Eye candy effects

[est31]

Minetest does too much with the CPU already, while shaders are a better place for this.

Regarding paramat's comment: I think we can have more graphical features. If they look bad, they can be disabled, or not turned on the first place.

[Minetestforfun]

Wow, this candy effects are beautiful, i hope we will have them one day... :)

[twoelk]

Interestingly I was thinking much along the same lines as paramat though the wording in my thoughts was less harsh ;-P

The thing I was rather thinking about though was sorting the stuff a little:


stuff that has been mentioned before and some work and thoughts have allready been put into (see some of the stuff RealBadAngel experimented with in the past. Some things have youtube videos). I can't remember who did the colored lights though, may have also been rba. Maybe we should gather all the info on experiments to each feature somewhere. I somehow have the notion that several people worked on shadows at different times.

1. Realtime water reflections, without adding a water shader (leaving the original water texture)
6. Light glow, from glowing items like torches and lava.
7. Realtime shadows, which truly enhance the complete experience of the game - in my opinion.
8. Color tinting for terrain and biomes, similar to Minecraft. Makes the world feel more natural.
10. Not really a visual effect, but rain/snow/thick fog.
9a. water texture being overlaid on blocks

There has been talk about reflections several times not only water but also glass and mirrors and I think I remember seeing mirrors in some Irrlicht demo game so maybe some more research should be put in this.
Light glow and realtime shadows are part of light from a defined lightsource and also include multiple lightsource problems. RBA had some examples on this and others as allready mentioned have also been experimenting with this.
Rain-snow-fog are there to some degree and some mods offer this. There is room to make this better though.
I don't know wether color tinting should be a default but I think the effect could be very usefull.

cinemagraphic-photolense effects

3. Focal blur
4. Lens dirt (mod can alter texture)
5. Lens flares

These things should by no means be part of default but could easily be something used for a special purpose like the camera mode. So that these effects can be used to simulate the deffects of optical devices that some use to achieve rather beautiful results. The idea of optical filters could well be something other mods could use to simulate, goggles, helmets or different atmospheres. (I'm not sure if focal blur could be programmed as filter though)


Too expensive/difficult at the moment. Should not be official goal of mainstream at the time. Maybe later. Though if some genius has a good idea no one will stop him.

2. Sun shafts when the sun is shining into a cave or darker area.
9b. Underwater effects like displacement, sun shafts.

To get things started I could think of several things that might help.

1. Minetest uses Irrlicht so whatever Irrlicht can provide should be possible to add to Minetest. We could use more research here.
2. Minetest is opensource and can easily use whatever wheels other opensource projects have allready invented.
3. Minetest is and can be inspired by anything. The more specific the request and detailed the example the better.
4. As stated in other places, Minetest is made by a bunch of lunatics - so offering some bananas might get the herd focused.
5. Offering some strategy and a line of goals not too far appart might get the community moving in some general same direction. Note though that there are several strategy / todo lists out there and one should at least study the official and semi-official ones before repeating the same things again. Maybe jumping on some train allready on the right tracks and promoting it would be better.
6. Offering some non-player and non-coder things like organisation, infrastructure, documentation skills would probably help a lot.
   Things such as the mod contest could help and be promoted to garner activity in directions of interest.

phew, took me two days to write this, so some of it might be out of date allready ;-P
might add more links later

[srifqi]

How old is your machine, srifqi?

At my house (not all mine):

• 7~8 years old laptop | Win7 32-bit | Intel N280 @ 1.66 GHz | 1 GB RAM
• at least 8 years old PC | WinXP SP3 32-bit | Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.3 GHz | 2 GB RAM
• ~1 year old laptop | Win8.1 64-bit | <haven't check> | 2 GB RAM
  

... I sort of understand why srifqi is worried. I heard that in Indonesia $$$ costs tens of thousands vs JUST 15.5 here and much less in rubenwardy place, I'm assuming.

That's almost right.
Now: 1 USD = ~Rp13.000,00 and 1 EUR = ~Rp14.000,00.

Yeah they absolutely all need to be optional for people will low-end computers, it would be best if any of these effects could be turned on and off so people can mix their own preference.

Yup. Optional settings.

