Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi Torben, Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was on vacation. That looks great! What sky framework did you use? It looks a little bit like Simul trueSky... We used a slightly modified osgEphemeris, along with a simple cloud plane (a plane with circular blending around the edges, with a good cloud texture, is simple but works well enough for most ground-based simulators). J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.dyndns-web.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi Paul, Hi J-S -- It looks great. But I do have a couple questions. No problem, I'll answer as best I can. :-) How flexible is your art pipeline / rendering process for loading arbitrary models? Could you replace that excavator with some arbitrary CAD machinery, such as a tractor, and get the same visual fidelity? Or is there quite a bit of per-model hands-on modeling time in the art pipeline to create the necessary specular and normal maps, dirt, scuff marks, etc? I'm surprised you're asking me this type of question... An artist is really needed in order to get any good looking models, IMHO. Doing too much procedurally just becomes incredibly complex and gives so-so results most of the time, but you end up handling lots of corner cases and skirting around visual artifacts. You also mention CAD models, which are another pet peeve of mine. CAD is just not made for real-time use, you get lots of geometry where you need very little and vice versa. A human modeler who knows about making models for real-time can really make good use of textures when possible and put polygons where needed. In our case, we have an in-house modeler who makes models especially for real-time use. When we need a new vehicle for a simulator, he will typically start gathering as many reference photos as possible and then make the model. He'll then figure out what sections will most benefit from having normal and specular maps (where there's not much fine detail, they're not needed, and a simpler shader can be used). Also, how are you doing the transparency (e.g., the excavator cab windows)? Is that simple RenderBin back-to-front rendering, or are you using an order-independent technique? If the latter, how are you implementing it? Simple render bin technique. The windows are two polygons with opposing normals (with backface culling enabled so they don't fight with each other, only one will be visible from any angle). All the windows are in separate geometry objects so they sort correctly (which is bad for draw time, I know, but used sparingly it's ok). And the windows on the inside have a different shader than the ones on the outside, so they have a double-sided mirror kind of effect (look darker from outside than from inside the cab). Are the trees in the background simple billboards, or truly 3D so that the viewpoint can be placed inside them? No, just billboards, and in fact we had to choose our shots carefully to make the video so we didn't see any sorting artifacts 'cause I didn't want to take the time to separate them all :-) Is the atmospheric scattering simple OpenGL fog, or something more complex? It's nothing as sophisticated as atmospheric scattering - we called it atmospheric dust. :-) It's just large particle billboards, with a few classic smoke rendering techniques: - depth buffer test to avoid artifacts where a billboard gets clipped by opaque scene geometry (lower the alpha where the billboard is close to the ground - search the nvidia samples for a paper on that) - the billboards rotate slowly to make the dust seem like it's billowing - they also fade in and out for the same reason. All three things are done in the vertex / fragment shaders. I didn't notice any screen-space post-rendering effects (such as depth of field), is that correct? If I'm wrong, what screen-space effects are you doing, and did you encounter any difficulties with generalizing them into your rendering system? We didn't do depth of field, but HDR is a screen-space post-rendering effect. It gives a nice light bloom. We used osgPPU to do it, and osgPPU comes with an HDR example, which we modified slightly so that the light adaptation effect was less pronounced. In retrospect, the way osgPPU does its post-rendering effects limits us in other things we want to do with our pipeline, so we'll probably do the HDR ourselves sometime in the near future (or try to find ways to work around the limitations). But it was a great way to get the effect going quickly. I'm always looking for more general ways to make stuff like this work, so I'm just trying to figure out how much of this demo was general-purpose, and how much was non-general, suitable only for demos. Because of the time constraints, we did a lot of quick-and-dirty coding. In the weeks after the demo was done and shown to the client, we did a lot of clean up work, and we still have some left to do (for me, mostly the osgPPU limitations I mentioned above). But since we did the demo, everyone in the company wants to use similar effects in their projects (clients always want the best-looking simulator they can get, at least when taking the purchasing decision - after that it becomes less important) so I'm making sure what we did is as general as it can be. J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi J-S, hi Paul, On 29/04/11 5:15 , Jean-Sébastien Guay wrote: How flexible is your art pipeline / rendering process for loading arbitrary models? Could you replace that excavator with some arbitrary ... I'm surprised you're asking me this type of question... An artist is really needed in order to get any good looking models, IMHO. Doing too much procedurally just becomes incredibly complex and gives so-so results most of the time, but you end up handling lots of corner cases and skirting around visual artifacts. ... In our case, we have an in-house modeler who makes models especially for real-time use. When we need a new vehicle for a simulator, he will typically start gathering as many reference photos as possible and then make the model. He'll then figure out what sections will most benefit from having normal and specular maps (where there's not much fine detail, they're not needed, and a simpler shader can be used). Maybe what Paul was asking about (and what I always like to learn from other people's setups) is: are the different textures (normals/specular maps) and shader assignments all set up when you get them from your modeller? Or do you have to do additional tweaking from within your program? Cheers, /uli ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi Ulrich, Maybe what Paul was asking about (and what I always like to learn from other people's setups) is: are the different textures (normals/specular maps) and shader assignments