Star Wars: Republic Commando RTX

[hardy quail]

Whats abnormal?

Looks normal to me

[wind briar]

That makes no sense, a cavity is a depression, an exact oposite of that

ANd people ask why I hate Blender lol

[hardy quail]

Im just telling u what it do

[wind briar]

It presents inaccurate shading, Auto here often asks us for feedback and such matcaps present a visual result that isn't accurate to what the actual geometry will shade like

[hardy quail]

Yeah but it isnt supposed to, it highlights edges to make them easier to see

Its not like you have to use it

Its qol for those that prefer it

[wind briar]

You're missing the context, as I told you AUto often asks us for feedback and then shows us meshes using those

Can't feedback something that doesn't actually look like what it is

No hate on matcaps in general

[hardy quail]

I mean ye i get your point mostly but it really doesnt make a massive difference, shading will be basically the same because it just overlays the existing shading

[wind briar]

Nah, it creates false impressions of smooth bevels existing in areas where they don't

[hardy quail]

I can see that yeah

I stopped using it because i just use a bevel modifier, and it tends to make it look like there are bevels were there arent and i need to see that shii but for showing a mesh it can be handy

[wind briar]

Not when you're wanting feedback

[dry shoal]

exactly this. It's easy to misunderstand the quality of my work with the false "bevel-like" highlight

[dry shoal]

from what I've gathered it's totally fine/helpful to use in the right circumstances, but yeah it's come up specifically when asking artists here for feedback. For that it isn't the play imo

the reasoning makes sense to me

[hardy quail]

Honestly its entirely preference on your part

[dry shoal]

I agree but I mean for purposes of getting critical feedback

[hardy quail]

I think you misunderstood me, i was agreeing with you bere and saying that i dont personally use it exactly for the reason you said

[wind briar]

Yeah and I'm disagreeing that it's handy for showing a mesh

[dry shoal]

ngl I totally missed this! I'm in the UE2 editor right now to do a test on the SBD model since I'm incredibly impatient and want to see some results to get motivated but it gives me the chance to look around for helpful assets to work on

[hardy quail]

Nono i meant while you are modeling it and some edges are hard to see or something

Not showcase

Sorry its 5 am here and my vocabulary has taken a hit

[dry shoal]

yeah cavity is super helpful for working. I just forget to turn it off sometimes but that's on me

[hardy quail]

I have the games assets ripped so you can just tell me a filename if thats easiest

[dry shoal]

I love testing things far before they're done

but I had to do it for science

@hardy quail would you be interested in doing arena_gm.animalpen.swinglight and its base?

🙂

[hardy quail]

Yeah i can knock dat out

[dry shoal]

it could definitely go for a more industrial style makeover. I wouldn't follow the texture too closely since it's reused with a bunch of other shit and not necessarily the intended look

[dry shoal]

awesome. Heads up, it'll potentially be a bit of a showpiece asset. Since it swings around in response to gunfire it's the perfect showcase for dynamic lighting from the new pathtracing. So people messing with it are gonna be seeing the model above pretty closely

[hardy quail]

Neat

Ill put a little extra effort into it

[dry shoal]

take your time, I look forward to it I tried it myself but failed horribly since I was in a hardcore modeling slump where my brain was fried lol

also since this is a model that will be replaced on the remix side, don't worry too much about the tri budget. You can get real detailed with the geometry if you wanted without any need for an optimization pass

so feel free to use thousands upon thousands of tris

[analog wedge]

I want to ask the og devs why is it so overengineered? Fkn durasteel greeble.

[dry shoal]

for the reason I mentioned just below 🙂 it uses a texture that's shared between a BUNCH of different models. In other words it's sort of hacked together to make the most out of the limited memory budget at the time

they reuse textures so much it's criminal. My project will have a wider variety of unique textures so it doesn't have the same issue

[analog wedge]

That's really cool.

It's a defining feature of this era of Star Wars lol

Kotor was the same

[dusk trail]

Indeed, plenty of older games did it, then of course you also have trimsheets which tons of games use now too

[dry shoal]

left arm is nearing completion. Then I'm probably gonna do the legs, and do the blaster arm last

[dusk trail]

Isn't the right arm for them in RC a rocket luncher?

It's been awhile since I last played it

[dry shoal]

something like that. I've already forgotten if it's rockets only or both blaster bolts and rockets

[dusk trail]

I think they only have rockets in RC, but I could be wrong

[dry shoal]

I'm starting to burn out from working on this guy but I feel like I can't stop now or it's joever

[dusk trail]

In lore they usually have one or the other, rarely both

[analog wedge]

I only know cad modelling - Do you use curvature analysis for this workflow as well?

[dusk trail]

Does depend on the varient tho

[dusk trail]

Huh

Big word, make head hurt

[dusk trail]

I feel that

[dry shoal]

the process consisted of creating simple topology based on the model used in Battlefront 2 EA. Think of it as a sort of tracing that vaguely resembles the original. Then I use subdivision modifiers to get the curved surfaces, as it basically does some interpolation algorithm that also adds new polygons.

like if you made a circle of just 4 faces, you could have it look like a smooth disc with subdivision

[static mason]

Literally my project too, they've used rtcw/dirt_explosion too much for almost everything, from bunk beds to walls it's actually getting on my nerves to replace

[dry shoal]

that's why you gigachad and make new models that use their own unique textures

[analog wedge]

Sounds way more advanced than Fusion.

[static mason]

Not like I have a choice, idtech to source does not 🙅‍♀️ like models at all

So I have to make new models anyways

Plus I have to make mostly new textures anyways

[dry shoal]

from the very little I understand, CAD is basically an "OOGA BOOGA" method of modeling where they brute force the fuck out of everything to get the super clean curvature with 0 shading issues

if you import a CAD model into blender it will look incredibly fucked. afaik

[analog wedge]

You can tell when someone brute forces. When you know the order of operations and sketch cleanly it turns out alright.

you rarely need to mess with topology

[static mason]

Ah, cad models

[analog wedge]

But there are way more steps involved

[static mason]

Also wicked asf heavy battle Droid auto

[analog wedge]

I think that's down to rendering technique. Then again, I only make guitars and they import fine.

[late jetty]

SO SICKKK

[analog wedge]

Watch those arm rockets.

[wind briar]

Nah CAD software produces unusable geometry for video game purposes, since it's just not built for it

You'd have to retopo a cad model before it becomes usable

[hardy quail]

got the swing light

now to track down its texture

[dry shoal]

If you go to it in the editor (if you're using it) you'll see the texture name and where it is in the files

[hardy quail]

i dont have the editor

if you can find hte texture name for mei d appreciate

[dry shoal]

It's included in the game files though admittedly a little unstable. The modified version included in SWRCFix is better in that regard. It's under gamedata/system -> Unrealed.exe

[naive robin]

Sometimes you can decimate it and get away with it

[wind briar]

I thought it produced unwelded corners for everything though right?

[naive robin]

No? It just tends to struggle with curves in general. It really depends on the solid to polygon method used. If you use STL format to import it into blender it’ll be pretty okay.

Instalod has a very good solid to polygon method/kernel.

[wind briar]

I guess things have progressed a bit since I last touched it haha

[naive robin]

Valid. The converter in Omniverse is extremely good by the way. It’ll take pretty much any format, proprietary and open, to polygon.

[wind briar]

If only it would stop fucking up vertex normals 😭

[naive robin]

What ya mean

[wind briar]

Me and some others have been experiencing issues with vertex normals being messed up when ingested

[naive robin]

I ain’t ever had that happen with OV composer

[wind briar]

Me, Rune and Safemilk have seen it

Not been able to find an exact reproduction case though

[static mason]

Squid_future.gif

[hardy quail]

i found the texture but i think im gonna do something different, the texture doesnt seem to be made for the light itself and looks kinda strange so im gonna do something similar but more practical

[dry shoal]

true, I did mention that twice

it's a generic texture that's reused for a bunch of assets. So yeah, feel free to make your own take on it. As long as it's got that overall industrial type of look. Like the original texture if it wasn't a mess at closer inspection lol. That kind of thing

[static mason]

"Roger, Roger Intensifies"

[dusk trail]

[dry shoal]

Incredible

At this rate the SBD and B1 battle droid will be good to go in roughly the same time frame. Two major enemies having complete visual overhauls is gonna be sweet

[analog wedge]

I think the shader will determine whether it appears to be machined or cast.

[dry shoal]

Are you referring to blender or the game? No shaders with this project since Remix uses pure PBR. So the look will come from the roughness/metalness/color

[analog wedge]

Blender then. Was mainly thinking about 90 degree angles where surfaces intersect

The og looks crudely carved from a block of metal lol

[severe flare]

Ik the chromium is temp but it’s honestly so goddamn sexy

[dry shoal]

How exciting

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1117656665970454570.gif?size=60&quality=lossless

[dry shoal]

massive progress being made. Aiming to have first draft of the HP done today

@wind briar might be proud to see the topology

[wind briar]

Looking CLEAN

[dry shoal]

[main turret]

H o t

[dry shoal]

Mark my words, today I will finish the SBD high poly model

[modern isle]

Why do we need to notify Mark about your words? 🤔

[dry shoal]

Because

[dry shoal]

I lied but I did a good thing as an alternative

[dry shoal]

Me realizing that when everyone says the last 20% takes 80% of the work they aren't joking

[static mason]

It is true

The last part always feels like an eternity in 3d

[naive robin]

I find it to be quadratic/O(n^2) in nature

[static mason]

Lol

Oh deer

[dry shoal]

WIP but getting closer and closer

[static mason]

Imagine turning refraction to max in remix

[dry shoal]

I don't know if you can change refraction on opaque objects lol

might set it to translucent for the meme tho

[static mason]

Doit fr 🗣️

[dry shoal]

did a more proper render. Break time

but I'm on track to finish the mesh today, fingers crossed

[wind briar]

Have you modelled the breakable stuff though?

