Hi Jane, nice to see someone testing it :-) I take your issues serious, but let me ask some questions because I can't reproduce your problems here, so I need some hints.

• About excluding PP_SSAO_NOFOG and PP_SSAO_NOSOFTALPHA: which resolution (do you just start the demo?) and: --- which engine version are you using? I have tested it on 4:3 and widescreen resolution and I have no problems. Can you please post an image of these "artifacts"?
• "video functions not available before first frame" - I have in the ppSsao.h a starter function ("ppSsao_h_startup"), which generates the random vector map and loads the shaders dependent on your #define configuration. Try placing a wait(1) right before the line with "#ifndef PP_SSAO_CUSTOM_VECTORMAP"...
• Do you create your sky entities dynamically with ent_createlayer?
• Where do you place the integrate-function?

Can you please remove everything from your a local copy of your game so that the problem remains? It would be very fruitful if you could provide a minimal testcase in which all problems you mentioned are appearing at the same time. As long as I don't have any insight in *how* you use it, I can't tell if you do something terribly wrong or I am terribly wrong assuming how users develop their games ;-)

Best regards,
-Christian

I have send you message , hav tested Sponza-Demo with you default options on 4:3 monitor.

I solved the issues with the help of Jane. Has anyone problems as well?

I am redesigning the shader pipeline at the moment to get normal data involved in the postprocessing, too. This way I can use another blurring which shall avoid bleeding. Second, and that is my primary goal, I am working on that the AO is calculated on the half of the screen size. I found an interesting technique for edge preserving upsampling which takes the depth and the normals into account before and after downsampling.

I implemented a bilateral gaussian blur with single dynamic weights, respecting the depths and surface normals of each sample pixel compared with the base pixel. I still have to fix surface incontinoutities in the sampling process, but it looks already better!

The images are the AO result after bilinear downsampling, AO approximation, blur and bilinear upsampling. Remember, I calculate on the half of the resolution..

Old (with 4x4 box blur):


New (with bilateral gaussian blur):


Next thing after fixing the above mentioned stuff is bilateral upsampling and switching to A8 exclusive features to reduce the overall texture lookup-count.

link?

Just take the small paragraph about that upsampling. The idea is relative straight forward. When you have generated content that is based on coarse material that was previously hires and therefore downscaled, you are looking for an inverse projection, that transforms the coarse data into hires data. Bilinear upscaling is OK, but it doesn't take edges and surface normals into account. So you compare hires and coarse surface normals (and depths) per pixel and calculate sampling weights for a bilateral upscaling.

thx

Hey, I finished also the upsampling process as well. Now I have no bleeding anymore, a smoother AO map and x1,5 - x2,0 of the the framerate. I am very satisfied

Since I switched the fog handling again and I use the NOFOG flag for views, I can't release a new version until the current A8 beta gets its public release, so please post further requests, if you have any.

why dont you release a compiled one for the community, just for showcase purpose to compare the FPS on different machines o.O

Greets
Rackscha

Afair, it isn't allowed/possible to create a compiled version of your game/demo/whatever with a Gamestudio beta.