Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Hellstryker on June 24, 2008, 02:25:06 am
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I know it's been asked numerous times, and most people will flame me, but what prog do you need to save files as .dds?
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Partially depends on what type of files are you trying to save, but Paint.NET, for example, can handle .dds files.
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Custom planets, to be exact.
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I was more interested in the file type you are trying to convert to .dds. But I'd guess most image files can be opened with Paint.NET.
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Yeah, why would you be concerned about that? :P
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Also remember about dds compression type... Was it DXT5?
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I saved it as DDS, got it into the VP file where the planets are, and Behold, what do I see in FRED but a glorious... planet file that should be there but isn't... Why isn't FRED reading the file?
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got it into the VP file where the planets are
:wtf: What .vp? No, it can't be...
1. Do not place anything in the retail files.
2. Use the \data\ folder. Specifically the subfolders.
3. Do remember that FRED will only use retail stuff, unless other things are specified with command lines.
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Graphic_Files
First.. Always edit in non-compressed formats (ie. TGA etc.). Convert to DDS files only after the texture is ready. Software used for converting to DDS has effect on the quality of DDS file. Use DXT1 (or u888) for non-alpha images and DXT5 (or u8888) for images with alpha. So not use DXT5 if the image in question has no need of alpha (as it, i) consumes more memory, ii) may cause unwanted effects in the game).
The nvidia command line tool (nvdxt) is often recommended for converting TGA images to DDS format.
edit...
As Lobo said NO EDITING of retail vp files. Also remember to add the planet to the list found from stars.tbl (preferably using str.tbm)
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Where the hell is stars .TBL? :wtf:. And I threw it in with the high res MVP planets, is that right?
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In root_fs2.vp. Extract it to the same mod directory where you placed the new planets that add the new planets there. You did use mod directory... and i certainly hope you didnt edit the vp files...
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Stars.tbl
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Modular_Tables
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In root_fs2.vp. Extract it to the same mod directory where you placed the new planets that add the new planets there. You did use mod directory... and i certainly hope you didnt edit the vp files...
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Stars.tbl
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Modular_Tables
Didn't edit what VP files to be exact? all I edited was the media VPs, and that doesn't hurt a thing... :rolleyes:
And I know what a table is -_-, i've just never heard of Stars.tbl because all I've done so far is weapon and ship table mods
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stars.tbl is present in root.vp and mv_core.vp* files, but what you want to do is to set up an addedplanet-str.tbm modular table file, which will add your planet to the parsing of stars.tbl. Read more about modular tables on Hard Light Wiki, Im at work so I'd rather not start wrting a detailed description that you can find yourself just as well...
As far as graphical stuff goes, I don't have much to add.
0. Dont touch the retail VP's. Also don't put anything extra to root/data directories.
1. stay out of VP's altogether unless you want to distribute your mod to someone else. Use freespace2/mod/data/ directory structures instead. VP's are completely unnecessary for getting stuff to work and are only a handy way to package the stuff so it's easier to distribute and n00bs have harder time breaking the stuff...
2. Keep things at lossless format until they are finished. In FS2_Open modding, textures and effects should be tested and edited in TGA format.
3. when converting to DDS format, be sure to choose the right compression format and make sure that the image width and height are powers of two. For example, 768x768 is not a good texture to make a DDS from - it can be done, but it's poor practice - while 512x512, 512x1024, 1024x1024 etc. are good texture sizes.
As far as compression modes go...
For ship diffuse (with no transparency) and glow textures as well as effects that use additive blending rather than alpha blending, use DXT1c. This format only has RGB channels, no alpha. DXT1a has one-bit alpha if I recall correctly, and I really can't think of anything it could be usable for...
For glass textures, ship shinemaps and effects that use alpha blending, use either DXT3 or DXT5, depending on how much alpha blending you need and what kind it is. For sharp transitions from opaque to transparent - like surface environmental reflectivity change in a shinemap, from hull to glass for example - DXT3 does the job nicely.
If you have an alpha blending effect with a lot of gradients like the blue nebula skybox you might have seen, you might have to use DXT5 or even uncompressed DDS format (u8888), which is of course uncompressed and lossless format but doesn't offer the memory advantages of compressed formats either.
