<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 05:27 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 05:27 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Sure, but the lower the original texture, the further away it is from the desired output, and the less accurate the output will be... Already I can see difference between the actual and simulated high-res textures. Not big enough to matter, just some of the finer details are a bit darker, but noticeable.
Also, keep in mind, by reducing the resolution of the base textures so much, we're compromising texture quality on lower-end cards, while raising the bar for what you need to turn them on. And I doubt Half-Life has good video memory management. Does it even support AGP texture swapping?
Also, we have yet to see the speed impact of applying a different detailed texture to every texture in a level, that'll come further down the line when (if?) I get copies of the original NS textures. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> First off... a quick note about AGP texturing... that does <b>nothing at all</b> if you have enough video ram to hold all the textures in memory. Turning off AGP support only impacts the time it takes to load a texture onto the video card, not the cards inherent video processing abilities, assuming the video card has enough memory to hold all the textures.
Yes, I'll say it a third time. AGP doesn't matter if you have enough video memory to hold everything. Just like having 2GB or 16MB of swap space doesn't matter if you have enough RAM to hold everything there instead.
Second, if you just want to test the speed impact of 'detail' textures, apply a (127,127,127)/(128,128,128)-checkerboard pattern all over the entire level, so you'll effectively leave all the textures completely unchanged, but will still have the processing time and see if (and to what degree) there is a speed hit.
Third, if you're noticing more darkening if you start from a lower-resolution texture... um... that's odd. I saw no such 'cummulative' darkening effect. Make sure you're calculating the textures accurately. If you can, calculate the upscale and divide operations in 48bpp mode, I.E. 16-bit per channel. If you're using ImageMagick, that should be a supported option, albeit somewhat buried. You might just be running across a darkening effect because of the precision your math is being carried out at.
In any case, nice work so far, and I look forward to seeing how things work in a full NS level, and also how things work at higher scaling factors.
As for why I want to see higher scaling factors, it's because I'd assume the current textures would still be used in either case, but the 'detail textures' could be used to massively improve the visual quality for newer cards.
Right now, the only cards that support 'detail textures' have anywhere from 64MB to 256MB of texture memory, and all of them support high-quality texture compression, effectively quadrupling that memory.
So, why only use 16MB of that 64MB-256MB video-card memory, if we can successfully use far more of it? Sure, we might still lose incredibly fine details, but it could easilly improve the visual quality of existing NS levels (which often have 64x64 and 128x128 textures to conserve texture usage) far more to quadruple the texture resolution than to (merely) double it.
Yes, doubling it is still a tremendous improvement though. :-)
KungFuSquirrelBasher of MuttonsJoin Date: 2002-01-26Member: 103Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
256x256 to 512x512 is quadrupling the resolution, not doubling it. You have 4 pixels for every one you had before. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> </technicality>
Actually, the detailed textures are more than 4x the size, since we're going from 8-bit to 24-bit. These detailed textures are 12x the size of a texture with half the horizontal and vertical resolutions.
WolfWings, I don't think the darkening is due to precision. those detaileds I'm talking about were completely erased in the low-res version, so it's having to recreate them entirely in the detailed texture.There's too big a difference between the low-res and high res, so it can't get the colours back to exactly the same. it's most noticeable in those dark mini-pipes right around the center of the texture. They're a bit brighter in the original. I don't think that has anything to do with the precision of the calculations though, as you said, some stuff is too different to recreate perfectly. It doesn't matter though, the overall effect still looks very nice:)
Look at the hi-res and simulated images on the screenshot page to see what I'm talking about.
Still no reply from Cory Strader. I'm beginning to wonder if he still uses the email address. I'm tempted to email flayra to see if he can contact him, or if Flayra has the original textures.
EDIT: I mentionend AGP textureing support because you're talking about using 256MB of detailed textures when cards supporting this can probably be found at 32MB and up (Radeon 7000 supports it). That's a lot of swapping, even with texture compression. Which I don't think HL uses by default.
