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Texturing help?
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Texturing help? |
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Just can't stay away
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I have my ship now, well at least i have a model and its uv map layed out properly,
Textures: 1. What is the advisable size of the texture to be used? (I normally use 2048x2048, but thats for static renders or animation renders, not for games so i realize this might be too much for FL? but with some of the crazy stuff Ive seen in some of the mods out there like that starwars one, i still wonder. 2. How do i also do transparency? i only know that PNG has transparency as part of it? ![]() 3. What is the file type i need to use? (from the software package, i assume it needs some crazy conversion into another freelancer only file type? everything else seems to need this ![]() The model is small light fighter class, 1100 polys, it has lots of round surfaces so the count might be a little higher than i wanted, but.. again im not sure of the "norm" poly counts per ship. or if there is a maximum poly count or even a minimum?
Posted on: 2011/10/22 23:43
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Not too shy to talk
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1._ I recommend 512x512. Its the standar in vanilla, but you can use 1024x1024. Anything higher is kinda useless cause the graphs limitiations will blurry it all and the game is not done for such stuff.
2._ I dont know, maybe there is a thread about it somewhere in the starport. I've seen that the *.tga files are used for textures with transparency. 3._ The ones used are *.tga and *.dds. *.dds is recommended to keep a low file size. Im not sure about the poly limit but I think its fine.
Posted on: 2011/10/23 0:46
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for transparency you can use dds or tga. but tga is best for this type of texture. However if it is a glass texture i would recommend looking at the vanilla ships, as they do not use textures at all for glass, but procedural materials for glass.
other than that just to agree with fagu about the textures, 512x512 is recommended for best look and performance. however you can go up to 1024x1024. --- 1100 poly's, now is that four or more point based polygons? or is that tripled geometry? of that is tripled then you still have tons of room for mesh based details which would reduce the amount of texture based details needed, thus reducing overall workload to get the model into a 'done' state. You fairly safe up to about 5000 triangles on a mesh for smaller vessels. and upto ~approx 10-12K for a larger vessel such as a battleship and even starbases. Athough, the less the better. But the room is there.
Posted on: 2011/10/23 2:31
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Just can't stay away
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thanks for the responses.
I will go with 512x512 texture size then since from here and other places its seems to be what people recommend to be the best to go with. the model has Vertices: 1279 Edges: 2461 Faces (quads): 1196 Triangles: 2278 UV's: 1610 i dont think i could really put any more texture directly onto the model that would be any less effective on a texture, also.. id have to UV map it again, and... lol, i dont really feel up to that. ![]()
Posted on: 2011/10/23 7:55
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Just can't stay away
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Im receiving conflicting information from various people. some people saying that UV maps don't work properly in freelancer? and that you have to use Tile textures for your models
![]() I have my UV map here. ![]() is this a bad UV map? im so confused with all this. somebody just help me set the facts right. can i use this 1 UV map to texture my plane model and put it freelancer? or is there a certain method for doing this?
Posted on: 2011/10/23 10:34
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it is possible this way, didit once this way in the beginning but it's perhaps not the best solution. But I'm not the pro to make such conclusions
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Posted on: 2011/10/23 11:50
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Well i'm with the UV map brigade myself. 1 texture, 512x512 or 1024x1024, doesn't need to be bigger, coverted to a SQUARE dds texture (saved as DXT1 no alpha) . Best way to go.
TGA textures are old school, you have to flip them for a start and consume way too much memory, a complete waste of time and effort. Only thing they are useful for is making icons.
Posted on: 2011/10/23 11:58
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Quote:
UV Maps are just fine. Quote:
Impossible to tell just by looking at what you got. In my opinion, the best way to tell is to use a checkerboard "test texture" applied to your model as you uv map it. if your UV map is good, your checkerboard texture on your ship will be unstretched and all of its squares will be the same size.... I hope I'm making sense here.
Posted on: 2011/10/23 14:17
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Re: Texturing help? |
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perfect sence.. I use the texture map that Gnomon use. ![]() heres the model with just the above map. ![]() UV'ing isnt a problem, i just wanted to know if they can be used because some people are saying otherwise.. and its confusing... anyway, enough people here have said they will work so i will go with that for now. ![]() looks a little blured with a 512 texture. but oh well, it will do for me for now. My next questions are How do i save as a DDS file? And I have saved the plane as an OBJ file, a mtl file came with it, it seems. what is the next step to get the model ready for in game use? and what is the mtl file and do i need it?
Posted on: 2011/10/23 16:02
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Nice UV map. DDS exporters are normally a plugin for various graphics programs, i use paintshop pro myself and i had to find it on the net but i know it works fine.. The mtl file stores the material information for your model iirc so obviously needed with your OBJ file.
I use Milkshape for importing models to Freelancer, and that will happily import an OBJ and from there you can convert it to the required CMP format for the model and MAT file for the textures.
Posted on: 2011/10/23 16:43
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Most of Freeworlds' textures are 1024 and above. Many are multiple 2048 textures even. The game can cope with it just fine, I don't see why you people are restricting yourselves to crappy 5125x512 textures. There's a reason why the game uses those: it's almost a decade old. GPUs back then had 128mb of VRAM, current ones start at 1gb.
Just make sure to save them as DDS with no mipmaps (FL handles them very poorly, which can often explain blurry maps) and for best results turn on anisotropic filtering in your GPU's control panel.
Posted on: 2011/10/23 17:01
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Thats the exact one I use too.
Posted on: 2011/10/24 4:16
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Quote: 2. How do i also do transparency? i only know that PNG has transparency as part of it? There are 4 ways to do transparency in FL:
For using an opacity map, or creating a Dc/Glass mat, you'll need a copy of UTF editor -the more current, the better. Where to look: in the .mat file named like your *shipname, or the material library section within your CMP / 3DB when you choose to include materials directly into the model when exporting. *many vanilla models use a texture archive approach, referencing textures from one or more common .mat (or .txm for planets etc) files. This can be easy to spot if you have no texture library, and or material library node. Take Liberty ships for example, no mat files in each ship directory, no texture library or material library entries within the ship's cmp, but in the \SHIPS\LIBERTY\ directory we have li_playerships.mat Most common mat file entries: Dc - diffuse color Dt - diffuse texture Oc - opacity color (grayscale 0 to 1) Ot - opacity texture (grayscale texture applied to Dc and or Dt) Et - emissive texture (glow map for lights and other purtiness) It's a good idea to become familiar with all these, just study various vanilla examples. For DXT conversion you have a few choices; Exporter plugin for whatever image editing prog you use. Or proprietary DXT compressors from nVidia / ATI depending on your gfx card (usually command-line, but can be nice for batches). Check their websites for those specialized tools. Last Note: When you install Freelancer, all ini files are encoded. To edit these (to say.. change a material location for the ship) you must either decode them manually, one by one... OR have already installed a modder's copy of them (unofficial patch by Adoxa or EOA). Check the downloads section here, if that doesn't lead you to it, search Adoxa and I believe he'll have a link with his website which has tons of FL related tools.
Posted on: 2011/10/25 20:06
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Re: Texturing help? |
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The SDK 1.5b is usually recommended as a "base" for mods, as are some other comprehensive kits which patch errors in the original bini files.
Posted on: 2011/10/25 20:48
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Posted on: 2011/10/25 22:33
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