Anyone ever feel like updating the BZ2 textures? moving them from 256x256 to something like 1024x1024?
Stretching is easy, its the cleanups after that arnt (as GSH said). A good photoshop artist might be able to do it, would really improve the looks of some craft. could add all sorts of detail.
That would be good, especially in maps like canyons with all the steep inclines.
BTW i couldn't get DX9 installed
Hey, Steeveeo! :-D
Clavin: What OS are you using?
VSMIT.
yeh i was pretty much pointing the finger at Steeveeo :P
Quote from: VSMIT on May 07, 2009, 04:03:49 PM
Hey, Steeveeo! :-D
Clavin: What OS are you using?
VSMIT.
I'm using windows xp home edition with sp1
QuoteAnyone ever feel like updating the BZ2 textures? moving them from 256x256 to something like 1024x1024?
This is not an easy thing to do, just increasing the size of the textures is pointless and will probably make them look worse.
Really, you would want to remake them completely from scratch, unless in some dark pandemic vault lies the original artwork...
yeh... i know it aint easy.
Hope for the vault.
Even if there is original artwork, it's not likely to be larger than 512x512. Small step up, but not a huge one.
Fallout3 (and Oblivion before it) has had people take the 256x256 or 512x512 artwork and upscale it to 2048x2048. See, for example, http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2363 (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2363) . Looks great. Huge download -- 2GB (!). It seems possible to do this sort of work.
-- GSH
I have tried making high-res texture edits.
Filesize got huge, ground textures stopped tiling correctly, and DXT textures constantly got the transparency holes, no matter how grey my "black" was...
I think Steeveeo is mostly good with effect sprites anyway.
QuoteEven if there is original artwork, it's not likely to be larger than 512x512. Small step up, but not a huge one.
I use 512x 512 for my Dalek units and buildings, it looks good, Going much larger than this for such items seems a bit pointless as they would very rarely actually be drawn large enough on the screen (yes its a small screen) to appreciate it. 1024 x 1024 is good for sky domes as they need the detail. 512 x 512 works ok for ground textures, don't have any problems with transparent black bits.
Ground textures dont really need to be textured up for now. besides, terrain takes up loads more memory than it used to anyway :P
Im talking about just units and buildings. I want to see sabres like the ones at the top right here:
http://www.timedisruptor.com
a well made texture might even be able to pull that off :). wheres Lizard & Slaor when you need them?
Hey! I'm as good a modeller as they are.... well ... you haven't seen the proof yet. :-P
Quote from: GSH on May 07, 2009, 08:21:46 PM
Fallout3 (and Oblivion before it) has had people take the 256x256 or 512x512 artwork and upscale it to 2048x2048. See, for example, http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2363 (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2363) . Looks great. Huge download -- 2GB (!). It seems possible to do this sort of work.
And MW before that :)
Though personally I find it a bit of a waste of time .. as in "I personally favour other modifications than graphics tweaks of this type".
Normal mapped high resolution terrain textures for BZ2 ! http://www.crazybump.com/
That program looks bloody amazing. going to DL it now and see how good it really is
EDIT:
That crazy bump program is IMPRESSIVE to say the least. You can edit Normals, Specularity, Occlusion, Diffuse, Displacement all individually and restoring detail looks like a piece of cake.
Only problem is, its a 30-day trial (but all features seem to be there), and it saves each of the above from a texture to 5 different files. If someone can work out how to combine them to get what you made in crazy bump back, itd be perfect for the job. only minor touch ups needed afterwards i think.
Thats the first piece of this kind of software ive REALLY been that impressed by. Besides blender
Normal maps are nice, but require shaders. Although I'd love to give Intel integrated video chipsets the shaft, I think there's still too many BZ2'ers using them.
(Heck, because I don't have any Intel integrated video on my laptop, that makes it harder to test things.)
-- GSH
Shaders seem to do an awful lot, yet i am still unsure of what they are and what they do...
Quote from: GSH on May 09, 2009, 04:28:48 PM
Normal maps are nice, but require shaders. Although I'd love to give Intel integrated video chipsets the shaft, I think there's still too many BZ2'ers using them.
(Heck, because I don't have any Intel integrated video on my laptop, that makes it harder to test things.)
-- GSH
Please shaft them!
I still don't get why a Shader Toggle wouldn't work. Then again, I never really did get a reply to that idea back on the TA5 thread...
If someone with an Intel chipset decides to try to turn it on, it would say "I'm sorry, but it appears that your hardware does not support this feature," and then ignores the setting and keeps it off.
Well i doubt its an easy thing to program in. In my view id rather get current bugs out of the way before applying new things. One step at a time and all that.
S, its not like a shared is a toggleable thing. It is either FFP or Shaders, and to program in a redundant FFP system as the background for the Shader system, well... Lets just say GSH has a life.
It may be best to give Intel Integrated Graphics cards the shaft considering the amount of issues they seem to have with bz2. That and feedback is rarely received regarding issues with Intel cards from our testers. Video cards are relatively inexpensive, as long as someone with that card is using a desktop. If said gamer plays on a laptop, he/she would be out of luck.
Man, is this bad news for me :(
perhaps a render cfg switch to detect if it uses intel or not, and if it does, it simply turns off the feature?
Quote from: General BlackDragon on May 11, 2009, 03:19:04 PM
perhaps a render cfg switch to detect if it uses intel or not, and if it does, it simply turns off the feature?
*points to 2 previous posts stating the exact same thing*
http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,9307.msg142763.html#msg142763
http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,9223.msg140960.html#msg140960
If it was trivial, there's a good chance it would have been done already.
But, with GeForce 2MX cards out there, etc, I'm not quite yet willing to shaft them, too.
-- GSH
Oh c'mon... Please.... :wink:
Quote
Filesize got huge, ground textures stopped tiling correctly, and DXT textures constantly got the transparency holes, no matter how grey my "black" was...
Convert to dxt3 format, not dxt1, and there shouldn't be any transparency holes. Or, wait for the next dxtgen release. Magic option to 'do the right thing' was defaulting to false. :(
-- GSH
Try v23 of bz2dxtgen for what I think is a fix for the 'black parts of opaque textures can turn transparent' issue. And other features.
-- GSH
Someone asked what shaders actually do, but no one has yet answered, thus, the simple answer:
Shaders are little microprograms that a program (like a game) uploads to a video card. It does very high intensity and vastly faster mathematical work then a CPU can and basically do a couple of things. Some shaders work on 3d geometry to morph it (generally making it higher quality by applying things like a normal map in some cases, although most normal map shaders alter the pixels directly, to a polygon mesh). Other shaders convert the 3d information into a 2d representation that is displayed on your screen, giving it dynamically changing colors, bloom, other effects. They can do vastly more then that, but those are the basics of what you would see. :)
(http://www.overminddl1.com/image_scripts/image_sig.php?type=ODL1signitures&image/sig.gif)
Generated by OvermindDL1's Signature Auto-Add Script (http://overminddl1.com) via GreaseMonkey (http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/)
Do shaders work on a pixel level, polygon level or texture level? Or is it any of these? Does bloom, for example, adjust the color of objects on the inside of the world? or does it work like a photoshop filter, simply post processing the whole 2D image which is displayed on the screen? (this is what I mean by pixel level)
They can work on any and all. They control, quite literally, all aspects of drawing to the screen.
(http://www.overminddl1.com/image_scripts/image_sig.php?type=ODL1signitures&image/sig.gif)
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Thanks OM.