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haraldost

Concerns about the Modern renderer

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Okay, first off let me just say that I am extremely impressed by the work that has been done by the developers for the past few years. It really feels like Wurm's development is picking up speed for real, and it's really exciting seeing it being improved so much. The new technical features with the modern renderer look amazing, with smoothly transitioning grass, normal and specular maps, and of course the improvements to dynamic lights.

 

Now, I don't want to be that one guy who is afraid of change and cries about it - but, I do actually have a few genuine concerns which makes me a bit worried. There are a few areas where the modern renderer takes really large steps back, sadly.

 

Take a look at the following two images. Open them up in two tabs and switch between them, preferably in fullscreen: LegacyModern

 

First of all, it appears Modern lacks either some or all forms of anti-aliasing. This results in extremely jagged edges, something that is very noticable in Wurm, especially when moving, and when hovering with the cursor over different items. Look at the edges of the fountain, and at the outline of the tile. 

OldVsNew.png

 

Secondly, it appears textures are much more blurry in the modern renderer. Whether this is because there's no anti-aliasing, or because of a separate issue, I do not know. This one is a bit harder to see, but extremely noticable if you overlay the two entire images and switch between them. Look at how crisp the textures of the rocks, the tiles and the straws of grass look on the legacy renderer compared to the new one. (FXAA is turned off, since it's a filter which is applied to everything resulting in an even worse result)

OldVsNew2.png

 

This issue is even more noticable when focusing on textures and objects further away, which makes it feel like my Wurmian need a new pair of glasses. Look at how much clearer the textures look in the legacy client. There also seem to be more depth to it.OldVsNew3.png

 

Same thing here, looking at things far away is much crisper in the legacy client. Notice how the back wall really look like a blur in the modern renderer.

OldVsNew4.png

 

 

So okay, I think we all can agree that in those particular areas, the legacy client is far superior to its younger sibling. 

 

My questions are:

 

* Is real anti-aliasing going to be added into the modern renderer? If impossible, are you guys sure this is the way you want to develop Wurm's graphics? I'd argue Wurm has a much higher need of crisper textures and edges than dynamic lights. Perhaps there's another solution to the lighting problem which doesn't require that sacrifice?

 

* Will the legacy renderer stay available to people? Once again, I don't want to be that anti-progress dude, but the issues with the modern renderer gives me serious eye strain and I doubt I'd be able to look at the game as beautiful again if the legacy client is deprecated without the issues being resolved.

 

Thank you for reading, and once again - massive thanks to the developers. 

Edited by haraldost
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The lighting improvements are the first step of the modern renderer. iIt opens the door to a huge amount of improvements, both performance and looks, from better anti aliasing (which is coming, using actual up to date anti aliasing solutions) to better shadows and a whole host of planned features. 

The modern renderer does not use the antialiasing option in the adv graphics tab, as it's outdated and poor performance wise, currently it uses FXAA which is only a post processing AA, but more is planned. 

 

the rest of your pictures are all the same issues with LOD stuff, which is ongoing as well and will be addressed

 

The answers are:

Yes, real anti aliasing is going to be added

No, the legacy renderer will not always be available, it's an extremely dated system and will be incompatible with future updates most likely. 

 

The modern renderer is still a work in progress, and improvements will come, it's why it hasnt just completely replaced the legacy renderer at this point, if you have issues with it use the legacy renderer. 

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You know an MMO has a seriously dedicated staff when the PR officer responds within 10 minutes on a Sunday morning.

 

Thank you Retro, it makes me really happy to hear you guys have a solid plan. I feel a lot calmer now.

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@Retrograde I remember anti-aliasing taking players from 60fps to 15fps when turned on the lowest settings, at least for me it did lol.   Will we see similar issues or will these new improvements allow it to be a real viability?  As is with hardware that's 1 year old when I turn on shadows I get a 30fps reduction instantly with modern renderer... have shadows been optimized or is this still to come as well?  I get good fps with shadows, 55+ until I see one fire source, be it forge or coal pile, and then fps drop from there.   Really curious because A+ games such as Fallout 4 and Battlefield games I get no issues at all.

Edited by Nomadikhan

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2 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

Will we see similar issues or will these new improvements allow it to be a real viability?

FXAA has nearly no performance impact, SMAA is planned which is also fast but provides better image quality.

