[Fry_Day]

I highly encourage all y'all to use .dds files. Texture compression saves not only file size, but improves preformance for cards that support it (Which includes GeForce 2MX cards, which just about everyone and his grandmother has).

[karajorma]

are .dds files 8, 24 or 32 bit? Or can you choose?

[Ashrak]

wont cubic env mapping kill most of the older than gf3ti500 cards?

[ChronoReverse]

Wasn't cubic environmental mapping first implemented in the original GeForce?  I seem to remember some bullahoo made by nVidia about how it was way superior to Spherical mapping

[Ashrak]

it is way superrior

[bKtHeG]

dds - this is not a very good idea
as far as i can see the loading code is part of directx which means no support for linux
better use something like jpeg oder tga

[Carl]

wouldn't it look kinda silly, though? what would there be to reflect? the environment map would be a bunch of stars.


...unless you can make each mission create a specific environment map from that mission's background, so you could have reflected nebula ect.

[Drew]

Originally posted by Carl
what would there be to reflect? the environment map would be a bunch of stars.

uhh, think window reflections. You zoom past the window of a capship and you see your ship in the reflection

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Drew
uhh, think window reflections. You zoom past the window of a capship and you see your ship in the reflection

Hah, you realize that's not realistically possible with current hardware, right? You'd need to render the environment maps for each ship's position for each frame.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by bKtHeG
dds - this is not a very good idea
as far as i can see the loading code is part of directx which means no support for linux
better use something like jpeg oder tga

Encourage the use of both then The Windows users get faster performance using .dds but it's not like the modder doesn't have to make all the individual maps first anyway.

If those of us using Windows shouted at anyone who distributed a mod with only .dds files instead of .dds and another more general format would that make you happy?

[Carl]

Originally posted by Drew

uhh, think window reflections. You zoom past the window of a capship and you see your ship in the reflection

we're talking about environment maps, not ray tracing.

[Flipside]

Originally posted by bKtHeG
dds - this is not a very good idea
as far as i can see the loading code is part of directx which means no support for linux
better use something like jpeg oder tga

I thought Phreak had already implemented DDS in OpenGL anyway?

Flipside

[Bobboau]

Originally posted by Carl
...unless you can make each mission create a specific environment map from that mission's background, so you could have reflected nebula ect.

isn't that what I said I was going to do

[Carl]

likely.

[bKtHeG]

Originally posted by Flipside


I thought Phreak had already implemented DDS in OpenGL anyway?

Flipside

As far as I understand the sources the loading code for dds uses directx code or at least many directx structures and constants (ddsutils/ddsutils.cpp should be the right file). These means no problem under windows (directx is available) but under linux there are no directx headers or libs which makes it very complicated if not nearly impossible to port it to linux.

One idea: perhaps the directx code can automatically convert the images (tga/jpg) the first time they are loaded. This way all mods could be distributed with linux-compatible files (and the windows-version could use dds-files).

[karajorma]

That's what I said. But there's no need to have FS2 generate the files. Just complain at mod authors who don't distribute them

[Carl]

what? no, each Fred mission will have it's own environment map, not each ship.