are still tricking your mind into beliving the image it is seeing is actualy 3d, all it is doing is sending one flat image to one eye and another to the other eye. The image from your monitor is still flat, it just renders two different angles and shows one to one eye and the other to the other eye.

So it still isn't truly 3d.

It's also a very cheap trick that doesn't work to well for some people.
After reading some reviews, I'm not sure I'd want one.

Then again, it might be realy cool if it works for me.

Edit: @ Redquad

I already know how the eyes pick up an image, if you hadn't got that from the way I described the system.

Edit2:

For motion blur to work correctly you need the rendering system to "bleed" the pixels in the direction of the blur. If you can anti-alias you can get a good blur, it just uses to much processing power to do at the moment.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Thu 5 Apr 2007, 17:54.

It is a trick though, just because the rendering engine renders "3D" it doesn't mean it is realy 3d, it's still displayed as a flat image.

the only thing that is realy 3 dimentional is the data it uses to render (X,Y,Z cords), the output is flat.

Quote from RedQuad :

That's not faked 3D.
It is real 3D, as real as every other visual perception in real life.

Well technicaly it isn't 3d, because the objects still arn't actualy rendered in true 3d, its more of a perspective trick.

What they do is shut one eye as they display one perspective, and then shut the other as they show the second perspective. This just keeps swaping back and forward at the same rate as your monitor refreshes.

unless you have a refresh rate above 70hz it doesn't work well.

@Shotglass

if the FPS was higher it still won't blur on it's own, especialy at rates that exeed the percivable difference.
The screen is still stationary, so you won't get blur.
Motion blur has to be done by the rendering system to get it to work well

Don't know if you've seen this but.

http://www.kegetys.net/lfs/

Look at the motion blur mod, it's very buggy but I'v tried it. It actualy blurs whats going by but didn't blur the hell out of the track ahead.
I had to play with the configuration file for a bit to get it to look good, but it realy does a good job.
Only problem is it crashes sometimes so as stated on the site, not recommended for regular use.

I wouldent say 500+ fps, since the human eye realy can't tell the difference after 60+, or somewhere around that.
These people that go nuts after 200fps frame rates are just wasting there time since your monitor can't display that anyway, unless that is, you use an insane refresh rate.

We are along way from getting true 3d display, but we can somewhat fake it with special hardware.

https://edimensional.com/index.php?cPath=21

never used them so I don't know how well they work, but I'v read
alot of positive reviews about them.
I might be purchasing a pair sometime when I have the money, after I get a license for S2 that is.

Edit: to get the glasses to work you do have to set your refresh rate higher than the standard 60hz

Last edited by DragonCommando, Wed 4 Apr 2007, 18:33.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

The trouble with HDR effects in a lot of games is they are trying to recreate the effects seen by a camera, rather than the effects seen by your eyes (things like lens flares - I know I've never seen a lens flare.).

Certain effects are good however. Proper motion blur will make a lot of games look better because your eyes don't see a series of still images, they see the whole thing moving. Same thing with bloom. You do see a small amount of bloom in the real world, just nothing like as pronounced as a lot of games these days. Half Life 2 Episode 1 had it pretty much spot-on.

I have to agree about HL2 E1
All my card supports is bloom, in CSS its way overdone, de_dust has to be the hardest on your eyes with bloom on. ( I don't play it much though, never realy liked counter strike)
But in Episode 1 it was amazing.

Quote from 96 GTS :

You do realize the Stealth and the 3000GT are the same car, don't you?

yes, I do.

OK guys, look up Mitsubishi Starion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Starion
Thats what the XR GT Turbo is.

The interior is modeled after the Stealth's interior
http://www.3sx.com/store/cars-3sx/cars-eric.asp
(bottom large photo)
I wonder why he didn't just use the Starion's interior, its not hard to get pictures.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Wed 4 Apr 2007, 02:29.

It woulden't be to hard to make an archive file called skins_x and have LFS dump them there instead of the folder.

It's even possible to just use a .zip file and have a password on it so only LFS can change it's contents or even see the contents.