Ah, but we must account for all in discussing the almighty megabyte <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
4MB normal textures(max allowed by NS sys requirements for official maps) * 1.35(mipmaps)
(4 MB * 4 times more pixels * 3 times as high colour precision)(detail textures) * ~1.35(mipmaps) ---------------------------------- = 70 MB texture memory
Did I miss anything? Are 24 Bit textures stored as 24 bit in the video card or does it change to 32 bit for speed reasons?
Errm, bit early for that. I'm still waiting for a reply to my email about getting a high res version of one of the textures, assuming I get a reply, and he has the high res textures, and he sends me the texture, and then I request all the textures, and he sends all the textures, and then Flayra sees this, and Flayra likes it, then MAYBE it could become official. But we've got a LOT of work to do before we have a complete set of high-res NS textures for in-game use.
All hinges on that email... If I don't get a reply by the end of today (I send the email the day before yesterday), then tommorow I'll email Flayra himself.
<!--QuoteBegin-KungFuSquirrel+Apr 20 2004, 06:36 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuSquirrel @ Apr 20 2004, 06:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 256x256 to 512x512 is quadrupling the resolution, not doubling it. You have 4 pixels for every one you had before. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> </technicality> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Correct. But try to talk about septentupling (16x) a texture, and see how many people can still follow you. I was, as you probably guessed, referring to how much each axis would scale seperately with one term to cover both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-WolfWings+Apr 20 2004, 01:40 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (WolfWings @ Apr 20 2004, 01:40 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-KungFuSquirrel+Apr 20 2004, 06:36 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuSquirrel @ Apr 20 2004, 06:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 256x256 to 512x512 is quadrupling the resolution, not doubling it. You have 4 pixels for every one you had before. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> </technicality> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Correct. But try to talk about septentupling (16x) a texture, and see how many people can still follow you. I was, as you probably guessed, referring to how much each axis would scale seperately with one term to cover both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 2D plane. 16x'ing a texture would make it 256x as big <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Actually, the detailed textures are more than 4x the size, since we're going from 8-bit to 24-bit. These detailed textures are 12x the size of a texture with half the horizontal and vertical resolutions.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, they're not, generally. Most video cards are already 'promoting' them to 24-bit. So they're only 4x the pixel count at 2x2 the resolution. =^.^=
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->WolfWings, I don't think the darkening is due to precision. those detaileds I'm talking about were completely erased in the low-res version, so it's having to recreate them entirely in the detailed texture.There's too big a difference between the low-res and high res, so it can't get the colours back to exactly the same.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah, that would be entirely dependant on the downscaling algorithm you've selected to use. Try using Lanczos, Sinc, or Mitchell filters, in that order. They will do a better job retaining detail during the downsampling stage, and retain 'hints' of brighter colours generally, which in this case is a desirable attribute.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Still no reply from Cory Strader. I'm beginning to wonder if he still uses the email address. I'm tempted to email flayra to see if he can contact him, or if Flayra has the original textures.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do a quick test with flat-colour or medium-gray detail textures, just to see how much (if any) performance hit there is from using them over an entire level. =^.^=
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->EDIT: I mentionend AGP textureing support because you're talking about using 256MB of detailed textures when cards supporting this can probably be found at 32MB and up (Radeon 7000 supports it). That's a lot of swapping, even with texture compression. Which I don't think HL uses by default.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Texture compression is usually a video-card-override option, and is usually a fixed 4:1 compression in the most 'infamous' S3TC/DXT1 mode. The other modes are special-use, and find very little use because of that very fact. To be perfectly honest, aside from possibly fading out the detail-textures at a distance, they could enable detail-textures on anything from a Voodoo-1 onwards, as the blending mode they use has been available since the get-go, this trick just won't work without a 32-bit internal framebuffer, (un)fortunately.
