Project D3D11Client Development

[asmi]

I don't know about others but from my point of view I'm not necessarily looking to use Orbiter as a flight simulator in the sense that i don't want to land on the planets. I just want to make flights over the terrain and make maneuvers from low orbit to surface and back again. The really frustrating part is that after finishing a long orbital transition you end up with a flat surface regardless of the hi-res textures. I would really enjoy some 3d meshes like the asteroids from the Asteroid Pack 1.00 in the Hangar.

Thanks so much!!

Throw away your long outdated and obsolete XP and install Win7 - this way you can do that now with D3D11Client.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Throw away your long outdated and obsolete XP and install Win7 - this way you can do that now with D3D11Client.

... or wait until the end of this month and install Win8.

 

[kuddel]

Throw away your long outdated and obsolete XP and install Win7 - this way you can do that now with D3D11Client.

Sorry the OS alone will not make you able to do so. My Win 7 machine can handle DirectX11, but not the complete feature-set So I am not able to run D3D11.
But I think you've just forgotten to add a "", right?

 

[asmi]

My Win 7 machine can handle DirectX11, but not the complete feature-set

That is not possible - either your video card is DX11 level and supports ALL its features, or your card is NOT DX11-level.

BTW despite what name suggests, D3D11Client works on DX10.0 and DX10.1-level cards as well, albeit with some degraded functionality (for example terrain is not that detailed as it is in DX11).

 

[kuddel]

That is not possible - either your video card is DX11 level and supports ALL its features, or your card is NOT DX11-level.

BTW despite what name suggests, D3D11Client works on DX10.0 and DX10.1-level cards as well, albeit with some degraded functionality (for example terrain is not that detailed as it is in DX11).

Sorry for my typo :embarrassed:
I have a Card that supports Direct X 10.1

Nevertheless the most current revision (3bcc40182ca9) of D3D11Client fails for both options in "pre-processing" (regardless whether I select "Pixel Shaders" or "Compute Shaders" it places a message like attached and finally crashes).
Or did I miss a third option (OFF)?

P.S.: All other (D3D11-)options were left unchanged.

 

[Donamy]

That is not possible - either your video card is DX11 level and supports ALL its features, or your card is NOT DX11-level.

BTW despite what name suggests, D3D11Client works on DX10.0 and DX10.1-level cards as well, albeit with some degraded functionality (for example terrain is not that detailed as it is in DX11).

Just brought my pc in for windows 7 upgrade, I hope to be jumping on this bandwagon soon.

 

[asmi]

Sorry for my typo :embarrassed:
I have a Card that supports Direct X 10.1

Nevertheless the most current revision (3bcc40182ca9) of D3D11Client fails for both options in "pre-processing" (regardless whether I select "Pixel Shaders" or "Compute Shaders" it places a message like attached and finally crashes).
Or did I miss a third option (OFF)?

P.S.: All other (D3D11-)options were left unchanged.

That is a bug I've just uploaded a fix so this check is only performed when Compute Shader-based PP pipeline is chosen. Download latest, choose Pixel Shaders in post-processing options - and it should just work!
Oh - for terrain you'll need to download heightmaps - pls PM me and I'll give you links if you don't mind downloading ~6Gb

 

[kuddel]

That is a bug I've just uploaded a fix so this check is only performed when Compute Shader-based PP pipeline is chosen. Download latest, choose Pixel Shaders in post-processing options - and it should just work!
Oh - for terrain you'll need to download heightmaps - pls PM me and I'll give you links if you don't mind downloading ~6Gb

Thanks! I've tried out the new git-tip (3e216798d15a) and can confirm: no more message.
But the crash still happens afterwards. The message was annoying, but maybe not the reason for the crash I get.
Any log I can provide to help?

Anyway, I am going to bed now, so don't expect any answer from me soon
Good night,
Kuddel

 

[SolarLiner]

This is not a "bug", it's rather than a graphical glitch:

The sun appear to be too big while landed too, IMHO.

 

[Astronut25]

Some Bugs

I've noticed that the textures and normals of the planet I'm orbiting is visible on the "Celestial sphere" texture. (its more noticable in-game)

Here's one that I almost missed, has anyone else noticed that the stars, constellation lines, and celestial sphere texture are not aligned? I've Highligted where Orion is on the celestial sphere texture, the constellation lines are below it, and the stars for it are in the opposite direction.

It appears that the celestial sphere texture is where it should be (12/21/2012 alignment makes this easy to check)

 

[Screamer7]

I have a dual core CPU.
It is a Intel Core 2 Duo E 4400 processor.
When I click on the Threading tab, there is only a single thread available.
Is my CPU not supported to run all two cores?

 

[asmi]

This is not a "bug", it's rather than a graphical glitch:

The sun appear to be too big while landed too, IMHO.

That looks like some issue with shaders. Try opening %TEMP%\D3D11Client_ShadersCache directory, deleting everything from there and re-starting client. Please be patient as during the first run there will be shader compilation, which, depending on your hardware, can take up to several minutes, and application may appear to be hang up. Please DO NOT interrupt this process and wait for it to be completed. Any subsequent runs these shaders will be loaded from cache, so startup will be much faster.

---------- Post added at 15:44 ---------- Previous post was at 15:42 ----------

I've noticed that the textures and normals of the planet I'm orbiting is visible on the "Celestial sphere" texture. (its more noticable in-game)

Here's one that I almost missed, has anyone else noticed that the stars, constellation lines, and celestial sphere texture are not aligned? I've Highligted where Orion is on the celestial sphere texture, the constellation lines are below it, and the stars for it are in the opposite direction.