I know this because the Duke Nukem HRP, a third party high ress mod for Duke3d uses zip files to store the contents and the port just simply reads the contents, its a bit slower if they are actualy compressed but they don't have to be.
If you write it properly then LFS will be able to use a password to get into it and no one else will know (unless they REALY want to)

and to solve the problem of wanting to clean the folder (archive), you can delete the skins from inside LFS but can't do anything else with them.

It's not hack proof, but it would add just that much more security.
You could even have it compress the files so people can't complain so much about the number of skins they have to download and the size it takes on there HDD.

and in case team size comes in to play, I belive it's only one man who works on the port that actualy uses the files, the content is made by some people who just simply asked him if they could use it.

I think you guys are getting to the point I was trying to make with the bit about HDR, why try to simulate something your hardware can't display when you can make the changes to your hardware to get the contrast to a more realistic level within the range you'r monitor can display.

I'm not saying you should kill your upper contrast, but I think it does look better with the contrast enhanced.

As for the clouds, I looked at them again, they do seem a bit over expossed, but only where the sun is, I compared that to the clouds around the sun today (hurt my eyes doing it) and it does look much closer to what I saw, posibly just a bit over, but very close.

So in the end, the the name of this thread should be something like, "more realistic contrast for realism junkies!" but I didn't think about it at the time, and the only thing I could relate it to was HDR, since I'd been working with it at the time. (and they did look pretty close at first)

In the end I think I learned a bit moree about my hardware, like the fact that my monitor isn't as messed up as I thaught.
And I discovered a realy cool photo trick to get Fake HDR that doesn't quite live up to the name but thats what they called it at school.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Wed 4 Apr 2007, 01:58.

Did you even read what I said?
REGULAR MONITORS CAN'T DISPLAY TRUE HDR!

do the research.

"The human eye supports a very high dynamic range, around 1,000,000:1. This is achieved in part through adjustments of the iris and slow chemical changes, which take some time (ie, the delay in being able to see when switching from bright lighting to pitch darkness.) At any given time, the eye's dynamic range is smaller, around 10,000:1. However, this is still much higher than the dynamic range achievable by most current display technology.

Negative black and white film can capture a dynamic range of about 4096:1 (12 stops) maximum, while colour slide film reach can typically capture a dynamic range of 64:1 (6 stops). Printing has the same problems as displaying on LDR monitors as colour paper only has about 64:1 (6 stops).[citation needed]

On average, most computer monitors have a specified contrast ratio between 500:1 and 1000:1, some reaching 2000:1 or higher, such as LG Electronic's L194WT models or ASUS Technology's LS201 models.[citation needed] Current plasma displays are specified at a 10,000:1 contrast ratio (most are 50% lower). However, the contrast of commercial displays is measured as the ratio of a full white screen to a full black screen in a completely dark room.[citation needed] The simultaneous contrast of real content under normal viewing conditions is significantly lower.

One of the few monitors that can display in true HDR is the BrightSide Technologies HDR monitor, which has a simultaneous contrast ratio of around 200,000:1 for a brightness of 3000 cd/m2, measured on a checkerboard image.[citation needed] In fact this higher contrast is equivalent to a ANSI9 contrast of 60,000:1, or about 60 times higher that the one of a TFT screen (about 1000:1). The brightness is 10 times higher that the one of the most CRT or TFT. But such display should only be useful if it needs to operate in a pitch-black room and in two seconds under bright lighting, and the eye should be able to see a full dynamic range on the display in both situations.

This means that HDR rendering systems have to map the full dynamic range to what the eye would see in the rendered situation. This tone mapping is done relative to what the virtual scene camera sees, combined with several full screen effects, e.g. to simulate dust in the air which is lit by direct sunlight in a dark cavern.

There are currently two graphical effects used to combat these limitations, tone mapping and light blooming, which are often used together." - wikipedia

I did mine.

edit: forgot this part

"Before HDRR was fully developed and implemented, games would create an illusion of HDR by using light blooming and sometimes using an option called "Enhanced Contrast Settings"." - also wikipedia

Last edited by DragonCommando, Tue 3 Apr 2007, 01:41.