Weird Terrain/character lighting issues

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liberi_fatali

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Sep 14, 2003
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Hello everyone. Some help on this would be greatly appreciated, as I have been stumped for a few days now.

When my texture settings are on low (World, character texture settings don't seem to matter) everything appears normal, but when I set the texture settings any higher, I get this weird black circle around my characters. I thought it might be character shadows, but I don't see it below other people if I play with them.

Also, it only seems to happen on certain layers. For instance, if I'm standing on the grass layer, everything is messed up, but if I stand on the dirt layer, everything is fine. I thought it might be terrain layer order, but I tried ordering things differently and nothing there seemed to work.

This problem only happens when my texture detail is Normal or higher. I took a screen of the problem in game and added my terrain layer windows if that's any help. Anything else to note is that I have deco layers, if that could be causing any problems.

If anyone can help, I would be very greatful. Thanks a lot.
 

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liberi_fatali

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Sep 14, 2003
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Sorry about that. The circle goes out about 250 Unreal units or so. If I'm up high enough in the air it disappears because I'm not close enough to the terrain anymore.

And the thing that reall gets me is that on two of my terrain layers, I don't see it at all. Also, I must note that it only occurs on terrain, and not on any bsp or meshes in the level.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Radiosity

Radiosity

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Check the terrain layer alpha maps are the same size as the heightmap. So if your terrain is 256x256, make sure your alpha maps are also 256x256. If they're a different size it can cause weird lighting bugs and other effects.
 
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liberi_fatali

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Sep 14, 2003
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Yeah, I checked those forst. They're all 256x256. I noticed some of them were P8 rather than RGBA8, but switching that didn't help unfotunately.

I talked to a former instructor today and he told me that it might have something to do with different scales of terrain layer textures, so I'm going to try getting them as close to the same U and V scales as I can. Maybe that will fix it. Hopefully this will fix it, but I highly doubt it.

Any other suggestions appreciated. Thank you.
 
Radiosity

Radiosity

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Out of interest, what graphics card are you using? Is it powerful enough to handle the higher detail levels? If your card starts choking because it can't handle things then it will probably start to cause graphical artifacts.....

[Off-Topic]Are you a fan of FF8? Just wondered because of your name - Children of Fate if I remember right :) [/Off-Topic]
 
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liberi_fatali

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Sep 14, 2003
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Well, I'm running on a ATI 9700. That and a GeForce 4 Ti4200.

And yes, I am an avid FF8 fan. Hence the name. Thank you for noticing.
 
Radiosity

Radiosity

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Ah, ok, check in the editor advanced options for HardwareTL and set it to false. ATI cards seem to have some problems with using Hardware Transform and Lighting so I guess that could be causing some problems......but you say you also use a ti4200? Is that doing it as well?

And I liked FF8 :) Good game, but FF7 owns all other games :D
[Shameless Pimp]You may be interested in the game being developed by the mod team I'm working with. Called Unreal Fantasy.....can you guess what it's about? ;) Head HERE for our public forums. Things are a bit quiet at the moment as we're in early development, but things are starting to pick up now so either myself or LegionaireJoe (project lead) will be making announcements on the pub boards over the next months on our progress :) [/Shameless Pimp]
 
RFairey

RFairey

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If the problem persists under two graphics environments/renderers, it is safe to say it is a problem with your map and/or your heightmap/layer dimensions....


FF7 is the best of the lot - I've spent the past 3 days breeding those damn chocobos, but it paid off as I now have a gold one.
 
Radiosity

Radiosity

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Agreed :)

//Me gives RFairey a big cookie for having truly impecable and astounding taste in games :D It is indeed a mighty fine feeling when you finally get that damn gold chocobo ;) Knights of Round here we come, bye bye Emerald Weapon :lol:
 
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