And yes, the Radeon 7000 supports it. And even if it didn't, the end-user can 'turn down' the detail textures with, say, gl_max_size 256. :-)
<!--QuoteBegin-Umbraed Monkey+Apr 20 2004, 10:42 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Umbraed Monkey @ Apr 20 2004, 10:42 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-WolfWings+Apr 20 2004, 01:40 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (WolfWings @ Apr 20 2004, 01:40 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-KungFuSquirrel+Apr 20 2004, 06:36 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuSquirrel @ Apr 20 2004, 06:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 256x256 to 512x512 is quadrupling the resolution, not doubling it. You have 4 pixels for every one you had before. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> </technicality> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Correct. But try to talk about septentupling (16x) a texture, and see how many people can still follow you. I was, as you probably guessed, referring to how much each axis would scale seperately with one term to cover both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> 2D plane. 16x'ing a texture would make it 256x as big <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
...unless Im missing something.. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> No, a texture 4x4 as large would be septentupling the texture, as it makes the texture have 16x as many pixels. I have no illusion, desire, or intent to try to apply the 'detail texture' technique to upscale a 32x32 texture to 512x512.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Ah, that would be entirely dependant on the downscaling algorithm you've selected to use. Try using Lanczos, Sinc, or Mitchell filters, in that order. They will do a better job retaining detail during the downsampling stage, and retain 'hints' of brighter colours generally, which in this case is a desirable attribute.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, I only tried the two methods supported by photoshop, Bicubic and Bilinear (Bilinear maintained more sharpness downscaling so I used it)
Doesn't really matter though... since my plan is to get the original NS textures and do them, they're already downsampled. I'll worry about custom maps after that's done <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Do a quick test with flat-colour or medium-gray detail textures, just to see how much (if any) performance hit there is from using them over an entire level. =^.^=<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> For testing general detailed texture performance, I can just use SoylentGreen's texture packs, that replace many of the textures in a map. The performance hit is extremely minor. Of course it's not an ENTIRE level, but...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Texture compression is usually a video-card-override option, and is usually a fixed 4:1 compression in the most 'infamous' S3TC/DXT1 mode. The other modes are special-use, and find very little use because of that very fact. To be perfectly honest, aside from possibly fading out the detail-textures at a distance, they could enable detail-textures on anything from a Voodoo-1 onwards, as the blending mode they use has been available since the get-go, this trick just won't work without a 32-bit internal framebuffer, (un)fortunately.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> IIRC, nVidia cards used DXT1 compression by default, and RivaTuner had an option to force it to DXT3 compression (to fix DXT1's raping of the Quake 3 sky textures). ATI cards, I think, always used DXT3, or something other than DXT1. Also, the Voodoo 1 issue is moot, since Valve chose to implement detailed textures in such a way that only GeForce 3 era cards, with some exceptions, support them
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And yes, the Radeon 7000 supports it. And even if it didn't, the end-user can 'turn down' the detail textures with, say, gl_max_size 256. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> But if they did, then it would defeat the purpose of turning on 1:1 detailed textures in the first place, as they'd match the original texture size on most textures <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> It also has a wierd effect to apply a512x512 detailed texture, scaled down to 256x256, to a 256x256 texture in-game. Kind of just increases the contrast/saturation/sharpness. But again, if you're going to use detailed textures to increase texture size to 256x256 when Half-Life already supports that resolution...[B][/B]
I did some more work on my floor diamond map. <img src='http://www.llamalicious.com/images/diamondfloorforever.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /> <img src='http://www.llamalicious.com/images/diamondfloorforever2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
also, what is this texture on ns_tanith? It is in *desperate* need of some detail. Any detail.
off the top of my head i'm guessing it's either wall_green_floo or wall_green_flr2. There is a variable you can set in game where hl will tell you what texture you're looking at....but I don't remember what it is.
One of the impulses does it, but it's been overwritten in NS so you have to load the map in original half life and i haven't bothered with that.
Turns out the texture is lk_tread. It's 64 x 64 and if you look closely at it, it's supposed to have the bumps floor_diamond. I dunno what to apply to it. Right now i just have carved_degrade on mine but something else would probably be better. You have to use a small number for the amount of times it tiles, though, since it's so small.
