Help with an experiment

[DieHard SCWS]

Lol, the bigger part of my work last night was to retrieve all textures and add them to a new package. Regardless what, if i want to assemble the package and make an S3TC version from it, i do need the complete folder based structure to begin with.



As far as compiling the package, i am doing this by hand in the editor. Its not that much work, i only have to work on the animated textures to set the correct settings.



As for the name, i already started using S3_ for every brandnew S3TC utx package, unless someone doesn't like it, the name will be S3_UnrealShare.utx


I already added one texture from Ahaigh to the S3TC package (JTree11), seeing the original size(256 x 256) i added it in 2048 x 2048 to the package.





Than i came across another thing among many; As we all know there are errors in the Masked textures to begin with, even without High resolution this will inmediatelly repair all Masked problems in the package.


I added the JBird11 as Masked to the package, and there must be more, but i am unsure which actually are supposed to be Masked, like JFish1, JFish21, JFish22, JFish23, JFish24, JFish25. Are they intended to be Masked ?

The same goes fro SmokeGreen, some are correct but a whole bunch inthere are not Masked in the parts that are obvious black and look like that part is supposed to be Masked too.


In other words, we need a list of all the textures that are supposed to be Masked.


But i do have a testpackage, i just need to do all the settings for the animations and its done.


I all goes well tomorrow, i will upload the normal package, the S3TC package and the FolderTree for download.



Its 5 in the morning here, i will continue tomorrow on all this, night all
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[DieHard SCWS]

I was about to upload everything i made, till i noticed Ahaigh had more files available. I am downloading everything now, so i can add it to the packages, but it all will take a couple a hours.


Again i do have a question to Ahaigh, are all the plants and trees you uploaded supposed to be Masked ? Do you know that. Seeing the amount of errors on Epic's part i can only be sure for the textures that DO show up as Masked in the editor.

JPlant21 in the Editor is NOT masked, is that correct or is that an Epical  ::) error ?


If i don't hear from anyone when before i am done, i wil add them according the Editor, and ill redo it later.


As said i will also upload the FileTree so we can better choose what now actually is supposed to be Masked or not.
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[ahaigh01]

JPlant21 and JPlant11 are not masked. The notes.txt file that is included with each zip file should tell if the texture needs to be masked or not. Here is a handy list:

Not masked:

JPlant11
JPlant21
JPlant31
JPlant41
--------------------
Masked:

JPlant61
JTree11
JTree21
JTree31
JTree41
JTree51
JTree61
JTree71
JTree81
JTree91
JTree101
JTree111
JTree121

[DieHard SCWS]

Ok, cool

Ill process it all ASAP.


Hopefully it will be there within 2 hours from now.
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[DieHard SCWS]

Ok,


Here are the packages:

Normal texture package: [url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCNormalAndNew/Normal/S3_UnrealShare_Normal.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]S3_UnrealShare_Normal[/glow][/url]
S3TC texture package: [url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCNormalAndNew/S3TC/S3_UnrealShare_S3TC.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]S3_UnrealShare_S3TC[/glow][/url]
FileTree and BMP files: [url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCNormalAndNew/Various/S3_UnrealShare_FileTree.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]S3_UnrealShare_FileTree[/glow][/url]





Info on the normal package

Basically the complete package without all procedural textures like Wet and Lava.

It contains one difference, added the JBird11 as Masked texture, if i am correct thios should repair the Masking error on the birds as seen in NyLeve.

Theres also textures missing in the follow Groups:
LargeRedFont (Texture3)
TinyFont (Texture4)
TinyRedFont (Texture6)
TinyWhiteFont (Texture5)
WhiteFont (Texture7)

Those Groups seem to contain only one texture, but also all textures already in the package, but only as reference, if you rightclick on those textures it points to the origin wich ly in the other Groups, as said the only point and seem not to be there in reallity.





