[takashi]

i see. tell more.

[Nuke]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,37158.0.html

read under "Inefficient use of technology"

[Bobboau]

besides, .pcx is nicer than .tga. less memory usage, but editable without need of conversion.

no, the only texture that will save you memory is the dds format you have chosen to shun because you assumed it couldn't be edited.
at least dds has a less destructive compression.
stop saying x is better than y, like you have some sort of justification when you have no idea.

here let me explain the subtle differences you could make in how you speak. in sted of:
".pcx is nicer than .tga. less memory usage, but editable without need of conversion."
you could pose it like this
"pcx seems better than dds because it looks like it's easier to edit. doesn't it use less memory too?"
to which someone would very infaticly tell you about the memory differences, and someone else would ask you what you meant about editability, to which you would tell them you didn't know how to to which they would direct you to a dds converter or plugin. do not presume to know, and for the love of god don't give out "advice" based on "random guesses".

now, TGA isn't a bad temporary format to use while in development, but when you get done with something EVERYTHING should be in dds. you should note, I am one of the people who made FSO, so this is how the engine expects things, tga ect are there for convenience, backwards compatibility, and those rare instances when compressed dds just doesn't do the job well enough.

[takashi]

like in d3d mode....

[Flipside]

Err... DDS stands for Direct Draw Surface iirc, which suggests to me it was designed for D3D more.

Hopefully Bob can confirm this, but you are more likely getting errors because D3D still needs some work before it's at OGL levels again, not because of the image format. Certainly, as far as I'm aware, OGL mode is strongly recommended for the SCP.

Edit : Your best bet is to give it a go under OGL and see if things work any better to be honest.

[FlareBaffled]

like in d3d mode....

Takashi.... please...take some SERIOUS advice.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT

You are making statements about how good or bad a format is that you cannot use. DDS is a common format, optimised for gaming use, and editable in just about any half-decent graphics program. There is a free plugin for Photoshop put up by Nvidia, and several free programs to convert or edit. Irfanview is a good choice for conversion. Your experience in these things is so patently limited you have made a complete fool of yourself several times in this thread stating things we all know aer not true. You are trading your uninformed opinion on texture formats with people who helped create and code FSO and who know exactly how the games rendering engine works and what it does with textures. DO NOT DO THIS. They know more than you. If you get your head out of the clouds and ask fo radvice, you might one-day learn enough to actually make statements on how things work... but right now you clearly know jack about texture formats.

Why would ANYONE recommend an 8 bit PCX file as the best choice unless you have a ZX81 for a computer. ( look it up in a history book... ) If your idea of making good glowmaps is to muck about with a stock texture a bit and lsap on -glow ....well....let's just say you won't ever get a decent result unless you actually put in a little bit more effort.

If you persist in making unfounded statements. I promise you know... I will hound your silly statements across every single FS Forum and flame you till your ears crisp. 

[Flipside]

Will people please show a little patience in here, the last thing we need is yet someone else scorching their way through the forums

Look, I know it can be frustrating when people make mistakes, especially ones that can be easily corrected with a little research, but the best thing we can do for now is to help Takashi get to grips with the whole modding thing where we can, this is a modding forum, if he's wrong, then tell him so, and correct him, but please, don't start declaring vendetta, it's hard enough work already, without making more for me

[karajorma]

i know very little about the engine and make random guesses.

Then ask.

You'll find that if you ask "Which is the best format for textures" people will answer you.

If you flat out state PCX is the best when you have no knowledge on the subject at all people will point out why you're wrong and be annoyed at you. The simple fact is that we expect newbies to be clueless about the engine. It's not at all surprising that they don't know everything about FS2 because it is new to them. So if you don't know something don't be ashamed to say "I don't know" No one will think less of you for not knowing everything.

What annoys people though is when you pretend like you do know things you haven't got a clue about. Especially when you get defensive about one silly mistake and compound with an even dumber statement designed to get you out of trouble. Don't do that. If you simply say you're wrong no one will complain. If you start telling people who designed the engine or who have worked with it for years that they are wrong and you are right you're going to put peoples backs up for no good reason.

[takashi]

which is the best format for glowmaps, and how do you apply a glowmap to a moddel that is already a .pof?

[Getter Robo G]

i know very little about the engine and make random guesses.

I find this more than a little scary cause it's like I'm (almost) looking in a fraking mirror...

Oh wait I know, the difference is that I don't accuse Devs of being wrong when I have no skills myself, make a vague reference to the possibility I MIGHT have been a volition employee "for all you know", and in short be a complete arse since almost day one spamming multiple threads.