<!--QuoteBegin-EGAMAN+Jul 25 2004, 05:49 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EGAMAN @ Jul 25 2004, 05:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> detail textures can be used in any game now(on steam...)u just to make a txt called MAPNAME_detail.txt
then add lines like
gfx\detail\wood.tga
stuff like that! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> yup, should look something like this.. teckwall09 detail/deipnophobia/cracks 10 10
but how i can look those textures names? (teckwall09) thing?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You could just load the map in standard Half-Life and use "impulse 107". That will give the name of the texture you're looking at. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's not working in NS beta4a <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo--> Maybe the impulse is different
Heh, sry bad english <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Thantos+Jul 27 2004, 05:01 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Thantos @ Jul 27 2004, 05:01 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-EGAMAN+Jul 25 2004, 05:49 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (EGAMAN @ Jul 25 2004, 05:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> detail textures can be used in any game now(on steam...)u just to make a txt called MAPNAME_detail.txt
then add lines like
gfx\detail\wood.tga
stuff like that! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> yup, should look something like this.. teckwall09 detail/deipnophobia/cracks 10 10
but how i can look those textures names? (teckwall09) thing?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You could just load the map in standard Half-Life and use "impulse 107". That will give the name of the texture you're looking at. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's not working in NS beta4a <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo--> Maybe the impulse is different
Heh, sry bad english <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Open the wad and look at the texture names. Try searching for "Wally".
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Open the wad and look at the texture names. Try searching for "Wally". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's a little complicate <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The impulse works, but before going into a map, pull the console and use both of these:
<!--QuoteBegin-Thantos+Jul 27 2004, 04:42 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Thantos @ Jul 27 2004, 04:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Open the wad and look at the texture names. Try searching for "Wally". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's a little complicate <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Hm? Do you mean it's complicated to search for the program, or is it complicated to look through the wad for the textures? Anyhow, try what Cutedge said first, if it still doesn't work, I guess you don't have much choice.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Hm? Do you mean it's complicated to search for the program <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Also, keep in mind, by reducing the resolution of the base textures so much, we're compromising texture quality on lower-end cards, while raising the bar for what you need to turn them on. And I doubt Half-Life has good video memory management. Does it even support AGP texture swapping?
Also, we have yet to see the speed impact of applying a different detailed texture to every texture in a level, that'll come further down the line when (if?) I get copies of the original NS textures. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
First off... a quick note about AGP texturing... that does <b>nothing at all</b> if you have enough video ram to hold all the textures in memory. Turning off AGP support only impacts the time it takes to load a texture onto the video card, not the cards inherent video processing abilities, assuming the video card has enough memory to hold all the textures.
Yes, I'll say it a third time. AGP doesn't matter if you have enough video memory to hold everything. Just like having 2GB or 16MB of swap space doesn't matter if you have enough RAM to hold everything there instead.
Second, if you just want to test the speed impact of 'detail' textures, apply a (127,127,127)/(128,128,128)-checkerboard pattern all over the entire level, so you'll effectively leave all the textures completely unchanged, but will still have the processing time and see if (and to what degree) there is a speed hit.
Third, if you're noticing more darkening if you start from a lower-resolution texture... um... that's odd. I saw no such 'cummulative' darkening effect. Make sure you're calculating the textures accurately. If you can, calculate the upscale and divide operations in 48bpp mode, I.E. 16-bit per channel. If you're using ImageMagick, that should be a supported option, albeit somewhat buried. You might just be running across a darkening effect because of the precision your math is being carried out at.
In any case, nice work so far, and I look forward to seeing how things work in a full NS level, and also how things work at higher scaling factors.
As for why I want to see higher scaling factors, it's because I'd assume the current textures would still be used in either case, but the 'detail textures' could be used to massively improve the visual quality for newer cards.
Right now, the only cards that support 'detail textures' have anywhere from 64MB to 256MB of texture memory, and all of them support high-quality texture compression, effectively quadrupling that memory.
So, why only use 16MB of that 64MB-256MB video-card memory, if we can successfully use far more of it? Sure, we might still lose incredibly fine details, but it could easilly improve the visual quality of existing NS levels (which often have 64x64 and 128x128 textures to conserve texture usage) far more to quadruple the texture resolution than to (merely) double it.
