Every uploadBuffer/VkTexture::upload called immediateSubmit which did a
separate vkQueueSubmit + vkWaitForFences. Loading a single creature model
with textures caused 4-8+ fence waits; terrain chunks caused 80+ per batch.
Added beginUploadBatch/endUploadBatch to VkContext: records all upload
commands into a single command buffer, submits once with one fence wait.
Staging buffers are deferred for cleanup after the batch completes.
Wrapped in batch mode:
- CharacterRenderer::loadModel (creature VB/IB + textures)
- M2Renderer::loadModel (doodad VB/IB + textures)
- TerrainRenderer::loadTerrain/loadTerrainIncremental (chunk geometry + textures)
- TerrainRenderer::uploadPreloadedTextures
- WMORenderer::loadModel (group geometry + textures)
- Equipment-driven geoset selection: read GeosetGroup1 from ItemDisplayInfo
for legs/feet/chest to pick covered mesh variants (1302+ pants, 402+ boots,
802+ sleeves) instead of always defaulting to bare geosets
- Prevent per-instance skin override from replacing baked/composited armor
textures on equipped NPCs
- Set bald NPC hair texture slot to skin texture so scalp isn't white
- Skip white fallback textures in per-instance hair overrides
- Remove debug texture dump, reduce NPC logging to DEBUG level
- NPC hair/skin textures now use per-instance overrides instead of shared
model-level textures, so each NPC shows its own hair color/style
- Hair/skin DBC lookup runs for every NPC instance (including cached models)
rather than only on first load
- Fix keyframe binary search to use float comparison matching original
linear scan semantics
- Replace O(n) linear keyframe search with O(log n) binary search in both
M2 and Character renderers (runs thousands of times per frame)
- Smoke particle removal: swap-and-pop instead of O(n²) vector erase
- Character render backface cull: eliminate sqrt via squared comparison
- Quaternion validation: use length² instead of sqrt-based length check
- Glow sprites now use dedicated vertex buffer (glowVB_) separate from
M2 particle buffer to prevent data race when renderM2Particles()
overwrites glow data mid-flight
- Move fadeAlpha from shared material UBO to per-draw push constants,
eliminating cross-instance alpha race on non-double-buffered UBOs
- Smooth adaptive render distance transitions to prevent pop-in/out
at instance count thresholds (1000/2000)
- Distance-tiered character bone throttling: near (<30u) every frame,
mid (30-60u) every 3rd, far (60-120u) every 6th frame
- Skip weapon instance animation updates (transforms set by parent bones)
Reset descriptor pools in CharacterRenderer/M2Renderer/WMORenderer on map
change to prevent VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST from pool exhaustion. Defer re-entrant
SMSG_NEW_WORLD during active world load to avoid recursive cleanup crashes.
Gate swim bubbles on swimming state, skip redundant shadow pipeline re-init,
add WOWEE_SKIP_* env vars for render isolation debugging.
- Add build.ps1/bat, rebuild.ps1/bat, debug_texture.ps1/bat (Windows equivalents
of existing bash scripts, using directory junctions for Data link)
- Fix asset extractor: StormLib is not thread-safe even with separate handles per
thread. Serialize all MPQ reads behind a mutex while keeping CRC computation and
disk writes parallel. Previously caused 99.8% extraction failures with >1 thread.
- Add SFileHasFile() check during enumeration to skip listfile-only entries
- Add diagnostic logging for extraction failures (first 5 per thread + summary)
- Use std::filesystem::temp_directory_path() instead of hardcoded /tmp/ in
character_renderer.cpp debug dumps
- Update debug_texture.sh to use $TMPDIR fallback and glob for actual dump filenames
Character was facing stage-left (yaw 180) instead of toward camera;
corrected default yaw to 90. Added MSAA support to VkRenderTarget with
automatic resolve attachment, and enabled 4x MSAA for the character
preview off-screen pass.
Remove negative cache for transient load failures in M2, terrain, and
character renderers. Failed textures return white and will be retried
on next model/tile load when assets may have finished streaming.
All three shadow renderers (WMO, M2, Character) were iterating every
loaded instance with zero culling. Now skip instances outside the
180-unit shadow frustum radius via squared-distance check.
Raise all texture cache defaults from 1GB to 4GB to reduce rejections.
Cap cache-full warnings (texture + model) to 3 messages per renderer,
and cap update block parse errors to 5 messages.
Strip 26 chrono::now() timing calls per frame from renderer update loop,
periodic LOG_INFO/LOG_DEBUG from terrain/character/quest/heartbeat paths,
and dead m2ProfileCounter variable.
Strip per-frame/periodic logging from CharacterRenderer (batch dump,
instance count) and M2Renderer (frame timing profiler) to avoid
unnecessary string formatting and I/O in render loops.
