[Sticky] New FFED3D builds from Ittiz & AndyJ

Nice one Steve not been following any of the threads on Frontier for a while.

Seen the announcement on the Frontier Forum, great stuff Steve, Oh and Darkone has now removed that "broken" listing from the FFE3D archive on here now. If you had not mentioned it, we never would have known, so thanks for that too.

Should this patch be uploaded for FFED3D for AndyJ?

AFAIK, the State of the Art version for FFD3D before AndyJ 's version was the "FFD3D_Complete.7z" version which I have already downloaded on this site.

The FF3 D3D.exe corrisponds to the version 1.12b that AndyJ is recommending to use. I will surely give it a try.

Very happy to know that finally the ingame-videos are working with FFD3D !! 😎

XenonS

New version of AndyJ's build coming soon.

• New options to Enable Multisample Anti-Aliasing to smooth model & line edges.
• Enabled support for global model shaders. There is now a ships.fx, asteroids.fx and models.fx within the Models folder to provide a generic shader for ships, asteroids and everything else. Individual model shaders will be used where they are available to permit customisation.
• Added multiple skins support for objects. Each can have up to 10 different skins and in the case of Police Vipers, they have their own dedicated skin. Implementation is via new shader variables. Use the 'Buffet' utility to tweak the colour/name of your ship if you want it to use a particular skin!
• Improved the atmosphere shader so that the sky and clouds obscure the stars during the daytime and then fade to reveal them at night, with just a faint cloud layer visible in the night sky.
• Reworked part of the rendering code so that when inside an atmosphere, the sky is now drawn before the sun, which in turn is drawn before the planet - so the sun can now be seen in the sky of a living planet.
• The current sun colour was being applied when drawing your ship in the Equipment view and when viewing other ships in the ship yard. They are now correctly lit with a white light as per original FFE.
• The "1st Encounter" Quest ship now displays throughout the intro sequence.
• Chasing Quest ship at end of intro sequence is swapped to be the expected police Viper when using models.

Look like some of those long standing problems are starting to get sorted out.

My long held dream of all 3 of the classic Elite games re-make and fully operational for the modern day, draws a little bit closer with this news. A wonderful thing to see.

AndyJ is just making a few final adjustments, such as getting the three dashboard lights (red, blue & green for under attack, landing gear down and autopilot engaged) working again, plus a few rather more technical matters.

A few more days at the most, methinks 

Hello everyone !

Well I think I've made the final (final, final) adjustment and have decided to draw a line under what Steve can attest to become a never ending v1.01 build of FFED3DAJ!

Sorry about this - it was for good reasons - so I hope the wait will prove to be worth it!

If there's an admin about, I may need a little help with the uploading... it's grown "a little" way beyond the 9MB posting limit ... please can you drop me a PM?

Cheers,  AndyJ

The final change log ended as this:

2013-08-11 - Version 1.01:

• New options to enable Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing to smooth model & line edges. (
• Enabled support for global model shaders. This was disabled in the first release because it gave everything

  a dark and metalic appearance, so individual models required their own shader effect.fx file.

• There is now a ships.fx, asteroids.fx and models.fx within the Models folder to provide a generic shader  for

  ships, asteroids and everything else. Individual model shaders will be used where they are available

  to permit customisation.

• Added multiple skins support for objects. Each can have up to 10 different skins and in the case of Police Vipers,

  they have their own dedicated skin. Implementation is via new shader variables/

• Improved the atmosphere shader so that the sky and clouds obscure the stars during the daytime and then fade

  to reveal them at night, with just a faint cloud layer visible in the night sky.

• Reworked part of the rendering code so that when inside an atmosphere, the sky is now drawn before the sun,

  which in turn is drawn before the planet - so the sun can now be seen in the sky of a living planet.

• In case your PC is unable to load the high-resolution cloud textures, or to save memory, there is a new setting in

  .cfg file- hiresCloudTextures=1. Set this to 0 to use lower resolution images.

• The current sun colour was being applied when drawing your ship in the Equipment view and when viewing other

   ships in the ship yard. They are now correctly lit with a white light as per original FFE.

• The "1st Encounter" Quest ship now displays throughout the intro sequence.
• Chasing Quest ship at end of intro sequence is swapped to be the expected police Viper when using models.
• Extended the option to hide text on loaded models so that it can apply to bases and stations too.
• Anisotropic version now reads shipdata_aniso.txt to load the ship configuration values.
• Correction: re-enabled specular lighting so that objects will reflect light. This was accidentally left disabled in the

  2013-04-02 release.

• Correction: Replaced lua.dll because it required Visual C++ 2005 runtimes to be installed.
• Added patches to allow the number of credits to be altered for each start point. Feedback was that the Anisotropic

  mod is particularly harsh - so if you want to cheat and play as a millionaire, now you can!