Minetest does too much with the CPU already,

Agreed.

[philipbenr]

Interestingly I was thinking much along the same lines as paramat though the wording in my thoughts was less harsh ;-P

The thing I was rather thinking about though was sorting the stuff a little:


stuff that has been mentioned before and some work and thoughts have allready been put into (see some of the stuff RealBadAngel experimented with in the past. Some things have youtube videos). I can't remember who did the colored lights though, may have also been rba. Maybe we should gather all the info on experiments to each feature somewhere. I somehow have the notion that several people worked on shadows at different times.
1. Realtime water reflections, without adding a water shader (leaving the original water texture)
6. Light glow, from glowing items like torches and lava.
7. Realtime shadows, which truly enhance the complete experience of the game - in my opinion.
8. Color tinting for terrain and biomes, similar to Minecraft. Makes the world feel more natural.
10. Not really a visual effect, but rain/snow/thick fog.
9a. water texture being overlaid on blocks

There has been talk about reflections several times not only water but also glass and mirrors and I think I remember seeing mirrors in some Irrlicht demo game so maybe some more research should be put in this.
Light glow and realtime shadows are part of light from a defined lightsource and also include multiple lightsource problems. RBA had some examples on this and others as allready mentioned have also been experimenting with this.
Rain-snow-fog are there to some degree and some mods offer this. There is room to make this better though.
I don't know wether color tinting should be a default but I think the effect could be very usefull.

cinemagraphic-photolense effects
3. Focal blur
4. Lens dirt (mod can alter texture)
5. Lens flares

These things should by no means be part of default but could easily be something used for a special purpose like the camera mode. So that these effects can be used to simulate the deffects of optical devices that some use to achieve rather beautiful results. The idea of optical filters could well be something other mods could use to simulate, goggles, helmets or different atmospheres. (I'm not sure if focal blur could be programmed as filter though)


Too expensive/difficult at the moment. Should not be official goal of mainstream at the time. Maybe later. Though if some genius has a good idea no one will stop him.
2. Sun shafts when the sun is shining into a cave or darker area.
9b. Underwater effects like displacement, sun shafts.



To get things started I could think of several things that might help.

1. Minetest uses Irrlicht so whatever Irrlicht can provide should be possible to add to Minetest. We could use more research here.
2. Minetest is opensource and can easily use whatever wheels other opensource projects have allready invented.
3. Minetest is and can be inspired by anything. The more specific the request and detailed the example the better.
4. As stated in other places, Minetest is made by a bunch of lunatics - so offering some bananas might get the herd focused.
5. Offering some strategy and a line of goals not too far appart might get the community moving in some general same direction. Note though that there are several strategy / todo lists out there and one should at least study the official and semi-official ones before repeating the same things again. Maybe jumping on some train allready on the right tracks and promoting it would be better.
6. Offering some non-player and non-coder things like organisation, infrastructure, documentation skills would probably help a lot.
   Things such as the mod contest could help and be promoted to garner activity in directions of interest.

phew, took me two days to write this, so some of it might be out of date allready ;-P
might add more links later

+100 to that post. Probably one of my favorites.

[ABJ]

Man srifqi's numbers ARE huge!
And this is still Asia. Yet I could buy thousands more value of things than him. :O #dollardifference

BTT, BuildAWorld is in Irrlicht, but I couldn't RUN IT it had so much better graphics :D. Just telling so ppl don't think this is s****d.

[ABJ]

Well philipbenr you aren't doing ME any harm with that cost, but you should be aware that you're MURDERING srifqi with the numbers 3:-)

BTW srifqi you've messed up the signs. You put the decimal point where there should be comma and comma in decimal point's place.

[srifqi]

Well philipbenr you aren't doing ME any harm with that cost, but you should be aware that you're MURDERING srifqi with the numbers 3:-)

It is okay, as long as it is optional, that will be okay :)

BTW srifqi you've messed up the signs. You put the decimal point where there should be comma and comma in decimal point's place.

Sometimes, I confused to choose locale. Should I use my country's rule to IDR or not.

