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Better lighting, better performance, E1-E3 secret levels finished

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@postmemetic postmemetic released this 28 Jun 00:29
0.3.3
732ddd4

I re-lit the secret levels in episodes 1 and 3 that were previously missing! That should be all levels in episodes 1, 2, and 3 now fully re-lit for best presentation in Duke-RT. I also added shadow penumbras on point lights. Now your rockets, muzzle flares, and the lighting overlays I've added should cast shadows that match the directional lights and emissive surfaces. Those light overlays I've added should now also tint along with light color, as well as get brighter and dimmer to match the light output levels.

20

The majority of the time on this release was spent on performance improvements. I managed to get bad situations like E5L4 from average frame times of 128ms to 30ms on my computer. Still more go to hit unbroken 60 in all situations, but this is a big leap! Separately, I also cleaned up a bunch of bugs in the launcher, settings, etc.

12

How to install/run:

  1. Purchase and install Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (or otherwise have it installed on your computer - you need a commercial version of Duke 3D to use with the Duke-RT engine fork)
  2. Download the .zip file in the assets section from this release
  3. Unzip Duke-RT to your computer
  4. Run launch-duke-rt.cmd in that folder
  5. Give it the path to your Duke 3D install (if it doesn't find it automatically)
  6. Let it grab the normal maps from Duke World Tour (if that's your Duke version, will still work without them)
  7. Let it open your browser to grab the voxels
  8. Download the voxels from that site
  9. Go back to the Duke-RT console window and hit enter
  10. Let it unpack the voxels into its own directory for you
  11. Proceed into the game
  12. Always run via launch-duke-rt.cmd in the future
29

New stuff (cumulative starting from 0.3.0:

  • Soft-shadow system for point (analytic) lights
  • Fixed bad path parsing when searching for Duke3D.GRP in invalid steam library paths
  • Enabled dropping duke3d_voxels.zip into Duke-RT during setup to skip the download
  • Added quick recovery on settings after crash, so you don't have to manually change everything
  • Episode 1, and 3 secret level lighting pass
  • Episode 3 main level lighting pass
    • New lights in dark spots
    • Some better emissives
  • Bloom system that makes light fixtures and emissive surfaces look much more natural
    • Turn it on and off in Display Options
    • Tweak detailed settings in advanced setting (Display Options>Render Options)
  • Real mirrors
    • Mirrors no longer use portals, but instead are replaced with proper reflective surfaces
    • Fixes issues around bad motion vectors, viewZ, and guides that caused blurring in mirrors
  • Improved loading system
    • Levels now finish loading properly before rendering first frame, improving choppy starts like E1L1
    • Big pass to improve load manifests and get enemies and some props loaded ahead of time
  • Episode 2 main level lighting pass
    • Added new lights throughout areas that had no visible light sources
    • Updated emissive behavior in some areas to make things sane and visually coherent
    • Fixed some busted materials
  • Settings profile system and simplified settings menus (advanced options still available)
  • Crash monitoring and settings recovery
  • Episode 1 re-light treatment
  • Added red glow effect to enemy laser fire
  • Fixed missing skyboxes on levels like E1L4 and E1L5
  • Fixed skyboxes looking deep-fried
  • Fixed flickering light effects from weapon impacts like the devastator
  • Reduced muzzle flash intensity and reach (cowards)
  • Even more launcher/installer simplification
2

What's coming up:

  • Fix for moving surface blurriness like sliding panels, rotating models, etc
  • Fix for black screen on launch and some crashes related to GPU memory pressure
  • Performance improvements
  • Volumetrics like weapon smoke
  • Better water
Assets 3
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