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Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

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AkvenJan
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Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by AkvenJan »

As I know, UE1 uses palette based transparency with bMasked, bTransparent and bModulate flags in textures preperties.
As for single alpha textures (bMasked) it's rather easy - first color in the paletted used for masking.

But how does bModulat working on translucent textures?
I'm making AI upscale mod for Undying (and maybe other UE1 games) for newer DX11 renderer.
And I can't understand how can I convert palette based translucent transparency to greyscale layer-based transparency for converting to DDS file.
I can't understand how engine knowns which palette colors to convert to how much opacity. I was trying to figure it out, but I can't. I don't see any pattern in texture's palettes.
sn260591
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by sn260591 »

From Unreal Wiki:
Modulated
Multiplies the destination pixels by the source if the source is darker than 127,127,127. Screens the destination pixels if the source is brighter than 127,127,127. (like the Photoshop "Overlay" mode). This results in:

color 0,0,0 = darken whatever is behind it
color 127,127,127 = no change
color 255, 255, 255 = brighten whatever is behind it
AkvenJan
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by AkvenJan »

But how to convert it to dds transparency?
I had a texture from the game which appears translucent ingame (scratches on the wall). The texture itself is brown mess with no distinguished lines for scratches, but somehow they are visible ingame while the rest of the texture is transparent. And it doesn't have any mask based on first color of the palette.
If I upscale it - it becomes just a brown square on the wall.
I tried to limit dds back to 256 colors, I tried to left it in bmp or png format, I tried to create alpha layer by hand (it works but the scratches aren't looking like they were in vanilla version). Like I need a way to convert old Unreal engine logic to alpha-layered DDS, but I don't know how.
Treat all the color below/above 127 127 127 as 0-128 greyscale transparency? But what to do with brighten/darken part.

Maybe it's some DirectX 11 renderer issue with DDS textures being rendered with flags from old paletted engine. Because of that I cannot properly upscale HUD and decals to be the same as in original game just in higher resolution.

This is the mod I'm working on
https://www.moddb.com/mods/clive-barker ... srgan-pack
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Kajgue
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by Kajgue »

Heya,

Does Undying support alphablending? Because that *might* be what you need.
AkvenJan
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by AkvenJan »

For example, this is original texture
изображение.png
And this is ingame rendering
изображение.png
It is scratches on the mirror
How I could convert it to dds without handdrawing half of the texture? Some algorithm of that colors of the palette should be what level of transparency
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AkvenJan
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by AkvenJan »

Another example
изображение.png
изображение.png
Texture somehow treat a part of non first color of the palette image as transparency I can't understand how it chooses colors, how it mask it. There is no sense in this texture. For example right side of the texture. Why one brown scratch is rendered and another is not - they are almost the same color
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Kajgue
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by Kajgue »

Ohh, i think this just uses the translucency surface flag for the transparency, meaning the darker the pixel is, the more transparent it becomes.
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yrex .
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by yrex . »

The first case looks like a detail/macro texture.

The second case (or maybe actually both of them) looks like your method of export discarded the alpha channel.
AkvenJan
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Re: Unreal Engine 1 transparent textures formats

Post by AkvenJan »

How to extract from UE1 with alpha channel?
I used ucc, UTPT and WOTgrealExporter

I thought UE1 does not have any additional alpha channels besides palette based ones

Kajgue, so if I convert original texture to greyscale and use it for transparency - it may work?
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