Flicker Flicker Waveset

[andylegate]

While working on my RAD, I noticed that with my waveset I get that disappearing flicker here and there.

Now, I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that there are yes, plants and water in my RAD Age.

Now, the thing is, if some of my plants (which have transparancies) are in my line of sight towards my waveset, both the plants and waveset will flicker and disappear, until I turn left or right, and not look directly towards the waveset.

It does this no mater how simple or complex the waveset is (IE: I tried just a flat plane with 4 verticies, and a grid on seperate occasions).

Now, because the plants are made up of planes with transparancies in the textures, I've, of course, used Passindex on them.

It's done this with some of my other Ages too, and not just mine, but some other people's ages here and there.

I don't think it's my video card (nVidia GT 8500 ePCI with 512 MB ram on it) as other people with their computers have noticed this too.

I call this the "Er'cana Effect" as it does it in Er'cana too, and that's with 3 other video cards and other, slower systems in the past. To this day, with my hi-end system, Er'cana's water flickers in and out of existance.
I've never had the water do this in any other Cyan Age, just there.

I had this happen with my latest releases of Camp Bravo: Day Time version, the pool water is just fine. Night Time version, the water tries to flicker in and out of existance, as the night time version has lightcones with transparancies around the pool.

It's like there is some sort of drawing conflict going on. No mater what I set the Passindex to, I get this effect.

This is using plugin 1.5.0 (but to be fair, this has been around since 1.4.0). Anyone have a solution to this?

[Lontahv]

Andy, sorry ol' chap but this would be helping you.

Stare at the PRC for Tsogal for a while.

Honestly I don't know how I'd go about fixing this (I don't get that many waveset flickering issues--or do you mean xray issues in this case).
I'd say unless you really need wavesets for something--IMO wavesets are too much trouble for small ponds--don't use them. I'm not using wavesets for my small bits of water.

[andylegate]

I have a pond and creek about the size of the one in Gira, I don't really care if I score first or last in the RAD, my whole point in suggesting another RAD wasn't to win, but to give us something to do and to get some more Ages (abet small ones) out there for people to mess with

It's not the X-Ray thing, it's the water itself flickers, or vanishes, until you turn to the side or look up away from it.

I only suffer from it when I use it where there are transparancies near. Except in Er'cana as I mentioned, the water in the mixers and in the facility does this too (not out in the canyon). I'm not the only one that has seen this. It's been commented by many people, even at the MOUL forum.

[Lontahv]

That's pretty odd... the only thing different with the Er'Cana water (compared to the other stuff Cyan uses) is it has no geostate (wave-size or something is at 0 with geostate). Are you using geometric as well as texture waves?

[andylegate]

Yah, I have Geostate in since it seems to fix the water for lower end computers, as D'Lanor pointed out. I went back to Camp Bravo and put it in, and the water showed up on his computer finally.

I don't think it's the waveset or it's varibles itself. I think it's something to do with the plants, because THEY also slip out of existance.

I've got the Passindex set on them.

I've got some other resources I can look into, maybe I have the passindex set wrong. As it is Alpha Blending STILL does not work since 1.5.0 :coughs into hand: and that was many moons ago, so I won't have ripples....at least ripples that LOOK real.

[Marcello]

I've had this problem with my previous RAD age. After cleaning up my mesh it disappeared. Turned one or two normals pointed the wrong way. Another thing that seemed to cause this in my experience is double verteces. Due to extrussion some verteces and edges were doubled and somehow the waveset couldn't handle it.

Hope this helps.

[andylegate]

At this point I'm just about ready to turn it into a dry river bed.....

[Aloys]

I know it won't look as good, but wouldn't it look decent enough to use a simple cubic reflection map in the shader rather than a full-blown waveset?

[andylegate]

Fixed.


Meshes with transparancies is the problem.

Got to thinking about it (hell, I worked on my RAD till bed time, so it was in my face), however, going back and looking at Cyan's Ages, other than Tsogal (which is a MOUL Age anyway), how many Ages are there where plants (as meshes with transparancy on the planes) are there where they are located between you and a waveset? Precious little is the answer.

Gira the falls are the only things really.

Kemo, when you get to the pond at the end, if you look, the plants are on the other side of the waveset, and the lilypads are actually decals (I looked with the PageEditor, the wavesets show that they are decals).

So I went in and moved all my plants away from my waveset......no more flicker or disappearing.

Each plant uses transparent textures (have to, sorry, don't know of any other way of making a plant without a gazillion faces), no double verticies, etc, etc, etc. I've played with the Passindex until I was blue in the face to no avail.

So now I've got to figure out something for my waveset....or rather around it. Plants should be natural, but if I put them there, the wave set get's upset (and it's a very simple waveset), and both it and the plants flicker out of existance (so does the cursor for that mater, and sometimes my avatar....), but with the plants away from it, it stops doing that.......I guess I go back to decorating my Age with rocks....

@Aloys -- the waveset area is about the same size as in Gira....IMHO the answer is no, as the water no longer looks real. The water is fed by a waterfall, hence disterbed water with waves.