all set up when you get them from your modeller? Or do you have to do additional tweaking from within your program? We currently don't use a 3D file format that allows for specifying normal maps and other types. Actually it does, but OSG doesn't read it so we'd need to do lots of work to extract the information anyways. So no, we have our artists make models with diffuse textures, and make normal and specular maps and whatever else we want to make separately. We have config files that make the link between the nodes in the graph of the loaded 3D model, additional textures to load (the diffuse texture is already loaded as part of the original model) and shaders to apply. Most of the time a normal map / specular map is linked to a diffuse map (you'll have a diffuse map called stone_wall.jpg and a normal map called stone_wall_normal.jpg and both will use the same texture coordinates) so we also have a mode to do the association that way instead of explicitly by node name - we search through statesets to find the diffuse texture and do the association then. This is very flexible, but unfortunately not artist-friendly, which I'll be working on improving soon. Our pipeline currently involves both artists and programmers to get those nice advanced effects (only ten years old or so in real time use ;-) ). Given that shader effects are not standardized in OSG I think it would be hard to have it another way for now. OSG would really need to have its own shaders for all these effects, as well as an official tool or plugin to save the data in the right format out of the 3D content creation tool. Or specify that if you want these effects you need to use formats that support them, which I think for now is Collada and FBX only? Valve mdl too? They're not many anyways. So essentially, if that were the case, OSG would be dictating how you use shaders in your app, and what your content creation pipeline is. I don't think that's OSG's place - at least not currently. An OSG-based engine can do that (which is basically what we're making for our simulators), but not OSG itself. It's good that we get to do these demos as they give us ideas on what to improve in our process instead of just doing the same old thing over and over... J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.dyndns-web.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi J-S, On 20/04/11 1:41 , Jean-Sébastien Guay wrote: I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about a prototype project we worked on lately, and which I think looks great. There's a video of it on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/1/RhJR0qQJfAQ (set it to 1080p if you can) We did that demo in 3 weeks (2 people for graphics and physics programming, one modeler for the excavator model). That just looks absolutely gorgeous! (And all the more so for the timeframe that you've been able to pull that off in!) /ulrich ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi J-S -- It looks great. But I do have a couple questions. How flexible is your art pipeline / rendering process for loading arbitrary models? Could you replace that excavator with some arbitrary CAD machinery, such as a tractor, and get the same visual fidelity? Or is there quite a bit of per-model hands-on modeling time in the art pipeline to create the necessary specular and normal maps, dirt, scuff marks, etc? Also, how are you doing the transparency (e.g., the excavator cab windows)? Is that simple RenderBin back-to-front rendering, or are you using an order-independent technique? If the latter, how are you implementing it? Are the trees in the background simple billboards, or truly 3D so that the viewpoint can be placed inside them? Is the atmospheric scattering simple OpenGL fog, or something more complex? I didn't notice any screen-space post-rendering effects (such as depth of field), is that correct? If I'm wrong, what screen-space effects are you doing, and did you encounter any difficulties with generalizing them into your rendering system? I'm always looking for more general ways to make stuff like this work, so I'm just trying to figure out how much of this demo was general-purpose, and how much was non-general, suitable only for demos. Thanks, -Paul On 4/19/2011 9:41 AM, Jean-Sébastien Guay wrote: Hi all, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about a prototype project we worked on lately, and which I think looks great. There's a video of it on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/1/RhJR0qQJfAQ (set it to 1080p if you can) We did that demo in 3 weeks (2 people for graphics and physics programming, one modeler for the excavator model). Quick list of effects specific to this project: - Normal mapping - Specular mapping - Reflection mapping - HDR (using osgPPU) - Soil uses hardware instancing for the many small rocks - Mound of earth uses vertex texture fetch to render the height field (displace vertices, calculate normals in vertex shader) - Dust particles rendered with soft particle technique (depth buffer test) to avoid hard edges It's the most GPU-intensive simulator we've ever done, and it looks great, and it's OSG-based, so I thought I'd show it to anyone who's interested. :-) While you're on our YouTube page you can have a look at the other cool things we've done in the past, the offshore and port crane simulators are recent projects and are very nice as well (and they use osgOcean :-) ). http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/9/KBGr74TMTrU http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/0/dZeQ-eBrBDk Thanks, J-S -- -Paul Martz Skew Matrix Software http://www.skew-matrix.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Great project! We also create simulators. You can watch this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRHiklQFv8 (starting at 4 minutes 30 seconds) What do you think about the publication of such projects on the page http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg/wiki/Screenshots/ ? 2011/4/20 Paul Martz pma...