• Ships now display their radar dishes and antenna. Added temporary model 197 for the Naval ECM antenna which is

  just a copy of 196 with a different texture. The new Panther Clipper and Lynx engine models are now used as well.

  (problematic equipment submodels can be hidden)

• Additional fixes for characters in names, e.g. du Prés's Wreck at Lawacan, Köhl's Hole at Zeiocan etc.
• The final line of each of the initial journal stories can now be scrolled up into view and read.
• Console warning lights now illuminate when under attack, undercarriage is lowered or auto-pilot is active.
• Updated the "Hints" messages in the start-up script to be in-keeping with the game.
• The Eagle Mk2 and Mk3 now use their separate models correctly and won't draw the long range variant over the top

  as well! Models 24 & 25 in FFE inherited the base Eagle from model 23. The change supresses drawing of model 23

  but retains missiles, ECM and thruster pines. (Primitive models of the ships render as before)

• Model 271 (spaceport) and model 302 (hangers) can now have their name labels hidden by specifying notdrawtext=1

  under the [MODEL] section of their tris.ini file. This can be used to finally hide the "Old  Blackelk" text on the replacement

  spaceport model.

• Cargo containers on Lifters (model 153) now have a color/skin value passed to it so that it can change its  appearance

  using a shader effect.fx file. (Example provided of programmatic color changing of default skin)

• Fix for Nic mod "NoMassMissiles=1" hack: ship doesn't gain 1t cargo space when launching a missile now!
• New option in .cfg file "modelPreLoad". This defines whether to pre-load models during start-up sequence.
•  0=no pre-loading, 1=intro models, 2=intro & default start position models.
• Application is now responsive during start-up. It can be moved/closed, and doesn't show "not responding" in the title bar.

  Resources are loaded by separate worker-threads.

• Proximity mines don't display the missile object as well now.
• Added texture1-5 tga/png for models which shaders can use for bump maps etc
• Sub-models will also hide text as well now if specified in tris.ini, e.g. Aggy's wind turbines.
• Mouse pointer doesn't jump to top left corner now when right-clicking in full-screen mode.
• Shutting down will now wait for the model manager thread to terminate first!
• Only supported Textures present in the range above tex600 will be loaded to safeguard memory.
• New checks for out-of-memory when trying to load a model and its textures. Stale objects will be dropped immediately and

  a re-load of the model attempted.

• Found and fixed a memory leak when passing colors over to the planet shader. (dates back to r8 of the original ffed3d source)
• Rewritten model cache management thread. This will now limit the number of models loaded into memory to avoid running

  out of resources. Settings are available in FFED3DAJ.cfg to customise ...

  WOW. What a massive amount of work you put into this Andy. I think I speak for most on here by saying thank you very much for this.   I am sure Pinback or Darkone will be around shortly to sort out the upload limit for you. Once again, space sim fans prove why they are the best in gaming!

Oh one more thing, could any Russian speakers out there please spread the word over on the Elite games site? I think those guys would really like to see this too.

 

 

Hello everyone !

 

Well I think I've made the final (final, final) adjustment and have decided to draw a line under what Steve can attest to become a never ending v1.01 build of FFED3DAJ!

Sorry about this - it was for good reasons - so I hope the wait will prove to be worth it!

 

If there's an admin about, I may need a little help with the uploading... it's grown "a little" way beyond the 9MB posting limit ... please can you drop me a PM?

 

Cheers,  AndyJ

 

 

Excellent work AndyJ looks like you have squashed the long standing bugs 😎 😎

You will need to contact Darkone/SSCadmin or a post here http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/forum/3-ssc-administration/ although you should be able to upload 1.95GB to the download area http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/

  WOW. What a massive amount of work you put into this Andy. I think I speak for most on here by saying thank you very much for this.   I am sure Pinback or Darkone will be around shortly to sort out the upload limit for you. Once again, space sim fans prove why they are the best in gaming!

 

Oh one more thing, could any Russian speakers out there please spread the word over on the Elite games site? I think those guys would really like to see this too.

Thanks Geraldine & PINBACK 🙂

Actually I was able to get in touch with the Russian folk overnight and v1.01 is uploaded over there already.

I've already had some feedback that there's an issue with the Anisotropic build cycling ships in the Sol system when a new day starts. Easily reproducible so taking a look at that now and have a probable cause for it - seems the FFED3D guys replaced some AI function calls for their own...

This issue doesn't affect the 'standard' FFE game though, so I'll try and unwind their changes and issue a new patch to update aniso in the next couple of days.

I didn't realise that I could upload to a downloads area, sorry - I'll try and sort that out right away!

Edit: Wish I'd realised it was that simple, sorry... The patch is in the downloads area here:   http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/file/1036-ffed3daj/

Nice one AndyJ will definitely have a look at this but will not be able to do it till the weekend.