Yes, doubling it is still a tremendous improvement though. :-)
WolfWings, I don't think the darkening is due to precision. those detaileds I'm talking about were completely erased in the low-res version, so it's having to recreate them entirely in the detailed texture.There's too big a difference between the low-res and high res, so it can't get the colours back to exactly the same. it's most noticeable in those dark mini-pipes right around the center of the texture. They're a bit brighter in the original. I don't think that has anything to do with the precision of the calculations though, as you said, some stuff is too different to recreate perfectly. It doesn't matter though, the overall effect still looks very nice:)
Look at the hi-res and simulated images on the screenshot page to see what I'm talking about.
Still no reply from Cory Strader. I'm beginning to wonder if he still uses the email address. I'm tempted to email flayra to see if he can contact him, or if Flayra has the original textures.
EDIT: I mentionend AGP textureing support because you're talking about using 256MB of detailed textures when cards supporting this can probably be found at 32MB and up (Radeon 7000 supports it). That's a lot of swapping, even with texture compression. Which I don't think HL uses by default.
(4 MB * 4 times more pixels * 3 times as high colour precision)(detail textures) * ~1.35(mipmaps)
----------------------------------
= 70 MB texture memory
Did I miss anything? Are 24 Bit textures stored as 24 bit in the video card or does it change to 32 bit for speed reasons?
All hinges on that email... If I don't get a reply by the end of today (I send the email the day before yesterday), then tommorow I'll email Flayra himself.
Correct. But try to talk about septentupling (16x) a texture, and see how many people can still follow you. I was, as you probably guessed, referring to how much each axis would scale seperately with one term to cover both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Correct. But try to talk about septentupling (16x) a texture, and see how many people can still follow you. I was, as you probably guessed, referring to how much each axis would scale seperately with one term to cover both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
2D plane. 16x'ing a texture would make it 256x as big <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
...unless Im missing something..
Actually, they're not, generally. Most video cards are already 'promoting' them to 24-bit. So they're only 4x the pixel count at 2x2 the resolution. =^.^=
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->WolfWings, I don't think the darkening is due to precision. those detaileds I'm talking about were completely erased in the low-res version, so it's having to recreate them entirely in the detailed texture.There's too big a difference between the low-res and high res, so it can't get the colours back to exactly the same.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah, that would be entirely dependant on the downscaling algorithm you've selected to use. Try using Lanczos, Sinc, or Mitchell filters, in that order. They will do a better job retaining detail during the downsampling stage, and retain 'hints' of brighter colours generally, which in this case is a desirable attribute.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Still no reply from Cory Strader. I'm beginning to wonder if he still uses the email address. I'm tempted to email flayra to see if he can contact him, or if Flayra has the original textures.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do a quick test with flat-colour or medium-gray detail textures, just to see how much (if any) performance hit there is from using them over an entire level. =^.^=
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ Apr 20 2004, 07:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->EDIT: I mentionend AGP textureing support because you're talking about using 256MB of detailed textures when cards supporting this can probably be found at 32MB and up (Radeon 7000 supports it). That's a lot of swapping, even with texture compression. Which I don't think HL uses by default.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Texture compression is usually a video-card-override option, and is usually a fixed 4:1 compression in the most 'infamous' S3TC/DXT1 mode. The other modes are special-use, and find very little use because of that very fact. To be perfectly honest, aside from possibly fading out the detail-textures at a distance, they could enable detail-textures on anything from a Voodoo-1 onwards, as the blending mode they use has been available since the get-go, this trick just won't work without a 32-bit internal framebuffer, (un)fortunately.
And yes, the Radeon 7000 supports it. And even if it didn't, the end-user can 'turn down' the detail textures with, say, gl_max_size 256. :-)
Correct. But try to talk about septentupling (16x) a texture, and see how many people can still follow you. I was, as you probably guessed, referring to how much each axis would scale seperately with one term to cover both. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2D plane. 16x'ing a texture would make it 256x as big <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
...unless Im missing something.. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, a texture 4x4 as large would be septentupling the texture, as it makes the texture have 16x as many pixels. I have no illusion, desire, or intent to try to apply the 'detail texture' technique to upscale a 32x32 texture to 512x512.