Liek is the chest and head removable?

[dry shoal]

no not yet. I want to first have an overall model before breaking it down

I mentioned it before but having something in-game really helps me with motivation vs it being stuck in blender until it's 100% complete not missing anything

[wind briar]

Right

That process will make things harder for you later down the line

Just as a heads up

[dry shoal]

don't worry, I don't plan on doing anything destructive. I have backups of every piece and whatnot. The chest and head are their own pieces so it shouldn't take a significant amount of work to get the inside covered

[wind briar]

Right but to get in game you have to make a lowpoly

And texture it

By the point you've made the low poly you're already fucked if you have to go back and change things

[dry shoal]

not if I don't texture it at all and just use a gray placeholder like in blender

[dry shoal]

good point though

I won't do that then

I'll play it smart

all I know is I'm looking forward to seeing this guy with realtime pathtracing. It's like the perfect enemy to showcase it

[main turret]

Looking quite spicy indeed

Can't wait to give it a go

[static mason]

Free flashbang on the 2 sun giant

[dry shoal]

ladies and gentlemen: the Franken-Super-Battle-Droid

[static mason]

Leg

[static mason]

Leg

[hardy quail]

Leg

[static mason]

leg-o?

[naive robin]

Letsago

[dry shoal]

confirmed; most of the SBD can be replaced on the Remix side. This saves time worrying about rigging/deformation and means I can push tri counts fairly high should I want to

only minor changes will be necessary for the in-game-engine model

[static mason]

Now do it

https://tenor.com/view/dewit-do-it-emperor-palpatine-star-wars-count-dooku-gif-15162627

Make the body entirely glass

[late jetty]

How do asset replacements work when it’s animated, like an npc? I’ve only done prop replacements, do you align them with the npc ingame and it just moves like normal?

[dry shoal]

unreal engine 2 has a system they used for optimization, where different parts of a skeletal mesh can be calculated and treated as static meshes. If it doesn't deform, it's not done via CPU skinning. CPU skinning is what Remix doesn't like and what causes unstable hashes. For the super battle droid almost every part was treated as a static mesh and therefore had a stable hash. Deforming bits were unstable, so the feet, waist, left hand and the end of the arm cannon

[hardy quail]

An alternative would be to mod the models into the game itself and then texture it using remix

Or even jankier, mod only the deforming bits and use remix for the rest

[dry shoal]

That was the original plan (requirement)

Remix can't replace CPU skinned meshes. Deformation = CPU skinned so every single model upgrade would've had to happen on the game side

But since UE2 does what I mentioned above, I today realized I can take advantage of that

[dry shoal]

This was the new plan lol

Take the original mesh, upgrade bits of it, slap it right back in

I think the most optimal setup would be to make a hyper low poly version of my recreation except the deforming bits. Then replace the low poly pieces via remix lol

[dry shoal]

I expect a relatively big burst of progress on the project soon. As the SBD is nearing completion, I've began texturing some props. I've also begun reworking a major environment texture

[hardy quail]

I still gotta do that swing light ☠️☠️ ill prob do that tonight

[dry shoal]

No rush 🙂 reminds me, I actually took a short clip just shooting the light to see it swing around, showing off the fancy new lighting

Looking forward to whatever you come up with

[dry shoal]

WIP material. WIP because unfortunately it doesn't look very good in-game atm

[hardy quail]

remove the metallic map alltogether if whatever program you use allows it

waste of space

[dry shoal]

Already covered that the software I used doesn't let me disable certain maps from the showcase. It forces all of em

[hardy quail]

🫡

[dry shoal]

Not the most happy with this but I'm gonna do more I think

Generic Geonosis barrel prop

[main turret]

Those geonosians need to clean up, man

Letting dust get everything and stuff

[dry shoal]

No kidding! I mean sand getting between tiles and whatnot here? Smh

[wind briar]

I hate sand.

https://tenor.com/view/anakin-star-wars-padme-gif-5048796

[dry shoal]

https://tenor.com/view/anakin-star-wars-padme-gif-5048796

FK

LMAO

[dry shoal]

ignoring the indents being busted, not super happy with this yet. I may leave it for the time being just so I don't get hung up on one thing too long though

[dry shoal]

Talking to a very skilled artist about potentially using some of his work in this project, which wouldn't otherwise be possible due to lack of PBR and more importantly, incredibly high allowances for tri counts

I should probably start putting together a list of names who've directly helped in some way for credits

Many props that have yet to be implemented come from another modeler, with me focusing on texturing them. I still have my own models of course but they're fewer and take longer to complete (see: Super Battle Droid)

[dry shoal]

Project credits as of *September 13th, 2024:

Leading:

• automata.

Remix support configuration:

• automata.

Logo:

• Yosuke Nathan

Modeling:

• automata.
• Alexandre Cadinot
• TheMan
• Dev

Texturing/material authoring:

• automata.
• Alexandre Cadinot
• Runestorm

Character Model Rigging:

• Trooper226

Character Animation:

• sev

Unreal Engine 2 scripting/modding:

• CurbCake
• Leon

*Remix API Integration:

• Leon
• Xoxor

• other(s) who prefer to stay unnamed

--

Bonus: feedback/knowledge sharing/references/guideance

• runestorm, devlikeapro, hemry, traggey, adamplayer, uncle burrito, theman, metallicafan212, omega, -ffs- plasma, stormtrooperlawyer, thor110, SkizB

Sorry for the spam tags, I removed most of them so it wasn't too much lmao

[dry shoal]

As you can see there's actually quite a few people who've helped/continue to help, some of whom aren't even in the server. There's a lot cooking that hasn't been fully realized yet, I think with time the number of people who've directly helped will be more visible in the results. Don't think I've shared anything here done entirely by someone else, so I want to say most of what you see here that I post is my own work in some significant capacity

[dusk trail]

[main turret]

Man, I can't wait for this!

[static mason]

Ehhh you don't really need to credit us. We were just happy to see the project thrive

[dry shoal]

entirely your call. If you want me to remove it I can

[static mason]

Yeah if that is ok

We usually don't want to be credited for art

[dry shoal]

understood, your wish is my command

[static mason]

WIP

[hardy quail]

Bros got thunder thighs

[static mason]

Yeah have to make them thinner

the original model was thicc

[static mason]

Slowly we are unthiccing it

Better? :3

[main turret]

Nah, make that bad boi extra thicccccccc

[dry shoal]

The level of detail is amazing

Was the original really that thicc? I forget

[static mason]

Yeah

IF anything ours is a bit thinner

Ignore the feet that is just a placeholder

Also lower legs need shortening but we can do that later

[dry shoal]

Absolutely killing it

[wind briar]

Keep in mind not to deviate from the games collision boxes too much

No clue what they look like, but just worth keeping in mind!

[dry shoal]

The hitboxes are kinda big and not precise, so that scaling should be fine other than the legs

I also can change the collision myself if it was really necessary

[dry shoal]

confirmed the cage was not it

more padding it is

there are way too many islands

HOW THE FUCK

I need a beer

[wind briar]

You sure the mesh only has one UV set?

[dry shoal]

yes

I'll do a 100% new unwrap later so there's far fewer islands. That's after I go full alcoholic though (in a videogame)

[wind briar]

Hmm..

If you only have one UV set and that's still happening

Then your baking cage must be like, ROYALLY fucked or something

[static mason]

Yeah there are alot of islands.

[dry shoal]

looking for feedback as I'm nearing completion of the Super Battle Droid

there are some minor issues that I plan on fixing but if there's design changes to make, now's the time

[rocky trout]

Hi @dry shoal , do you really need to be a mesh, I looking at it, and it could be a box with a displacement map on it Or you are doing a low poly of it and bake it. It could be way simple

[dry shoal]

sorry I don't quite understand, can you reword it?

I'm going to do a lower poly version yes

[hardy quail]

i think hes saying that instead of doing a full model of it you could just use a plane/box with a displacement map

which im not sure if Remix supports and would also be kinda annoying to setup if it did

[dry shoal]

I can't wrap my head around that conceptually

like the entire droid is done via displacement?

[hardy quail]

no hes talking about this

[dry shoal]

ah

yeah that's 100x smarter than What I'm doing

I didn't even think about that

only problem is this is a shared mesh, so my texture would be for two projects

the project that isn't mine doesn't support displacement

I'll try a mesh to height conversion

[hardy quail]

id honestly keep your course

displacement isnt the best for hard surface things

[rocky trout]

Maybe baking could be the next option. You wouldn't have to deal with a complex UV like that

[dry shoal]

that is the low poly UV

the mesh is honestly a disaster to work with

it gets worse the more I try to make something happen

[hardy quail]

what exactly is wrong with it?

are you using a generative material?

