object fading, clipping values, visibility tweaking

[l3th4l]

i've recently rediscovered lock-on and started to fly again. everything is running great except for one thing: almost all objects (buildings, trees, etc) are semi-transparent. i realize that this has been done to reduce the pop-up effect caused by objects coming into view but i am hoping there is some way to tweak this fading. keep in mind - i am not talking about the distance objects start to appear but the speed at which they loose their transparancy. i much rather have objects popping up at a distance than to have my sceen filled with semi-transparent buildings and trees.

i've been searching several forums for a solution to this but so far i could only find topics talking about tweaking the distance at which objects start to appear.

 

one other question i have is this: how exactly are near-, far-, and middle-clipping values related to the clipping values of specific things like structures, etc, which seem to determing the distance those objects start to fade in? i've experimented with them a little but was not able to see *any* difference between maximum and minimum "far" values for example. also the default value for near is higher on low than on medium?

 

anyway i think all those values need some explaining in what exactly they affect. here is a list of the values available in the LoCFG Tool i am using for tweaking along with what i think they do. please correct any mistake and add anything missing.

 

 

structures clipping - determines the distance structures (buildings) start to fade in

 

trees clipping - determines the distance trees start to fade in

 

dynamic clipping - no idea really, maybe dynamic objects? like those cranes that move?

 

objects clipping - again, no idea. objects is such an overall term; i've had this set to maximum and minimum without noticable change...

 

mirage clipping - ???

 

surface clipping - again ??? - maybe things *on* the surface like roads, certain ground features that are layered ontop of the base terrain?

 

light clipping - distance for dynamic lights? not tested though

 

lod - how soon objects switch to a more detailed lod

 

near, far, middle clipping - no idea

 

as far as the density settings are concerned i assume they control the amount of objects displayed - don't know how this works with different scene-file settings though...

[aimmaverick]

I know exactly what you mean. Its very simple to fix this and it doesnt affect FPS at all. You need to change values in graphics.cfg

 

Change lines fogparam2=1.1 and ObjectFogMultiplier=0.6 to 0 and 0.2. You can experiment with this. The bigger the value the more object will fade in and you get disgusting transparency. I use values 0.4 and 0.2. That way you get nice solid structures, trees, etc. Like it was prior to FC. Regarding cliping values, this generaly means at what distance something will appear and at what detail. I use Modman. Dont change near, middle, far clipping values but other instead. I use 80 for structures, 200.000 for trees, LOD full. And above anything else you really should have scenes on high. This is the vital thing.

[l3th4l]

thanks mav - that did wonders to the structures; much better now. rep inbound :beer:

 

...however...

 

trees are still very transparent and for some reason buildings on my mfd are still partially transparent. strangely enough trees are not transparent on my mfd :dontgetit:

[Guest Cali]

If you have MODMAN you can change all that with it. I have my settings tweaked and I like the way it looks.

[graywo1fg]

yea i've messed around with modman doing that too. bye the way after we install the FPS tweak for 1.12a can we change the visibility around? or do we have to keep it on "TOMMY"

[l3th4l]

I actually prefer that LoCFG program to modman; it has more options and modman somehow always seems to screw up my graphics.cfg and i have to manually fix it...

 

as for the fps tweak: afaik it consists of several things including the visibility settings (a major contributor to the fps gain). of course you can change the visibility to something else but you'll loose the fps gained by those settings. Personally, after trying out this tweak, i must say i prefer to make adjustments myself since i think lockon looks a lot worse with those settings than on default and ground units seem to be a lot harder to see and only pop up very late.

 

is anybody here who knows how to make those trees less transparent? buildings are ok now (i seem to have a *lot* more ground detail since i've disabled the gradual fade-in) but those trees really stand out now... i've even thought about disabling them alltogether because it bothers me so much. any input on this is appreciated :)

 

also i'm still not clear on what certain things in the clipping settings are:

 

what exactly is 'dynamic'? 'objects'? 'surface'? 'mirage'? i know clipping controls the visibility range, but of what exactly?

[Guest Cali]

I can see ground units and aircraft farther out now since I got my new monitor. I like to adjust things myself as well. Maybe I'll try out LoCFG and see how that works for me.

[aimmaverick]

As we already speak about graphics tweaking I suggest people with high-end computers that in order to get better graphics quality of world in Lockon they change the land lod distances found in graphics.cfg to match that of version 1.02. That way you will get much better landscape, more detailed terrain, etc...

But this is really for ppl with powerfull computers. It takes big hit on FPS.

[l3th4l]

P.S. l3th4l, try messing with the clipping values for trees. The higher the near clipping value, the less opaqe the trees will be.

 

will do. thanks for the tip. I'll report back with the results later :beer:

[Parrotman]

What were the 1.02 Terrain values aimmaverick?

 

Thanks

[aimmaverick]

You can download these default values from lockonfiles. Here:

http://www.lockonfiles.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=82#cat

Inside package there is a graphics.cfg for version 1.02.

[Parrotman]

Nice one, thanks M8

[theGozr]

Well better than Tommy's, get those.

http://www.gozr.net/iocl/viewtopic.php?t=1778

Gain on the beauty of the sim and add FPS, there are 4 choices.

Enjoy.

[Glowing_Amraam]

Can someone please post some screenshots of this??

 

Like "before-" and "after edit".

[theGozr]

Just test it, pics mean not much.

Easy to do

[emenance]

As we already speak about graphics tweaking I suggest people with high-end computers that in order to get better graphics quality of world in Lockon they change the land lod distances found in graphics.cfg to match that of version 1.02. That way you will get much better landscape, more detailed terrain, etc...

But this is really for ppl with powerfull computers. It takes big hit on FPS.

 

For the last few weeks I been casually exploring my plan of attack for an edit. However this is a new one on me. I hope to settle on a final plan this week. Unfortunatley i am not in a state to think about how to implement your plan and am still not sure its the best way to ago.

 

Anyway was good to see this discussion. There is a certain woman who is on my mind , so party on ..........

 

cheers