FxGen

In FxGen 0.6, operator's properties change (properties added or removed) are managed manually by developer in order to keep compatibility with older files versions.
A NMapVarsBlocDesc structs array are added to describe operator's properties change from previous version.

Example when a new property is added (see 'Type'):
static NMapVarsBlocDesc mapblocdescBlurOp[] =
{
MAP(1, eubyte, "0", "" ) //V1 => 0-Width
MAP(1, eubyte, "1", "" ) //V1 => 1-Height
MAP(1, eubyte, "2", "" ) //V1 => 2-Amplify
MAP(2, eubyte, "0", "*0.0039215" ) //V2 => 0-Width
MAP(2, eubyte, "1", "*0.0039215" ) //V2 => 1-Height
MAP(2, eubyte, "2", "" ) //V2 => 2-Amplify
MAP(2, eubyte, "3", "" ) //V2 => 3-Type
};

static NVarsBlocDesc blocdescBlurOp[] =
{
VAR(efloat, true, "Width", "0.01", "NFloatProp") //0
VAR(efloat, true, "Height", "0.01", "NFloatProp") //1
VAR(eubyte, true, "Amplify", "16", "NUbyteProp") //2
VAR(eubyte, false, "Type", "0,[Box,Gaussian]", "NUbyteComboProp") //3
};

---

Now in FxGen 0.7 all this operations are transparant for developer and are managed by binary serializer.
In each fxgen project file, all class's properties declarations are saved (name and type).
So I can detect now what properties are added or removed with current version while reading an old file format.

Another optimization done for fxgen 0.7
now for the same test, I used only 3000 ko for processing...

I compare memory usage between FxGen 0.6 and 0.7 engine.
I generate a 256x256 texture size from MetalGrid1 example.
Results:
memory usage:
FxGen 0.6 => 7284 ko
FxGen 0.7 => 4300 ko

Great :-)

New FxGen operators engine is now ready:
- Designer code part have been removed (will be moved to designer tool).
- NOperator classes removed and replaced by simple C functions (less memory usage).
- Engine take now only compiled operators call in entry (generated from operator graph compiler)
- Multi cores operators process ready. (see later openCL or OpenMP)

I'll work now on my designer tool, with libraries management...

Your friendly-- yet lazy-- site administrator here. After the site was bogged down by a ton of crazy spammers, I couldn't hold this off any longer. I updated to the latest version of Drupal and added a better captcha system. Hopefully this will work better.

In the process, we lost a lot of images. We're still in the process of recovering those. And there's still a lot of spam we need to take care of. Johann and I have both been working hard on trying to remove the spam and get the images back.

I also went through and deleted most of the spammy-looking accounts here. If you got deleted, no big deal, no one's blocked or anything. Just register again, it's all cool. Also, just an FYI, most of the accounts deleted were registered within the past six weeks. Also, if you had registered but never used your account, most of those were deleted also.

Now, there might still be some things that might not be working right. Let me know of the following things!
- Does the captcha system work alright? (does it bug you too much, too hard, etc)
- Any part of the site totally broken?
- Can you log into your account? (I deleted a lot because there were a ton of spammers)
- Do you have any of the old content that's missing? I can upload it to the original post, and you might be able to, also.

Alan McGovern (Mono Team) help me to optimize Gradient function. Now I have Mono.SIMD 3x faster than Mono 4DFloats ! But 2x less speed than new C++ version ....
The good thing is that Mono.SIMD version is now faster than 4DFloat C++ code.

I have done some performances tests:
The goal is to generate a 4096x4096 gradient texture (same as fxgen 'Gradient' operator) in order to compare C++ and C#.
I use mono 2.2 C# compiler under windows with and without new SIMD extension! (Thanks to Miguel de Icaza)

Results tests in ms:
In MS C 235 (VS Release Mode SIMD)
In MS C 360 (VS Release Mode 4D Float)
In Mono C# 453 (With Mono SIMD)
In Mono C# 562 (With Mono 4D Float)
In MS C# 609 (VS With 4D Float)
In MS C 672 (VS Debug Mode)

Then main idea is to see if a 100% C# version of fxgen could be possible.
That could allow users to create their own operators directly into the editor in C# script.
This operators could be write in C# then compiled and optimized by mono JIT for target CPU.

