[MLeoDaalder]

If I recall correctly, I made my PNG2BMP prog within 1 hour. But then it is not that complex...

[Eternal One]

Originally posted by MLeoDaalder
If I recall correctly, I made my PNG2BMP prog within 1 hour. But then it is not that complex...

I had to write some custom hooks for my memory management and file I/O, so that'll probably explain it. Or because I'm not that fast of a coder, whatever

[Flipside]

Do PNG's support Alpha layers for Bump Mapping etc?

[phreak]

you'd use a separate normal map generated by photoshop for bumpmaps.  as for alpha, i have no clue

[MLeoDaalder]

You can do that or modify the code of PNGLib to do just that.

And I forgot who asked. TGA can be animated.
Here is a tutorial: http://www.bcfiles.com/file.stuff?body=TutorialsAM
Don't ask me how to do it for FS2, I didn't made the tutorial.

[RandomTiger]

This thread is about DDS

[Omniscaper]

How can I create DDS files. Is there a photoshop plugin? I'd like to convert some of the UBER textures from my Sovereign class conversion. The pcx's on that baby go up to 4096x2048. I'd like to see if that will increase performance and speed up load times.


Many of these ship textures do not like Fred2_open. I can't even load them with out crashing it. I have to dumb down the textures just so I could make test scenarios for these conversions

[Ryx]

Originally posted by Omniscaper
How can I create DDS files. Is there a photoshop plugin? I'd like to convert some of the UBER textures from my Sovereign class conversion. The pcx's on that baby go up to 4096x2048. I'd like to see if that will increase performance and speed up load times.


Many of these ship textures do not like Fred2_open. I can't even load them with out crashing it. I have to dumb down the textures just so I could make test scenarios for these conversions

You can find the tools at nVidias website, in the developer section.
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html should get you started.

[Omniscaper]

What does Freespace do with the Alpha channel of a DDS file?
I converted all of my Sovereign textures to D3DFMT_DXT5 and I got some strange results. The model was transparent in certain parts. Not complete transparancy.

The TGA textures I converted from, that came with the Sovereign model, contained an Alpha channel which originally meant to designate the glow maps. This is the first time I converted with the alpha's intact. I was expecting Freespace to use the alphas as a glow map which would save me a lot of time. But it seems as if it used the alphas as OPACITY MAPS.

This is VERY interesting. If my suspicions are correct, Freespace can have windows or transparent areas now. Can someone confirm this?

I reconverted the TGA's to D3DFMT_DXT1 and that got rid of the alphas and all is normal procedure from there. Treated like a pcx.

Performance wise I didn't see a boost in FPS but a reduction in loading time. Then again I'm working with a Geforce4 MX.