[rocky trout]

Your low poly could be a simple box, trust the process. 😉

[dry shoal]

the topology of the metal floor thingy causes some trouble

like my ability to bevel was extremely limited

[hardy quail]

well i mean it could be a plane

[dry shoal]

it's also hard to make a good cage

[hardy quail]

but that limits the detail

[hardy quail]

would you be willing to send me the model?

[rocky trout]

Send me the high poly too! 😉

[dry shoal]

sure, but disclaimer this is NOT my model. So it's not for me to give permission to make changes

so it's if ya'll wanna take a look

[hardy quail]

who made the model

[rocky trout]

I just want to help you, that's it 😉 I'm on Mafia.

[hardy quail]

ay big tony im walkin here

[dry shoal]

TheMan

[hardy quail]

i used to work on his RC remaster project 😳

[dry shoal]

hold on I don't wanna do anything without his permission actually. @smoky condor are you cool with them looking at the blend file for the HallwayCut mesh?

[dry shoal]

I heard lol

they're doing a big overhaul on it, gonna be wildly different than what's out now

[hardy quail]

just DM it to me im 100% positive he will be fine with it

[dry shoal]

allow message requests on discord

it's a personal preference to keep a tight friends list so I prefer that

[hardy quail]

ah mb

mine is on

[dry shoal]

well it didn't work so fk it lol

[hardy quail]

so what are you trying to bake to the lowpoly

i did a quick normal bake just to see if anything bake related was messed up and it works fine for me

but i dont understand your goal entirely

[dry shoal]

did you use the cage?

I'm baking in different software from blender, maybe it's a configuration thing? Or different algorithms?

[hardy quail]

Cage?

[dry shoal]

there's a cage mesh in the blend file

[hardy quail]

Oh what are you baking in

[dry shoal]

instaMAT

[hardy quail]

I just baked in blender 😳😳

[dry shoal]

well wanna send me the normal map lol

[hardy quail]

Ah, imma be real i have no idea what the cage mesh does

[dry shoal]

afaik it's the starting point for rays when baking a mesh. So it's slightly bigger to allow just enough space for a clean bake

[hardy quail]

I have to rebake because i unwrapped it first bc i didnt know what you had goin on

[hardy quail]

Ah in blender its just a slider

[dry shoal]

it was already unwrapped

[hardy quail]

I know

Thats why i gotta rebake to your UV set

[sharp barn]

I wonder if the UVs somehow got changed after the first bake, I've seen that in substance when changing the UVs on a lowpoly.

Also those droids are looking sick 😄 love the super battle droid

[smoky condor]

Im fine with it, but yeah im aware uv wise that model turned out kinda shit

[dry shoal]

SBD is essentially finalized. Just have to do a bit of polishing and the high poly will finally be complete

[static mason]

Looking great you should be proud of how far you are coing with your art

[static mason]

it a calf

[static mason]

Ignore the placeholder feet

Roger Roger

Intensifies

[dry shoal]

[dry shoal]

@gleaming sedge now that I'm almost done with this, I wanted to ask a rigging related question. The original model is split into many vertex groups, and AFAIK each bone controls a different group. If I wanted to have the animations sync up appropriately, would I have to make my own equivalents to those vertex groups in my own model? Following the same names and whatnot. And if so, is it easy to assign 100% weighting to a given vertex group?

There's a very small amount of deformation, it's not fully mechanical so I'd have to take that into account. In the original model the waist and feet deform

Not sure how I'd handle that, it's a bit confusing to me

[wind briar]

Your vertex groups shouldn't matter

Only that your bones are there, and that the mesh is skinned to them

[dry shoal]

UE2 has a system that converts parts of the mesh into static meshes, so I'm not sure how that might factor in too

Like the SBD can mostly be replaced on the Remix side because it's made of multiple parts treated as static meshes. Just not all of it

In other words I'm not sure if vertex groups might be relevant for that conversion for static meshes on a skinned mesh

[wind briar]

Yeah but that won't have any importance when replcaed in remix

Oh right you're not doing that

Nevermind then, yes in that case your vertex groups will be important

[gleaming sedge]

Idk what to tell you

You basically answered your own questions in that big block of text

[dry shoal]

Literally the worst thing someone could do is not confirm an assumption with someone who actually knows their shit

[gleaming sedge]

Buddy

I'm in a bus

Tired as shit

I can't even read rn

I'll help you tomorrow

[dry shoal]

You're in a bus and said I answered my own question. You're implying what I said is about right. That's all I need

I don't need a whole dissertation

[gleaming sedge]

Idk man

My brain is fried

[dry shoal]

Lol

No worries

Take it easy

[gleaming sedge]

Time to prank em

[wind briar]

Fuckin' stop 😭

[dry shoal]

Why does your bus have built in Android tablets

[gleaming sedge]

It has games and movies and shit

Not for long tho

[static mason]

Wait that is illegal

:3

Hehe

[gleaming sedge]

Allegedly

[late jetty]

Reminds me of the amount of people that don't log off of facebook and twitter when they go into an apple store and play around with the laptops

luckily for them, i'm not uncle burrito

[static mason]

lol

[static mason]

Need t fix the front of the face a little but it is getting there

WIll need to cut it down a bit

The "eyes" needed to be a bit more far apart but oh well

[dry shoal]

It's looking good 👍

[dry shoal]

As the SBD and B1 battle droid reach completion the plan is to switch up my workflow to be more organized. For a while I've been so focused on art assets and vanilla modding that the Remix project setup is a mess of stuff haphazardly thrown in to get a quick glimpse at things

That means getting an organized folder structure, proper asset name formating, etc. to really get things in a good spot for iteration

[static mason]

We have not made a low poly for the b1 yet

Any better retopo tool that is not spenny as blenders retopo tool is blech

We have topogun on our hdd albeit a super old version

[hardy quail]

wait are there multiple people doing the b1

[dry shoal]

no, khaotik is doing the b1. I'm doing the super battle droid

[hardy quail]

The we confused me

[static mason]

Sorry we speak as a collective alot

[dry shoal]

oh if you mean the "we", they have a disorder for multiple personalities (I think that's the right discription?)

[hardy quail]

Are you a hivemind

[hardy quail]

Thats not how dat works

I think they just worded it weird

[static mason]

Yeah don't call it multiple personalities

Either just saying

[dry shoal]

my mistake

[hardy quail]

Anyways

Good work on the b1 and the b2 yall

[static mason]

Thanks doing our best

[hardy quail]

Lookin bootiful fr 😌😌😌

[static mason]

Fixed the head so it is not that (long). Will update some shits later

[dry shoal]

[static mason]

Poggersfish looks like Flesh b1

[dry shoal]

It kinda does now that you mention it

[static mason]

now noone can unsee it >:)

Flopger Flopger

[dry shoal]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/447080997645844483/1265862293368082472/image.png?ex=66a3b661&is=66a264e1&hm=6f55105065c933c9e7cce3460b9f533b381495209af80c0f33697531213852e1&

Forgot to share, but I made detail improvements to the gut area

[dry shoal]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1196836285545971712/1265869074953408572/image.png?ex=66a3bcb2&is=66a26b32&hm=e337259ae3ca3bd53be6f1ddfd01e62f21b568bc46f23bf580e7283780d9e3b9&

Render

[hardy quail]

Give that thang a bevel modifier

Looks great tho

[dry shoal]

I'll give your mom a bevel modifier

Kidding, the topology is unfortunately pretty messy so I'd have to manually bevel (which is fine)

Btw how's that light coming along hm

[hardy quail]

My computer shit itself in the middle of making it so i gotta redo it this weekend

The last autosave was so far back it killed my motivation lmao

[dry shoal]

Oh damn

Well no worries. I'm looking forward to near future progress on the mod, got a few pieces coming together to start showing some fairly significant changes beyond the lighting system and PBR environments

[severe flare]

Now cycles for the jazz

Also

I hate seeing models that look different from what I remember

Then cross-referencing with the actual model and realizing that it was my memory that fucked it up and not the remake

[static mason]

We are not deviating too much, just that the old models were so low poly a lot of the detail just was not there

sure there is a bit but the textures will be as similar as possible

[static mason]

We will obviously change the feet a bit as they are looking odd but we are using that as a base

shape is roughly there though

[hardy quail]

is it just me or does he look kinda like a helldivers 2 automaton

[static mason]

The republic commando b1 looks a little different to the one in the movies

[hardy quail]

i know that wasnt a shot at you

it looks good af you did great

[static mason]

Roger Roger

[dry shoal]

I agree that it looks amazing, though it might be worth mentioning some things that might need to be altered but we'd only know after seeing it in game. Particularly making the side cables/supports/whatever they are (lol) less thick, and making the thighs slightly less wide

Again I wanna emphasize that's not feedback I'm giving now, rather those could potentially be future needed adjustments. I like it as is however

Just trying to think ahead where I can

[severe flare]

those are some pretty voluptuous thighs my man

[golden plover]

Its looking really good! I agree with this comment on a youtube video about Remix

[dry shoal]

Oh boy some people are starting to pick it up lol

[golden plover]

No pressure Auto

[dry shoal]

This thread has grown quite a bit since I started lol

[dry shoal]

all the pressure baby I unironically think this project will reach hundreds of thousands of eyes in some way or another because it's such a beloved game from a beloved IP that we never got a sequel to + RTX On thumbnail shininess

[golden plover]

How far are you through it?

