Tree's and Plants

[DieHard SCWS]

Looks very cool alright lol


I am thinking if i can set up a downloadsection for the work you have completed, just need to think how such a thing will look like.


A small remark, on this one. If theres that many small parts like the leaves, its not a bad idea to make those 4096 x 4096 as renderer. If its smaller, than it will be difficult to grab the Masking out of it. This only aplies if theres a lot of very small detail in it like the small leaves shown here.
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[Hyper]

I've always hated the way trees 1-4 looked, so I wasn't looking forward to tackling these skins. But I think what I've come up with looks pretty good after all. Here is a test render of tree 2:


http://www.streamload.com/kkorker/unreal/tree2/newtree2.jpg

One of the worst parts of the old skins is where the branches fork from the trunk - you can see the seam very clearly because the textures just don't match up very well. The new tree bark blends well at the fork now. You can barely see the seam!

Overall the trees and plants skins are coming along well. I've gotten most of the hard work done, so the skins should be ready pretty soon.

Now that's what I call a Tree2! Nice work!

[ahaigh01]

A couple of screenies-

http://www.streamload.com/kkorker/unreal/tree6/newtree6.jpg

http://www.streamload.com/kkorker/unreal/plant3/newplant3.jpg

[DieHard SCWS]

Pictures refuse to open on me.................

Nm, they do now and look great
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[Hyper]

A couple of screenies-

http://www.streamload.com/kkorker/unreal/tree6/newtree6.jpg

http://www.streamload.com/kkorker/unreal/plant3/newplant3.jpg

I can't view them:

Sorry, an unexpected error occurred.


For help, send the error message you received, your username and a description of what you were doing when you received the error to support@streamload.com. One of our awesome technical support representatives will get back to you shortly.

[ahaigh01]

Hyper,

I'm not sure why, but sometimes the files are unavailable. I can only suggest trying again and it should work.

[BOZO]

By the way, some trees and plants have the incorrect attributes set on the meshes at a triangle level. For example, some of the triangles are assigned as transparent even though they should be masked. I will add these corrections to my list of meshes that need fixing for the version 227 patch.

This may be contributing to the odd texture behavior we are seeing when we replace textures at runtime.

[ahaigh01]

Here are the finished S3TC versions of the plant and tree textures:


http://www.streamload.com/kkorker/unreal/Unreal1_new_plant_and_tree_textures.rar

[DieHard SCWS]

Ahaigh give a bit more information what the download contains.


This way you cant tell from the outside if those are pictures(which they are) or if its an finished texture package


Btw, did you receive my mail ? I have not had a reply, and seeing you worked on the textures, i would asume you would add them to a new updated package.  But now i wonder if you received my mail ?


Another thing, alter ALL your filesnames to the new names, having S3_ in front of it. That also goes for the FileTree, if you redid all the names, please offer the new FileTree for download, so we all can switch it for the one i created before.


I have no time now to look at the files you uploaded, but i will later today
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[ahaigh01]

I was checking for your email but didn't see it. I just looked again and it arrived in the 'bulk' inbox for some reason, so I didn't see it til just now. The files I uploaded are not in a package utx package yet - I'll start working on that process now.

[DieHard SCWS]

Ok , cause i was wondering lol

Mail me if you have problems using the Mergertool.
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[DieHard SCWS]

Another thing, i opened the DDS files, and none of them contains an Alpha channel, you need to have the Alpha channel in the textures that are Masked.


To make sure its not an DDS saving error, ill give the settings here again.





DDS saving options for files [glow=yellow,2,300]withoud[/glow] Alpha channel

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DDS_SafeOptions.jpg[/img]




DDS saving options for files [glow=yellow,2,300]with[/glow] Alpha channel

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DDS_SafeOptionsAlpha.jpg[/img]

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[ahaigh01]

Hmm, I don't understand that :-?. Those are the settings I used. I have been checking them in UT2004 and the masked ones work fine there. I haven't been able to check them in Unreal 1 yet, but now I will be able to try it. I see what you mean about there not being an alpha channel when you open them back up in photoshop - I figured that was normal, since the masking still works fine in UT2004.

[DieHard SCWS]

This is just theoretical, so don't bind me to it, since i don't know UT2004 too well.