I'm just not that crazy, honest. :-)
Actually, I only tried the two methods supported by photoshop, Bicubic and Bilinear (Bilinear maintained more sharpness downscaling so I used it)
Doesn't really matter though... since my plan is to get the original NS textures and do them, they're already downsampled. I'll worry about custom maps after that's done <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Do a quick test with flat-colour or medium-gray detail textures, just to see how much (if any) performance hit there is from using them over an entire level. =^.^=<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For testing general detailed texture performance, I can just use SoylentGreen's texture packs, that replace many of the textures in a map. The performance hit is extremely minor. Of course it's not an ENTIRE level, but...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Texture compression is usually a video-card-override option, and is usually a fixed 4:1 compression in the most 'infamous' S3TC/DXT1 mode. The other modes are special-use, and find very little use because of that very fact. To be perfectly honest, aside from possibly fading out the detail-textures at a distance, they could enable detail-textures on anything from a Voodoo-1 onwards, as the blending mode they use has been available since the get-go, this trick just won't work without a 32-bit internal framebuffer, (un)fortunately.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IIRC, nVidia cards used DXT1 compression by default, and RivaTuner had an option to force it to DXT3 compression (to fix DXT1's raping of the Quake 3 sky textures). ATI cards, I think, always used DXT3, or something other than DXT1. Also, the Voodoo 1 issue is moot, since Valve chose to implement detailed textures in such a way that only GeForce 3 era cards, with some exceptions, support them
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And yes, the Radeon 7000 supports it. And even if it didn't, the end-user can 'turn down' the detail textures with, say, gl_max_size 256. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But if they did, then it would defeat the purpose of turning on 1:1 detailed textures in the first place, as they'd match the original texture size on most textures <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> It also has a wierd effect to apply a512x512 detailed texture, scaled down to 256x256, to a 256x256 texture in-game. Kind of just increases the contrast/saturation/sharpness. But again, if you're going to use detailed textures to increase texture size to 256x256 when Half-Life already supports that resolution...[B][/B]
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=68706' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...=ST&f=4&t=68706</a>
Since we've gone off-topic from the original topic, and so we can update the first-post with URLs and such.
I did some more work on my floor diamond map.
<img src='http://www.llamalicious.com/images/diamondfloorforever.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://www.llamalicious.com/images/diamondfloorforever2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
also, what is this texture on ns_tanith? It is in *desperate* need of some detail. Any detail.
<img src='http://www.llamalicious.com/images/whatisthiscrap.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Turns out the texture is lk_tread. It's 64 x 64 and if you look closely at it, it's supposed to have the bumps floor_diamond. I dunno what to apply to it. Right now i just have carved_degrade on mine but something else would probably be better. You have to use a small number for the amount of times it tiles, though, since it's so small.
Ahh Floor Diamond, the ultimate nemisis. That does look better however. Good work.
MAPNAME_detail.txt
then add lines like
gfx\detail\wood.tga
stuff like that!
MAPNAME_detail.txt
then add lines like
gfx\detail\wood.tga
stuff like that! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
yup, should look something like this..
teckwall09 detail/deipnophobia/cracks 10 10
but how i can look those textures names?
(teckwall09) thing?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You could just load the map in standard Half-Life and use "impulse 107". That will give the name of the texture you're looking at. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's not working in NS beta4a <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Maybe the impulse is different
Heh, sry bad english <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
MAPNAME_detail.txt
then add lines like
gfx\detail\wood.tga
stuff like that! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yup, should look something like this..
teckwall09 detail/deipnophobia/cracks 10 10
but how i can look those textures names?
(teckwall09) thing?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You could just load the map in standard Half-Life and use "impulse 107". That will give the name of the texture you're looking at. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's not working in NS beta4a <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Maybe the impulse is different
Heh, sry bad english <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Open the wad and look at the texture names. Try searching for "Wally".
developer 1
sv_cheats 1
That's a little complicate <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The impulse works, but before going into a map, pull the console and use both of these:
developer 1
sv_cheats 1<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yup i try that and binded
bind "k" "impulse 107"
but didnt work
That's a little complicate <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm? Do you mean it's complicated to search for the program, or is it complicated to look through the wad for the textures? Anyhow, try what Cutedge said first, if it still doesn't work, I guess you don't have much choice.
wally