[golden plover]

Yes

[dry shoal]

Lmao

That's my answer

[golden plover]

Lmao

[dry shoal]

I think I have up to a dozen props made but not textured, three or four props that are ready + textured but because I did them earlier on I kinda want to redo them

[golden plover]

The dedication

[dry shoal]

I have 2 very frequently used environmental materials that could hold up till the final product

A completed NPC weapon model, a nearly completed player weapon model

The super battle droid and B1 battle droid are on the way

Basically there's quite a lot of major visual improvements just waiting to get completed

[golden plover]

Why didn't you texture them yet?

[dry shoal]

But there's a lot to go after that. Also my project is scope limited to only Geonosis, so like a thirdish of the game

[dry shoal]

Because texturing makes me want to insert thing I shouldn't say here

I don't have enough practice and I don't get enough help with it to really cook. My best work is tiling environmental textures. But making unique textures for props? Totally different ballgame

[dry shoal]

#1200925027554558034 message quite a few people have helped along the way and some continue to do so

[golden plover]

Can you rely on texture libraries?

[golden plover]

That is really nice

[dry shoal]

Only for tiling environmental stuff

Making bespoke prop textures is not easy to get right. Because you have to consider the shape of the object, the physical properties of the material (is it painted over vs bare metal/plastics), getting natural wear and grime on the overall material as well as different layers of realistic dust and dirt build up in different corners and cavities

Like a lot more thought and planning goes into it. Whereas a tiling material... I just make rock lol

[golden plover]

I bet its so satisfying when its done though

[dry shoal]

Absolutely

[golden plover]

What software do you use? I forgot sorry

Substance designer seems really good

[dry shoal]

Bforartists (blender) for modeling, instaMAT for PBR materials, Affinity Photo 2 for the rare times I need to edit an image

instaMAT is free and pretty great

Never tried substance designer, my understanding is it's quite similar to instaMAT but paid and it's adobe so some people (rune) just like not having to use their software lol

[golden plover]

Finally another Affinity Photo 2 user! Not Photoshop

[golden plover]

I'll try instaMAT

[dry shoal]

This is a bit of an exaggeration as I think I've used it a grand total of 3 to 4 times so far lol

[dry shoal]

It might be killer since you have lots of tiling textures that could be relatively easily created from scratch

Like brick walls are super easy

[golden plover]

https://tenor.com/view/anakin-starwars-underestimate-gif-7915876

Overestimate

Nvm

I like using star wars too much

[golden plover]

A killer?

[golden plover]

The Blender 4.2 that you can download in Omniverse is exactly the same as the one on the website right?

[dry shoal]

Saying something could be killer is an expression. Is English your first language? Hope that doesn't come off as rude, just a relatively common phrase

[golden plover]

Damn

Yes it is, I just don't get the context

Like exams are a killer, but video killed the radio star

[dry shoal]

No, the Omniverse build has some unique benefits. Nothing I personally care enough about but depends on the person

[dry shoal]

A killer = bad | is killer = good | killed it = good or bad

[golden plover]

Ah. Shame there won't be a bforartists version 😭

[dry shoal]

That's not exactly accurate but it's goofy

[dry shoal]

For me the UI improvements of bforartists vastly outweigh the material stuff Omniverse blender has

[golden plover]

Exactly

[golden plover]

Yeah true. Do you think Remix will ever make an addon that exports USD in a format Remix doesn't have to ingest? Is that was the one in Omniverse does?

[dry shoal]

Remix with Omniverse blender still has to injest the .USD files but iirc it's more streamlined for bringing in models and it's textures at the same time instead of injesting separately

But I think there's ways to do it without Omni blender. I'm just juggling so many things that I can't be bothered to look into it

[golden plover]

Dw I'll look at it myself

[golden plover]

I prefer

https://tenor.com/view/i-hate-you-anakin-star-wars-gif-10358450

Ok I'm done for Star Wars

[dry shoal]

well ladies and gents, seems like I've got confirmation that the RTX Remix API will be used for the SWRC Remix project

🙂

we got it successfully working, and because of UE2's relative openness this has opened some doors. It's too early to say how deep we can go to utilize it, but as one example we got a proof of concept where all meshes classified as projectiles have a sphere light attached to it where the color values are taken from the original game's light color values

now that isn't a 100% done deal setup, like in the original game both the red and blue blaster bolts actually use white lights, so that would be getting changed as an exception

but other than that it's impressive how relatively seamless it is

[hardy quail]

Why not just set the blaster bolts to be emissive?

[dry shoal]

emissives aren't ideal for realtime lighting with remix. The results are too noisy, and for users who don't use ray reconstruction (AMD ppl) the base denoiser can't keep up with fast moving emissives

dedicated lights also guarantee more defined shadows and such

[hardy quail]

Ah ok thats fair

[dry shoal]

#1116068634855477418 message

here's a more technical explanation from mark, including a visual example

[static mason]

Need to continue fixing the shading on the back (even if it will be hidden by a backpack it is no excuse) also need to redo the feet. The thighs need tweaking yes but that can wait

Want to get the shading decent (sure there will be some dmg on the body but still)

[smoky condor]

that looks clean as fuck

[analog wedge]

Thicc clanker

[dry shoal]

go go power rangers

[severe flare]

Can u send a front view comparison like this shot?

No reason ofc Just want to tickle my balls

[dry shoal]

Here lmao

[severe flare]

Oh that’s actually rly neat

[dry shoal]

so fun fact I completely restarted the super battle droid model, and I know how to do it much better this time

and faster

the first piece is complete. If you followed the first attempt I did, you might've noticed that this is all one piece vs before it was split into two different pieces

big mistake to do that. This not only looks significantly better, but it also is so much better to work with since there's no awkward gaps or whatever

[severe flare]

Been wondering how u were gonna achieve the damage deformation

[dry shoal]

Do you mean just the look of damage as the parts break off?

Bc it doesn't necessarily deform

[severe flare]

Yea yea that’s what I meant

[dry shoal]

That I'm still figuring out. Gonna most likely use textures to have visual depth in the open chest. Feeling it out atm

[dry shoal]

Some more progress is being made with the game-side modding and Remix API. I'm gonna be receiving the build with the API configured to do what's been set up to this point, and a set of game renderer changes that should further help with Remix compatibility

[burnt light]

i'd love very much to learn the API and set it up properly

hope it goes well in your project

[dry shoal]

well so far lots of doors have been opened, we just haven't pushed it yet

[burnt light]

we could probably use it to literally open doors 😛

[dry shoal]

quick hash comparison check for myself

@static mason in case you were curious, I also checked the stability of the B1. As you can see here only the main body is unstable (and must be replaced through UE2). The head and chest/backpack are stable and can be replaced through remix at a higher fidelity. Entirely your call if you wanna do anything with that info though

[dry shoal]

tiny update: running into non insignificant issues relating to the Remix bridge version required for our current API functionality

it works exactly as advertised, except performance and stability are omega fucked on my setup whereas they aren't for someone else with the same setup (it seems?)

gonna investigate

[dry shoal]

everything is super fucked for me but works for someone else still. I have a request for anyone who rolls on by and owns the game. This zip file should be a one-and-done drag and drop. Just start with a clean game install. It comes with a very safe rtx.conf and a preconfigured system.ini which has the Remix API hooked into it. You can see if the API is working by simply shooting your gun in-game, as the API gives lights to the projectiles with 0 remix toolkit-based mods required

from there, simply see if you can play till the end of the first level without notable issues, namely in regards to stability and performance consistency

big thanks ahead of time for those who try it

and share your CPU/GPU combo pls 🙂

[static mason]

Off topic but on the topic of hardware we are on our 5900x now

so modelling might be a bit easier

lol yeah the felix background sorry

[dry shoal]

fair point. I'm looking for HW combos for people who test the contents of the zip file since it might prove or disprove a theory I have

[dry shoal]

lol no worries

good choice of discord theme

[static mason]

5900x 3060ti 64GB Ram on this rig

want 9900x3d or 9950x3d. Not sure about next GPU

sorry for the flex (not really considering our GPU sucks haha)

lol that monitor is wasted on this GPU

[gleaming sedge]

I have a gpu that's wasted on my monitor

[dry shoal]

1080p btw

[static mason]

lol what GPU?