Info on the S3TC package

This package is the same as the normal package, except of course the high resolution versions fom Ahaigh

JPlant21
JPlant31
JPlant41
JPlant61
JTree11
JTree21
JTree31
JTree41
JTree51
JTree61
JTree111
JTree121

And the Masked low resulution JBird11





Info on the FileTree

Unpacked it will give the floder S3_UnrealShare_FileTree

Inthere are two main folders:
- AAAA_DDS
- S3_UnrealShare


The first folder contains the FileTree and DDS files for the S3TC textures.
The second folder contains the FileTree and BMP files for the Normal textures.

In the second folder is also one extra folder named: NonGroup, this folder contains all textures that in the package are located outside any Group, therefore NonGroup . Since the DDS FileTree needs the exact package setting, the NonGroup there is not present.



Sidenote
PCX or BMP, thusfar no-one could tell me what the exact settings for those are in Photoshop, besides that, all the S3TC related material i have is based on BMP, therefore its BMP.
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[ahaigh01]

Ok, I'm having some issus with the new utx package.  I can preview the new s3tc textures in the editor, and I can start a new map - subtract a cube with one of the new tex selected ok.  But after that first texture, every time I try to use one of the new tex on a wall or cube etc, I get the original lo-res version instead in the map.  I can still preview the high-res ones - but they just won't show up in the map after that first one.  Even though they are intended to be used on a mesh - and I can't test that yet - I would think they should work fine on a wall too.  Any ideas?

[DieHard SCWS]

Seeing what your saying there, your doing something wrong. Theres 2 packages, oné normal, oné S3TC.


- The normal package is used for the editor and the server, so any building is done with that package.


- The S3TC package needs to be loaded a seperate Unreal, that supports S3TC textures.




[glow=yellow,2,300]Never ever use any S3TC package for editing or servers!!![/glow]





In effect you need two Unreals, oné for editing and oné for playing and/or testing.
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[DieHard SCWS]

Well.......................... :-/


Lemme refrase above..................


Your correct, they won't show up. As a matter a fact, i did make a testmap, and the map even will run without the package  :(


Which means that regardless the new package is in, Unreal uses forcefullly the textures from the original UnrealShare.u I asume this happens because Unreal always gets confused when theres the same filenames, even if they are in different packages.


What probably happens is, when you start Unreal, it already loads the UnrealShare.u containing all the textures. When you now load the map, Unreal already has the textures in its memory stored, and therefore is using those while disregarding any other package loaded afterwards.


And while writing this i did a simple test, close your editor, start it again, load your testmap, and now look in the loaded packages, you will NOT find S3_UnrealShare.utx though you did use it for building that map.

So its even worse, Unreal asumes all textures are accounted for already, and does not even bother to load the correct package after all................


Thats a big bummer alright, and not just that, i could have known, i wrote this on this forum a while back, never use the same texturenames, even if they are in different packages   :-/ ..........


Grrrrr
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[BOZO]

Excellent!!

We will call what you guys have put together our first test case. I will update the mutator to support the textures you have loaded so far and post a beta test version for everyone to check out. I'll try to get to it by this weekend.

[BOZO]

Well the issue with the texture names being the same seems to be one that is going to be problematic. For some reason it refuses to assign the correct texture even if you give it the full filename.group.texturename reference. If there is an existing texture of the same name already loaded, it will default to using that texture no matter what. I tried a couple of different ways to force it but no luck as of yet.

We may need to rebuild the S3_UnrealShare packages with some new naming format retained for the textures. I suggest preappending S3_ to the start of each texture name.

[DieHard SCWS]

As far as i can see the names are short enough to do so, lotta work lol, but it can be done.

I will see if i can make a stripped package only containing the textures having the S3TC variations today.


After that i can redo it little by litttle, since i have to be very carefull with my hands,.
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[DieHard SCWS]

Have been very buzy, ill see if i can do it after all, today...............


I btw would not mind it at all, if someone is willing to carefully rename all the texures in the [url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCNormalAndNew/Various/S3_UnrealShare_FileTree.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]FileTree[/glow][/url] that is for download.


