[Ashrak]

can we do it? i mean without any vid card requirements

[phreak]

its possible, but it still is going to require a good amount of GPU power.  anyone have a normal map generator?

[Fineus]

There must be an easier way to do this than to have 3 or 4 differents files per "texture".. putting it all together takes up quite a bit of power, even my system slows down with a lot going on...

[phreak]

were going to need 3 rendering passes at this point in time if we do any more upgrades

[Flipside]

The problem with Alpha layered images is that the Alpha layers are only 256 colour greyscale , which is no good for Glows or Shines, though would still work with Bumpmapping for those that support it.

Flipside

[Fineus]

So what options are there? I mean the latest games (UT2K3, Battlefield1942, Freelancer, Starlancer (I think)) have multi-maps but are much more efficient at this stage. And if things are going to be done it might be better to start now before it becomes a problem down the road....

[Liberator]

It may become necessary to implement DDS textures like Homeworld 2 uses.  One of many reasons to update to DX9.

[IceFire]

Is there a DDS plugin for Photoshop or something that makes texture conversion easy?  One of the big things about PCX at this point is the ease of format.

[Vilkacis]

Yes there is, you can get it from www.nvidia.com somewhere in the developers section.

[Fineus]

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html More specifically - though kudos to you for finding it on nVidia in the first place

[Fry_Day]

It may become necessary to implement DDS textures like Homeworld 2 uses. One of many reasons to update to DX9.

Compressed textures work just fine on DX8. And I think DX7, for the matter.

So what options are there? I mean the latest games (UT2K3, Battlefield1942, Freelancer, Starlancer (I think)) have multi-maps but are much more efficient at this stage. And if things are going to be done it might be better to start now before it becomes a problem down the road....

I'm pretty sure none of those games use more than two maps simultaneously (Though I'm not sure about BF1942) - even UT2k3 doesn't use a gloss map like FS2Open does.

Only the next crop of games (Namely, HL2 and Doom 3, and games based on their engines) will use more maps, and they'll require at least DX7-class hardware (And in Doom's case, use specific extensions, like register combiners, to squeeze much closer to PS1.1 capabilities for hard-coded effects even for those cards). It's just that multiple textures are inherently much slower, which is exactly why they aren't commonly used.

[Foxer]

Is bump-mapping is in Relese 3.5.5 or in any build? I'm asking becouse i see this Hecate screen with really cool scratches, etc. on hull. Is it avaible only with some vid cards and special maps?

BTW. Hi and salute to all of you

[bKtHeG]

Originally posted by Liberator
It may become necessary to implement DDS textures like Homeworld 2 uses.  One of many reasons to update to DX9.

As I said before: This would be a real problem under linux because there is no directx - only opengl. And even if dds is working under windows opengl it won't under linux.

If there is an alternative - use it instead of dds

[Flaser]

Originally posted by Foxer
Is bump-mapping is in Relese 3.5.5 or in any build? I'm asking becouse i see this Hecate screen with really cool scratches, etc. on hull. Is it avaible only with some vid cards and special maps?

BTW. Hi and salute to all of you

It is not.

What you see is a nice trick with shinemaps made by Lightspeed.

It gives a simiral impression - but not up close.

That's why we will need bumb mapping.

[Zarax]

Well, too bad for linsux, but since all users uses windows we should implement it... if linsux will ever catch up then the linsux guys at scp would implement it...

[Lightspeed]

Originally posted by Flaser


It is not.

What you see is a nice trick with shinemaps made by Lightspeed.

It gives a simiral impression - but not up close.

That's why we will need bumb mapping.

that screenie doesn't use my shinemaps. In fact, it's quite old

[karajorma]

Originally posted by bKtHeG


As I said before: This would be a real problem under linux because there is no directx - only opengl. And even if dds is working under windows opengl it won't under linux.

If there is an alternative - use it instead of dds

As I keep saying we just make it a requirement that everyone's ships come with both .dds and pcx/tga/jpg textures.

That way everyone is happy. I don't see why every single windows user should be forced to use a slower system when there is a compromise that would make everyone happy.

[Drew]

those scrathces were in the original texture ;P

[Bobboau]

doesn't OGL have a comparable texture compression, I would think it would

[phreak]

it can use dds textures, you need a radeon or geforce.  i think devil accepts them too.