[dry shoal]

he has a 4090 with a 1080p monitor lol

[static mason]

lol jesus

so polar opposite to us

Great monitor dogshit tier GPU, You good GPU ho hum res monitor

[gleaming sedge]

You are a lyer

Lier

Leir

One of those 3

[static mason]

lol

lyre

😛

[dry shoal]

ok im a lyer/lier/leir :(

[static mason]

bird

[gleaming sedge]

I have a 1440 monitor

[static mason]

2 1080p and one 5120x1440

And one annoying Therian haha

[hardy quail]

are you doing this in CAD?

also i love the fucking felix desktop lmao

[static mason]

The high-poly in cad yes. The low poly in blender

[hardy quail]

definitely a strange workflow but if it works

[static mason]

Plasticity->Blender for hard surface = match made in heaven

Platicity is fast is all

Not to say we couldn't make it in blender, we just want to broaden our skills a bit

[static mason]

There are some artists that are doing that now considering plasticity's speed and plasticity is more a CAD 1.5 than a full cad program

[hardy quail]

confusion again mb

anyways

i see what u mean

[static mason]

Plasticity is CAD for 3d artists really

[hardy quail]

definitely an odd one but if it works it doesnt really matter

standard workflows are cringe anyway

deviate ✊

[static mason]

it is marketed as cad for artists

https://www.plasticity.xyz/

it is like half/half

sorry not advertisting it just showing what it is

can remove this is you all want

either way it is not a true CAD program

Erm....let us cook? :p

[static mason]

we are such a weeb lol

[dry shoal]

~~I have a request for anyone who rolls on by and owns the game. This zip file should be a one-and-done drag and drop. Just start with a clean game install. It comes with a very safe rtx.conf and a preconfigured system.ini which has the Remix API hooked into it. You can see if the API is working by simply shooting your gun in-game, as the API gives lights to the projectiles with 0 remix toolkit-based mods required

please drag and drop the contents of this zip file into your Star Wars Republic Commando/GameData directory. Run the game as normal from steam. Start a new game, and enter the following console command -> open geo_01a into the game's... command console. The key for it is the same as most games with consoles -> ~

from there, simply see if you can play till the end of the first level without notable issues, namely in regards to stability and performance consistency. Please include sharing you CPU/GPU combo as well~~

---

~~Reposting for visibility. I ask that you keep responses brief for now so more people can see this

EDIT: KNOWN WEIRD ISSUES YOU WILL SEE THAT ARE OKAY
-giant yellow triangle in main menus (use arrow keys if needed)
-crashing upon first load, may need to do it twice or three times~~

[dry shoal]

ALSO ONCE AGAIN THIS IS A TEST FOR CRASHING ISSUES IN-GAME, NOT A DEMO. Performance isn't a focus at this point, but I wouldn't mind people sharing that out of pure curiosity

[wind briar]

People will treat it as such anyway! Have fun!

[naive robin]

||Doesn’t work on my intel hd 600 pls fix. ||

[dry shoal]

Tested on my laptop with AMD integrated graphics. I had no instability issues outside of the first couple crashes when loading up new stuff for the first time

[past escarp]

Tested it on a PC with an Intel i3 10100 CPU and RTX 2070. With the in-game resolution set to 1080p and DLSS set to Ultra Performance, it seemed stable as long as I didn't tab out. Framerate ranged from high 20s to high 50s depending on where I was and what was going on. Will test on my main PC later tonight and report back.

[plucky glacier]

Tested on 7800x3D and 4090 at 4K DLSS auto. About 3 crashes upon first load within menus/first time loading. First outdoor area played completely fine (held 120 fps the whole time). Once entering the hive the textures became very flickery until they completely disappeared soon after meeting delta 40

[dry shoal]

Regarding the flickering and textures disappearing in geo1b, they're known issues with known solutions 🙂 thanks for testing and sharing

We have the exact same CPU GPU combo so it's odd I'm having issues. Would you happen to know what Nvidia driver version you're on?

[plucky glacier]

Gotcha, I figured that area wasn't finished. I'm on the most recent driver 560.70, zero stutters in 2 runs

[dry shoal]

for @past escarp and @plucky glacier , would ya'll mind sending the logs from your game folder to have as a comparison point? There's 4 of them in particular:

in the System folder: d3d9.log / SWRepublicCommando.log / SWRepublicCommando_d3d9.log

and in the System/.trex folder: NVRemixBridge.log

and GPU driver version pls

^ideally all in one message for each of you just so it's not too messy lol

for @royal sonnet could you give any hints as to what the errors near the end of this log file mean so I can interpret them? Using the latest actions + xoxor's fork for x86 on the bridge side of things

and speaking of the bridge, this doesn't look too good either. Trying to diagnose this since I have people on the exact same setup, exact same rtx.conf files and most of them aren't facing the same consistent crashing after one to two minutes of play (+ wonky inputs)

[royal sonnet]

what driver version are you / they on?

[22:40:34.727] err: The client process has unexpectedly exited, shutting down server as well!
I believe that means the error happened on the x86 side somewhere, though I'm not as familiar with the bridge.

[hardy quail]

erm!!! this doesnt work on my 1995 windows 3.1 PC fix pls!!!!!!

[dry shoal]

will get that info for you, + send two sets of logs, one of them the game works perfectly fine, the other has the issue I mentioned. We're on the same bridge/dxvk combination

[dry shoal]

Their driver version: 556.12
My driver version: 560.70 (latest)

Both using RTX 4090s, both using the exact same combination of the remix dxvk + bridge. Here are those respective logs. Ignore the file name difference, they're functionally identical . First one the game is working just fine, second one is mine with the instability / input issues

---

---

same thing but for the nvBridge logs. Same order, first one works fine, second is busted.

---

another user on a 4070Ti experienced the same issues I did, but two other users (RTX 2070 / RTX 3060Ti) it worked totally fine. In all cases we're using the same dxvk+bridge. Asked for their driver versions. Hopefully I'll be able to give you enough to get something meaningful figured out

The other user with the same issues was also on driver ver. 560.70

and these are their logs, matching the ones above in terms of order

[royal sonnet]

So sounds like everyone with the issue is on 560.70, and people on other versions are fine?

Are there any .dmp files being generated in the bridge folder?

[dry shoal]

I didn't collect it for the other guy on the same driver but I have my own

[past escarp]

This is from my main PC. Processor is Intel i9 11900KF. GPU is RTX 3070. Driver version is 560.70. At 1080p and DLSS set to quality, stability was actually really good. No crashes at all, even with a few alt-tabs during gameplay. Framerate was mid 20s to about 40.

[dry shoal]

@royal sonnet user on the same driver version without the issue^

also bad news, the 4090 user on the older driver updated to the latest 560.70 and tested again. He still doesn't have issues. Doesn't seem driver version related?

[plucky glacier]

here you go sir

[royal sonnet]

Is there a github issue for this? would be much better to have all these logs and dmp files on there, rather than on discord

It's much easier for the engineers who will actually work on this to access it from there, and to give out updates when the issue is worked on

[dry shoal]

dunno if using the dxvk HUD might help. Note that this is a different install than the one referenced in the logs but it has the exact same ussies. This was about the last frame before it crashed, second image is earlier on when performance was still reasonable (it lowers over time till the crash)

[dry shoal]

I reported an issue just like this one like a month and a half ago. Said it was being tracked

however I'm running into the same issue again later on, now that I need a newer version of the bridge in order to take advantage of the Remix API in my project

I guess now I just have more data points with fairly consistent testing across different PCs. But when I reported the issue I was on a driver that otherwise worked flawlessly even in other remix games (incl problematic ones like Portal RTX which has having issues on the latest drivers at the time)

I noticed opacity micro maps were mentioned among the errors in the logs, and in the screenshots you can see it crashed as it hit ~95MB. It just continually went up and up, no fluctuation only increases

I'd love to neatly compile this stuff on github on the same post but truly I'm kind of overloaded. I have too much going on with other aspects of my project as well as work on art assets that's long overdue. it took up a a big chunk of my day just trying to coordinate this testing to begin with

[dry shoal]

@remote quail @plucky glacier @past escarp wanted to let you guys know, the rtx.conf included in that zip file was set to use Remix's ultra graphics preset. So the performance y'all experienced is absolute worst case scenario in this current stage. If you guys are interested I can share an updated rtx.conf later with more optimized settings out of the box, to see if perf noticeably improves

[remote quail]

That'll be awesome imma be home from work soon, so I can do more testing

[dry shoal]

In that case you can adjust it yourself going into the graphics settings menu (top right in the Remix dev overlay) on the 2nd tab 👍 it'll be a while until I'll be able to get the new RTX.conf out myself

[remote quail]

ok, im booting up my pc so i can do more further testing

[remote quail]

Umm for some reason i cant interact for shit with the RTX menu my mouse free floats and i can only move the cross hair in game

[dry shoal]

Hit alt+backspace to semi fix the mouse

[remote quail]

it worked

[dry shoal]

I'd recommend hitting it again once you're done since it does some background stuff with input

[remote quail]

thank you

[remote quail]

ok

imma test it with medium preset, and using Dlss "balanced" preset, as i get 30 FPS

[dry shoal]

I'd highly recommend starting at ultra performance mode. Ik it doesn't sound nice but in my experience remix looks cleaner than modern games even at such low internal resolutions, and it has a massive performance benefit

I played Portal RTX with DLSS perf mode on my 3080Ti back when I had that

[remote quail]

yeah, console doesnt seem to wanna work for some reason, but when i load a new game theyres no crashes, although when i alt tab back and forth it does crash after a few times of doing it

[dry shoal]

The console only functions when you're not paused or in a menu

Alt tab crashing is a remix thing to my knowledge, has to be fixed on Nvidia's end

[remote quail]

ahh that makes sense

the intro is buggy but im assuming you havent worked on it

like consoles are invisible, looking around in the beggning shows the sky box

[dry shoal]

Everything's buggy, this was a super slapped together build purely to test crashing on the first playable Geonosis level

[remote quail]

not in the first intro like you in the ship its after that

[remote quail]

yeah thats what i thought, hint why i said im assuming you havent worked on the intro, but so far i mean as terms of crashing its not doing it too often, render latency is terrible but im assuming thats because of RTX remix.