[ABJ]

-No I was talking about the PC's :D
-Ooooooh sorry didn't know you ppl had that kind of thing :)

[LionsDen]

Yeah, some of the European countries (and maybe some others) use the period where we would use a comma and a comma where we would use a period in numbers. As long as you remember that some places are different from yours and that is one of the differences, it's not a huge deal to translate it but is a little confusing at first.

I say srifqi, use whatever style you are used to using and let the other people translate them.

[Wuzzy]

I know, it is not Minetest, but I just want to point to Terasology, it has many visual effects.
http://blog.movingblocks.net/blockmania/

[philipbenr]

@Wuzzy: Very true. I haven't played, but I have seen.

@srifqi: I'm guessing that the Windows8 laptop is the one you use. I mean, if you were to "downgrade" to Linux, then you would probably be able to do fine.

I generally run Minetest on a 1.8 Ghz i3, with 4GB of Ram, although the ram shouldn't matter too much. I get nearly 30fps with a bunch mods and some tuned down settings...

[ABJ]

Yeah, some of the European countries (and maybe some others) use the period where we would use a comma and a comma where we would use a period in numbers. As long as you remember that some places are different from yours and that is one of the differences, it's not a huge deal to translate it but is a little confusing at first.

I say srifqi, use whatever style you are used to using and let the other people translate them.

#true
It's just that I've never seen such a thing before.
And yeah srifqi use your own style! ;)

[srifqi]

I know, it is not Minetest, but I just want to point to Terasology, it has many visual effects.
http://blog.movingblocks.net/blockmania/

Yes, it is. Wonderful. I've tried to play it, but then an error occured:

Your graphic card does not support shaders.

****!

@srifqi: I'm guessing that the Windows8 laptop is the one you use. I mean, if you were to "downgrade" to Linux, then you would probably be able to do fine.

Wrong. As what I said:

...(not all mine)

That's not what I usually use. Have ever tried there, and knew that the graphic card is OLDER!
I usually use the Win7 laptop. Sometimes, I use WinXP SP3 computer (it has the highest version of OpenGL; at least 2, I forget the version), but it has processor special bug (because of old?). So, I rarely use it now.

I say srifqi, use whatever style you are used to using and let the other people translate them.

Aye aye captain! :D

#true
It's just that I've never seen such a thing before.
And yeah srifqi use your own style! ;)

Congrats! Your knowledge has increased a bit. :D

[ABJ]

Update to Java 8

* ***** ***** *** *** *****!!!!!!!!!

Your NVidia video card is outdated

***'*!!!!

Congrats! Your knowledge has increased a bit! :D

<=the truth

[paramat]

Sorry for offence caused, part of my post was unreasonable.

Weather effects would be good, i made some experiments in lua using particles (which are currently slow) for snow, and actual rain nodes under dark cloud nodes:
snowdrift https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6854
rain https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9915

[philipbenr]

@srifqi: I'm guessing that the Windows8 laptop is the one you use. I mean, if you were to "downgrade" to Linux, then you would probably be able to do fine.

Wrong. As what I said:

...(not all mine)

That's not what I usually use. Have ever tried there, and knew that the graphic card is OLDER!
I usually use the Win7 laptop. Sometimes, I use WinXP SP3 computer (it has the highest version of OpenGL; at least 2, I forget the version), but it has processor special bug (because of old?). So, I rarely use it now.

Whoops. Didn't see that...

I'm really bothered by these sort of things, and I don't know why. I think that it is because I had to live with a very slow computer for a long time, not to mention extreeeeemely slow internet, and I know exactly how you feel. I downgraded to Linux from win XP and it did a wonder of good. (Pentium4 and 480-ish MBs of Ram...) Sorrry for dragging out so much offtopic...

[Antsan]

Focal blur: Very stupid, assumes we are focusing on a particular distance, looking at anything other than that distance, which is most of the scene, is painful for the eyes.

I assumed you'd* use a depth-blur with variable distance calculated as the distance from the camera to the intersection between the view axis and the terrain.

*probably not actually you

[Kpenguin]

I'm no expert at graphic effects, but SuperTuxKart (the other open-source game that I play) recently upgraded their graphics engine to an engine named "Antarctica" (a derivative of Irrlicht that they made themselves). Most of the things shown in the screenshots at the beginning of this thread are possible with the Antarctica engine. This is just an idea, but maybe we could borrow the graphics engine? Not sure if this is possible, but I'm just brainstorming. ;) Of course, you'd have to talk with the developers.

