High resoultion textures needed.

[Adaven]

-GT and effix already have 512^2 textures as opposed to the standard 256^2, Orion released them like that.
-Nix is also 512 currently, and I'll assume Noir's got at least that for the other factions he wants to include.
-rumor has it Noir got permission from veg to fix up dreg and tf, but who knows how far down his huge to-do list that's at.

If Noir and Orion have higher res versions archived, particularly for the bases and capships, it'd be great. But even if the 512's is all they've got, those factions will still have 4x the detail of the standard MS ones. Also, if people want further upgrades and the core dev's give permission, those 512x512 textures will be a lot easier to upgrade than the 256x256 ones we're messing w/ right now.

Weed has 1024's or 1280's on his machine for all the Star Wars stuff, so we should be good there.

[Adaven]

Zapper said that there were 374 textures used by the game. However, it seems like there are a lot of repeats.

For instance, in the artwork folder there are about 20 files accessed by giga bases, but only 10 of them are unique. Ships usually aren't as bad, but there are still a couple repeats.

My question is why, and would it be easier on folks gfx cards if we removed the redundacies by editing the uv maps of the models to access the same file?

I realize that would require everyone download the new models, but model files are a lot smaller than 2048^2 textures.

[madpeople]

QUOTE (Adaven @ Sep 11 2006, 11:07 PM) Zapper said that there were 374 textures used by the game. However, it seems like there are a lot of repeats.

For instance, in the artwork folder there are about 20 files accessed by giga bases, but only 10 of them are unique. Ships usually aren't as bad, but there are still a couple repeats.

My question is why, and would it be easier on folks gfx cards if we removed the redundacies by editing the uv maps of the models to access the same file?

I realize that would require everyone download the new models, but model files are a lot smaller than 2048^2 textures.

mod the maps a model is like 50kb, a 2048*2048 bmp is ...

[Adaven]

I've thought about this more.

We might edit the models if someone can prove it'll help graphic performance. Leaving separate textures has the advantage of allowing artist to make them different if they wish. Just because MS used only a couple textures for everything doesn't mean we have to.

Even if folks decide the extra work isn't worth it and we leave all the textures equal to each other, we can work around the download size. This isn't going on AU anyways, so in the optional patch we can just include 1 copy of each unique texture and add a script that takes care of the duplications, right?

[madpeople]

the scrip would have to make the bmp.mdls from a .bmp file (file name embedded in the file problem), but yes it could be done

[Raveen]

QUOTE (madpeople @ Sep 12 2006, 11:27 AM) the scrip would have to make the bmp.mdls from a .bmp file (file name embedded in the file problem), but yes it could be done

Why? The hi res texs will already be in bmp.mdl format in the download pack. Otherwise they won't work. There's absolutely no sense in converting them at the user's end.

[madpeople]

QUOTE (Raveen @ Sep 12 2006, 11:31 AM) Why? The hi res texs will already be in bmp.mdl format in the download pack. Otherwise they won't work. There's absolutely no sense in converting them at the user's end.

i was responding to this

QUOTE (Adaven @ Sep 12 2006, 07:20 AM) I've thought about this more.

We might edit the models if someone can prove it'll help graphic performance. Leaving separate textures has the advantage of allowing artist to make them different if they wish. Just because MS used only a couple textures for everything doesn't mean we have to.

Even if folks decide the extra work isn't worth it and we leave all the textures equal to each other, we can work around the download size. This isn't going on AU anyways, so in the optional patch we can just include 1 copy of each unique texture and add a script that takes care of the duplications, right?

alot of models have more then one texture, but these multiple textures are exactly the same

made up example
biosfig.mdl 50kb
biosfig1bmp.mdl 12MB
biosfig2bmp.mdl 12MB

the above ship has 2 textures, but these 2 textures are the same

we can ether:
edit all the models uvw maps so they only use one texture, so it only uses one texture, so you only need to dl one 12mb file and a 50kb file, not two 12mb files

or you leave the model alone and download the 2 identical 12mb 24 bit bitmaps in bmp.mdl format which are exactly the same (note here that this is a waste of space and bandwidth)

or, you download one 12mb bmp.mdl file and have a script on the user side that copies it, and renames it
but wait, the file name is embedded in the bmp.mdl file, if you just rename them alleg crashes /doh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doh:" border="0" alt="doh.gif" />
so what we do here is; dl one 12mb .bmp file, use a batch file to run the original artwork converter to make the two bmp.mdl files that are needed from the one .bmp file you download.
this also avoids editing the maps

[Zapper]

@Ada, Mad and Raveen
There are aprox. 10 textures that are used on several models.
There are 3-4 models using multiple Textures(same model with diff base texture(mostly ships)).
I have manualy viewed all the models and checked which textures are used on which models and vice versa.
the 374 textures are Unique textures... there are no doubles.
They are all sorted in my brain.... /glare.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":glare:" border="0" alt="glare.gif" /> (hmm, that comment was geeky).
No, actualy i got them in a folder and then i got them sorted to which faction they are used and then i got then sorted to diff models they are used on.
Filed, catagorized and Zipped ready to launch.

@MadP
U are speculating, keep this thread clean from speculation...
All files are getting converted by me, everyone else can do it, but those that wish to have the file and dont care about doing it them self can get them from the server.
Dont worry about the small stuff. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
We got bigger things ahead.

Zap

[Raveen]

QUOTE (Zapper @ Sep 12 2006, 01:15 PM) We got bigger things ahead.

Bigger than 2048^2? /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

[Adaven]

Found one snafu:

The belter tac looks like it has an inproperly mapped polygon, here.

Shouldn't be too hard a model change. Probably just have 2 of the 3 verts mapped on top of each other, forming a straight line instead of a triangle on the uv map.