Shiny sword in DS2? (how to use shaders)
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| Submitted by Sharkull on Thu, 2006-02-16 15:06 | ||
In the demo movie clip for DS2 (the long one narrated by Chris Taylor) I remember there being two special swords... one of which had a reflective appearance (shaders?). Having played the game now, I can't say I've seen anything "shiny" in the game other than water. :? Has anyone seen a shiny sword (or any reflective surface other than water) in DS2? forums: |
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First, i had to edit/update the pre-last post concerning the influence of the dds image.
The sword has indeed a tracer effect, however it's just the default one like all swords of common Morden swordmen have. There is too an effect for the boss monster sword edition but it looks too comic-stylish anyhow.
I don't really know why GPG didn't use more shaders...
Maybe the visual impression is generally not significant enough. I mean you have to look really good to see the shader effect on a small sword.
Perhaps it also has performance-reasons. At least with my ATi card i can disable shaders in the option menu. It will work for water but i still have shader effects on swords...
A last not about finding that sword.
For demonstration reasons I just have hidden a sword on the map. If interested in it you would find it:
>>
- Leave Eirulan northwards for the Outpost.
- Stand on the center of the Outpost place.
- Turn the camera to look southwards.
- On the right side the is a Morden sword leaning on the wall, grab it!
<<
Well, watching on the radar display won't help you to find it, some things really have to be secret, only known to a small subgroup.
Believe or not the tracer effect uses a glow shader technique, hehe. I don't think GPG realized how far shaders were going when they were making ds2 /shrug.
Edit: Made this reflective staff for the heck of it. Hard to tell it is reflective without out an animation. Looks neat in game. My bronze texture didn't come out so great though. Does it look metallic to you guys? Afraid I don't have time for that atm gotta head to class.
Many weapons have tracer effects by default. - And that technique is also used here!?
...then me too i beginn to wonder why GPG hasn't expanded shaders eg. on shields.
Hmm... :idea: ...maybe i should just go and look how shadered shields look like!?
I'm mean performace as argument not to use shaders can't be the reason when even every monster weapon calls the shader routines.
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--- Edit:
About your staff: It looks great, really fine model, but it's difficult to recognize the amount of shader effect.
It's hard to see if there is no movement or if you havn't an unshadered image to compare with.
In that sence - sorry if i post an another gif slowing down your forum... :oops:
As you see shields can have shaders too.
For some shields it's quite a visual improvement so i'm intending to upgrade some shields with the next hotfix mod.
However, not every shield stands the shader effect, that glossy look is often too much.
Initially i have taken the 'morden sword shader effect gas code', this works fine but amazingly also the original/posted code works!(?)
I have made a experiemental shader effec mod for all shields (7kB). Feel free to download and to play with it.
Expect of a link there is not much comment inside, but most people watching this thread will understand what it is all about.
At my school so posting under guest. The only performance issue with using shaders would be up to your graphics card. They have gotten to the point where it is good to move stuff over to the gpu. Mostly shader model 1 and 2 are used in games. 3 is not used so much if used at all. If you look at the new games that have come out, they use an insane amount of shaders.
Actually i bother more about another thing than system performance...
...it is how strange the shadow of shadered item will be displayed:
With the sword, that really looks unnatural at some places - now i'm wondering is this caused by errors in the shadering code!?
However there are already a lot of strange shadow construction in DS2 (unlogiacl/unphysical display specially on/over edges or eg. no shadows at Eirulan but they appear suddenly soon after you leave the town).
Amazingly also the shadow construction for existing shadered items doesn't completely worky as it should - but there it bothers much less:
As you may see, the shadow of the shield has a hole in the center - that's exaclty the corresponding position on the shield where shaders are applied.
So it seems shadered surfaces either fully block any light (as with the sword) or will be considered to transparent as here with the shield.
Specially about the sword, if you have any idea i would appreciate any solving inputs.
Can this be applied to armors such as amr_bdy_ftr_mythril?
It can be applied to any texture. So can the glow shader effect.
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