Hand-painted weapon/armor textures have baked-in lighting that produces
low-contrast gradients in the Sobel filter. Bump strength from 2.0 to
5.0 to extract visible surface detail. Also increase POM scale from
0.03 to 0.06 since character models are small with dense UVs where
the WMO-tuned 0.03 was barely perceptible.
Extends the WMO normal mapping/POM system to character M2 models with
bone-skinned tangents. Auto-generates normal/height maps from diffuse
textures using luminance→height, Sobel→normals (same algorithm as WMO).
- Expand vertex buffer from M2Vertex (48B) to CharVertexGPU (56B) with
tangent vec4 computed via Lengyel's method in setupModelBuffers()
- Tangents are bone-transformed and Gram-Schmidt orthogonalized in the
vertex shader, output as TBN for fragment shader consumption
- Fragment shader gains POM ray marching, normal map blending, and LOD
crossfade via dFdx/dFdy (identical to WMO shader)
- Descriptor set 1 extended with binding 2 for normal/height sampler
- Settings (enable, strength, POM quality) wired from game_screen.cpp
to both WMO and character renderers via shared UI controls
- Add error handling: revert to 1x if recreateSwapchain fails
- Clamp requested MSAA to device maximum before applying
- Retry MSAA color image allocation without TRANSIENT on failure
- Remove redundant vkDeviceWaitIdle from WMO/M2/Character recreatePipelines
(caller already waits once, was causing ~13 stalls instead of 1)
- ensure player transform sync is not gated by third-person so player shadow stays consistent
- hold shadow projection center during movement and snap once on stop to remove delayed catch-up
- smooth foliage caster transitions using blended phase-shifted UV samples
- tune foliage motion frequencies/amplitudes for less popping
- increase shadow map resolution to 2048 and retune terrain PCF texel scale
- increase global shadow strength from 0.62 to 0.68 for stronger, clearer shadows
- keep shadow projection center fixed while moving to remove per-frame projection churn flicker
- replace delayed post-move catch-up with immediate stop transition and idle smoothing
- rework foliage shadow caster motion to use blended phase-shifted UV samples for continuous position transitions
- reduce high-frequency foliage threshold popping by removing threshold warping path
- sharpen terrain receive filtering with tuned 5-tap PCF weights/offset for more detailed shadows
- raise shadow map resolution to 1536 and keep light-space texel snapping for stable sampling
- set shadows enabled by default and lower global shadow strength from 0.65 to 0.62
- keep foliage animation speed consistent between moving and idle at 80%
- reduce per-tile ground clutter generation pressure and enforce tighter caps to avoid spikes
- remove expensive detail dedupe scans from the hot render path
- add progressive/lazy clutter updates around player movement to smooth frame pacing
- lower noisy runtime INFO logging to DEBUG/throttled paths
- keep terrain/game screen updates responsive while preserving existing behavior
- normalize humanoid NPC clothing geosets at spawn time to avoid conflicting overlays\n- force pants-first selection for group 13 to prevent robe/kilt meshes on trouser NPCs\n- hide cloak groups for NPCs unless a renderable cape texture can actually be resolved\n- avoid falling back to missing equipment texture paths during region compositing\n- stop model-scope type-2 cape texture writes that could leak cape/white textures across shared model IDs\n- add group texture override usage in character renderer draw path\n- update character preview equipment application to reuse preview applyEquipment path\n- keep hand-only keybone fallback for attachments to prevent helmet/anchor misbinds
Hide NPC cloak/object-skin mesh when no cape texture resolves by using a transparent texture fallback, preventing skin-texture bleed on cloaks. Tighten NPC equipment region compositing by slot and add safe humanoid geoset selection to avoid robe-over-pants conflicts and odd pants texturing.
Reduce login/runtime hitching by deferring non-critical world-system initialization across frames, lowering per-frame transport doodad spawn budget, and demoting high-volume transport/MO_TRANSPORT diagnostics to debug. Gate M2 glow diagnostics behind WOWEE_M2_GLOW_DIAG and make zone music prewarm opt-in via WOWEE_PREWARM_ZONE_MUSIC.
- Add per-frame cap for first-time creature model loads to spread expensive model/texture decode work across frames instead of burst loading.
- Keep cached creature spawns flowing while deferring uncached display IDs, preserving world population updates with smoother frame pacing.
- Defer transport WMO doodad instancing into a queued batch processor with a strict per-frame budget to avoid multi-hundred-ms spikes when ships/elevators register.
- Process deferred transport doodad batches in both normal gameplay update and loading-screen warmup loop so heavy transport setup can be amortized before and after world entry.