 

2 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

have shadows been optimized or is this still to come as well? 

Still to come as well; tldr everything will be better

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SMAA is also a post-processing filter like FXAA, so it can only do so much, but from the examples I've seen online it seems to do a better job of it than FXAA does, so it should be an improvement nonetheless.

Edited by Ostentatio

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I interpreted it as real anti-aliasing is planned to be added, and that SMAA is planned to be added in as an replacement / alternative to FXAA. SMAA definitely does FXAA's job better than FXAA, but since both are post-processing filters, neither of them really adresses the problems that, for example, MSAA gloriously fixes (at the expense of the GPU). I might be wrong with this assumption, and I suppose it'd mean I am worried again. 

 

I should check if it's possible to force Wurm to downscale from 4k, it might even work with the modern renderer.

Edited by haraldost

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I'm trying to find more info on SMAA, but it looks like the project hasn't been updated in years.

 

Reading the original PDF, SMAA S2x, T2x, and 4x use forms of supersampling, but I have no idea what that means in this context, since I thought this was just post-processing. It does seem to work well, though. Not sure how it is for performance. SMAA 1x doesn't use any sort of supersampling, so it may or may not be better in quality or performance than the FXAA that the Modern renderer currently uses, but is fundamentally pretty similar and would have the same general drawbacks.

http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/downloads/SMAA-Enhanced-Subpixel-Morphological-Antialiasing.pdf

 

SMAA S2x, T2x, and 4x could be interesting options, if they provide better performance than, say, 4x MSAA does.

Edited by Ostentatio

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I was just going to make a post about the anti-aliasing in the modern renderer as I just tried it for the first time and immediately went back to the legacy option.

 

Has there been any decisions or progress made on adding more AA options to the new renderer?  This thread is quite old now so would like to know what the plan is.

 

FXAA and SMAA are post processing AA and will not solve the problem.  Will there be real proper AA added to the modern renderer? MSAA ?

 

Please do NOT do away with the legacy renderer or make new visuals dependent on the modern renderer only until this has been addressed.  

 

Thanks

 

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My issue is fixed, as i turned off AA and set Anisotropic Filtering to x16. The rest of the post may be here, as someone else also may be blind (literally) like me. :) 

 

 

 

So, this might be an old topic, but ill bump this instead of making a new post.

 

Is there any way to make the modern renderer not blurry from 5 tiles infront of me? Ive spoken to some people that has exact same settings as i do (everything cranked up to the max), and they dont have this blurryness going on.

As it is now the legacy renderer is far, far better visually than the modern renderer - except all the new stuff like distant trees are in the modern renderer.

 

Issues:

  • From 5 tiles in front of me things get a bit blurry (its about the same distance the long grass starts to show).
  • The medium distance trees looks like candy floss in the modern renderer, compared to the legacy renderer (PS: not shown in the pictures further down).

 

Settings:

Post-Process: Everything except vignette is on.

Compatibility: Everything is "core".

 

 


yPJ2875.png

 

2vjhlto.png
 

 

 

 

Now, i know screenshots removes alot of data from an image, but here goes.

Please take a peek at the bsb in the center of the image. The legacy is my choice of sharpness compared to the blurry modern.

The path between the two lamps furthest away is also quite interesting. Tho it looks prettier with the light reflecting on the path, its all for nothing when its this blurry in comparison.

 

Legacy:

Crci7dn.jpg

 

Modern:

zcsGuMM.jpg

 

Modern, after bumping shadow detail to everything and shadowmap size to huge:

QkUBKjC.jpg

Edited by Nordlys

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Are there any plans of improving distant terrain?

 

It's a case when you see a building on the spike or tall hill, and building seems to be bigger then ground below it, looking like it's sides flow in the air. All couse mountain/hill is simplified couse of distance.

 

Would be nice if distant terrain matched render distance of buildings and other structures.

 

Also issue when you see tall banners and wagons inside the buildings before building itself show up.

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On 6/10/2019 at 1:35 AM, Wilczan said:

It's a case when you see a building on the spike or tall hill, and building seems to be bigger then ground below it, looking like it's sides flow in the air. All couse mountain/hill is simplified couse of distance

 

I see this with animals too. Always amusing to see a bull floating in midair next to a cliff.

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2D trees are still bad, it has overcontrast and blur. So it not look natural. Far trees should have almost one color to not flicker.

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