So. For a planet, if it has no atmospheric glow blending to transparency, use DXT3. If it has an atmo glow, try DXT3 first; if it looks atrociously bad, try DXT5. If thast doesn't do it either, make it u8888 or ask for help in converting the file. For some files, special software might be needed to map the colourspace so as to maximize the quality - for example, I could not get the blue nebula texture to convert into a passable DXT compressed file, while Zacam managed to make a DXT5 version of it with minimal quality loss compared to uncompressed version.
*actually, maybe not there. Can't check ATM.
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Can someone PLEASE tell me why everyone thinks i'm a noob who knows nothing about modding? i'm not someone who's never modded freespace before and doesn't even know what a table is.
@Herra: Thanks for the DDS and stars.tbl info
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Can someone PLEASE tell me why everyone thinks i'm a noob who knows nothing about modding? i'm not someone who's never modded freespace before and doesn't even know what a table is.
Well, the whole "Hi, I threw a bunch of files into an existing .vp" sort of gives an impression. And it is assumed that even quasi-experienced modders know the location of files such as stars.tbl.
Just so that we won't forget...
VP's are completely unnecessary for getting stuff to work and are only a handy way to package the stuff so it's easier to distribute and n00bs have harder time breaking the stuff...
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Well yeah, It was kind of stupid not putting it into the data folder, but what do you mean about a bunch of files? Theres a big differance between that and one .dds
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Can someone PLEASE tell me why everyone thinks i'm a noob who knows nothing about modding? i'm not someone who's never modded freespace before and doesn't even know what a table is.
Who said anything about you being one? :p
Though I have to say that adding stuff to VP's kinda makes you look like one in that specific regard, since it's a completely unnecessary hassle to deal with VP's if you're just in the process of trying to make stuff work. Or you could just choose to do it for some good reason, though I can't think of any...
Also, arguably it could be said that if you hadn't heard of stars.tbl, you are a newbie, just not as newbie as the newbiest of newbies. It's all relative... I'm a newb too if compared to the likes of Karajorma, GalEmp, DaBrain, Vasudan Admiral et al. Also
note that I never started explaining what a table is...
@Herra: Thanks for the DDS and stars.tbl info
No problem. But just one more clarification - you don't really want to make a whole new stars.tbl to define the game to use one additional planet texture, but rather add the planet texture(s) and other stuff via modular tables. They are awesome and made of win. :nod:
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Do you have any modeling experiance? If not, then are you a noob? of course not. Almost all of us have our own specific niches around here
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Ok, I edited the stars.tbl, threw it in the data/tables folder, added the planet .dds, and it still won't show up in FRED
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Ok, I edited the stars.tbl, threw it in the data/tables folder, added the planet .dds, and it still won't show up in FRED
Root data/tables fodler is a bad place to put edited things in. Too easy to get rogue tables... You would be well adviced to use mod folders instead. And modular tables instead of entire stars.tbl file.
Don't have the time to delve into the problem deeper right now.
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How many times do I have to tell you i'm using the mediavps
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How many times do the rest of us have to tell you that it is wise to dedicate an entire folder for your mod stuff. You can use the \mediavps\ as an extra mod, but any "modded" content should preferrably be in its own folder.
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threw it in the data/tables folder
How many times do I have to tell you i'm using the mediavps
A lot more, because you are careless about how you describe things. data/tables is not the same as mediavps\data\tables.
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:rolleyes: Look, It works in FRED now, But it does not work in game
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:rolleyes: Look, It works in FRED now, But it does not work in game
Please describe how exactly have you set the things up at the moment. Despite our superhuman abilities, it's hard to see into your computer, so figuring out what goes wrong and where is not very easy and guessing through darkness is a lot more time-consuming than you telling accurately what you're doing and we can tell what you're doing wrong. Also, attention to detail in troubleshooting tends to help, as Water mentioned, data/ is usually considered the root FreeSpace2/data/ folder, hence the misunderstanding... or rather, misdescription. :p
If you got it working in FRED2, you're doing something (probably most of the things) right anyway and getting it to work in-game should not be overly complicated, but I guess you could run a debug build and check for any missing background bitmap reports and stuff like table parsing errors, though I dunno why you would not get it in-game but see it in FRED2.
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Well at this point I've pretty much said **** tbls and thrown it all in the data folder. The planet shows up in FRED, but not in game