Chronic Logic

Ummm... Texturing the bridges is a BIG no-no. Sky? Sure.

But if you toss a texture onto the bridge, that means that you're texturing thousands of polygons. Think about it... each SECTION of bridge has how many individual steel beams? It'd take a LOT of processing power to do something like that, and P-flex runs slow enough on the big levels as is.

Having said that, a simple texture on the sky couldn't hurt

Ummm yeah, I hadn't thought of that. It could still work for other materials though, like if we ever got wood...there'd only be six polygons per section for that.

I don't think it's be too much of a change to just make beams into a single actual physical piece of metal shaped like, interestingly enough, a beam.

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the strength and rigidity of the I-beam has been universally recognized.  Also, a big plus of the "I" shape, very little problems with bending in one direction.

So, a graphical representation of stresses could just show red or blue on either side of the beam to indicate bending to one side or the other.  This would look very slick to  have the one beam all kinds of different colors in various patterns based on the different forces acting on it.

As to the difficulty of this, since ChronicLogic know a thing or two about physics, I don't think they'd have much trouble implementing this sort of physics.

Texturing is done by your 3D gfx card, not by the CPU, and should not cost much performance.

it would also be better if the sun moved when you hit the sun+ or sun- instead of it just getting brighter or darker

Water that reflects.
Texture maps on materials (eg rusty steel, a nice spiral effect on the cables). This'll become vital I think if (when?) we get more materials to play with.

There's definately room for improvement on the graphics side (I think the best word for them now is "functional"). Having said that, I'd put this way, way down on my priority list.

Could always make textures an option so people with the slower systems could turn it off

Quote: from pulsejet5 on 4:21 pm on Oct. 27, 2001
it would also be better if the sun moved when you hit the sun+ or sun- instead of it just getting brighter or darkerIt does... the lighting changes from the left side of the screen (-) to the right side of the screen (+). If you move the sun far enough, it becomes night. I found that there is one place where the bridge lights will come on, but there is just barely enough light to see the links too. It'd be nice if "twilight" were eaiser to find.

I agree,a picture with skies,sun with lens flare,reflective water,maybe some sort of textures on the bridge material,"watersplash" when parts of the bridge hit the water

The graphics side of Pontifex is definitely very weak.  I don't know of any basic system requirements offered by ChronicLogic, however, the intense physics calcuations dictate a fairly high processor.

If you have a crappy video card, like my TNT 2, or a Voodoo 3, you're not going to be able to do as much physics if you have to do more eyecandy.  This is a cunundrum indeed.

I do think, however, that with some massaging of the graphics code, you could free up some GPU/CPU power for stuff like rippling water and hilly ground and god knows what else...  I'm not certain that textures affect the rendering speed at all.  They certainly won't eat up any processor unless you have like, a S3 VIRGE.

Bottom line, I'm already gonna go buy a new video card for this game, because the physics and video calculations can't both live on an Athlon 800 and a TNT2 Ultra.  So, as far as I'm concerned, it's okay to throw in some nice graphics features to give my hot new GeForce 3 something to play with.

take a look at the topic '2 ideas', the rendering thing is a sollution for the people who want eyecandy, and for the people who just wanna play pontifex on their laptops.

about the sun thing: some shadows would be nice, the effect of the moving sun is much clearer to see then. But after a while the shadows would start to annoy I think.

Hey guys, a nice looking sky might be some awesome thing but I do definitely not support the idea that this should be grounds for an update or something. Sure, there is room for improvement but the main idea of this game is to enjoy using your brain and constructing bridges. I would still enjoy it as much if I couldn't change the color of every part, even if the ground was grey like in the older version.

For heaven's sake, shut up wanting these stupid improvements, this is not "Look at the wonderful scenery!" but "Build a solid bridge!"

What I would prefer is a missionpack, a collection of the toughest challenges. This is what I see as necesary!

Now, go ahead and build your thing!

King, if you add a single texture to a polygon, it won't slow down even on a TNT.  GeForce and above could add another texture layer for detail and still not break a sweat.

I think giving the bridge some textures could actually speed up the engine if you don't have a T&L capable graphics card.  If you replaced each 'link' with a cube (instead of drawing all those crossbars), you'd go from 24 cylinders to 6 squares.  Even if the cylinders only have like, 6 faces, it's a tremendous improvement -- the number of polygons would go from 288 (24x6x2) to 12 (6x2).  That cuts the polygon work for links by a factor of 24!  Similarly, replace beams with textured faces, and you get more big savings on polygons, at no extra cost for the textures.

I tried to edid a screen shot so it would have some eyecandy but the image quality isn't really good enough. would it be possible to take higher quality screenshots. mabey a button or something.

well..but fun with nice graphic also

I think the sky texture would be a good idea.

This is not somthing I would rather see than ships or raising bridges but it would be nice

All this talk of extra features has made me think... it'd be nice if the buttons for Pontifex were in MFC instead of yucky flat OGL bitmaps?  You could then ameliorate a lot of the problems with the input catcher and talking to windows since MFC does all that for you.  Plus, having drop down menus and scrollbars and stuff is really very spiff.

Better graphics will attract more people. Improve the graphics and the world will beat a path to your door!

Entroper,

What about tha fact that members of the steel section can break without the whole thing breaking?  You wouldn't be able to see that!  it would make making a clean bridge harder for no reason!  BLARG!

Improving the graphics could only add to the game, after all it wouldn't affect the gameplay in any way. On the other hand, I'm not in any rush to see them. I'd much rather have the team working on other stuff first...like that mirror function...

Well, if any of the segments break, then draw the segments that survived instead of drawing the simpler solid beam.  That would also make broken links very easy to spot, just look for where your bridge stops looking pretty.  

But since we're on the subject, I'm sort of confused as to why the bridges are constructed the way they are anyway.  In BB, the links that you drew were the links of the bridge.  In Pontifex, it replaces each of your links with beams made up of tons of individual links.  This can actually have problematic effects, since when you want to build an arch, the square segments tend to mess up your slope and make the bridge more prone to breaking.  Why not fix that problem while saving a ton on physics calcs as well by just using solid beams?  I don't think anyone's PC would be a problem then.

Its too late in the development cycle to implement a change *THAT* big. I like the new system anyway =P
There's a thread in General Discussion about the multi-link vs single bar debate.

Since this thread is about eye-candy:

Kudos go to DWN for his amazing mappack textures. Pontifex somehow looks more vibrant with that new grass texture. Perhaps CL could revamp the maps to use the texture set in the next release?

I know the game is not primarily designed to look awesome and I enjoyed bridge builder very much even with it looking more like an app than a game, but I allways pity the people in the train for the weather:
as far as you can see the sky is a deep grey without features. Please include a (as simple as you like) texture for the sky or at least change it's colour to something more friendly :-)

I agree! a simple sky texture would be nice.

I agree too. A nice blue sky with maybe some clouds would make the whole scenery much more enjoyable.