Graphical settings in option menu do not enable spec/normal/ao maps.

[Michael D. Hafer]

The current graphics menu options will not switch on spec maps, normal maps, and AO maps for buildings and/or units.

A more comprehensive look at these graphical features may be needed in order to make them changeable/enabled via the options menu.

EDIT: once this is implemented ​hwdetects.js could be updated to enable by default maximum material quality when on OpenGL4+.

[historic_bruno]

Copied for convenience:

If anyone wonders, those come from material quality settings in default.cfg, and it's not obvious how they work, you really have to look at the material XML to understand. We should change that (also needs a ticket), but for now, we could have material quality settings like "High", "Medium", "Low" in the options screen, and explain roughly what they change. In other words, don't directly put numeric controls for them in the UI because they are so arbitrary.

[Michael D. Hafer]

Ticket #2506 is relevant.

[historic_bruno]

Did a little digging, here is what material quality does with the current materials:

0-1: "default"
2: AO
3-7: AO+specular
8+: AO+specular+parallax

Except a few aren't consistent, player_trans_spec.xml and player_trans_spec_helmet.xml enable specular at 1, and basic_trans_spec.xml enables specular at 2.

[historic_bruno]

Looked at the options code, and as it's designed now, I don't see a way of doing this that isn't a messy hack. It basically pre-populates a bunch of GUI controls in predefined locations, so I couldn't place a dropdown (low, medium, high) in there very easily. I don't see the advantage of this approach either, IMO options screens will need to be designed by hand to be usable. It's just a semi-ordered jumble of options now.

[Stan]

Can't you just add a enable advanced graphics ?

[historic_bruno]

Replying to stanislas69:

Can't you just add a enable advanced graphics ?

I don't really like adding a config option to change another config option, it creates a yucky dependency (it would have to set the material quality, but also test the material quality so the default value matches any manual config). This is a flaw in the current system, but not the worst.

[Itms]

The options page should be improved somehow in A18.

[Stan]

Not likely to happen before A18 pushing...