[dry shoal]

If you're referring to what the Nvidia overlay reports, I recommend just ignoring it honestly. Subjective experience is gonna be key I think, especially for lower end GPUS

[dry shoal]

Also I wanna clarify that this build has absolutely 0 of the work I've done to get a decent experience at the basic level

So when you say "assuming you haven't worked on", I have for a lot of issues you'll come across. It's just not part of this test so that work hasn't been implemented in what you're playing

[remote quail]

yeah, so far its good, imma test more here in a bit load up the playable level

[dry shoal]

@royal sonnet I did a lot of asking around and got people to test different variables even after last night. Every single idea we had was struck down. It can't be the driver version itself because another 4090 on the same driver works without issue. I thought it could be a 40 series issue due to opacity micromap stuff (which I think is Lovelace only?), except with the DXVK overlay enabled the other 4090 user on the same driver + remix/bridge versions worked fine. Then I assumed it could be frame gen since I found out the two with broken games (myself included) used FG when the stable setup did not. Except that was disproven also by him enabling FG and still having no issues

Literally the last variable I could even think of is Windows 10 vs Windows 11, as the one with the stable game is still on Win10. Idek if that's possible

[royal sonnet]

Do you have a .dmp file from a run on the latest action build? Sounds like there was actually a fix for a crash-on-shutdown that isn't in 0.5.1, which is masking the actual cause of the problem here

[dry shoal]

Shared the dump last night, here @royal sonnet

[dry shoal]

Only problem with that is this issue still occurs even on the latest actions (except using Xoxor's bridge fork which is 3 weeks old)

[royal sonnet]

There's an error in 0.5.1 that causes a crash halfway through the crash reporting process - which hides the actual cause of the error. that should be fixed in the latest actions tho

[dry shoal]

As far as I could tell the stuff in the logs looked similar as to why it could be. They didn't have errors unique to each build but I don't have them in front of me atm

[royal sonnet]

so the .dmp file from 0.5.1 doesn't actually have the data we need

[dry shoal]

Ah, damn. Well I'll have to get back to you on that then

[royal sonnet]

Sorry for heaping so much work on you for this

[dry shoal]

No worries I just want to figure it out and get back to modding

The gray hairs are growing in number

Before I would've just used an older version that did work, but now that my project is using the Remix API that's not an option

[dry shoal]

Hey y'all, because I can't ever focus on one thing at a time, I'm working on a tweak to resolution scaling on each DLSS quality mode. My hope is to make it more intuitive/accessible to people without high end PCs that are still reasonably powerful by modern standards

If I pair it with an RTX.conf with lowered pathtracing settings, I'm curious how it would run for some of you guys. I'll tag those who previously tested if they want to give it a shot once I have it set up

[dry shoal]

losing my mind because this shit is so unstable on the latest builds <3

I LITERALLY CANNOT USE THE REMIX OVERLAY ON THE LATEST BUILDS

https://tenor.com/view/anime-headesk-bang-headbang-dessert-gif-17584997

EVEN ALT+BACKSPACE DOESN'T WORK, IT JUST GLITCHES BETWEEN TWO SPOTS AND I KEEP CLICKING THE WRONG SHIT AFTER 40 ATTEMPTS

AND EVEN THE SLIGHTEST LITTLE ALT TAB MAKES REMIX SAY "GO FUCK YOURSELF", BEFORE IT WAS A COINFLIP NOW IT'S EVERY TIME

https://tenor.com/view/anime-headesk-bang-headbang-dessert-gif-17584997

[burnt light]

😦

i've pretty much halted everything i was doing with Remix until this stuff clears up

it's just not going anywhere

[dry shoal]

kim you don't get it. I can deal with the (hopefully temporary) perf regressions because I P2W with the 4090, but I'm here making significant progress using the API with the help of the most experienced modder in the SWRC sceneexcept not because it's unplayable with consistent crashing issues, ungodly fucked keyboard input and performance degradation over the limited playtime I'm allowed to have that gets so bad it'd make a switch owner blush.

oh wait and the whole thing of spending hours upon hours these last couple days trying to troubleshoot an issue only me and one other mf has for seemingly no goddamn reason bc mfs with the same GPU ON THE SAME DRIVER VERSION have their shit working flawlessly, and finding 0 leads

I can put up with a lot of bullshit, it's what I signed up for ~8 months ago. But Remix is currently at it's biggest "fuck you auto" stage it's ever been and I'm starting to lose it

[burnt light]

yeah i'm talking about a lot of the same stuff with my own projects

it doesn't work like at all right now, and there's nothing i can do to improve it

[dry shoal]

btw if this image is a little unhinged then it got the message across 👍

[burnt light]

i understand and i'm sorry it's happening lol

[dry shoal]

you're good dw

but yeah until these issues are fixed and I can get the x86 API fork running properly I can't actually do anything

https://tenor.com/view/anime-headesk-bang-headbang-dessert-gif-17584997

[dry shoal]

yeah so I swapped to the latest actions to get the .dmp file you asked for but the remix overlay is unusable and stability is seemingly the worst it's been in many many months

apologies for not being able to get that

[royal sonnet]

You and Kim both seem to be having pretty miserable experiences with the latest builds. Are there github issues for the things that are causing yall the most problems?

I know we've had some instability due to a driver problem, but the stuff you're describing above doesn't match up with the stuff I've heard people talking about internally, making me think there's problems happening that we aren't aware of

this? https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/issues/543

[dry shoal]

it's essentially an extension of that, yeah

[royal sonnet]

Are those the symptoms that only you and 1 other person have been able to repro?

[dry shoal]

seemingly, yes. Had a good number of people testing for this exact issue. They were on the following hardware, myself included: 2070, 3060Ti, Radeon 6800XT, 3070 mobile, 4070Ti, 4090, 4090

SinceI found out the 4070Ti guy was on the same driver as me, I thought that could be it until Mr. 2nd 4090 owner upgraded to the same driver and it worked exactly the same as before, no issues (leon, the one working on the API stuff). Then I found out he wasn't using frame gen, except it's not frame gen bc when he did another test with it on he also still had no issues. Everyone who tested used the exact same builds of dxvk and the bridge

[royal sonnet]

are you running any overlays?

[dry shoal]

so it's not an issue inherent to 40 series cards, it's not related to frame generation, it's not related to driver versions, it's not related to Geforce driver profile configuration bc I reset mine and still had the same issue, etc

[dry shoal]

No. I don't even turn on the Nvidia app overlay

before I had an issue with afterburner but I stopped using it long ago

oh and to add onto all of that, all of us were using the exact same rtx.conf file

[royal sonnet]

you narrowed it down to a particular bridge commit, right?

this one? https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/bridge-remix/commit/0037ec675e941ebe0f4d5dabfef44746abe9c1dc

[dry shoal]

Yes. The description of that commit looks related to an error seen in my logs too

[royal sonnet]

and the only reason you're using a newer bridge version is the remix API?

are you comfortable building the bridge yourself?

[dry shoal]

that's right. Specifically need to use Xoxor's fork since it enables x86 API support but I believe it's based on a bridge version after the one where I started having the issues mentioned in the github report

maybe it goes without saying but all of us were using the API in the test too

[dry shoal]

never built a program in my life, last time I looked at it it seemed like a headache lol

I mean I could try I guess as long as I understand the instructions

[royal sonnet]

yep. You could make your own fork and roll back that specific commit.

xoxor has his fork making actions builds, right?

so maybe you just need to make a fork and rollback that one commit

[dry shoal]

https://github.com/xoxor4d/bridge-remix/actions

[dry shoal]

what you're describing is new to me, could you explain it?

[royal sonnet]

in any case, I'll try to bump the priority of this and point it out to the author of that commit - since it's been traced to a very specific commit, it should be easier to track down.

If there's anything new in the logs (or if you manage to get a dmp file on the latest builds) could you upload it to that ticket?

Also, is the dmp you captured on 0.5.1 earlier today also from this same issue? or is that unrelated

[dry shoal]

same issue but you said there was a bug that made the dump incomplete right

[royal sonnet]

With git, you can undo (revert, or rollback) a single commit. So you may not need to do any actual building yourself, if you can just get a fork set up with that commit reverted, the github action should then build it for you

[dry shoal]

and yeah, I'll add in the newer logs that have the same issue. I'll try to get a .dmp file on a newer action in a bit

[royal sonnet]

One f the reasons we prefer to have this stuff on github issues is that it's really hard for us to keep track of what info applies to which info

i.e. up until I found that issue I had no idea you'd already tracked this problem down to a specific bridge commit

[dry shoal]

I always understood that, it's just not the most convenient thing to do when you're still trying to get as much info as you can beforehand too

[dry shoal]

I believe I linked it to you when I made it lol

because I was yapping a whole bunch of nonsense doing tons of testing back to back until I got to that commit, which is when I made the report

[royal sonnet]

ah... I was out last week

[burnt light]

i haven't had enough time to do proper testing unfortunately. all i know is that bridge build 65 and dxvk build 408 have been extremely solid in most games, and anything afterward has had major issues for me (more and more as development progressed)

[royal sonnet]

er, #408 is super old at this point, isn't it?