- Cleanup pending transport doodad batches on gameobject despawn to prevent stale work and avoid attaching children to removed parents.
- Lower character texture cache miss logging from INFO to DEBUG to reduce log I/O contention during movement-heavy asset streaming.
Selection ring rendering has been upgraded to better match WoW-like target feedback and remain readable across complex geometry.
Visual updates:
- Reworked ring mesh/shader from a simple two-band strip to a unit-disc + radial fragment shaping.
- Implemented a thinner outer ring profile.
- Added an inward color/alpha gradient that fades from the ring toward the center.
Placement/anchoring updates:
- Added CharacterRenderer::getInstanceFootZ() to query model foot plane from instance bounds.
- Added Application::getRenderFootZForGuid() to resolve per-GUID foot height via live instance mapping.
- Updated GameScreen target selection placement to anchor the effect at target foot Z.
Ground/surface stability:
- In renderSelectionCircle(), added floor clamping against terrain, WMO, and M2 floor probes at target XY.
- Raised final placement offset to reduce residual clipping on uneven surfaces.
Depth/visibility behavior:
- Added polygon offset during ring draw to reduce z-fighting.
- Disabled depth testing for the selection effect draw pass (with state restore) so the ring remains visible through terrain/WMO occluders, per requested behavior.
State safety:
- Restored modified GL state after selection pass (depth test / polygon offset / depth mask / cull).
Build validation:
- Verified with cmake build target "wowee" after each stage; final build succeeds.
- SHADOW_MAP_SIZE 2048→1024: 4x fewer pixels rasterized in depth pass
- Replace 9-tap manual PCF loop with single hardware PCF tap in all 4 receiver
shaders (terrain.frag, wmo_renderer, m2_renderer, character_renderer).
GL_LINEAR + GL_COMPARE_REF_TO_TEXTURE already gives 2×2 bilinear PCF per
tap for free, so quality is maintained while doing 9x fewer texture fetches.
- Throttle shadow depth pass to every 2 frames; OpenGL depth texture persists
between frames so receivers always have a valid shadow map. 1-frame lag at
60 fps is invisible.
- choose run only when movement speed is above threshold
- prefer walk for duration-less synthesized movement deltas
- keep animation fallback behavior when specific sequence is unavailable
- use movement animation (prefer run, fallback walk) for server-driven creature moves
- synthesize short movement duration for duration-less movement deltas to avoid glide/attack-pose sliding
- return to idle after both walk/run movement states
- drive target circle from entity latest position and always interpolate selected/engaged targets
The binary DBC files for all expansions use the same field ordering
(VariationIndex=4, ColorIndex=5, Texture1=6), but classic/tbc/turtle
dbc_layouts.json had swapped texture and variation/color fields, causing
all skin/face/hair/underwear lookups to fail. Also adds generalized
NxN texture scaling and a second video to README.
clearCompositeCache() now only clears the lookup map without deleting
GPU textures, preventing NPC and other instance textures from being
accidentally destroyed during player equipment changes.
Corrected CharGeosets group assignments verified via vertex bounding boxes:
- Group 4 (401+) = gloves/forearms, Group 5 (501+) = boots/shins,
Group 8 (801+) = sleeves (chest-controlled), Group 9 = kneepads,
Group 13 (1301+) = pants/trousers, Group 20 (2002) = bare feet
- Changed bare shin default from 501 to 502 for better width match
with thigh mesh (0.39 vs 0.32, thighs are 0.42)
- Added clearCompositeCache() to prevent stale composite textures
from being reused across equipment changes
- Fixed character preview geoset defaults to match corrected mapping
Implement full mail send/receive: SMSG_SHOW_MAILBOX, CMSG_GET_MAIL_LIST,
SMSG_MAIL_LIST_RESULT, CMSG_SEND_MAIL, SMSG_SEND_MAIL_RESULT, mail take
money/item/delete/mark-as-read, and inbox/compose UI windows.
Fix periodic stuttering in Stormwind caused by synchronous per-line disk
flushes in the logger — remove fileStream.flush() and std::endl, downgrade
high-volume per-packet/per-model/per-texture LOG_INFO to LOG_DEBUG.
Use authoritative WoW Model Viewer atlas coordinates (256x256 reference)
for face, underwear, and body region placement. Previously all coordinates
were hardcoded at 512x512 scale causing overlays to be clipped on the
256x256 base skin. Also include face upper+lower textures from
CharSections.dbc in compositing for both player and other-player characters.
Cache composite textures by input key so identical NPC equipment
combos share one GPU texture. Use DBC layout system for
ItemDisplayInfo texture component fields instead of hardcoded
indices (cross-expansion support). Selective player equipment
re-emission on item query response instead of broadcasting to
all players.