On second thought that mirror is looking more cloudy (I hope!).


You would think by know a person would end their BS and learn how to deal with people on a Mod board instead of constantly butting heads, insulting those who try to give advice, and clearly is a case of wasted potential.  (I'd strangle you over the net to gain your "skills"... And then take a long shower.)

[EDIT!] I can't believe you just asked that... You already made a glowmap and posted the result in game yesterday? As long as a pof has a texture named "whatever" adding -glow to another copy will make it the glow map for THAT texture no matter how many pof's use that texture! Since you already achieved it, it should be OBVIOUS. you can use .pcx, jopg, tga, and dds (as long as appropriate options are chosen in launcher, I am still learning about NEW SCP modding myself, I am mainly a retail/DTP3.1/3.6.0 person)

Lastly I was just reminded: Why are you complaining about not knowing about DDS converters (which we just TOLD you about) when you just said "I would never use DDS" anyway?.... Sounds more than a little hippocritical to me.

[Flipside]

which is the best format for glowmaps, and how do you apply a glowmap to a moddel that is already a .pof?

The best format from the games point of view is .dds, since it is small compared to tga. It's best to use those where at all possible.

Adding a glowmap to a .pof that already exists is simply a question of making an image with the same name as the models main texture and adding -glow to the end of it, so you get...

TFighter1.dds
TFighter1-glow.dds

The non-black parts of the glow texture get 'added' to the main model texture.

[Bobboau]

Err... DDS stands for Direct Draw Surface iirc, which suggests to me it was designed for D3D more.

Hopefully Bob can confirm this, but you are more likely getting errors because D3D still needs some work before it's at OGL levels again, not because of the image format. Certainly, as far as I'm aware, OGL mode is strongly recommended for the SCP.

Edit : Your best bet is to give it a go under OGL and see if things work any better to be honest.

dds is a DX native format, D3D was the first graphics API to support compressed textures, so OGL just sort of absorbed it, it doesn't work any better in one API or the other cause they use the exact same hardware, it's probly the only place were both APIs work exactly the same.

[Bobboau]

which is the best format for glowmaps, and how do you apply a glowmap to a moddel that is already a .pof?

the best texture for glow maps as for all textures is generally dds.

the current workings of FSO (as of the last four years and into the foreseeable future) for glow and shine maps is you simply need a texture with the name name as the base texture with -glow added to the end. for example a ship who's main texture is filename.dds would have a glow map by the name filename-glow.dds and a shine map by the name of filename-shine.dds.

[RazorsKiss]

On the other hand - we're getting a whole lot of information in this thread.  Takashi will never use it, obviously, as he knows best, but it's *very* useful for quite a few people.

I noticed that quite a few of the threads Cobra was in ended up having a high signal to noise ratio, also.

Coincidence?  Probably not.

[takashi]

who says i wont use it?

how do you even make a shinemap? change the regular map to grayscale?

[Flipside]

A shinemap doesn't quite work like that, it well add a metallic effect of the colour you use, they work the same as Glow-maps as in Black means no effect, but if you, for example, use a strong red in the -shine map, then that part of the main texture will have a strong red-tinted metallic effect.



For example, with this shot, you can see that most of the model has a shine that is grey/blue, but the jet exhaust is a strong brass/gold colour. That was done by using the colours on both the colour map and the shine map.

[takashi]

can i see a shinemap so i know what it looks like?

[Flipside]

The one for the Ursa looks like (Big image btw)



You can see where the 'yellow' colouring on the jets comes in In all honesty, it could benefit from being half the size, but that's really down to personal taste

[Nuke]

i will say that dds is not a format to edit in. i do all my stuff directly in photoshop format and only save as dds when theyre done. tgas are useless to be cause they dont store all my layer and path info that psd does. if youre a 1 layer texturer go ahead and use tga, but i work in many layers, sometimes more than 100 of them.

as far as i know dds was designed for and as part of direct 3d. however the support for the format goes down to the hardware level so if you throw a dds into video memory regaurdless of what api you use, the video card will know what to do with it.

[Wanderer]

You should also notice that the alpha of the shine map controls the environmental reflections. Basically if you enable the 'use specular alpha for env mapping' then it will have effect in game. For example if you then leave it out game will use equally strong reflection all around the ship but by editing the alpha you can make certain parts of the ship reflect more and others less (like cockpit glass etc.). Basically unless you are really making the spec alpha for env mapping leave the texture without any alpha. As other wise you might get ships that wont reflect anything (having 0 alpha) or ships being seemingly made out of glass (by having 255 alpha).