If so, we should definitely remove the experimental label from the
rendering dialog, and possibly change this to the default renderer and
have a discussion about whether to retire the previous scheme.
I've only tested Atmospheric Light Scattering for about 10 mins - and so
far I've discovered that the Cat III scenario looks decidedly odd with a
clear circle around my aircraft on the ground and black skies. So the instant
answer must be NO.
Um... you won't have a dicussion because not everything is working? :-)
There are many things that do not render plausibly under the default rendering
scheme either - sunrise in foggy conditions and overcast skies looks decidedly
odd for instance, you get all the bright red color which is never there in
reality. You can be on the ground and it is dark, but as you fly high up (and
get into the last sunlight of the day) the terrain is rendered in light again
because it gets the light at aircraft position - some folks may find that
decidedly odd as well So it's not that the scheme fails in more things
than the default scheme, it just fails in different things. But yes -
atmospheric light scattering is geared to simulate what you see of light
filtering through the atmosphere and what terrain you see, and several
approximations to render it fast enough break if you don't see anything. It's
also a darn expensive scheme to run a Cat III scenario in... first you simulate
all the lighting and terrain shading, then you fog everything. So if you are
really keen in flying with close to zero visibility, I think you get the better
experience in the default scheme anyway because that computes a grey screen way
faster and more efficient.
To answer Stuart's question - I'm personally not considering it experimental -
it renders most situations okay, it gives implausible results under some
comparatively rare conditions, and I would claim that it renders all in all
more weather and light conditions correctly than the default scheme does. So
personally I don't consider the fact that it doesn't render all conditions a
particular good argument, I think sunrises are far more likely encountered by
the average pilot than Cat III ;-)
Some points to consider:
* even the bare scheme is quite a bit demanding on the GPU even before any
terrain or model effects are rendered - some people may be able to run a water
shader comfortably in the default scheme, but may not be able to run water
shader in atmospheric light scattering (the difference on my old box was about
30 fps for a screen full of water in default vs. 15 fps for a screen full of
water in Atmospheric Light Scattering).
* there are plenty of minor effects (flag, bow-wave,...) which are not ported
(which may be part of what underlies Vivian's 'NO') - we'd lose those unless
someone decides to port them
* the light attenuation scheme relies heavily on cross-talk with the weather
system, and only Advanced Weather currently provides all the information to
make things realistic. I haven't tested much with Basic Weather, but I assume
it is much more prone to produce unrealistic rendering when driven by Basic
Weather because the default don't fit every situation. So Basic Weather would
have to be augmented to provide the information.
Personally I think the scheme could stand in as default if so desired (as I
said, I think it handles more situations than the default scheme), and it seems
possible to me to manage the remaining quirks till the next release
(eliminating them would cost dearly in performance - I have no conceptual
problem coding the scheme so that it handles every situations, but I do have a
problem getting it to run fast enough then - there's a reason for the
approximations used).
Also, personally I'm not pushing for setting it up as default, as I see some
real concerns at the lower hardware end, and as I have no desire to argue with
people why effect X isn't working in the scheme and they should instead use
effect Y or port it. I do recognize the point that it would advertize FG nicely
and that a vastly simplified shader control structure would not be a bad thing.
So, if people want to change the defaults, I'll do my part, if not then not.
* Thorsten
--
Everyone hates slow websites. So do we.
Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics
Download AppDynamics Lite for free today:
http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_jan
___
Flightgear-devel mailing list
Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
