[Bobboau]

Dynamic AO is very cpu intensive, and baked AO takes no processing time.  Plus, that's only one example, I'm sure there's a few more the unwrapping supporters know of.

vertex colors could be used to approximate it.

a lot of the anti-tile rhetoric I've seen over the last few years is starting to smell like golden hammer]

[Dragon]

You cannot easly reskin an UVMapped ship though.

Yes you can if you know what your doing. How else to you think all the FPS mods "reskin" models sure isn't with tiled textures.  If you can create a tileable texture you can skin/paint a UV mapped anything. Baked AO is then really simple to add.

I know, but I meant easy retexturing, which can be done using only PCS2.
UVMapped ships can be retextured, but it takes much more time and is more difficult to do than just swapping the textures in PCS2.
Also, most of Hi-res textures from mediavps are in .DDS, which makes them not very handy for editing.

[Raven2001]

Dynamic AO is very cpu intensive, and baked AO takes no processing time.  Plus, that's only one example, I'm sure there's a few more the unwrapping supporters know of.

That's the thing, I'm not a "supporter" of either, and honestly I think "supporting" one or the other is at least foolhardy. I recognize (or try to) each strengths and weaknesses, and try to come up with solutions with what is given to me, and with the knowledge I have (that isn't much in terms of coding stuff, but is quite a lot in terms of art for games and movies).

For instance, on the case of the Colossus, I have no doubt that the best approach would be the hybrid one (tiles and UVmaps). a big ship like that needs as much repetition (best achieved with tiles, probably even from a memory standpoint, if well done) as it needs unique areas in terms of texture. Also, in such a big ship, many of the recesses\corners don't need visible AO due to relations of scale.

[chief1983]

I haven't seen a tilemapped ship in FSO that looks as good as a pretty good unwrapped ship, not to mention the amazing unwrapped ships.

[Raven2001]

Rakshasa, Mentu, Aten... Perhaps you can't see past their low poly count, and see the value in a good tiling job, but I do

[Commander Zane]

The Aten's been HTL'ed for a while.

[Raven2001]

I know, was refering to the vanilla one, for argument's sake

[Galemp]

Which has... two tiled textures, and the rest on a UV.

[Raven2001]

Which proves my point, a hybrid isn't a bad approach

[chief1983]

That may be it then, like I said they don't look as good as any of the better fully unwrapped ships out there.

[Water]

vertex colors could be used to approximate it.

a lot of the anti-tile rhetoric I've seen over the last few years is starting to smell like golden hammer]

I agree, vertex colouring can work well. Used it in a walk through with a large amount of structural steel. 48k worth of tri. Used tiled textures in other parts because I could use a second uv channel texture for lighting.

It's not that tiled textures are bad. It's really all about lighting.  A large tiled ship can look ok from a distance but up close it's just a bunch of polys on screen with no depth. Add in AO lighting and it's like a first person shooter, you can fly over a cap ship like a landscape. The difference isn't small.

[Commander Zane]

Which proves my point, a hybrid isn't a bad approach

Haven't your recent posts only been about tiled textures though?

[General Battuta]

Which proves my point, a hybrid isn't a bad approach

Haven't your recent posts only been about tiled textures though?

No. Reread his posts.

[Commander Zane]

Eh they're all about hybrid posts with a supportive defense to tiled ships.

[General Battuta]

Better!

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm a fan of hybrid all the way. To be honest as long as UV space and texture detailing are as efficient as possible. A destroyer could theoretically be textured with one 1024 base texture.

[Dragon]

Also, an UVMap would have to be gargantuan to look good on a 6Km ship.
Hybrid may be a way to go, because with less area to place UVMap on, it would allow it to have lower resolution.
Tilemaps will do the work on large, flat surfaces, where no special effects are needed.

[Colonol Dekker]

[Raven2001]

That may be it then, like I said they don't look as good as any of the better fully unwrapped ships out there.

Then all that blurriness when I get up close must be my eyes playing tricks on me...

Also, an UVMap would have to be gargantuan to look good on a 6Km ship.
Hybrid may be a way to go, because with less area to place UVMap on, it would allow it to have lower resolution.
Tilemaps will do the work on large, flat surfaces, where no special effects are needed.

Ditto.

It's not that tiled textures are bad. It's really all about lighting.  A large tiled ship can look ok from a distance but up close it's just a bunch of polys on screen with no depth. Add in AO lighting and it's like a first person shooter, you can fly over a cap ship like a landscape. The difference isn't small.

Yeah the problem is lightning most of the time. However, form also comes into equation. And I know that at least the lightning issues can be solved via coding, sooner or later (real-time AO, projected shadows, that vertex color solution).

Anything bigger than a corvette would either need to have multiple UVmapped textures, or have the texture's res upped dramatically, in order to hold up at close range.

And then of course there's the matter of "context" to consider. Perhaps things can be made in such a way in that you re-utilize the same tiles in most ships (obviously each ship would have its unique UV textures as well, but instead of each ship having for instance 2 UVmapped big textures, it would have only 1+1 or 2 tiles), making the game run smoother when there's multiple ships in mission.

Haven't your recent posts only been about tiled textures though?

For anyone else who may be having compreension or reading problems, I'll repeat:
Again, I'm not a supporter of any approach. I see the value, strengths and weaknesses on both of them, and try to use them accordingly...

[Galemp]

I'd like to point out three high-poly capital ships: the Hecate uses tile maps, the Ravana uses a hybrid of tiles and UVs, and the new Hatshepsut uses UVs only.

Which looks best?