[MOD] Distant Terrain

[Xaphir]

Those are some great looking scenes! Good work.

I'd be using the mod myself but for some reason, under Linux, my system bogs down. Currently using build 23, x86_64. Could be a RAM problem, not sure at this point.

[Nystul]

Yeah the mod is kind of expensive. Has to do with the number of terrain blocks loaded.
Since the implementation of the terrain transition ring between normal terrain and farterrain 32 extra blocks need to be loaded which can be too much for a lot of systems. TerrainDistance of StreamingWorld component needs to be lowered. 2 instead of 3 should be enough.
Hopefully there will be an ini setting soon. Will ask interkarma if I am allowed to add an ini setting or if he can do it.

[Xaphir]

Nystul -- Here is my hardware/os setup, this should give us some kind of metric for the Unity demands on the system; a starting milestone, at least:

System Report Summary:

Daggerfall Unity Build: Linux 22
Distribution: openSUSE Leap 42.1
Report Type: Rolling Release
Graphics Platform: AMD Radeon HD 8400
Graphics Driver: Manufacturers (Catalyst Fglrx)
Game Graphics: All Mods Except "Distant Terrain"
Game Patch Level: N/A
Game DRM Check: N/A
Desktop UI: Enlightenment E21
Desktop Effects: OpenGL On, Compositing On
DE Libraries: No Gnome, QT with minimal GTK
Additional Repos: Packman(Smplayer, Mplayer), Geeko (Fglrx)
Display Manager: LightDM
Sound Driver: Alsa 1.0.29-10.1
Pulseaudio: Not Installed
Bug Type: New
Bug Severity: Trivial
Bug Status: Notfixed
Consistently Reproduceable: Yes


System Profile Specifications:

Processor: Model 22.0.1 "AMD A6-5200 APU" Quad Core
Motherboard: HP 15 Notebook Model 2330 version 99.14
Chipset: AMD SB800 Hudson
System Memory: 2x2G
Disk: HGST HTS545050A7
Graphics: ATI Kabini Radeon HD 8400 / R3 Series
Audio: ATI Kabini HDMI/DP Audio
Monitor: Element E4SFT551 (HDMI)
Screen Dimensions: 4K UHD 55"
Resolution: 1920x1080

OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1
Kernel: 4.1.26-21-default
Catalyst: 15.302-151217a
Sound: Alsa 1.0.29 via Dmix plugin and Emixer
Desktop: Enlightenment 21
Display Server: xorg-x11-server 1.17.2-24.2.x86_64
OpenGL: 4.5.13416 Compatibility Profile Context
Compiler: gcc 4.8-8.4.x86_64
File System: JFS


This profile is particularly designed to be a 'control' (as well as production), because the e desktop requires nothing of the kind of things that gnome or kde run in the background. All those other DE variables are removed; there's nothing consuming additional cpu cycles. I've been using this profile for years on beta test reports, with various other hardware.

I'm planning on moving the hardware up a notch tho, real soon. This should give us another performance metric.

Actually it is cool that your Daggerfall mod stresses the limits of lower to mid range hardware, because it gives us a great idea of the baseline that will be required in the future.

[Nystul]

ok thanks.

@interkarma: there are still minor issues with global fog unfortunately. There are endless threads in the unity forum regarding global fog and camera stack. actually the problem exists for all unity's image effects.

Out of the box global fog will only work correctly for the camera that renders last in the camera stack (and only inside its clipping planes).

Any global fog script added to a different camera will not do anything or even worse break something.

Under the countless problem threads this one (and especially the answer by Chman) seems to be the most promising to solve the issue (though it needs to be adapted heavily i fear - but I will play around with this - but if it works one could attach a globalfog script to both cameras and this should do the trick hopefully):
https://community.unity.com/t5/General- ... -p/2183326

depending on the fog settings billboards inside the clip range of the stacked near camera (non overlapping with the clip range of the main camera) will get wrong fog. see the screenshot here (you might have to zoom in to see the issue) - there is also a second issue coming from standard shader used on normal terrain and lambert shading on the terrain transition ring (currently I have no solution to this issue as well)

[Xaphir]

ok thanks.

@interkarma: there are still minor issues with global fog unfortunately. There are endless threads in the unity forum regarding global fog and camera stack. actually the problem exists for all unity's image effects.

Out of the box global fog will only work correctly for the camera that renders last in the camera stack (and only inside its clipping planes).

Any global fog script added to a different camera will not do anything or even worse break something

So is this considered to be a Unity engine bug?

[Nystul]

yes it is a bug how it seems, there is also an open issue in the issuetracker of unity:
https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues ... s-not-work

but the workaround might work though - i am pretty confident. don't to get me wrong, the last days I fixed lots of problems, but this one is still open. but I will fight it down in the end.

[Xaphir]

yes it is a bug how it seems, there is also an open issue in the issuetracker of unity:
https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues ... s-not-work

but the workaround might work though - i am pretty confident. don't to get me wrong, the last days I fixed lots of problems, but this one is still open. but I will fight it down in the end.

I have no doubts about that.

I'm looking forward to getting a machine that can handle the cpu load of your Terrain Distance mod. I think going from an R3 to R9 Radeon will do the trick.

[Nystul]

sometimes I just hate unity. sometimes very often...
workaround not working - damn it

looks like setting the rendering path of the stacked camera to legacy deferred gives the best compromise - at least billboards are fogged correctly then. unfortunately there is a seam on the transition from near to stacked near camera then (this is the compromise)

[Interkarma]

I've checked in your recent PRs. Just a couple of hopefully minor issues.

I had to make the GlobalFog class public to support the class script reference in IncreasedTerrainDistance.cs. No biggie, I've pushed this change back now.

I've also noticed a weird problem with realtime reflections mod. It's sometimes projecting billboards in front of the player (e.g. tree in below screenshot) across distant water. I'm standing outside Privateer's Hold after starting a new game. I've not seen this behaviour in other places (e.g the pool in front of Castle Daggerfall).

Spoiler!

tree-reflection.jpg (126.4 KiB) Viewed 4175 times

Finally, I've also noticed the fog changes work great with enhanced sky but don't pick up the correct sky colour when using the vanilla sky background (especially around dusk/dawn). Not sure if this is a new issue or if I've just noticed it.

And I need to make that INI change for you to better support the far terrain performance. Will get that in shortly.

[Nystul]

The reflection issue is known to me. Will fix this soon hopefully.
Will take a look at the normal sky issue. Do you start up with normal sky or have you tried switching sky via EnhancedSkyController? Not sure if the latter really works.