Recreating PS2 atmosphere - I've found logic, coders needed

[Snoops27]

There's ENB for real time reflections. PS2 has a nice style

Edited October 12, 2014 by snoops26

[SilverRST]

F*ck ENB, we want that old crappy low-end stone-age PS2 reflections!

We want dust, we want to eat trash!

Edited October 12, 2014 by SilverRST

[KawakSallas]

There's ENB for real time reflections. PS2 has a nice style

 

That's the problem, after ENB no one care about other ways of graphics modding. Plus, the majority of the modders in this community tends to take the coding way.

[VERSA]

I don't like how ENB does the reflections, but I do like the reflections in UltraThing, but even there it's far from perfect. At the moment no one did a good and stable reflections for SA, only some unfinished attempts.

Edited October 12, 2014 by VERSA

[Snoops27]

Agreed. Real time fancy reflections do not fit the atmosphere of SA. Maybe we should start a petition to get a coder into making PS2 style reflections that won't leave us high and dry lol

Edited October 12, 2014 by snoops26

[VERSA]

Perfect reflections for old gta's is obviously reflections from lcs and vcs - that's how sa reflections should look like.

[The Hero]

Maybe we should make a new thread for the reflections. Anyway, I tried to find out how the reflections are done on the PS2. They're rendered in three passes. The first pass is the diffuse pass and is rendered as expected. The second pass renders the blue-brown environment map by adding it to the already rendered frame. This map seems to be multiplied by 0x6 (by use of vertex colors) always to darken it. The third pass renders the specular dot by adding it as well but I'm not sure what the vertex colors are (quite low as well, at least the ones I've seen).

The first and second pass are rendered with the first and second UV set, the third pass uses generated coordinates, that's expected.

 

Finding this stuff is a bit annoying. I'm using PIX with pcsx2 and try to interpret the D3d calls/state.

 

On the PC a vehicle is rendered in one pass with three textures. The second UV set is no longer animated with Dexx's plugin, I don't know why. Also the generated UV set is wrong, it's done as D3DTSS_TCI_CAMERASPACEREFLECTIONVECTOR, which is not what the PS2 does. To find out the correct calculation one would probably have to dig into the PS2's VU1 prog

 

So, what's to do:

- find out where the vertex colors for the second and third pass come from (also look at pcsx2's the pixel shader)

- find a way to do the same on PC

- find out why on the PC the second UV set is not transformed with Dexx's patch (and fix it)

- find out how the third UV set is generated on the PS2 and implement on PC (probably with a shader)

 

I really hope there are people who can do this, that would be amazing.

I hope I'll be able to find out better how the PS2 renders things but I can't implement them on PC, this is above me.

Someone should probably start by looking into the code in which Dexx inserted his code.

 

 

BTW: Does anyone know how one can prevent the game from pausing when it becomes inactive? It would be nice to be able to change values with ollydbg and see the results interactively.

Edited October 12, 2014 by THE HERO

[TJGM]

Maybe we should make a new thread for the reflections.

I'd also recommend making a thread for this mod in the Showroom too, it could be a community project.

Edited October 12, 2014 by TJGM

[_CP_]

As far as I know, Dexx is still an active user, so maybe you could ask him with this issue.

[The Hero]

I already talked to him when we made the first patch I posted here. He doesn't have much time and is probably not too interested in this project. Maybe Silent can work one this, considering the great work he has already done.

[El Dorado]

 

Maybe we should make a new thread for the reflections.

I'd also recommend making a thread for this mod in the Showroom too, it could be a community project.

 

 

GTA SA: PS2 to PC research project

[Snoops27]

I want this so much I'm willing to pay money for it lol.

[El Dorado]

I know people who can get things done, starting at 50 pounds

[Snoops27]

£50?? I was thinking maybe £10 - £20 lol

[TJGM]

 

 

Maybe we should make a new thread for the reflections.

I'd also recommend making a thread for this mod in the Showroom too, it could be a community project.

 

 

GTA SA: PS2 to PC research project

 

Not a bad idea, I say go for it.

