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[Dakusan]

Original update for Fractal Landscape v1.05 can be found at https://www.castledragmire.com/Updates/Fractal_Landscape_v1.05.
Originally posted on: 10/02/08
Regarding: Fractal Landscape

The following updates have been made to the Fractal Landscape project, v1.05:

• DirectX Bug (reported in last update): The water sometimes overlaps solid objects where it shouldn’t. This is due to some alpha blending setting conflicting with the z-buffer.
  • Cause: The problem was my graphics card doesn’t seem to like 16 bit depth buffers much (in this case, the w-buffer, which is mostly the same thing as a z-buffer). Oddly, this wasn’t a problem with any older graphics cards I had tested it on, and OpenGL seems to have no problem with a 16 bit depth buffer.
  • Solution: The code now has the graphics cards choose the highest available depth buffer solution for DirectX using “CheckDepthStencilMatch” (32bit, 24DX8 (24bit), or 16bit).
• DirectX Bug (reported in last update): The clouds do not show up at most viewing angles when fogging is turned on.
  • Cause: An improper fog rendering setting
  • Solution: “SetRenderState(D3DRS_FOGVERTEXMODE, D3DFOG_LINEAR);” has been changed to “SetRenderState(D3DRS_FOGTABLEMODE, D3DFOG_LINEAR);”.
• DirectX Bug (reported in last update): If fogging is turned on while a “Special Effect” is also on, all landscape surfaces show as pure white.
  • Cause/Solution: Same as for the above bug (improper fog rendering setting)
• DirectX Bug (reported in last update): When leaving full screen mode the window’s title bar is sometimes pushed off the screen.
  • Cause: DirectX does not keep window settings when switching to exclusive video mode.
  • Solution: On resuming from full screen, “WS_BORDER” is added back to the window style.
• Code Cleanup (OpenGL): The 1bit stencil buffer has been turned off. Not sure why I even had this on in the first place.
• Code Cleanup (DirectX): Removed “D3DPRESENTFLAG_VIDEO” from the Direct3D present parameters flag and added “D3DPRESENTFLAG_DISCARD_DEPTHSTENCIL”.
• Code Optimization: Added some floating point optimization in the height position determination when the camera position moves.
• Engine Feature/Fix: The Engine now makes sure the user does not start underwater when a new fractal is initialized.
  • Solution: The engine detects if the camera starts under the water, and if so, it picks the closest height map point that is above water and sets the camera there.
• Other: I compiled this one using the normal Microsoft Visual C++ compiler instead of the Intel C++ Compiler, which has resulted in a ~40% decrease in the executable size.