Eye candy effects

[Kenney]

I'd love Minetest to include a bit more eye candy, here are some ideas for shaders/features (all would be optional settings). I'm aware that any of these features take hours upon hours of programming, just putting the ideas out there!

1. Realtime water reflections, without adding a water shader (leaving the original water texture)



2. Sun shafts when the sun is shining into a cave or darker area.



3. Focal blur



4. Lens dirt (mod can alter texture)



5. Lens flares



6. Light glow, from glowing items like torches and lava.



7. Realtime shadows, which truly enhance the complete experience of the game - in my opinion.



8. Color tinting for terrain and biomes, similar to Minecraft. Makes the world feel more natural.



9. Underwater effects like displacement, sun shafts and water texture being overlaid on blocks.



10. Not really a visual effect, but rain/snow/thick fog.

[est31]

2 and 7 require to change the lightning system of minetest. Currently its very vertical.

[Kenney]

2 and 7 require to change the lightning system of minetest. Currently its very vertical.

While I can already guess that's a behemoth of a job - is there something I can do to somehow get that going? Possibly hiring someone, or putting a team together.

[est31]

If you want to promote/help minetest with money, its original developer celeron55 has put this online: http://fpaste.org/224649/32300030/

He can be reached at freenode on the minetest-dev channel, or via msg :)

[philipbenr]

8 is easy. Code alterations in default would add that right away. It just might be a little bit harder to get the actual results you want. Still, that would be really easy.

I think that if you were to set up a team (which would be amazing and awesome) that the best things to do would be to focus on 1 & 7. Those alone would probably constitute a whole 0._ change.

Edit: now that I think about it, 9 wouldn't be too amazingly hard either (I think... correct me if I am wrong).

[est31]

In fact, 8 has already been implemented, e.g. by the mods on the Xanadu server.

[philipbenr]

In fact, 8 has already been implemented, e.g. by the mods on the Xanadu server.

But not to default... Is the mod ethereal?

[Nathan.S]

I'd throw money at this, I know nothing of coding in C.

Just the water reflections and better shadows would be huge upgrades in my opinion.

[philipbenr]

I'd throw money at this, I know nothing of coding in C.

Just the water reflections and better shadows would be huge upgrades in my opinion.

Same opinion. Especially the shadows. Freeminer has been experimenting with those for a while now...

[Kenney]

He can be reached at freenode on the minetest-dev channel, or via msg :)

I've sent him an e-mail, awaiting his reply :)

If a team would be put together, who would be in there? A couple of C coders plus someone knowledgeable of GLSL shaders?

[jp]

It's not simply the shaders, but the exploitation by Irrlicht as well and this is a particular knowledge that few people hold...

[Kenney]

It's not simply the shaders, but the exploitation by Irrlicht as well and this is a particular knowledge that few people hold...

Hm, so it would be best to find additional programmers over at the Irrlicht community/forums?

[jp]

Might be a good idea, yes -- we lack of devs for the audiovisual stuff.

[rubenwardy]

Our shader and visual effects guy, RealBadAngel, went on haitus and is now back. He's currently finishing up on a minimap. Dyanamic shadows and water effects are high on his to do list. It would be nice to have a professional professional guy, i imagine RBA's time is limited and he can't do it all.

[ABJ]

Oh beauty! Minecandy for Minetest!
Oh man I wish I knew more on the effects programming stuff.

[philipbenr]

I do know some one who loves learning about anything code-related. He is also trying to write his own 3D engine, so he might be interested in irrlicht...

[Krock]

I think we should optimize the effects we've got and then start extending the shaders.

Eye candys are generally a good idea to get more players playing and enjoying Minetest.
A good dynamic lightening implementation would be a huge step forwards.

[paramat]

Realtime shadows are something i am very keen to see added, RealBadAngel has had intentions to add these.
Some of these ten ideas i am fairly neutral about, many are stupid or unsuitable for Minetest.

Focal blur: Very stupid, assumes we are focusing on a particular distance, looking at anything other than that distance, which is most of the scene, is painful for the eyes.
Lens dirt: Another stupid one, players do not have lenses for eyes, makes the world less clear and is therefore hard on the eyes, a bit like simulating having dirt in your eyes. Why would anyone want to simulate a dirty lens or ultra-realistic effects of photography?
Lens flares: Again stupid, players do not have lenses for eyes etc. see above.
Colour tinting for terrain and biomes: Tinting or texture modification is lazy and never looks as good as individually crafted textures. The supposed benefit is a smooth transition across biomes, but, Minetest and voxel worlds are inherently not smoothly varying, texture is best broken up into units just as form is. A dithered or hard-edged border actually looks much better because it suits the voxel world character.

Minetest is not a photorealistic game, it is inherently simple, abstract, low-res and retro / 8-bit as the whole voxel concept is. Photorealism might look good in some games, but the mixture with a voxel world looks ridiculous ('Creativerse' is a perfect and grotesque example) . Minetest does not have realism as a goal or purpose according to the creator, and has K.I.S.S. as a core principle.

[Kenney]

You give some fair points but to just call most of these effects stupid and sheepish is a bit shallow. Most people are perfectly aware that they're playing a video game on a computer screen and I think more people would describe a video game as an interactive movie than a real life experience. Thus, why not make it look a bit more like a movie. Games don't necessarily reflect how an human eye would see the world, or would you deem changing the FOV of a game stupid and non-realistic?

Many people and myself really do enjoy these effects. They are not implemented because we saw them in screenshots or because other games do it; they make the game feel immersive.

Then again, if all these effects are optional just as I stated; there's something for everyone.

[philipbenr]

@Paramat: Those are valid points; however, if MT was built more like how VoXus is being built, then I would agree with you. Still, Minetest is not, and, I can see that Minetest Game is becoming more and more realistic looking. And, as Kenny insinuated, many people would like them. (Though I do think that some of those are kind of stupid, but give enhancement to the feeling of immersion.)

[jp]

That is really stupid is to have a narrow-mind conception of Minetest and trying to decree it in the absolute and for everyone... some guy is just repeating religiously the same refrains (github is already full of them) whenever he see something not purely minimal, not austere, not cubic/aligned and that gives to the player's experience a better immersivity. Exactly like the Pavlov's Dog reaction.

We would not have the mesh nodes with such restricted mental category.

Minetest is inherently flexible and adaptable. If you think the graphics suggested are excessively realistic, you really need to revise your statement in playing Crysis. If some players like to feel immersed realistically in another, highly-modifiable world (where the cubes are only here for convenience and fast terrain generating), it should be able to satisfy that optionally as good as changing of texture pack.

[ExeterDad]

I respect paramat's points. They are indeed valid.
I do enjoy eye candy. I would like to see all those screenshots a reality in Minetest. Provided the performance penalty isn't unreasonable.
Back in the day. I only had "Pong" to play on my TV set for games. There's a reason I got board with such a low tech graphic experience. :)

[ABJ]

It's OPTIONAL people, cool down! You guys are beginning to act like the TNTheads on the MC forums!

[philipbenr]

@ABJ: We saw the word stupid refering to an idea, and we sorta freaked out I suppose... :P

[ABJ]

OK lol :) at least you people had enough sense to not start YELLING :D.
OK now with that thing.
Sun shafts look better on water I think. And water reflections also would help spice up the game by several times. (Current water is just boring for me :() And all the other effects I truly long for. And yeah they will have to be optional or a truly justified war could start.
RBA go for it!