 

But if you do make the thread, with the new rules we'd like all topics to have tags in the title now. So it should look something like "[sA] PS2 to PC research Project".

[El Dorado]

Dat paint skills

 

 

 

 

EDIT - Well... the black background should be translucent

Edited October 12, 2014 by format c:

[TJGM]

My play on words is so amazing.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Forgot the research project part. I feel like I'm designing kids posters.

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2014 by TJGM

[Gramps]

If you like the PS2 version so much why don't you just go play the PS2 version on a.. PS2!

Edited October 13, 2014 by TJGM

[SilverRST]

If you like the PS2 version so much why don't you just go play the PS2 version on a.. PS2!

 

</sarcasm>

Because I do not want to be hit by a tree when flying and the map is loading!!11!1!!!

[El Dorado]

I was trying to edit the timecyc to correct some annoyances, like sun color values set as 255 0 0 (the normal would be 255 128 0) and found a bug. After you edit the timecyc, the plugin read some values wrong.

 

These examples are taken using the PC timecyc and his correspondent plugin

 

Original.

 

 

Modified only a cycle, SF Sunny 7 AM, sun corona 255 128 0, instead of 255 0 0. I don't touched LA cycles at all.

 

 

 

 

EDIT - PLOT TWIST! Said bug won't happen if editing timecyc manually, or via CFG editor. So a possible fix would be up to in game timecyc editor

Edited October 13, 2014 by format c:

[Gramps]

Post it in his thread, higher chance of him seeing the bugs that you've found sooner.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Methical

[The Hero]

I stepped through pcsx2's pixel shader and found out that after the vertex colors are multiplied with the sampled texel, they're multiplied by 1.9921875 (= 255/128) again. This means the vertex colors passed to the pixel shader (or rather vertex shader which just converts them to floats) are actually 1.7 fixed point numbers that are converted to the standard 0-255 range. Where the values come from is still a mystery to me, but since they're time and weather dependent they has to be from the timecyc, I'm just not sure which value. It seems I will have to dump, disassemble and dig through the VU1 program that processes vehicles.

 

EDIT: New thread, please post in there regarding PS2 reflections: http://gtaforums.com/topic/742005-san-andreas-ps2-reflections-on-pc/

Edited October 13, 2014 by THE HERO

[mirh]

Finding this stuff is a bit annoying. I'm using PIX with pcsx2 and try to interpret the D3d calls/state.

Would the new pcsx2 debugger help in this regard? It's only avaiable in the devel version, but you can find it here (pcsx2-dev-fa3db52, compiled a week ago)

 

And besides @all I hope you are using at least version 1.2, even better last nightlies that are pretty much fixed in about everything

Edited October 13, 2014 by mirh

[The Hero]

I already built this version myself, but it wouldn't run. That binary works, strange, I hope I can get VS to compile a version that works, I like to make changes to the code. I'm not sure yet how much the debugger will help me (it's certainly cool to have). A VU debugger would be nice.

Edited October 13, 2014 by THE HERO

[Blackbird88]

So any chance of fixing this with high speeds(blur)?

[Snoops27]

What does the timecycp on the PS2 actually do? Does it work separately to timecyc? or is it just there doing nothing like on the PC

[danilo_ol]

look how the ps2 version on pcsx2 on hardware mode is similar to the pc version

 

 

http://imgur.com/VUkPhj0

Edited October 13, 2014 by danilo_ol

[Neddo]

So, can anyone post links for this mod(s) in one post so people can test it and share opinions. I want to see how it looks like with MMGE and 2dfx

look how the ps2 version on pcsx2 on hardware mode is similar to the pc version

 

 

 

I can't see pic

[Neddo]

What about rainy weather? I think that this PS2 style smog will make it look much better

[_CP_]

look how the ps2 version on pcsx2 on hardware mode is similar to the pc version

Hardware mode on PCSX2 is missing of post-processing effects, so it looks like PC version.

Edited October 13, 2014 by _CP_