95 lines
3.6 KiB
HTML
95 lines
3.6 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<META name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org">
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<TITLE>Introduction to Environment Mapping</TITLE>
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<LINK type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../webdocs.css">
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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<H1>Anachronox Environment Mapping</H1>
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<P>If you are only interested in how to make entities
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reflective, and not how to generate environment maps, and you
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don't care to read this introduction because you already know
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everything, you can <A href="step4-entities.html">go directly
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to step 4</A>.</P>
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<P>The animated GIF in the index pane to the left was generated
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from actual in-game Anachronox screenshots. It shows off the
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power of environmental texture mapping, which gives entities
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reflective surfaces. Environment mapping is a great way to
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simulate reflection, because it looks neat and is not nearly as
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expensive as computing a <B>real</B> reflection of the scene.
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Following the directions in this documentation, you can make
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your own Anachronox environment mapped entities.</P>
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<H4>Overview</H4>
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<P>The basic steps to creating a reflection map is as
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follows:</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>Generate a cube environment map (many ways to do
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this).</LI>
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<LI>Use POVray to render the two parabolic reflection
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textures from the cube environment map.</LI>
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<LI>Use an image editor (ie. Photoshop) to resize to the
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desired resolution.</LI>
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<LI>Name the textures appropriately and place into <B>
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anoxdata/graphics/env</B>.</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>Once you have the parabolic environment mapping textures,
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you can tell entities to use them.</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>Select the entity you want reflective in a map editor
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(IONRadiant), text editor, or NoxDroppings.</LI>
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<LI>Create a key <B>envmap</B> with a value of the
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environment map's base name.</LI>
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<LI>Rebuild your map (only ents if desired).</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>More detailed instructions on each of these procedures is
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available by clicking on the links in the environment mapping
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documentation index. If your browser supports frames you should
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see them to the left; if not, you can <A target="_top" href=
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"frameindex.html">click here</A>.</P>
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<H4>Technical Information</H4>
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<P>The technical term for the environment mapping technique
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used in Anachronox is called <B>dual parabolic environment
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mapping</B>. It simulates two reflective parabolas placed at
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the origin of the environment map, and has several advantages
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over other environment mapping techniques, notably its low
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resource usage and high image quality. Although it uses more
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processor cycles than Quake 3's spherical mapping, Anachronox's
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parabolic mapping is view-independent, and so it can be used
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for reflecting actual in-game environments for a much more
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realistic effect. For more information on parabolic mapping,
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read the PhD thesis by Wolfgang Heidrich, <B>High-quality
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Shading and Lighting for Hardware-accelerated Rendering</B>,
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located on his <A href=
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"http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/~heidrich/Papers/index.html">
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publications page</A>.</P>
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<H4>Feedback</H4>
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<P>This documentation, the code it describes, and the sample
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images and movies were created by Joey. Therefore, if you have
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comments or suggestions about these docs, or you have feature
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requests or bug reports concerning the code, please report to
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him.</P>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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