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Software Platforms and Apps => 3D-Analyze and TnL games => Topic started by: Martin on 19 January 2006, 10:38:20

Title: 3D Analyze mipmap
Post by: Martin on 19 January 2006, 10:38:20
Can you please help me with 3D-analyze?

First, I am interested what is the difference between Color mipmap Method 1 and 2?

Second, what do the colors represent? Which of the colors represent higher quality mipmaps, and which lower?

Thanks


Title: 3D Analyze mipmap
Post by: roflkopp on 21 January 2006, 09:59:01
Hehe, Tommti added this feature because of my advice (no kidding ;))

There are two methods because some games use different methods for rendering textures. And each color represents 1 mipmap stage. The reason behind this feature is to give a possibility to check the grade of trilinear interpolation between the mipmaps. So, IHV use sometimes reduced interpolation to improve performance, at the loss of quality. But without colored mipmaps it's hard to identify reduced trilinear (so called "brilinear") filtering on screenshots - whereas you may see in motion pictures a "bow wave" moving around the screen.
Title: 3D Analyze mipmap
Post by: Martin on 21 January 2006, 19:40:23
Trilinear, brilinear... how to recognize which is used?

What does each colour mean (red, blue...)?

Thx

m.
Title: 3D Analyze mipmap
Post by: roflkopp on 22 January 2006, 00:41:49
Read this: http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/2003/10-26_a_english.php

The only sense of the various colours is to make the difference between the mipmaps visible - just like the blue/red/green figures show

If you want to see a "brilinear" filter in action - without colored mipmaps - use a nvidia card, activate the "Trilinear Optimization" (better name would be "Trilinear Worsening")and play a game with sharp textures, e.g. Max Payne(2).

BTW: UT2003/4, Serious Sam and Quake-engine games have even a built-in function to activate colormipmaps...