[Admiral Nelson]

Sorry for asking what must be a dumb question,  but where does FRED look to find textures used in the texture replacement feature.  If I specify the name of a texture included in one of the Media vps, it hasn't any issue.  If I specify the name of a texture in data/maps, it gives me a message 'FRED could not find texture xxxx.'  What am I doing wrong???

[WMCoolmon]

Make sure you're running with the right -mod parameter in FRED.

[Admiral Nelson]

Well, now I think it actually didn't like the file format of the nameplate I used.  I substituted a stock nameplate from the collection linked to by the Oracle and got FRED to accept it.  However, the nameplate doesn't show up in mission, though I see the entry
$Texture Replace:
+old: capital01-05a
+new: agamemnon

when opening the mission file in Textpad.

[StratComm]

I'm guessing you were trying to use 24-bit PCX.  There's something fishy with texture replacement right now, though I'm not exactly sure what.

[Admiral Nelson]

Yep, you are right.  Still even the ancient 8 bit PCX files from the standard pack don't seem to replace, either.

[StratComm]

Trashman complained of the same thing not that long ago, actually.  Have you tried both forms of texture replacement?

[Admiral Nelson]

Well, what do you know? Using
$Duplicate Model Texture Replace:
+old: capital01-05a
+new: gtdcarthage

it works just fine, even with my homebrew file.  The other form didn't work at all.




As you see, I'm trying to find ways to do something useful with my presently limited skill set.

[StratComm]

Needs.... more.... light.....

But I'm glad you got the replacement working, it makes using nameplates useless otherwise.

[Admiral Nelson]

Is there a reason why there would be a color shift of the Fenris nameplate from the dark side to the lighted side?  My Orion nameplates do not display this behavior.  The stock supplied GTC Orff nameplate does this too.

[StratComm]

No shinemap.  This is why I encourage using an alpha channel, so that you don't have to worry about the shinemap lining up.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Admiral Nelson
Well, what do you know? Using $Duplicate Model Texture Replace it works just fine

Yeah, the original way is still broken (must be ages now).  I still need to get it fixed.

[Admiral Nelson]

Next stupid question, sorry...

I've tried adding an alpha channel (using photoshop elements) and just ended up ruining the transparency.  Do I need to create a GTC_Orff-shine.pcx file to go along with these?  Or do I need individual named shinemaps for each nameplate?  Finally what is the advantage to using a fully transparent map such as this one, where the Orion and hi poly Faustus, for instance, have chunks of the actual hull as part of the nameplate.

Thanks!

[Vasudan Admiral]

Oh dear, big smoothing errors in the fenris rear there, not to mention that the map is being weird with the lights. Are you certain that's the fenris in the latest VP's? I was _sure_ I'd fixed the latter prob. :\

*checks*
Oh no, WMC stuck in the wrong glowmap - that's not the one I supplied with the HTL pack.

Well, that's another thing for me to fix with the next batch I guess, along with sorting out nameplates (they were supposed to use a map named "nameplate", not "GTC_Orff") and the rest. :\

Anyway, to get alpha-transparency, you should save the nameplate as a .dds file or tga. 8 bit PCX doesn't have a transparency AFAIK.

[Admiral Nelson]

Well, I can't seem to get good results with the transpartent nameplates.  The non transparent type seems to be okay:



Is inclusion of the alpha channel itself enough to govern the shine, or am I misunderstanding what needs to get done?

[StratComm]

Ok, number one, if you're intending to use alpha maps (tga/dds) for nameplates, you have to stop using pure green for the invisible channel.  Instead, set the regions you don't want to display to 0% alpha (fully transparent).  The only real advantage of alpha-channel transparency is that it isn't on or off; you can set the nameplate itself to be partially transparent and to show the texture underneath through.  Because the plates below will shine through the nameplate in this case, you get the shine taken care of for free as well.  Otherwise, you need to create a shinemap for the nameplate.

[Admiral Nelson]

OKay I've got all the transparency stuff figured out. As you see, the hull plates do shine through.  WhatI still don't understand is why if the color originally used for the text is pure white(Red 100%, Blue 100%, Green 100%, Alpha 75%),  why does this appear grey?



(Yes I know that RAMPART isn't a destroyer, I fat fingered the text box )

[Vasudan Admiral]

Does it appear pure-white if you set the alpha to 100% as well?

[Admiral Nelson]

If you look back up a few posts,  it was appearing whitish on the dark side, and greyish on the lighted side, evidently due to no shinemap.  I ended up converting your GTD_Off.pcx to TGA, typing the white text on a transparent background, then adjusting the text alpha to 75%.

[Vasudan Admiral]

That's what I mean - "the text is pure white(Red 100%, Blue 100%, Green 100%, Alpha 75%) why does this appear grey?" - I'm thinking it appears grey because of the 75% you used as the alpha - the way to test it is to see if giving the text 100% alpha results in pure-white text.

[StratComm]

It doesn't.  It's doing that because it's defaulting to no-shine, while the hull underneath is getting shinemapped to a brighter level.  Try turning off spec and see if it still does that.