[burnt light]

very old, yeah

the very latest builds, within the last month or so, often just crash for me and don't even get in-game. this is on about 4 different games, the main ones that i had projects for

on other games that are less complex they also appear to be more buggy than older builds

there's just so much going on with these builds that it's hard to test or or even explain

[royal sonnet]

So, just to be clear - the dmp file fix is in dxvk, so you should be using the same bridge build you've been using, and just the latest dxvk. can you expand on what's preventing you from getting a dmp file?

[dry shoal]

lol

[dry shoal]

just the 0.5.1 issue you mentioned no?

oh im stupid

[royal sonnet]

ah... for some reason I thought the issue was 5 days old

[dry shoal]

basically when this rant started. Very unspecific ik lol. In a game, I'll expand on it

[royal sonnet]

Well, I know at least your perf regression issue caught some attention - it's part of why there have been several commits with 'GPU Perf' in the name over the past couple days

unfortuantely compatibility bugs are rather harder to track down and fix - especially with how often fixing one seems to cause another

[royal sonnet]

you'll need dxvk-remix after build #599.

You should probably test using the earliest bridge build that repros the issue, although it'd be valuable to know if the issue has gotten worse or changed on the latest bridge builds

[dry shoal]

just so you're aware I already have a .dmp in the github post. Do you want me to just get a newer one on the same bridge build to have for reference?

https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/issues/543

[royal sonnet]

preesuming that github dmp was posted before build 599, then it's probably got the same problem

I'll check with the engineer actually working on this, but I think he's probably gon to sleep for the night

[dry shoal]

yeah now iirc I tried to limit the number of variables by using 0.5.1 + that bridge version

so I'll get a newer one

[royal sonnet]

yep, they already looked at the dmp posted in the issue, and it has the same problem

[dry shoal]

got it. Should I use the latest dxvk version I can? or should I play it safe with 600

[royal sonnet]

latest is good

gonna sign off for the night. When you get that dmp, please also attach it to the github ticket

[dry shoal]

Done. I also tested the latest builds and as of the time of posting, that setup works. Latest DXVK and bridge

I'm 90% sure it was still busted on the bridge side not long ago since I tested using the latest version I could the last few days

So I guess now I just have to wait for the API to get x86 support on the absolute latest build

I did my part I guess

mfw I send the meme with the most deadpan face bc my god all the effort and stress for that outcome (that I can't use the API for the time being, bc my PC ig)

[hardy quail]

you took down the zip?

[gleaming sedge]

Looks like auto is having fun

[wind briar]

Damn shit be happening in here, welcome to my world Auto! The world of non stop regressions

[dry shoal]

There were a ton of aspects of the build that were unideal since I was testing for the specific issue. I was thinking about making a more "intended to be relatively playable* build but I'll have to see

[dry shoal]

First time I ever used this image as a response! Glad to be here

It fit the moment perfectly

[royal sonnet]

So latest dxvk + xoxor4d's bridge build is stable for you? Was latest dxvk + latest bridge was unstable yesterday?

[dry shoal]

Other way around. Xoxor's bridge build was still fucked on the latest DXVK, but the latest bridge build was stable and worked exactly how I'd hoped. Nudged Xoxor a bit and he's making a new build of his x86 API fork that's based on the latest bridge build I used the other night

So I can hesitantly say that things seem to now be in a good spot to work off of assuming the new fork build goes smoothly

*actually there's one big disclaimer that alt tabbing is a no-go. It crashes every single time without fail lol. At least in my few attempts last night

[golden plover]

#1116068634855477418 message Let me refer you to your own words you were literally saying the other day but don’t seem to be listening to yourself lol!

[dry shoal]

Nice try buster, it's different

This is different bc I want to work on specifically API stuff but couldn't

[golden plover]

API things?

[golden plover]

Whatever they are your head spends more time on the table than most so taking a break for a day might not be such a bad thing

Ofc helping devs fix this regressions is very important cause aaaaarfh

It sucks

[dry shoal]

The remix API. Depending on how much access you have to the underlying game, you can basically have remix respond to game logic/use resources provided directly from the game. The example I have in my project currently is all objects classified as projectiles in the game engine have a sphere light attached to them, and that sphere light's color directly references the color values assigned to it in the vanilla game

So think more systemic use of Remix features rather than needing to do everything painstakingly by hand with hacky workarounds

[dry shoal]

That was the plan until Mark mentioned taking a closer look, so I figured I'd do what I could in the moment relating to troubleshooting

[golden plover]

Is this xotors bridge?

[dry shoal]

The reason Xoxor's bridge fork is significant is because it expands support of the Remix API to 32bit programs. Aka 99.9% of the games people could use with Remix's runtime anyways

The official implementation is currently 64bit only, so you're limited to things like Skyrim Special Edition, STALKER's open X-ray engine

It's more complicated than that but that's the very basic idea

[golden plover]

Why did they make it for 64bit programs?

[golden plover]

Do you think it will help me?

[dry shoal]

The idea was to use Remix's pathtracer with theoretically any program. So let's say you have an open source DX11 based game from 2013. If you have sufficient access to the game, you could use Remix's pathtracer for rendering without the DX9->Vulkan interpretation stuff that 99.9% of us require to make it possible

[dry shoal]

Unless you know C+ programming and the game has accessible C+ headers (I think these are the right terms lol), no

Only reason we can do it in my project is because the guy on it has been modding the underlying game for many years, even reverse engineering some aspects which ended up enabling using the Remix API

Though he never intended for it at the time

[golden plover]

Very lucky you

[golden plover]

They plan on giving support for dx11 games???? Nvidia

[dry shoal]

Couldn't agree more. I'm kind of in a best case scenario with this game in many ways. But I couldn't achieve it's full potential on my own

[dry shoal]

No

Allow me to explain

[golden plover]

Idk if this is the right channel

Should we take it up in general?

[dry shoal]

I'm the goddamn mod I get to say which is the right channel

[golden plover]

Lmao

[dry shoal]

(not rly but idc rn)

[golden plover]

I overrule you

Sure

[dry shoal]

The remix runtime exists in 2 core parts. One part is DXVK. DXVK is being used to translate DirectX9 fixed function drawcalls to Vulkan. The Remix renderer uses what DXVK translates for it in order to reconstruct a game scene as closely as possible

With the API/SDK, you essentially skip using DXVK and give Remix the info it needs to construct a scene entirely manually. This is what requires very deep access to the game to make it even possible on DX11 titles for instance

I know jack shit about modding. I was only able to pick up bits and pieces and make it as far as I have because of that DXVK component that gives the Remix renderer the information it needs from the game's DX9 calls

My project uses the API as part of the larger mod, I'm not replacing the work I would normally do

It lets us do more specific/simple scripted type things that DXVK can't do for us

I hope this isn't too shit of an explanation @copper minnow

[golden plover]

Yeahhhhh no no it’s definitely not

….

Does remix dxvk use commits from the original dxvk project?

Even though it was forked

[golden plover]

Why do they think dx9 gives deep enough access but dx11 does not?

[dry shoal]

This is where fixed function pipelines/all the shader nonsense comes in

Remix is possible to use as a generalized tool (rather than needing to be more deeply integrated on a per game basis) because back in the day, the draw calls games would send to the GPU were all extremely similar. Basically if two games of that era were rendering a wall, the command they'd both be sending to the GPU are about the same despite being totally different engines/game code and whatnot. With DX9c and beyond, shaders became the norm. It lets developers make much more unique graphical effects that weren't possible before, but shaders are unique per-game. It's not possible for Remix to translate shader information being sent to the GPU because it's not all done the same way even for some relatively basic bits of rendering

[golden plover]

Hmmmm

[dry shoal]

That's why we try using lower in-game settings n stuff to hopefully improve remix compatibility. The idea is to simplify the visuals to be more predictable for Remix to interpret

^poorly worded but close enough

[royal sonnet]

https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/wiki/Compatibility#why-fixed-function-pipelines

[golden plover]

Why can there be dx9 to 11 wrappers then?

[golden plover]

You should be asleep hahaha. Thanks

[royal sonnet]

it's just after lunch for me?

[golden plover]

Ohh nvm sorry

[royal sonnet]

but read over that page, it should give a lot of explanations about shaders vs fixed function

fundamentally, fixed function they send over polygons, textures, and lights. In shader pipeline, they send arbitrary data and a program that interprets the data.

[dry shoal]

I think there can be. But the problem is directX11 doesn't used fixed function pipelines. So instead of generic commands being interpreted to something remix can use, generic commands are turned into shaders to render them in DX11, which remix couldn't really interpret on its own

[golden plover]

Do you ever think it will be possible to translate shaders then?

[dry shoal]

Emphasis to what Mark said on the "arbitrary data" part

Fixed function isn't arbitrary, it's predictable

[golden plover]

So no

[dry shoal]

Correct*

*For practical purposes of this convo that's correct

[golden plover]

Can you elaborate more in context of my question please sorry?

