[Sticks]

Currently, having 24bit specmaps and glowmaps, is one of the major problems that is causing some of you to get stuttering, low mem warnings, some crashes, etc. So my question to you is, would you be willing to sacrifice 24bit specs and glows (and replace them with 8bit versions) to gain a smaller memory footprint?

[Goober5000]

I vote gameplay over graphics any day.

[taylor]

DDS textures, while at 32 or 24-bit, use approximately the same amount of memory as an 8-bit texture of the same dimensions.  I'm already testing a full DDS conversion at load time for all graphics which gives you about the same 32-bit quality but only using the 8-bits worth of memory.  Going back to 8-bit versions of that stuff isn't really going help in that case, especially since nearly all of the current 8-bit graphics are loaded as 16-bit for blending reasons.

[Taristin]

Spec maps need the extra for the alpha channel, don't they?

Glow maps can remain 8-bit, no problem there, but the spec maps, because of the lpha environment layer, and because they look better, should remain.

DDS is good, too, but not for everything, as Lightspeed pointed out some time ago.

[kasperl]

You're saying that if there's a way to get the env map out of the specmap, you can reduce that to 8 bit?

[Sticks]

Originally posted by Raa
Spec maps need the extra for the alpha channel, don't they?

Glow maps can remain 8-bit, no problem there, but the spec maps, because of the lpha environment layer, and because they look better, should remain.

DDS is good, too, but not for everything, as Lightspeed pointed out some time ago.

I don't care much for DDS because some cards have quality issues when it comes to compressed textures, especially early GeForce cards. In all honesty, I think if I showed you a ship with a 24bit specmap vs. and 8bit specmap, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference because of the way the technique works. The only thing you'd lose are the cockpits with differently colored shines and other details using that trick.

If everything went to 8bit, you could fit 4 different textures into one 32bit file. Spec, glow, enviro, and bump.

[Taristin]

But how would you acheive environment mapping control?

[Col. Fishguts]

DDS get's my vote, they've sped up TBP quite a lot.

Shinemaps are fine in 8bit, but some glowmaps need 24bit for smooth gradients (light cones and stuff)

[Bobboau]

limiting artist's options is bad.

[Taristin]

Yes. I'd ***** like all hell if you removed my option to use tga.  Remove that, and you lose this modeler.

If performance is an issue, it should be up to the end user to decide wether or not they want to use TGA or not. And should not be forced upon everyone.

[Nuke]

Originally posted by Bobboau
limiting artist's options is bad.

silence!
the ever wise one speaks!


hows that materialls system comming along? it should improve our options greatly. and what ever happened to the most recent test build, i have a machine that can actually run it now so i can see what it can do and establish some usage doctrine.

[Bobboau]

yes, it should, too bad I'm forbidden from working on it untill after we release, I was right in the middle of something realy complecated too

and if you want that materials build I posted a while back, it's here
keep in mind the table format is still quite subject to massive changes and shouldn't be consitered complete untill an offical release with it integrated. I know for a fact I intend to completely change the way textures are assigned.

[Mongoose]

I'd want to see side-by-side comparisons first, but I'd be inclined to say no.  I can pick out quality differences in the interface art when I'm not using -pcx32, so I'd guess that I'd notice lower-quality textures.  The most recent builds seem to be getting much more stable and efficient for me, at least.  As I said to someone in another forum when discussing the SCP, the gameplay's already perfect, so prettier graphics is all I really need.  My video card (Radeon X300) needs to be upgraded anyway.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Mongoose
I'd want to see side-by-side comparisons first,

http://penguinbomb.com/lightspeed/TGADDS.html

[WMCoolmon]

The solution is for people to make 8-bit versions if it's really a big problem.

Honestly, no one is threatening lawsuits if you use VPView to extract the textures from the mediaVPs, IrfanView to convert them to 8-bit versions, or using DXTBmp to compress them to DDS versions. If you have the hardware to support it I see no reason to force people to use lower-quality graphics...I have to say I've actually been spoiled by fs2_open, because at times I'll find myself looking at a wall or something in Half-life and reflecting on how bad/compressed it looks compared to s2_open.

[starfox]

Shine, - and Specmaps shoud remain as they are. It should be upon the end user to decide what goodies are enabled ingame, launcher serves that purpose. Also, we must remember the heavy work and endless hours that are comitted into these features.

So in my opinion, I am willing to sacrifice some fsp and see the Freespace 2 at its finest.

[Nuke]

freespace's life has been greatly extended, its pretty much on par with the games on the market today. computers are about 5-10 times faster. cpus have increased clock speed 5 times over, 64 bit has become common (is there support for this yet?), busses are 5 times faster. memory is faster aand has higher capacity, htl as greatly increased games speed. freespace is certainly keeping up with the technology. cutting resolutions or going back to 8 bit seems like a step back. im now comfy using 2048^2 and bigger maps.

compressed textures are good for high res maps, its resolution that makes the texture, not the absence of compression artifacts., compression allows for us to increase map size without sacrificing performance. at such a high res artifacts are negligable but eliminating them means you need to use a texture 4 times smaller to get the same performance. i choose the bigger texture.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Bobboau
yes, it should, too bad I'm forbidden from working on it untill after we release, I was right in the middle of something realy complecated too

Instead of complaining that you can't work on your materials stuff, why not take the time and do some debugging instead?  That's the whole reason for the code freeze after all.

If you're going to code for the SCP, you have a responsibility to fix bugs too.

[Bobboau]

I haven't had the time to do much of anything, the guy who was helping me at work quit after memorial day, so rather than getting more time after that I ended up with less. and they made me come in earlier.

[Flaser]

Actually I have an important bit of info about specmaps:

Almost *NONE* of the current specmaps use the true potential of the engine!

The engine would be capable of showing rough, smooth, glassy, gloss and another myriad of surfaces.
(This could all be done by applying textures with different noise levels and distribution.)
The engine would be capable of showing true metalic stuff - giving different shine colors to the material than what is the diffuse base color.
(The only model that took a real advantage of this was the Shivan gas miner and I saw a pic of an Arcadia with a blue glint.)

Roughly ~85% of the shinemaps are nothing more than the base map with darkened/highlighted parts.
For a matte/initial conversion job that was very good.
However it's still far from what *CAN* be done with the system.

So before removing features, pls. check if anyone was aware they existed!