I've just updated the patch in the downloads area to v1.02; the anisotropic mod should now be playable for those who want to do so!

The textures and skin packs are unaltered.

Any chance of access to the source code of your version? I have been playing with the FFED3D source code from the google code project myself, as well as with the original JJFFE... There are a few mods that I like to make for my own enjoyment, in particular an old bug that was fixed by John Jordan which I like to reintroduce... It's easy with the source code, not so easy with the binarues only. 🙂

IMHO the most stable revision of the Google code project was r65, that's what I usually compile and play with.

I am very impressed with the way FF3DAj starts... unfortunately the package misses bass.dll

Any way I added the dll from another FFD3D package, and it starts up. Starting screens look very impressive.

And then it crashes :((

COuld it be I need to add some more DLL's? Ittiz's FFD3D seems to run just fine. except for distant planets being drawn /OVERBEFORE the nearby spaceship ..

It crashes on my dev PC, my Laptop . Heres the crash ,message:

Managed to fix the crash by adding FX,DATA and COmmandr folders...

Better said: I took Ittz folder, and overweriiten/merged it with the FFD3DAJ archives. Now it runs stable.

Great! Maybe I will find some time to check this version out. Big thanks Andy!!!

v1.04 of the FFED3DAJ patch has just been dropped in the downloads area - <a href="""here

This fixes the DirectX issues that were blocking switching between full-screen and Windowed mode, or restoring a minimized full-screen game.

Oh, and sorry but in the rush to head off on holiday, I obviously forgot to actually post into this thread that I'd uploaded v1.03!

I hope that it was spotted as it had a lot more fixes!

Just to re-iterate, seeing the earlier crash reports... This is just a "patch"; it is not a stand-alone installation that you can drop into a folder and run. You must add it over either a full FFED3D beta v1.12++ or Ittiz install for it to have the required assets!

And if there are any problems, then please take a look first in the ffed3daj_readme.txt file that's included in the main patch zip, as this'll document & often answer the known issues.

Cheers!

AndyJ

Strange. I've downloaded both versions (with the AndyJ's being the latest version); it fixed the missing HUD icon bug (I'm playing on default windowed mode - 800x600) but for some reason, the planets' textures are seems way too dark (or worse, some are totally black - still cities have brighter ground terrain though).

...or is it just me <_<

No, it's not just you - it's the effect of the Planet shader applying lighting. (I don't think the original FFED3D beta had/used them)

The usePlanetShaders setting in the .cfg turns it on and off, but the shader file itself is Modelsplanet.fx.

You could open that up in notepad and experiment with the float4 P_Land() function; e.g. find the line that says:

   float nrmd_light = dot(normal, lightDir) * 2.0f;

and perhaps change to:

   float nrmd_light = max(0.2f,dot(normal, lightDir) * 2.0f);

which would give a minimum light level ... but... the trade off to changing this or switching it off is that it will reduce/remove the shadowing of planets on the side that is opposite to the sun.

From a 'realism' point of view, objects in space should have completely black 'shadowed' areas

But obviously from a game play point of view, it's not much fun flying over or trying to land on a completely black terrain on the dark-side of a moon etc. (or is it?)

I'm thinking that perhaps the "max(0.2f" part could be written to take gradual effect within a certain height so as you get closer the ground lightens slightly. (On the other hand, perhaps spaceships should have had landing lights to help illuminate the area below them?!!)

I've only just started to dip a toe in the area of shaders with the water and cloud changes, they're still largely a big unknown to me at the moment. One thing that strikes me is that the landscape has become so dark before the sun has actually set, which seems ahead of when it should happen? I've also had a quick experiment with a sky shader to replace the outer atmosphere and again, the sunset colours and darkness that shader generates seem to be well ahead of the sun position - so I think there's possibly a wider issue to track down with the vectors that the shaders are receiving.

The replacement base models can also be shaded (horribly so IMO) if the useglobalObjectShader setting is enabled too, but it gives a rather metallic effect which is not too good for grassy areas(!) and why at the moment I've disabled that one by default. (That shader is Modelsmodels.fx)

This is why the field near the base is much brighter, because it is not affected by a shader.

Just wanted to point out that AndyJ's patch has reached v1.04 and now includes - amongst other things - the ability to return to the desktop and go back to the game without messing everything up! The download page is at   http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/files/file/1036-ffed3daj/

v1.05a of my patch has now been uploaded into the downloads section here:

http://spacesimcentr.../1036-ffed3daj/

Lots of fixes and enhancements - especially to the drawing of the original polygon graphics as well as enabling 64 bit Windows users to load everything into memory with >2GB.

Large asteroids, which previously didn't display in any of the FFED3D versions have also been fixed:

 

v1.05a of my patch has now been uploaded into the downloads section here:

Just to be sure. Can I use Ittiz's build with your patch?