The only effect I didn't like in the screenshots was the focal blur.

[benrob0329]

I liked most all of them, except for the lense dirt.
The ones that don't represent real life could be in cinematic mode.
I think that most of those would be done with sharers and better lighting code.

[philipbenr]

@Kpenguin: Yeah, I noticed that. I did enjoy looking at the update even though I am having issues with it. Then again, it only just came out recently, so... that is to be expected. It is true. Most of those effects are the ones that have been posted above, so it is possible...

[Exilyth]

1. Realtime water reflections, without adding a water shader (leaving the original water texture)
2. Sun shafts when the sun is shining into a cave or darker area.
3. Focal blur
4. Lens dirt (mod can alter texture)
5. Lens flares
6. Light glow, from glowing items like torches and lava.
7. Realtime shadows, which truly enhance the complete experience of the game - in my opinion.
8. Color tinting for terrain and biomes, similar to Minecraft. Makes the world feel more natural.
9. Underwater effects like displacement, sun shafts and water texture being overlaid on blocks.
10. Not really a visual effect, but rain/snow/thick fog.

1. This effect can be faked using an environment map. Ofc, ray tracing would give refraction and reflection for 'free' (while being harder to implement).
2. This effect is also known as 'god rays', it can be faked as a 2D postprocessing effect: http://fabiensanglard.net/lightScattering/
3. Also known as depth of field - see e.g. http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGem ... _ch23.html
4. Can be added as post processing, just render some dirt splats into the finished image
5. Eww. This overrated effect is easily archieved using some textures, see https://www.opengl.org/archives/resourc ... LensFlare/ but WHY?
6. This effect is also known as Bloom, see e.g. http://prideout.net/archive/bloom/
7. Either shadow volumes http://joshbeam.com/articles/stenciled_ ... in_opengl/ or shadow maps http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/intermed ... w-mapping/
8. Would be possible by multiplying the texture color with a random color, picked by a fair dice roll from average color +- some deviation, see e.g. http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questi ... -a-texture
9. Caustics: https://www.opengl.org/archives/resourc ... /caustics/
10. There's a weather mod, see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5245

Theese definately would need to be toggleable, so they can be disabled. I absolutely HATE motion blur (with a passion), I disable it in all games.

btw: Here's a really great tutorial on modern OpenGL: http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/

[Calinou]

btw: Here's a really great tutorial on modern OpenGL: http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/

What about Open.GL?

[Exilyth]

btw: Here's a really great tutorial on modern OpenGL: http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/

What about Open.GL?

Nice, didn't know about that, thank you.

[AgentNagel42]

gotta say this is pretty darn cool I vote for a build that could include all these!
(of course you could disable different ones to tailor it for your PC)

[kaadmy]

Today I was thinking about how to make waterfalls/steep rivers look fast, and I came up with an idea: would it work to have the water tinted to a nodedef-specified color(In this case for water, white) as the sides get more vertical? Maybe even make the animation play faster as it's more vertical, too?
Vertical shadows would be cool, too, so that buildings would be darker inside, and caves are dark near the entrance instead of being much brighter for a large area inside. The current AO is pretty light even with something 2-3 nodes above it.
Lens flares are also fairly easy, as is lens dirt.
A cheap way to do color tinting per-biome would be put a tinted color on the player's screen(Like lava and water) depending on the biome.

[bubizubi]

Can anyone port Real-Time Global Illumination from Tesseract to Minetest? It drastically improves graphics by simulating bouncing of the light in real time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUYUNgr22m8

[firefox]

that would require a total rewrite of the engine.
it's not possible to port things into minetest that are not supported by the engine.

[benrob0329]

I would record at least 1 Lets Play episode with these on even if it meant getting like 10 fps in game...if they are ever added...

[TenPlus1]

Watching a YouTube video of someone playing minetest at very low fps is quite annoying and I'd personally prefer all of the special effects turned off to improve smoothness of gameplay.