@skew-matrix.com: Hi J-S -- It looks great. But I do have a couple questions. How flexible is your art pipeline / rendering process for loading arbitrary models? Could you replace that excavator with some arbitrary CAD machinery, such as a tractor, and get the same visual fidelity? Or is there quite a bit of per-model hands-on modeling time in the art pipeline to create the necessary specular and normal maps, dirt, scuff marks, etc? Also, how are you doing the transparency (e.g., the excavator cab windows)? Is that simple RenderBin back-to-front rendering, or are you using an order-independent technique? If the latter, how are you implementing it? Are the trees in the background simple billboards, or truly 3D so that the viewpoint can be placed inside them? Is the atmospheric scattering simple OpenGL fog, or something more complex? I didn't notice any screen-space post-rendering effects (such as depth of field), is that correct? If I'm wrong, what screen-space effects are you doing, and did you encounter any difficulties with generalizing them into your rendering system? I'm always looking for more general ways to make stuff like this work, so I'm just trying to figure out how much of this demo was general-purpose, and how much was non-general, suitable only for demos. Thanks, -Paul On 4/19/2011 9:41 AM, Jean-Sébastien Guay wrote: Hi all, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about a prototype project we worked on lately, and which I think looks great. There's a video of it on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/1/RhJR0qQJfAQ (set it to 1080p if you can) We did that demo in 3 weeks (2 people for graphics and physics programming, one modeler for the excavator model). Quick list of effects specific to this project: - Normal mapping - Specular mapping - Reflection mapping - HDR (using osgPPU) - Soil uses hardware instancing for the many small rocks - Mound of earth uses vertex texture fetch to render the height field (displace vertices, calculate normals in vertex shader) - Dust particles rendered with soft particle technique (depth buffer test) to avoid hard edges It's the most GPU-intensive simulator we've ever done, and it looks great, and it's OSG-based, so I thought I'd show it to anyone who's interested. :-) While you're on our YouTube page you can have a look at the other cool things we've done in the past, the offshore and port crane simulators are recent projects and are very nice as well (and they use osgOcean :-) ). http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/9/KBGr74TMTrU http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/0/dZeQ-eBrBDk Thanks, J-S -- -Paul Martz Skew Matrix Software http://www.skew-matrix.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org -- Maxim Gammer ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
[osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi all, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about a prototype project we worked on lately, and which I think looks great. There's a video of it on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/1/RhJR0qQJfAQ (set it to 1080p if you can) We did that demo in 3 weeks (2 people for graphics and physics programming, one modeler for the excavator model). Quick list of effects specific to this project: - Normal mapping - Specular mapping - Reflection mapping - HDR (using osgPPU) - Soil uses hardware instancing for the many small rocks - Mound of earth uses vertex texture fetch to render the height field (displace vertices, calculate normals in vertex shader) - Dust particles rendered with soft particle technique (depth buffer test) to avoid hard edges It's the most GPU-intensive simulator we've ever done, and it looks great, and it's OSG-based, so I thought I'd show it to anyone who's interested. :-) While you're on our YouTube page you can have a look at the other cool things we've done in the past, the offshore and port crane simulators are recent projects and are very nice as well (and they use osgOcean :-) ). http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/9/KBGr74TMTrU http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/0/dZeQ-eBrBDk Thanks, J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.dyndns-web.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi J-S, 3 weeks with 2 developers!!! Now I really feel like a rookie! Cheers, Greg -- Read this topic online here: http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?p=38612#38612 ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi Greg, 3 weeks with 2 developers!!! Now I really feel like a rookie! Out of pure modesty, I have to admit we already had a lot of framework in place for heavy equipment simulation. Nevertheless, this vehicle and the graphical effects I listed were new and were done in that time span. I won't tell you how many hours a day we worked though! :-) It was a crazy project but we pulled it off. J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.dyndns-web.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hello Jean-Sebastien, Congratulations on the visual quality, it's really good. I'm curious about the shadows, did you use OSG's shadow system for them? Cheers Eduardo On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Jean-Sébastien Guay jean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com wrote: Hi all, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about a prototype project we worked on lately, and which I think looks great. There's a video of it on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/1/RhJR0qQJfAQ (set it to 1080p if you can) We did that demo in 3 weeks (2 people for graphics and physics programming, one modeler for the excavator model). Quick list of effects specific to this project: - Normal mapping - Specular mapping - Reflection mapping - HDR (using osgPPU) - Soil uses hardware instancing for the many small rocks - Mound of earth uses vertex texture fetch to render the height field (displace vertices, calculate normals in vertex shader) - Dust particles rendered with soft particle technique (depth buffer test) to avoid hard edges It's the most GPU-intensive simulator we've ever done, and it looks great, and it's OSG-based, so I thought I'd show it to anyone who's interested. :-) While you're on our YouTube page you can have a look at the other cool things we've done in the past, the offshore and port crane simulators are recent projects and are very nice as well (and they use osgOcean :-) ). http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/9/KBGr74TMTrU http://www.youtube.com/user/vortexsim#p/u/0/dZeQ-eBrBDk Thanks, J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.dyndns-web.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hello Eduardo, Congratulations on the visual quality, it's really good. I'm curious about the shadows, did you use OSG's shadow system for them? Yep, that's osgShadow::LightSpacePerspectiveShadowMapDB in action. There were some recent improvements to help with stability of the shadows, it's not perfect but it helped. J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guayjean-sebastien.g...@cm-labs.com http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.dyndns-web.com/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] OSG-based excavator simulator
Hi, That looks great! What sky framework did you use? It looks a little bit like Simul trueSky... Cheers, Torben -- Read this topic online here: http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?p=38617#38617 ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
