[Spicious]

In PCS2, Header tab, there's a section called "Cross Sections". The original Knossos has 25 of them. What is that, does it actually do something?

According to a comment in the code they affect explosions of big ships.

[peterv]

ingame shot:

[Galemp]

SCREENSHOTS.

[Kolgena]

Light settings?

It looks like there's no normal/shine map above >.>


As for maps, we don't actually need the ao one, right?

And moar screens, this time with the better normal/shines. (I did remove the AO map though, since that seemed to already be on the diffuse). There's a lot of sparkle going on though. Wonder if the normal map should be made a little less noisy? That, and I'd like to ask some kind soul to take the maps and make them .dds. I don't think I have software that does that, and the 55 fps should ideally be closer to the 100 mark.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[FreeSpaceFreak]

No, you don't need the AO map, just the four you're used to. I included the AO bake in case people want to play around with the texture.

The sparkle on the normal map... dunno, it was just copied over from the MVP maps. It might look better when you scale down the normal map.

In PCS2, Header tab, there's a section called "Cross Sections". The original Knossos has 25 of them. What is that, does it actually do something?

According to a comment in the code they affect explosions of big ships.

Damn, so they do have a use? Will I have to copy all 25 of them manually now?

[Spicious]

Importing the header from the original one in PCS2 should work.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

You mean, like, go to the header, press "Load", select the retail model? Doesn't work with me...

Using the November 30 version of PCS2, and I don't know if this is related, but I also get an error warning each time I start it up.

Code: [Select]

file '', line 52: '=' expected.


[rscaper1070]

Here are the textures scaled down to 1024. http://www.mediafire.com/file/789v81yhs77hg89/smallerKnos.rar



When I tried to convert to dds I got larger file sizes. These work reasonably well though. Great model, thanks.

[Spicious]

You mean, like, go to the header, press "Load", select the retail model? Doesn't work with me...

Try a new build.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Try a new build.

Ah, that's better. Still getting the startup error, but meh.

So, let's try this again.

Plug & Play pack (7MB) - contains game-ready POF and diffuse, glow, shine and normal map at 2048^2 resolution DDS.
Map pack (68.5MB) - contains all possible maps in 4096^2 resolution PNG.

Enjoy!

[Kolgena]

Awesome! Thanks for the .dds

(I'm curious though, the glow map is 5.33 megs in dds, but 192kb in png. Will the png or the dds get more performance?)

[The E]

dds. Textures are always more efficient in dds.

[MatthTheGeek]

DDS is larger mainly because of mipmaps, which are also one of the primary reason of their efficiency.

[Kolgena]

I'm going to venture a guess that the dds might also be closer to what's stored on VRAM, and that png would have to be uncompressed onto VRAM anyways?

[Galemp]

I'd like to see better normal maps... I have never liked the ones that are just grooved without any additional depth.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I'm going to venture a guess that the dds might also be closer to what's stored on VRAM, and that png would have to be uncompressed onto VRAM anyways?

Exactly. DDS files can be used right away by the graphics card (even in their compressed form, all other images are uncompressed before use and hence take more space on the VRAM than a compressed DDS would.
(Note that there's also uncompressed DDS, which mainly has benefits in having mipmaps and faster loading, because it doesn't need to be decoded). The DDS files I provided are DXT3-compressed for diffuse and glow (no alpha channel needed, but DXT1 is very lossy) and DXT5 for shine and normal (full 8-bit alpha channel).
So, in short, DDS should be used for pretty much anything in-mission.

I'd like to see better normal maps... I have never liked the ones that are just grooved without any additional depth.

Additional depth? What depth is there beyond the grooves?

[Galemp]

I mean a normal map that actually has curves and texture to it, created from a greyscale bumpmap instead of just a black-and-white one.

[Kolgena]

So that that the surface will be lobed plating resembling adipose tissue?

eh. I kinda like the sharp grooves that are here now.

[pecenipicek]

So that that the surface will be lobed plating resembling adipose tissue?

eh. I kinda like the sharp grooves that are here now.

which would be sorta frickin awesome?

[-Sara-]

Awesome, I contemplated making one. No need to now. Will be great to replace the old Knossos.