Blocky lighting on Patch Meshes when using fog

[Plague-Angel]

 

Hi guys.

 

So as you can see from the above image I have some ugly lighting on those patch surfaces... this only occurs when I'm using fog (as a brush or in the worldspawn)

 

Is there anything I can do to rectify this and make the light blend/smoother?

 

 

Kind regards

 

PA

[AngelModder]

This is a conflict between the pong shading of curved meshes vs the vertex effect of fog. The only way to fix this is to apply a vertex lighting only shader to those curved surfaces, sure they'll look a little less smooth, but it'll take care of the shadow problem. The vertex shader will overwrite the engines normal action vs this type thing (the path mesh).

See even without a phong shader directly being applied (written by you), the engine will automatically phong these sort of surfaces it's self, it's just how it's programmed. Although normally it doesn't cause this sort of reaction. In case you don't know what a phong is, that's the smoothing shader/effect applied to curved surfaces or even brushes can be phonged manually to create a smoother looking surface such as terrain etc. The question would be is IF this is a base texture/shader being used on those meshes. Normally I've never seen this reaction on patches or brushes unless it has a pong shader on it via a shader file. So check that first before writing a new shader for the said texture. If so then it's simple just put it in a custom directoy (and if you want one) write up a new shader, but if it was a base one, it'll fix this.

Basically, phong shaders don't mix well with fog.

AngelModder

[Xycaleth]

Slightly off topic, but JKA doesn't do phong shading it does gouraud shading.

[Plague-Angel]

Thank you very much for your help there AngelModder, your suggestion worked a treat!.

 

Now I have something that looks a lot more like Slave quarters than a work of Picasso!.

[AngelModder]

LOL any time, just seen that sort of thing before. Whats your map gonna be of exactly, looks interesting.

[Jolly]

Cool map xD

[Plague-Angel]

Thanks again for the help and sorry for the late reply.

 

Its going to be yet another Tatooine themed map though more closed in.

having a few ships to explore and play about in as well as some other stuff to get up to...