Do you have GLSL?

@Irvine. Fair enough.
@Ninja Goliath I see. That’s very interesting to know.

@Irvine, awesome answer!

@Ninja Goliath - it might be worth testing how a graphics card that doesn’t support GLSL displays a game set up to use it (maybe post some screen shots so we can all get an idea of how it looks).

It would be good if a player could disable GLSL if they wanted to or have control over the various GLSL settings, like turning shadows on or off. Does anyone know how to do this?

eheheheh

Since I’m from the only one around here who doesn’t support GLSL since the last heat wave (poor nvdidia 8800 fried :frowning: )

…welll I’m probably from the better placed to make such test, il trty to give you guys some screen shots, but from what I can remember, it’s pretty simple : all textures are rendered plain black since the graphic card cannot calculate the light impact on the face which would the lighten the texture.

On the other side, I remember about some really darn nice function well hidden inside the API that would :

1 - Let you know what are the compatibilities behavior of the rig playing the game.
2 - modify the rendering mode relating to the compatibility issues found in step 1.

…but I although I haven’t tested the second function, I know for sure that makeing a GLSL game to work on multitexture mode isn’t just a matter of changing the rendering mode, all the game itself must be built to support both (I’m talking about textures assignment and this kind of thing).

…and there’s also work to be done to make sure it can play well on the texture face mode too.

Here are some test blends I threw together. It uses some GLSL capabilities (lights, shaders, and normal map). I disengaged parts from the ‘Use GLSL X’ menu (lights, extra materials, shaders, etc) to make the test files.

GLSLTest: Everything is normal.
GLSLTest2: Disengaged unused portions of GLSL.
GLSLTest3: Disengaged extra materials (which means normal mapping, for some reason).
GLSLTest4: Disengaged all except lights (which killed specularity, as well, for some reason).
The first picture is of GLSLTest, while the second is of GLSLTest4. (By the way, I made the normal map using a GIMP normal mapping plugin).

Maybe someone who doesn’t have GLSL support can tell us what the scenes look like.

Attachments

GLSLTest.blend (746 KB)GLSLTest2.blend (744 KB)GLSLTest3.blend (744 KB)GLSLTest4.blend (744 KB)



Sorry mate, given the texturing problems I have had with Ubuntu and my integrated graphics chip, I double checked this on my old Xp laptop just to be sure. All the blends displayed the same way. The screen shot is from blend 4

But again, I must re-iterate that I think you are avoiding the real question, which is:
“What is appropriate for my targeted customer.”
.

Attachments


@Irvine Well, that’s the answer to that question, then.
EDIT: Thanks for testing it out. That’s actually quite useful information.

Well, it looks like you’ve got to decide which one you’re going to use, or put in the extra work to make it run with both.

Cheers for the tests!

Just cause it hasn’t been mentioned. (Thanks to this post I finally realised why my textures went black)
When you use “Texture” objects in your material with GLSL Shaders enabled. Then it will go dark with my Geforce 6800 (I know its kinda old already)
But any Material without an additional texture object appears fine. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

I guess, for me it would not be an option to buy a new graphic card, just cause my “blender game engine” uses a shader system my current card doesn’t support.
But I can still play new games with a little lag and have no problems with their shader system.

What I mean is, just cause GLSL is the way for blender, I don’t think we could compare all available games with the GLSL, cause they might use other engines (and so different shader systems),

So to answer the question. Do what you think is right, but write on the game description that it uses GLSL then all who don’t have GLSL Support would know and there with stay away from it. And those that use and (most probably) love GLSL will even more want to see what crazy good looking stuff you created.

There you go. :slight_smile:

Personally, the computer i develop on, and make blender games on is old (2002, geforce fx5200, p4) so i voted no. However on the other computer (which i’m typing on :P) definitely does.

@Fuchida That’s interesting; I suppose you’re right. I’ll just choose which shading to go with.