As Shine2.0 is not to be finished within a reasonable amount of time (and DaB and Turambar are pretty much inactive ATM) i've decided to post-pone Shine2.0's original aim for now (hi-res versions for all FS2 textures) and work on a down-stripped version, Shine1.5. The only difference will be that it does NOT base the shine/env/glow maps on an improved high-res base texture, but pretty much the retail base texture (with some minor exceptions). This, of course, greatly speeds up progress. Of course, already finished Shine2.0 high res maps will be included in Shine1.5, as well as any high-res maps from DaBrain or someone else that are released will be included and mapped.
Also, there's been some changes to the concept:
- There will be ONE development build instead of thousands of individual files
- The base and shine textures will come in DDS format. While the format is unsuitable for backgrounds and effects, it looks okay with textures (specifically on the high-res ones) and provides a significant speed-up compared to using TGAs or PCXes - not to mention offers smaller download sizes ;)
- Included with the zip will be STATIC glowmaps (from the improved ANIs), as the ANI glowmaps are known to cause some slowdown.
- There will be additional downloads for the animated glowmaps coming in two flavours: A performance optimized version (recommended - this is not low-res, just reasonable) as well as a high-res version (which may cause the most horrific of slow-downs). Myself, I use the performance optimized version, and it's hard to see a difference, normally (unless you're VERY close up). The high-res version is mainly for developers that want high-res versions for renders, or to create own textures out of them.
- Included with the Texture development build, you'll find a version history showing what was newly added, what was updated, and in which build this was the case.
- Includes a readme with a little FAQ and some general explanations, as well as an explanation for the build naming scheme
To get this working properly
you will have to remove any previous versions of shine2.0 as the TGA / ANI files would take precedence over the included DDS files. Note that at the time being this is by no means complete yet, so using the "alpha-env" command line will still look messy on quite a few textures in-game.
Download link for the textures: Shine LT-Build20.0 Download links for the animated glowmaps:Glow LTL-build12.0 High-res developer set:
Glow LTH-build12.0.zip (NOT INTENDED FOR INGAME USE - slowdown is guaranteed) Download links and news can also be found in the WIP area on Milliways.Same issue as always: Comments, bug reports, screenies, and questions welcome and needed (in this thread).
This thread will be updated with a new dev build every FRIDAY