It appears that the celestial sphere texture is where it should be (12/21/2012 alignment makes this easy to check)

I will need a detailed instructions on how to reproduce that. Except for the last one - it's a known issue, and there are more. I will fix it sometime later down the road, since I don't use this "chicken" mode

---------- Post added at 16:42 ---------- Previous post was at 15:44 ----------

I have a dual core CPU.
It is a Intel Core 2 Duo E 4400 processor.
When I click on the Threading tab, there is only a single thread available.
Is my CPU not supported to run all two cores?

No, this option is not currently used, so ignore it for now!

 

[Spacethingy]

This is not a "bug", it's rather than a graphical glitch:

Not a glitch. You obviously accidentally ran Minecraft instead of Orbiter... :lol:

Joking aside, this is looking absolutely beautiful guys! Can't wait for a new machine to run this with... :thumbup:

 

[asmi]

I've just uploaded a new version, in which I've fixed some issues with shadows (visible seams at the border of cascades), also unified shadows calculations in a single place.

 

[Frogisis]

It seems a lot better and more stable now, I really think it's getting there. The shadows look great!

Probably a known issue and it's only visible for a couple minutes, but one little thing I've been noticing is a hard edge to the atmosphere when you're just getting outside of it:

Might be connected to that same "pixellated" look to the atmospheric limb when seen from very far away. I noticed a cool little blue glow around Earth from a long distance, but it's very aliased and possibly unintentional.

I think it's really getting there, but some smoother distance transitions for the planetary atmospheric and ship shadow effects would really help push it to the next level... That might not be possible with the core, though. For example, as you're approaching Earth from the opposite side as the sun, it's completely invisible but then suddenly pops into a black disc, and from the opposite side it instantly goes from gray dot to blue ball. It'd be great if the glow effects could be applied to the "distant view" dot, so that it transitioned more smoothly from sprite to sphere.

A few other things I was wondering about that I didn't see consolidated answers to when searching this thread:
What's the plan with the terrain for bodies that don't have properly mapped elevation data? Is there going to be a generator like Orulex, or made-up heightmaps, or will they just be left until that data becomes available?

The other thing is clouds - I remember you saying volumetric clouds were in the works, but right now it seems like the clouds are very flat in comparison to the stock Orbiter, with microtextures and shadows both nearly invisible unless lit from a very low angle. Is it intended to be like that or is it just being ignored for now until the better clouds go online? Right now the anemic clouds are the main thing that keeps me from just going with DX11 full time.

 

[Astronut25]

...it instantly goes from gray dot to blue ball...

I remember seeing that in D3D9 and Orulex clients, IIRC it is because the core doesn't tell the client about the Albedo values.

...the "Albedo" settings doesnt do anything to affect the planets' appearance.
(example: Mercury)
View attachment 8237

 

[asmi]

It seems a lot better and more stable now, I really think it's getting there. The shadows look great!

Probably a known issue and it's only visible for a couple minutes, but one little thing I've been noticing is a hard edge to the atmosphere when you're just getting outside of it:

Might be connected to that same "pixellated" look to the atmospheric limb when seen from very far away. I noticed a cool little blue glow around Earth from a long distance, but it's very aliased and possibly unintentional.

I've made some tunes - pls take latest & give it a try.

I think it's really getting there, but some smoother distance transitions for the planetary atmospheric and ship shadow effects would really help push it to the next level... That might not be possible with the core, though. For example, as you're approaching Earth from the opposite side as the sun, it's completely invisible but then suddenly pops into a black disc, and from the opposite side it instantly goes from gray dot to blue ball. It'd be great if the glow effects could be applied to the "distant view" dot, so that it transitioned more smoothly from sprite to sphere.

Not sure what you mean here - can you please be more specific?

A few other things I was wondering about that I didn't see consolidated answers to when searching this thread:
What's the plan with the terrain for bodies that don't have properly mapped elevation data? Is there going to be a generator like Orulex, or made-up heightmaps, or will they just be left until that data becomes available?

AFAIK current plan for planets without heightmaps is to use procedural terrain generator. Glider was/is working on that part, so I can't really give you much details on that.

The other thing is clouds - I remember you saying volumetric clouds were in the works, but right now it seems like the clouds are very flat in comparison to the stock Orbiter, with microtextures and shadows both nearly invisible unless lit from a very low angle. Is it intended to be like that or is it just being ignored for now until the better clouds go online? Right now the anemic clouds are the main thing that keeps me from just going with DX11 full time.

I verified - clouds are working exactly as per specification for Orbiter ("CloudMicrotextureAlt = 35e3 300e3" from Earth.cfg). If you think that microtexture should be used at higher altitudes, go ahead and modify it in whatever way you see fit.
More real clouds will come eventually, allthough I'm not in a position to suggest any timelines...

 

[SolarLiner]

Hey asmi,
I so deleted my D3D11 cache and nothing changed. The hard sun line is still there. I've found why the sun looked so big while landed on earth: because it takes the "size" parameter of the Sun's config file. And because I've rasied it a bit to see more clearly my new sun texture, the sun in D3D11 was bigger than excepted.

I'm downloading the lastest (if any after the shadows implement update) and give it a try.

 

[Face]

Hy Asmi,

I've noticed that a fresh checkout of the current terrain branch is not building due to 2 missing files:
* pnglibconf.h referenced by png.h since the start of the terrain branch and
* pngstruct.h referenced by resources.h.

Would it be possible to add those files to the repository?

cheers,
Face

 

[asmi]

Hy Asmi,

I've noticed that a fresh checkout of the current terrain branch is not building due to 2 missing files:
* pnglibconf.h referenced by png.h since the start of the terrain branch and
* pngstruct.h referenced by resources.h.

Would it be possible to add those files to the repository?

cheers,
Face

Sure, Face, I'll add them tonight. VS2012 has awesome feature called "Generate graph of include files" that will be useful for such things