But if i am correct, UT2004 is able to import different file formats, including DDS.


While importing them you can choose Masked, and like Unreal it uses the last color(or first color) in the palet (i think).

Which means, that when you import a DDS texture in UT2004 that lacks an Aplha channel it still will be able to make it Masked.


This does not apply to Unreal, Unreal is unable to handle DDS files that needs to be Masked but lacks an Alpha channel. They simply will show up as NON Masked, or will give an ingame error.





On a sidenote, even for UT2004 or any other game that fully supports 1 bit up too 8 bit Alpha blending, you always should use Alpha channels.


The use of Alpha channels prevents any colorbleeding, .....its simply not there. It also is very usefull when theres colors in the texture that are similar to the color used to Mask the texture, with an Alpha channel you can Mask the texture completelly independant from any color in the texture. If you would Mask such texture without Alpha blending than gaps will apear on places it was not ment to have gaps.
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[ahaigh01]

Raven,

Yes, you are welcome to use the plant and trees high res textures. I want them to be used! Many of them are already 1024x1024. The textures that were 256x256 are now 2048x2048 and the ones that were 128x128 are 1024x1024. I don’t know what your criteria are for size, but the quality does suffer a little bit when the 2048 textures are reduced to 1024. Let me know if you have questions, and I’ll help as best as I can.

[DieHard SCWS]

Raven,

Yes, you are welcome to use the plant and trees high res textures.  I want them to be used!  Many of them are already 1024x1024.  The textures that were 256x256 are now 2048x2048 and the ones that were 128x128 are 1024x1024.  I don’t know what your criteria are for size, but the quality does suffer a little bit when the 2048 textures are reduced to 1024.  Let me know if you have questions, and I’ll help as best as I can.

Reading two posts at the same tss tss  ;D
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[Raven]

We will probably leave 'em in original size. Importing S3TC textures is much easier in UT (you need to have two UTX one with HighRes texes (importe as any other texture) and low res ones (same name, same groups, etc.) and then you use ucc mergedxt comman).

I don't know what's going on, but i can not dn that texes. Always have this message: "MediaMax encountered an error."

[ahaigh01]

Try this link instead:

http://www.mediamax.com/kkorker/Hosted/unreal/u1pntdds.rar

updated: this file has the dds, pcx, and jpg versions

[Raven]

Works. Skins are awesome. Big THX.

[gerdo]

sry for this stupid question, but i cant find the textures i have to replace with the new textures for new plants. so could you plz tell me the name of the .utx or just upload it to the rest?

[DieHard SCWS]

In case you are talking about replacing the normal textures for the S3TC textures in Unreal, than i have to disapoint you. The textures have been created, but at this moment we lack the technology to add them to Unreal.


Basically this thread is to see if they can be replace, and more important how ? We can update the normal texture packages, but the textures imbedded into the UnrealShare do cause an additional problem. Its an ungoing project. And the result should not be a utx file, but an updated UnrealShare.u


I hope this answers your question.
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[ahaigh01]

Well, I've been wanting to see the new plant skins in-game, so I finally did something about it today

I made some hi-res PCX 8-bit versions of the skins and imported them into the unrealshare.u file and resaved it.  This let me see the plant skins in-game but has a few drawbacks:

1.  makes unreal incompatible with online servers
2.  only 256 color (8-bit)
3.  not as fast as S3TC

but it works great for getting some screenshots.

Here are a few screenshots:

http://www.mediamax.com/kkorker/Hosted/unreal/shot1.jpg
http://www.mediamax.com/kkorker/Hosted/unreal/shot2.jpg
http://www.mediamax.com/kkorker/Hosted/unreal/shot3.jpg
http://www.mediamax.com/kkorker/Hosted/unreal/shot4.jpg
http://www.mediamax.com/kkorker/Hosted/unreal/shot5.jpg

[gerdo]

for this fast answer! but whats the problem? why cant you just import the s3tc textures? is it because they are .dds files?

[DieHard SCWS]

You need to be able to merge the dds files with UnrealShare.u without changing the network compatebillity. The current tool we use can only handle utx files.
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[Smirftsch]

i can do that. Only need the files.