TLK versions

#1 Hi Ed,

That's 1.3.5, it was originally named 1.3.2 and is still labeled as 1.3.2 here (at Synapse Gaming), but due to some miscommunication during the release it was called 1.3.5 on the marketing info and the version stuck. :) Sorry for the confusion.

There's no direct TLK 1.3.x to TLK 1.4 patch. TGE changed a lot between 1.3 and 1.4, making it impossible to create a patch file.

Merging a TLK 1.3.x based project with TLK 1.4 is not hard (though it's still time consuming) if you are very familiar with your code changes or have commented them well, because you can easily identify and move your changes from the TLK 1.3 code base into TLK 1.4 code. And only your changes need to be moved over, because TLK 1.4 already includes all necessary TLK and TGE code for 1.4, so you can ignore all TGE and TLK changes.

#2 Would it be possible to merge only the TLK-related changes (introduced in the TLK 1.4 upgrade) into our codebase? Does TLK 1.4 depend on any features of TGE that have changed between TGE 1.3 and TGE 1.4?

Merging the entire TGE 1.4 into our codebase just to get the TLK upgrade is not something that we're wanting to do... there's a lot of new and untested code there in TGE 1.4, and we would rather not have to debug it all. When spend way to much time fixing TGE as it is... we'd like to eventually *release* our game... ;-)

One of the changes we're most immediately interested in is the fix for the slow mission relighting... can that fix be isolated and merged into our TLK 1.3.5 code easily? We don't really need interior detail maps, but might be interested in mounted lights. Also, we've already implemented our own shadows as an alternative to the stock TGE shadows, so the new "improved" dynamic DTS shadows from the TLK (I'm not sure what's improved about them - the release notes aren't very clear) might be more trouble than they're worth to merge. It doesn't sound like the new dynamic DTS shadows address any of the performance and z-fighting issues related to the stock TGE shadows, so it's not clear we need them anyway.

Is there source code available for the .sgo files?

#3 The only thing dependent on TGE 1.4 is the script library, so in theory you could port the TLK 1.4 changes to TLK 1.3.5 (you should at least be on 1.3.5 for the port).

Because the script library is dependent on TGE 1.4 you can either keep using the older Light Editor or update the TLK 1.3.5 scripting to the latest dso compiler/loader/interpreter and use the Light Editor from TLK 1.4.

Even without the lighting profiles available in the TLK 1.4 Light Editor the relight performance in TLK 1.4 is much higher for large levels.

#4

Quote:The only thing dependent on TGE 1.4 is the script library

What is the "script library"?

Quote:Is there source code available for the .sgo files?

???

Quote:One of the changes we're most immediately interested in is the fix for the slow mission relighting...

What are the TLK 1.4 changes that fix the relight performance problem? I see very few changes in sceneGraph/sceneLighting.cc - just a small change to avoid overhead in the script callback mechanism. Is that the change that improves relighting performance, or are there other changes needed?

The mission relighting times are causing a huge waste in productivity for our level-maker, and we haven't been able to use the partial/localized relighting facility (it's much faster, but it just makes all the interiors go black over the entire level)... so this is a big issue for us.

#5 The script library is the group of sgo files, like the Lighting Editor. You'll need to use the older library (Light Editor) or port over the TGE 1.4 script changes.

The performance changes are through out the TLK source files (located in 'engine/synapseGaming/contentPacks/lightingPack/'). Your best bet is to port over all of the TLK changes.