Porting subtract shader to OpenGL to use with Android?

J3sseM · August 29, 2015 at 7:43 AM

Hey guys!

I've been working with my upcoming horror adventure game Please login to see this link. like there's no tomorrow.
I've designed the game and the controls so I could port it over to android soon after the release (this Halloween). I thought I could replace the shaders I use, but didn't think of subtract shader which is essential for my lightning system.

I'm by no means technical guru with these stuff, so I'm asking if someone knows would it be possible to somehow port subtract shader to OpenGL and use with Android exporter?

Thanks!

J3sseM · August 29, 2015 at 4:13 PM

Can't edit so I'll just reply here.
Okay, it seems subtract is sort of supported already, though I can't use it as a layer effect. Not sure how to set up lightning system otherwise.

Any ideas?

J3sseM · September 6, 2015 at 7:34 AM

Sorry guys I'll bump!

I'm trying to figure if it's possible to make the subtract shader work as a layer effect for Android?
I've also been thinking of alternative ways to do the similar effect, without shaders. But those methods have been quite performance intense.

Does anyone know if this is possible, or have any suggestions? I'd need multiple light sources, and different shape of lights. Getting subtract to work on Android would be the best way.

Thanks!

DaveC · September 6, 2015 at 11:46 PM

Could CT respond to this? I think with all the upgrades/newer API's - this might be more achievable to implement now?

piscesdreams · September 7, 2015 at 12:53 AM

This may not work, but can you make a single color active using the subtract effect and scale it to the screen size?

J3sseM · September 7, 2015 at 8:03 AM

piscesdreams, I'm doing my current lightning system similar to that. Using white active, and subtract as a layer effect. But using subtract for layer effect is not supported on android.
You can use subtract shader on android, but not for the layer effect. If you use it in the active object, I don't think you can actually subtract from it, at least I have not figured how to do that.

But yeah, phones are getting quite powerful these days so I believe supporting shaders could be the next big thing? Who knows!

Anyway, a word from CT would be awesome!

Makabre · April 11, 2016 at 8:34 PM

This might be a little old - but I'm going to bump this thread because noone I have spoken seems to know how to sort this issue out. I'm having the exact same issue as J3sseM - anyone found a fix?

J3sseM · September 20, 2016 at 5:54 PM

Clickteam, are you planning to support shaders with android exporter?
Would be awesome to know so we could design our games properly or to look alternatives.

J3sseM · September 21, 2016 at 5:38 PM

Is there a reason we don't get a simple answer here?

piscesdreams · September 21, 2016 at 7:14 PM

Wow, over a year old and no official comment.

Ever since Fusion was Greenlit on Steam there has been a drastic steady decline with the staffs interaction with the users. Clickteam is really starting to get out of touch with its users, I feel.

Jeff · September 21, 2016 at 7:42 PM

Sorry we are all busy working on various things and its hard to read every post in the forums.

I just spoke with Fernando and it is on his list to look into but there isn't a timeline on implementing it.
One of the issues he can see concerning it is older devices and a performance impact on it.

For the time being I would look at solutions besides shaders.

J3sseM · September 21, 2016 at 7:50 PM

I'll take that as a "no" then.

As for workaround I'd be fine with that, but I can't figure how to make lightning effects without subtract shader. Surely I could position one big active with a hole in it on a player but I couldn't use multiple light sources that way.

I could use tiles with alpha relative to position but that's insanely heavy, and wouldn't support light shapes other than circle, so it's no good either.

Kisguri · September 21, 2016 at 8:15 PM

Maybe we could run your post through our Social media and see if we can collectively get you a low CPU cost solution? Should we try?

J3sseM · September 21, 2016 at 9:01 PM

Hey Kisguri, porting DISTRAINT to android would be pretty simple if I could just figure out the lightning effects. However I don't see an easy solution for that except for getting subtract effect to work on layers (not saying that is easy though, I've no idea what that would take).
Besides I'm working on something else so the "fix" should be rather straight-forward. That said no need, but thanks for checking.

But sure if someone gets an idea I'd love to hear it out.

Zopper · October 17, 2016 at 9:27 PM

Hey guys, I am having the same problem and would love to hear a solution to multiple light sources on Android as well.

schrodinger · October 25, 2016 at 11:30 AM

Oh no, Distraint must get to android!

Sorry Jesse I just stumped on this thread now, but had a couple ideas to share, not sure if any would do for you but just in case..

1) using the good old "hole" method with alphablend
simply layering one "holed" object for each lightsource
and setting their alpha blend to a "middle" value (100-120 or so)

totally crap example pic (sorry - a bit rushed now, had no time to pull out a proper alpha gradient light XD):

Please login to see this attachment.

knowing how many lightsources you have on screen,
you can easily set the right amount of blend needed to mantaing the same "darkness" amount when layering one darkness over the other

2) I think the "tile" method you mention could be tested, assuming your screen size will be far smaller than the windows version,
and so you won't proportionally stretch to a very small character, but rather keep less frame area on screen
so you could do with, say, 32x32 tiles, about 225 static objects on screen (less if you go with a lower resolution than 640x360),
you would only alter their blend relatively to your light sources, maybe this shouldn't totally kill the phone if frame rate is low enough...
not 100% sure but I think this could be worth a try ..of course if you can live with "blocky" lights XD

krolik · October 30, 2016 at 2:17 PM

"Blocky" lights would be ok in the games like minecraft / terraria i think, additional 200 objects may totally kill game performance.

I had same problem. I wrote to Fernando some time ago and looks like the cuting holes on the layer on windows runtime is a bugged implementation of subtract effect (with directx renderer only) so users use it to make fake lights, but we can not make same effect on mobiles with opengl renderer.

Would be great if CT could resolve this problem to allows us to make some light effects on mobiles.

nikosurfing · December 1, 2016 at 5:53 AM

Hello, why subtract effect on active object not working on my android device? Should i use opengl shader? If yes, how to install and using opengl shader?

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