I don’t understand the answer

[dry shoal]

Like with all things there's a "well akshually " but it becomes so difficult that it's not reasonable to expect

[dry shoal]

TLDR a DX9 to DX11 wrapper would end up having the same exact problem as if Remix was trying to work with a native DX11 game

Wrappers to DX9 are largely fixed function to my knowledge, because that was still a core part of DX9's feature set

If the Nvidia guys want to correct me on anything feel free. This is my current understanding and I'm pretty sure it's close, though I'm sure there's some nuances or slight errors here and there

[golden plover]

Ok

So ninja ripper only works because it captures the scene after it’s drawn so the data isn’t arbitrary. Could remix not do this though?

[royal sonnet]

One route that we've talked about for shader support, is to expose some way for modders to tell remix how to parse the game's data. i.e. tagging each texture and vertex property being passed into the shaders. That still has a ton of problems though, like the shaders that take in multiple albedo textures and combine them in arbitrary ways

[dry shoal]

No clue on that so good luck mark

[royal sonnet]

I'm not too familiar with ninja ripper, but it's entirely possible it's just capturing the shaders and shader inputs, and running those shaders when you actually draw the stuff it captures?

[obsidian cloak]

uhm unrelated but
mark we are getting GPU optimizations right now, are we gonna get any cpu usage optimizations?

[royal sonnet]

A problem remix has is that the shaders the original game used don't really work for PBR pathtracing, so we can't just re-use their shaders

[royal sonnet]

can't say

[golden plover]

Mark if you don’t mind staying a bit after everyone else’s questions this is extremely interesting and I don’t want to lose you

I appreciate this a lot

[golden plover]

What about shaders used to make textures? Lots of my objects in my game have no material assigned to them and i want to use texture replacements but can’t do an asset replacement to get a material because asset replacements don’t move in my game

Remix seems to not be able to translate so many objects at one time. This is an example of ninja ripper https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/issues/575

[royal sonnet]

I'm gonna reply in the lego batman channel

[golden plover]

I blame this on auto

[dry shoal]

I don't think it was too bad

[golden plover]

No the fact we moved channels ❤️

[dry shoal]

good friend @royal sonnet any hints as to why terrain blending only seems to work on some parts of the meshes?

like it looks perfect and accurate to the vanilla game in some areas, then turns into a black smear elsewhere. Happens both on the floors and walls

[gleaming sedge]

Shouldn't be used on walls

[dry shoal]

stop the cap

texture blending in environments is used all over the game, floors and sides of stuff

[gleaming sedge]

It projects the textures on the mesh, and projection don't work on 90° angles

[dry shoal]

well they can project on these nuts

[gleaming sedge]

Remix try not to be crappy about blending shit challenge (hard)

[dry shoal]

damn im just cyberfucked then

they use the same textures for walls and floors, I can't choose one or the other

[gleaming sedge]

Rip lil one

[royal sonnet]

terrain blending bakes stuff together from a top down camera, so it only really works on floors / ground. for walls you're better off trying to mark stuff as decal, though those need some underlying surface to blend with.

not sure what happens if a ray hits a decal then doesn't hit anything else... we should probably just treat the decal as solid in that case, but no idea what will actually happen

[dry shoal]

that's kind of the problem, I can't do one or the other. The same textures are often used between the walls and floors but with some variety via blending

it's not the end of the world since I'm going to be making my own replacement PBR mats anyways but it would've been nice

[royal sonnet]

yeah... variety via blending is one of the things that we have a tough time with

[dry shoal]

is there any somewhat practical methods to do something similar? even if it's only with replacement materials or something

[royal sonnet]

well... just to try, what happens when you just mark all of those blending textures as decals?

It would definitely work (though with a bit of a perf hit) if there was some base wall that isn't a decal, then all the blendy stuff gets drawn on top of that

[dry shoal]

I had some success with that but only with an object that was a separate mesh (dirt pile) that got alpha blended in the original game. iirc marking the actual blended textures for the environment didn't do anything

it's used everywhere

[royal sonnet]

any chance you can mod the game to use different textures for the walls?

[dry shoal]

yeah I have control over all that stuff. What could I actually do with that?

[royal sonnet]

leave the ground textures as terrain, and change all the walls to use a different texture that doesn't get sent to the terrain system

[dry shoal]

that's genius

I'll look into that

[dry shoal]

looks like it worked

[royal sonnet]

that was quick

[dry shoal]

it was much faster than that, I was playing a game for a while lol. It's easy in UE2 since there's a visual list of in-use textures, so I just hit "remove from level" for every "combiner" texture

but left the ones labeled ground/gravel

[royal sonnet]

ahh.. so good for testing, but probably not for final product (since you'll want those to have separate materials)

[dry shoal]

think they'll all be assigned the same hash by remix?

[royal sonnet]

I imagine all of those white/black tiled meshes are all just using the same texture now

[dry shoal]

though I do intend to replace every single mesh, 0 exceptions so I don't think it'd be an issue

[static mason]

What if you just made a copy of the same texture, would it produce a different hash?

[dry shoal]

assuming it's a unique draw call i imagine so

[royal sonnet]

if the pixels are the same, it'll be the same material hash. If you change one of the pixels, or the size, the texture will be different

[dry shoal]

I take it back

gonna test and take a capture now

[royal sonnet]

the material hash is just the hash of all the pixel data

the mesh hash is a bunch of mesh properties combined with the material hash

[static mason]

Ahhhh that actually makes alot of sense

[dry shoal]

I always wondered how that worked. Neat

[static mason]

So then pbr would use that hash for each pixels properties and how light reacts with it? Just an assumption I'm prolly wrong lol

[royal sonnet]

we take the texture the original game sends to the gpu and combine all of the pixel data into a hash. If there is no material replacement for that hash, we we just use the texture the game provided. If there is a material replacement, we use that instead.

When drawing a replacement mesh, if there is a new material bound to that mesh, we use that material instead of the one from the draw call.

[dry shoal]

this feels like an odd result to me

well I was about to get another screenshot and couldn't lol

crashed

looks like remix is still assigning them as one of the textures used when they're being combined by the game engine

only the BSP walls retain the checkerboard

[static mason]

Wait does this game store its maps in the bsp format?

[royal sonnet]

err... so the game is drawing using the checkerboard, but Remix somehow restores the original textures? are you sure it's using your changed maps?

[dry shoal]

it's impossible for it to not be

[dry shoal]

this reflects the behavior from before actually. When terrain blending is disabled it would just assign one texture to it that was used in the combiner

[royal sonnet]

What happens if you just rename the d3d9.dll (to something like d3d9_remix.dll) so that the game renders normally?

[dry shoal]

no need, toggle in the overlay. Something's definitely up

[royal sonnet]

that's with just turning ray tracing off?

[dry shoal]

doesn't make sense, I outright replaced the map file. Gonna try again since I think I might have an idea

[dry shoal]

right

[royal sonnet]

it definitely looks like your maps edits aren't working

[dry shoal]

gonna open it up again in the editor and see what's up

[royal sonnet]

not much I can do to help with that - those walls may be using some special mode beyond just the assigned textures? in fixed function pipeline, I think that blending texture for terrain like that used a special mode

[dry shoal]

I have an idea, don't worry

I think the changes might not all be stored in the map file itself

and the only reason the bsp walls are using the checkerboard is because it's a unique type of surface different from static meshes

lemme see if my theory holds up

[static mason]

Literally a game theory

[dry shoal]

take two

nvm

take three soon

I'm a fucking moron, I still had the game open

[static mason]

Dawg I was just abt to type that

"Did you try turning it off and back on again"

[dry shoal]

still didn't work, fk me ig

not the end of the world though

I was able to get only the ground to blend I think

[static mason]

Is thr map in bsp format

[dry shoal]

that was the norm for the era but yeah

unless you mean literally ".bsp"

[static mason]

What does it save as

[dry shoal]

.ctm

[static mason]

Aw dang it

[dry shoal]

on the bright side I got an absolutely enormous capture

[dry shoal]

WIP at the bottom, original up top

if anyone gives feedback I will fight you

not looking for any yet

[burnt light]

it looks like a gun

[dry shoal]

okay that I can accept

forgot I had a piece hidden

[static mason]

It's missing the handle (please don't kill me)

[dry shoal]

https://tenor.com/view/angry-cat-gif-25783770

i will k1ll you

[late jetty]

I’d put my hands up

Very nice!

[hardy quail]

you get feedback anyways

looking good though fr

[dry shoal]

Since u gave feedback you're legally obligated to have the light fixture model done in approximately 1 hour

[hardy quail]

i am texturing

[dry shoal]

Ayo

[dry shoal]

Dunno if I said it previously but Remix only needs basecolor, normals, roughness, metalness. Height if you're feeling extra spicy lol

So stuff like AO doesn't need to be exported

[hardy quail]

yeah i know

standard PBR

[dry shoal]

I only mention it because I thought AO maps were the norm

[dry shoal]

Wow

@naive robin material man check, out of curiosity is this a mesh you probably don't want metalness on? I think so but I wanted to verify in case I'm dunb

[naive robin]

It can have a tiny amount of it. I’d imagine it’s painted metal.

[dry shoal]

@static mason well then I think lower metalness with a greater roughness would make it look nicer 🙂