SIMD extension for Mono is really a good idea...

I work on a compiler for fxgen’s operators graph, the goal is to separate designer from runtime generator code. That will speed up operator’s calculation and reduce yet project file size.
After that, projects saved in compiled format could be used in games or as libraries. We can image base textures libraries (bricks, stones, metals…) imported and modified by artists in several games.
I look at .net framework too and I think to do functions bindings for use textures in C# projects.
Game industries use more and more C# for their tools, so it’s may be a good idea to think about a new operators editing in order to provide designer functions in C#. That allows developers to integrate fxgen operators editing directly in their tools. I think to do some samples.

Package at => https://sourceforge.net/projects/fxgen/

.Editor
Rewrited for new GUI.
Operators global view display (if any operators out of screen).
New color picker in HLS format.

.FxGenLib
Runtime class creation by modules added (futures plugins .dll, .so ..)
Better FxGen Serialization.
Added Stacked Errors tracer.

.GUI
New GUILib now oriented Cross-platform using OpenGL.

First texture I made in this Program. FXgen is indeed very nice, but still very buggy. I used mapzone already a lot and I hope FXgen will be able to compete with it someday, as it is quite limited right now.

I have worked on my own cross-platform GUI, rendering is done now with opengl for cross platform support.
So why don't use others GUI API?
Previous version of fxgen already use win32 API wrapper classes and all editor's controls are customs. So after some try with widgets or qt4, my feeling is that it's easier and faster to do my editor with more adapted GUI classes to FxGenCore architecture (see PropertiesCtrl...), for QT4 or Widgets that ask me more work but from my previous GUI all that I need is to replace Win32 functions to cross platform form...
So Next FxGen 0.6a version in July.

A failed attempt at making Grass.

As the administrator of the website, Phyco.org, I found this accidental creation to be rather ironic.

OpenArena is a free replacement for Quake 3 Arena. It does not have good quality textures yet, so I created one. The prj file consists or several textures for the game, with diffuse and normal maps. Enjoy.

As usual, current SVN version of FxGen is required to process the .prj file.

Both i386 and x86_64 linux builds are available on svn. The build consists of the FxGen library and two test programs: a command line BMP extractor that is actually the minimal FxGen application and a simple GTK editor, with an example of thread-safe use of FxGenLib.

A sophisticated pattern created with Lookup from two Cells, colors added using Abnormals. Prj file may require current svn revision (98) of FxGen.

I've been told that some folks have seen problems with posting to the forum. I've been told that when posting a topic, it did not appear. Please tell me in the comments of this blog entry (if you can, that is), what problems you are having specifically in regards to this issue.

I've looked into this just a little bit, and I've disabled the feature that requires you to review your post before posting. Perhaps some folks were forgetting that they had just previewed their post, rather than actually posting. Likewise, there may have been a bug with the feature itself. I also rebuilt permissions, and hopefully these two things will help with this issue.

Again, let me know if there are any further issues, and if you can't post to this entry, just send your comment via the comments section of my user page.

This uses some new features of FxGen, which are currently under development. The original idea was based on ProFx's example named "knit3".

Attached screenshots come from Unreal I, where I used this texture (slightly darkened) as GenIn.Cloth.Gclth2d.

FxGenLib
-------------
.Removed MS windows dependencies (use of standart C functions)
.GCC compilation support.
.Added textures garbage management.
.Operators graph scanning optimizations.
.Resources detail management
i.e For textures, process them for size * (x0.5, x1.0, x2.0, ...)
.API to use FxGenLib in other applications (games, demos... see 'BMP Extractor' example)
.Vector graphics renderer using 'Cairo'.
.Added and improved operators (SVG support ...)
.see Operators.txt for details.

Editor
---------
.New main submenu items "options" for textures details
.3D textures Visualization.
.Custom popup menu (OpenGL GUI preparation)
.Alpha support for color Type.

Uses some new operators: Abnormals and normal-driven Crack.