D4RK3 54B3R wrote:

I'm getting tired of you throwing the term "Phong Shading" around. This isn't the first time you've abused it. Phong Shading does not encompass every lighting solution that is smooth.

I have assumed that a potential implementation of a 3D display mode for BYOND would use Phong shading. I'm not sure how that's abusing the term.

I don't think that Phong Shading can be feasibly applied to flat sprites in a 3D environment without a normal map, as it would be pretty clear that the sprite is flat.

When you look at this image do you really think "that person looks like a 2D sprite" because it doesn't have a normal map applied to it?

Even with normal maps the sprites would look flat because:
* They are 1, 4, or 8 directional.
* They may be billboards or standing at a fixed angle.
* They have limited resolution (they get blockier when you zoom in)
* Animations will clearly be a sequence of images and not a smoothly moving 3D model.

Forum_account wrote:

Even with normal maps the sprites would look flat

I know for a fact that they won't, because I have seen normal maps applied to sprites with pseudo-3d lighting solutions, and they look like very high poly models.

Yota made a small BYOND utility a while back that applied lighting and shading to a sprite with a normal map, and the stuff it put out looked damned good. Let me see if I can convince him to send me a copy for screencaps.

* Animations will clearly be a sequence of images and not a smoothly moving 3D model.

That just has to do with the number of frames in the animation and the framerate of the game.


Also, whoever said that something had to be 8 directional? It's not difficult to implement 16 directional or 32 directional or even 360 or 720 directional movable atoms in BYOND. It's kind of arbitrary how many directions are used.

Wow, looks like I inadvertently stirred up a hornet's nest. I hope you all will take my remarks as creative input and not an attack. :)

Forum_account wrote:

Are you trying to argue that a simple 3D implemenation would not be sufficient for BYOND unless it included normal maps?

I'm thinking normal maps will be required for any meaningful lighting implementation, 3D or 2D. That Spies demo you showed earlier proves that it can be done without normal maps, but I hope that you don't consider that to be the best sort of display that BYOND can aim for. It's 3D, but it has little character. Normal maps are actually a lot easier than I had thought when I mentioned it yesterday and it works in 2D dynamic lighting environments.

D4RK3 54B3R wrote:

[...] It's kind of arbitrary how many directions are used.

With a 3D display this would require built-in support. If you and I are viewing the same sprite from drastically different angles it will be represented on our screens using different directions of the same icon state.

If you are shooting for something like Final Fantasy Tactics, with directional sprites in 3D scene, that could work. A full 3D display would require a directional vector and abandonment of the dir var (at least as an integer full of bit flags).

Form an earlier post:

Even with normal maps the sprites would look flat because:
* They are 1, 4, or 8 directional.

Each direction in the icon will have a corresponding normal map.

* They may be billboards or standing at a fixed angle.

In which case the normal map will be a single direction across the entire surface. We could make default flat normal maps for the built-in directions.

* They have limited resolution (they get blockier when you zoom in)

The entire zoomed pixel will still have the same lighting applied across it. If that's not good enough, surface normal interpolation is a very common method that is featured in many techniques, including Phong Shading.

* Animations will clearly be a sequence of images and not a smoothly moving 3D model.

I don't understand how this is an issue. Even 3D models are animated in discrete steps.


Falacy wrote:

Forum_account wrote:

Dream Maker's icon editor is sufficient for making 2D sprites but creating 3D models would require extra tools.

One of the many reasons BYOND will never be 3D. Though there are already external apps that exist for this purpose.

The same thing happened before with BYOND supporting icons larger than 32x32. You have to begin with an icon made in external apps and import it to your project.

Shadowdarke wrote:

I'm thinking normal maps will be required for any meaningful lighting implementation, 3D or 2D. That Spies demo you showed earlier proves that it can be done without normal maps, but I hope that you don't consider that to be the best sort of display that BYOND can aim for. It's 3D, but it has little character.

It has little character because there is one light source, one sprite, the icons are low resolution (and poorly drawn), and the maps aren't really designed to leverage 3D display capabilities. The lack of character has nothing to do with normal mapping - games have had character long before normal mapping became practical for real-time use.

The reason I'm supporting a 3D mode is not because it opens the door to more realistic graphics (though it would be nice) but because it opens the door to many new types of games. I guess this is a little counter-intuitive - it's a completely graphical update but it's more about game design than visuals. Currently BYOND can barely support the most basic first-person shooter. With a 3D display mode it could easily support an FPS. Normal mapping would be a nice feature to have but it isn't essential to developing new types of games.

There are many features that would be nice to have (3D models, reflections, shaders, shadows) but they don't create possibilties for new types of games, at least not to the extent that a basic 3D display mode does. These features are still useful and should be considered for future addition (by "future" I mean after our theoretical 3D mode has been implemented) but there are good reasons for these features to not be high priority.

Form an earlier post:

Even with normal maps the sprites would look flat because:
* They are 1, 4, or 8 directional.

Each direction in the icon will have a corresponding normal map.

The reasons I listed were in response to D4RK3 54B3R saying: "I don't think that Phong Shading can be feasibly applied to flat sprites in a 3D environment without a normal map, as it would be pretty clear that the sprite is flat." I wasn't trying to explain why normal maps couldn't be applied to sprites, I was explaining why they wouldn't really help.

The incorrect lighting on the sprite is a rather sublte hint that it's a flat sprite. There are obvious ways to tell that it's a flat sprite even if you have normal maps. This is almost a joke: the incorrect lighting tipping you off that it's a 2D sprite would be like opening your refrigerator, seeing it full of human heads, and yelling to your roommate, "holy crap! did you know that we're out of milk?!"

The picture explains most of it. Can't you do something to make that jagged line of sight more straight and less bad looking when viewed diagonally? Thanks



What you are seeing in this picture is some opaque walls that my character is peeping around causing my sight to be obstructed but the median between my obstructed sight and unobstructed sight is extremely jagged because it is diagonal.

Four years later..
Nurse: "Doctor!"
Doctor: "..?"
Nurse: "The thread.. it's alive."
Doctor: "..!?"

I'd definitely like to improvement here before maintenance mode. :3