[RandomTiger]

Hello. I'm a coder working on the FS2 DX8 upgrade.
I havent done any research into what Im going to say so sorry if Im wasting your time.

The default FS2 texture size seems to be 256 x 256.

Would anyone or a small group we willing to work on a complete pack of textures to replace the FS2 and FS1 object textures in 512 x 512?

This would let those of us with good enough graphics cards to play the game at a much higher visual quallity and help to keep freespace from looking dated and becoming a dead game.

Obviously such a pack would need to be of a good enough quality and look and feel like Volition had done it. One idea I had is that one person could have a race to themself to keep it feeling consisant between differenent ships of a race but different between races. I would expect anyone doing this to use the current textures scaled up as a template for the exact location of features and colour.

If I recieve enough interest in this I will look into the code side of this. WHat do you think?

P.S. We should use nice 32 bit colour maps as well.

[wEvil]

32bit! yippeee!

Welll..redoing those textures is actually quite hard, i think Venom and Aldo in particular have done of work on this kind of stuff though.

Anyone?

[RandomTiger]

Originally posted by wEvil
redoing those textures is actually quite hard

I dont doubt that for one moment.
The DX8 upgrade is actually quite hard.
Doesnt stop me.

EDIT: Perhaps Venom and Aldo could get in contact with me and tell me how its going.

Although DX8 FS2 is still a fair bit off completion perhaps if I put in some work into povView they could view their textures on the models in that. I assume theres no other way to view a freespace model with a 32-bit texture asside from in a Pro 3D package?

[wEvil]

you really need a pro 3D package to be able to skin everything properly anyway - I wouldnt put too much effort into ancilliary projects until the engines pegged down fully.

[Nico]

I'm nowhere near as good as V for doing maps...
But FS1 maps are more or less covered, the maps in the FS1 archives are much larger than the ones you have in FS2 ( no, it's not only with the DVD, the normal version has that too ).
I already have difficulties doing my own maps, I'm sorry but I can't help with that.

[RandomTiger]

It may look different to the Pro 3D package than it does in game.
Also I have other reasons to want to update povView to DX8, could putin bump mapping and see what that looks like. With that as a tool by the time FS2 DX8 is ready all the art could be ready and tested.

[wEvil]

since V used 3dsmax to create the game models i'd be worried if it looked too different.

We really need to know exactly how volition did those textures, if we use the same process they'll look similar.  If we have to develop our own, of course they'll look different

[RandomTiger]

Originally posted by wEvil
since V used 3dsmax to create the game models i'd be worried if it looked too different.

We really need to know exactly how volition did those textures, if we use the same process they'll look similar.  If we have to develop our own, of course they'll look different

Max isnt writen in DX (i assume) so it will look a bit different, no matter what. Hopefully not that different but you may but surprised if your not expecting any problems.

Im sure if someone worked on them hard enough they could get it looking right, it would just take a lot of comparing. Ulitimately it will look different because the artist will have to make a creative discission on what the extra detail on the texture is actually going to look like.

Probably the best test is (assuming we use auto mipmapping creation for lower levels) how much do the new textures look like the old ones when the model is further away?

[Nico]

max viewports are rendered either with discreet software, either with OGL, either with DX, so it should look the same ( it des look the same anyway, i've made enough ships to be able to compare )

[RandomTiger]

I stand corrected.

[vyper]

Did ever release thier high-detail models? (ones they would've used for the videos?)

[RandomTiger]

venom2506 has just informed me about large textures in the FS1 vp files. They are indeed there. Only for some ships it seems, the ones used in the movies. Still, could be useful.

Does anyone have connections with V that could beg for a hi res texture release?

Wow, now Im really consfused. I just looked inside the FS2 data\map dirs and theres some hi res stuff there as well!

We could do with someone to catalog all this stuff so we know what we've got and what we've not!

[Stealth]

sounds good... i'm willing to help if i can

[RandomTiger]

Making textures or cataloguing?

[Stealth]

Originally posted by RandomTiger
Making textures or cataloguing?

i'm not too good at rendering or anyting, and i've never tried texturing, but i could do something else.  Cataloguing?  exactly what does that involve, also, where, and in what VP file are the high-res textures/models found?

Thanks
~Stealth~

[RandomTiger]

Check your mail

[vyper]

Meh, they're not all hi-res for ships used in videos - 'cos Riviera (sp?)  station in Ross 128 is Arcadia and the textures are standard size.  Oh well...

[Carl]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,9898.0.html

[Anaz]

or if you wanted it to look how it would look in game you could use the TS little bitty function of using APIs to look at the model as you work on it...

[Sesquipedalian]

I was able to use textures up to 512*512 even before doing the registry hack.  Of course, that doesn't mean they weren't being bashed down to 256*256 by FS2 when loaded, but...