I have very problematic hands, and this is pure horror for my hands to go rename them, if someone is willing to download the FileTree and rename all textures inthere by adding S3_ in front of each name, that would simply be awsome.



like:

tree21.BMP into: S3_tree21.BMP

or

HudGreenAmmo.BMP into: S3_HudGreenAmmo.BMP



(And that is Capital S)

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[DieHard SCWS]

Here are the new packages


These packages contain only the Skins group.

All names inthere have changes to S3_something



Normal version

[url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCNormalAndNew/Normal/S3_UnrealShare_Normal.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]S3_UnrealShare_Normal[/glow][/url]


S3TC version:

[url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCNormalAndNew/S3TC/S3_UnrealShare_S3TC.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]S3_UnrealShare_S3TC[/glow][/url]


I asume for the moment its good enough for testing, i tried the package and the high resolution versions show up alright. However i did notice theres a bunch off errors in the Masking. I asume i did go wrong there myself. Its difficult to do the Masking for someone else to begin with. You have to interprete others people work.


If possible Alhaigh, see if you can redo the Masking yourself to have it perfect.
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[ahaigh01]

Sure, I can do the renaming of the files in the tree and the masking. I'm going to check out your new versions for testing now

[ahaigh01]

I just looked at them in a test map and they look great! Most of them are perfect. Tree 2 looks great - I don't know if it can be improved on, but I see what you mean about the other trees. I'll get them figured out and post my files when I'm done.

[DieHard SCWS]

Yes the more you can d yourself the better.


My health is very poor most of the time, and at this moment the URP project is at a complete hold on my end in favor of the SGC project.

That project consumes every minute i have, and i want to end it as fast as possible so i can continue on the URP project itself.

The SGC textures will be beneficial for the SGC map but also for future mapbuilding, especcially for Assault and INF, pretty sure those mapbuilders will love the new packages





For the Masking of your textures, toy around alot with the selectiontools in Photoshop, including rightclick on the layers icon where you can substract or add selections from a layer.

Safe the result as Alpha 1 channel. The parts in the Alpha channel that are black will apear ingame as Masked.


Also work according the FileTree !!!

That FileTree is the same i always use to create the packages, without them it won't work ! Simple as that.

So its not a bad thing if you upload results within the FileTree, which would mean i don't have to do anything and just let the mergertool do its job.
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[ahaigh01]

Diehard,

What is the way you use to build a new utx package with s3tc textures in it? I can make the dds files ok. Thanks.

Sorry about your poor health

[Hyper]

@DieHard:

Beterschap! (Don't know the English translation.)

[DieHard SCWS]

Thanks Hyper

What is the way you use to build a new utx package with s3tc textures in it?

That is not my dicision alone, i will contact Kerilk about that.
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[DieHard SCWS]

Still no word from Kerilk..................
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[Kerilkkorn]

Did not received anything from you, maybe it was considered spam by Thunderbird. Could you send it again? I'll try to find the other one in the dustbin.

[DieHard SCWS]

Hey Kerilk,


I just did sent it again, its transmitted to your OldUnreal account. Which is the only adress i have, i think............
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[DieHard SCWS]

Ahaigh i need your mail adress. Could you post it here ?
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[ahaigh01]

Sure,

alvakorn@yahoo.com

[BOZO]

Just passing on some updates:

I am running into a few issues that didn't show up in my limited test that are causing me to have to rewrite some code. Unreal is very picky about the textures it allows to be assigned. Originally I was trying to Dynamically load them but Unreal is acting like it needs to have them actively loaded to memory first with a hardcoded reference before you can assign the textures. I'm still trying to work around this rather than becoming a memory hog.

I am also working on rewriting the code so that it is more client based and trying to make it easier to run in singleplayer mode.

I'm having replication problems related to the Multiskins array not replicating (yeah I know array replication is broken for Unreal but I forget sometimes) so I'm having to create a workaround approach.

Basically, I'm having to rewrite some bits from scratch and change the approach a bit. If I can I will eliminate the server requirements altogether. Not sure if it will be 100% possible though.