SA Graphics (Gfx) Public release 1
4:37 PM 12/19/2007

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What this mod does:
Modifies the shadows in the game and the vehicle rendering code for higher quality results. The vehicle code has been re-written to take advantage of pixel shading techniques used in modern games, such as normal and specular maps. The normal map is hardcoded at the moment, the specular map used is a saturated version of the diffuse texture and the reflections are now cubemaps (static, not real time). It's not Crysis, but it is an improvement over the default code. This mod was only tested on a cracked exe. it requires a card that supports shader model 2 or higher.

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Install instructions:
-*IF* you have ever tested an earlier version of this mod, you will need to delete the following files, if they are in your sa root folder (folder the gta_sa.exe is in - if some or all of these files don't exist, then don't worry about it):

-sa_lighting.asi
-sa_vehmattexture.asi
-sa_vehcubemap.asi
-sa_2dref.asi
-sa_shadows.asi
-sa_pipeline.asi (replaced by this version with "low" extention)
-sa_shadows.ini
-cubemap.dds
-specmap.dds
-refmap.dds
-screens.txd

And also delete the directory "extra_textures" if it exists. if you have textures (cubemaps, etc) in that folder you want to re-use, make copies of them first.

Extract the contents of the .rar file wherever you want. Install asiloader.rar according the given instructions.

On Vista: You may get a "This application has failed to start because d3dx9_31.dll was not found" error, because you do not have the file d3dx9_31.dll.

Now, copy the following files to your sa root folder:
-sa_shadows.asi
-sa_pipeline_low.asi
-"extra_resources" folder

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Contents explanations:

sa_pipeline_low.asi - replacement for all lighting, texturing and material-related asi files above. All vehicle rendering code; materials lighting or otherwise is handled through here, along with loading any necessary textures. The "low" suffix does not indicate the existence of a "hi" version - yet. Further work on the mod depends heavily on the success of this release.

"extra_resources" - directory and subdirectories for all current and future resources that need to be loaded by my mods. Right now is used namely for textures, shaders and ini files. Note the only files loaded from these folders are the ones i tell the game to load. you can not for example, drop any .dds file into the texture folder and expect it to get loaded. Only the cubemap and nmap textures, and all hardcoded shader files,  will be loaded for now.

extra_resources\sa_shadows.ini - File used to determine ped shadow size. Only uses sizes that are a power of 2 (64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc). I recommend 256 for overall good results.

extra_resources\Textures - Textures that i use that are not included with the game. Namely generic normal maps and cubemaps. See the readme file in that folder.

extra_resources\Shaders - Vertex and Pixel shaders that this mod uses. This is the code that now determines how vehicles are rendered (drawn onscreen). See the readme file in that folder.

extra_resources\Shaders\shader results.txt - Error log for compiling shaders. Not included with mod by generated and written to every time the game is run. See the readme file in that folder.

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Known issues:
-Vehicles are only lit by the sun for now. More work is needed before extra lights can be synced.
-Random skin/bone corruption on peds (namely driver in vehicles). No known cause, or fix.
-Some detached damaged vehicle pieces (on the ground) may be discolored (pink and green, mainly carcols4 vehicles). Known issue, no fix yet.
-Headlight/Taillights don't show up. Actually they do, but there's some weirdness about how SA handles them.
-Some materials (tire tread, interiors, etc) are shiny when they should not be. Known issue, but i'm not going to fix it. Why don't you ask R* why they put reflection maps on those materials? Rubber and cloth should not reflect!

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What is an asi file?
An asi file is a standard win32 dll file, with the ".dll" extension renamed to ".asi". The naming convention dates back to gta3 and vice city, where the miles sound system (MSS) was used, and would automatically load and execute .asi files. SA does not use MSS, which is where Jernej's asiloader.rar comes in.