Would love to post a screen-shot, with my app review.

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dirkmitt
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Would love to post a screen-shot, with my app review.

Post by dirkmitt »

I just recently posted a test-result in the AppDB, according to which - and according to my desktop in respect - "Terragen 3" is fully functional under Wine Staging 3.11 .

But what I'd like to do is upload a screen-shot just to prove it.

However what I find is, that I'd need to wait until my test-result has been approved, before I could add a screen-shot to it.

Am I overlooking a way to post a screen-shot, for one of my own test-results, before it has been approved?

BTW, In the 3D Preview, it's normal for the resolution to be low, and even, for the surface-color of the terrain to be a uniform gray.. The way to get the 3D Preview to be useful for appraising the color of the terrain, we need to click on the "Shader" button along the tool-bar, where the "Terrain" button is selected by default.

Dirk
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The less-glamorous view, instead of the software-rendered result.
The less-glamorous view, instead of the software-rendered result.
dirkmitt
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Re: Would love to post a screen-shot, with my app review.

Post by dirkmitt »

I'm sorry to post to my own thread again.

My main fear is, that some other testers may open a working instance of Terragen 3, and not realize that the emulation is running correctly, simply from not knowing how complex the task really is within Terragen, to create a first terrain.

As I wrote above, the 3D preview initially shows a uniform gray terrain, which could be taken to mean that somehow, the hardware-rendering is not working fully. This first appearance is actually due, to the editing mode initially being set to 'Terrain' as I wrote above, which is solely used to edit terrain geometry. When I set it to Shaders, the next thing I can do is Add Layers - again in the top-left corner, not in the Node Editor - and this will insert the Nodes as well.

So, just to prove that the 3D preview is in fact able to render colors correctly, I did what the screen-shot below shows.

Dirk
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Another look at the ability to define content arbitrarily.
Another look at the ability to define content arbitrarily.
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dimesio
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Re: Would love to post a screen-shot, with my app review.

Post by dimesio »

Screenshots are not attached to test reports. To upload a screenshot, click on the View/submit screenshot link underneath the screenshot display on the version page.
dirkmitt
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Re: Would love to post a screen-shot, with my app review.

Post by dirkmitt »

I'm thankful that my app-review has in fact been accepted, even though I was in fact using Wine Staging. So now I have uploaded a potential screen-shot, which may conform more to how most users would consider designing a terrain.

But again, in the fear that users might not realize that the program works, and this time, specifically the Node Editor, I wanted to post a comment about that latter feature In This forum.

I do not wish to become a permanent Maintainer for this application.

I've seen Node Editors myself, belonging to other applications, in which each node has complex widgets. 'Terragen 3' is not like that. There is A Tutorial in PDF Format, about how to create one's first terrain. This tutorial was meant for Terragen 2, but also applies well to Terragen 3. What they actually suggest, is that Advanced users count, how many graphical inputs each of their layers has, in order to know which of the inputs in the corresponding node, in the node editor, corresponds to the elaborated graphical inputs, in the layer editor.

And so, the primary way to build a project is actually to add layers. But then, the only thing one can actually do in the node-editor, is to double-click on a node, in order to open a separate window for that node, the layout of which is the same as the one in the panel, in the lower-left-hand part of the application window.

Actually, Users May just create nodes in the node-editor, but then, as I just wrote, their chances of connecting those nodes correctly, to form a terrain, are diminished.

Dirk
dirkmitt
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Re: Would love to post a screen-shot, with my app review.

Post by dirkmitt »

I suppose that there could be another reason, why other users may find, that the 3D preview in Terragen does not work for them.

Micropolygons.

I'm already accustomed to the fact, that shaders and texture-images, do not always refine the surface-colors of a model, but that in fact, a texture can represent any sort of property of a model, which can be defined as a per-texel quantity.. This includes the height or altitude of individual vertexes, to give rise to the primary geometry. But it can also refer to, by how much micropolygons are 'displaced', along the normal-vectors of the primary geometry..

This is often done to conserve the amount of memory needed to store a highly-detailed model, because the positions of the micropolygons are computed at run-time.

This requires that 'Shaders' be active, although the shaders in question would be Geometry Shaders and not Fragment- or Vertex-Shaders.

And in order for Geometry Shaders to run in real-time, the Wine emulation needs to be up to at least DirectX 10. DirectX 9 would be without Geometry Shader support.

But one mistake which many Linux users make, is just to assume that graphics hardware is irrelevant, or to assume that all graphics hardware consists of just frame-buffers, so that many Linux-users do not make sure that they have Hardware Graphics Acceleration enabled.

Even in those cases, the final, software-rendered result from 'Terragen 3', will include the micropolygons, to whatever level of detail is appropriate.

Dirk
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