Feature request (for S3TC textures)

[David_OSU]

After using the updated high resolution S3TC textures, I noticed an issue with detail textures.

The updated S3TC texture packs have textures that are so high in resolution that they don't need detail texturing (while others in the packs do).  In fact, applying detail textures to the high resolution textures may even degrade the quality.

What I propose is a new OpenGL rendering option, as follows:

    DetailResMax=256

In this case, textures with a minimum horizontal or vertical resolution up to 256 pixels will have detail textures applied.  Textures with a horizontal or vertical resolution higher than 256 pixels will not have detail textures applied.

I haven't looked at the OpenGL rendering code, so I don't know much effort is required for this, but it seems like a simple change.  In any case, its worth looking into for improved support of the high resolution textures.

[Turboman.]

i don't see any reason why to remove the detailtextures from any s3tc textures, practical resolutions for s3tc textures only go up to 2048x2048 which still isn't high enough for some surfaces in unreal, however if they are combined with detailtexturing these limitations can be partially solved, removing detail textures will degrade quality quite majorly.

[David_OSU]

2048x2048 is huge!  Detail textures make sense when you are magnifying the base texture higher than 2X.  So, for a 2048x2048 texture on 1600x1200 display, you would have to be so close to the textured object that you only see less than a quarter of a complete texture tile.  I'm not sure where this happens in-game, maybe only if you walk right up to a rock wall (and use the sniper-rifle?).

As long as the rendering engine will not kick-in the detail textures until the texture is magnified over 1X, then this flag isn't needed.  But I think I've seen examples where detail texturing has kicked-in before the texture is magnified >1X, and this can only make the texture look worse.

In any case, if it is implemented as a configurable setting, you can always set it >2048 so it never disables detail textures.

[Turboman.]

you do realize that the majority of outdoor textures (particulary rock textures) are often stretched to often 2x to 8x its default size in unreal? this would mean that even mere 2048x2048 sized textures would end up looking horribly blurry without detailtexturing or macrotexturing to give them the extra detail.

good examples are the sunspire or bluff eversmoking, in order to render detailtextures useless in those levels you're going to need at least textures the size of 2^32, which i believe isn't supported by graphics hardware yet (even 16384x16384 sized textures in .psd would cause a seizure on my old pentium2 )

[David_OSU]

Thanks, Turboman.  Your comments made me look at this much closer over the weekend.  I agree, the rock textures really need to be super-resolution, due to the texture stretching outdoors.

In this case, it would be helpful for detail textures to kick in even earlier.  After thinking about this some more, I think there is still a potential improvement to the detail texturing.  In particular, the detail textures should start to kick-in just as the texture approaches 1X magnification (instead of at a fixed distance to the object).

I use DetailMax=3, and I hardly ever even see the third level of detail textures (unless my nose is against a wall).  In an outdoor scene, where rock textures are highly stretched, it would be useful to have all 3 detail textures (on the rock texture) in place before you are right up against the rock wall.  To do that, the detail textures would have to follow a rule like I outlined above.

Does this make sense?

[Turboman.]

you have a point though, detailtextures are impractical of rendering detail for stretched outdoor textures, as they're really meant more for close surface/magnification.

i believe the idea you describe is more a less what's already implented in the engine with macrotexturing. macrotextures work quite similar to detailtextures and the two can even be combined for the best detail. their advantage is that they're ALWAYS rendered ontop of the texture, meaning you can move away to a distance and they'll still be visible, unlike detailtextures which fade.
however macrotextures have one disadvantage, and that is that they can only consist of one layer, so while they're really usefull for large stretched textures they are not usefull for magnification (although that's where you have detailtextures for )

unfortunately, while its a really usefull feature, it is never used by epic on the stock textures. implenting it only requires you to add in a line in the texture properties (the same way as with detailtextures), however for the original textures you have to modify the texture files which could break online compatibility (although who knows, oldunreal got the s3tc to work with online compatibility ).

[sopa_de_letras]

No. s3tc textures should be made with no detail mask, simple, make it with no detail layer. Leave roughness, bumpiness, reliefs, to grayscale textures.

However I keep detail textures disabled because as MX440 has only gotten 2 texture units.

Lightmap + texture itself = 2 textures per pass limited.
Lightmap + texture + detail = 3 textures per pass, which means 2 passes for me, which ultimately kills fps.

[DieHard SCWS]

I made some 2000 plus textures for the SG1 map, and i am still wrestling with the idea(Dutch frase ) to add Detail textures to them or not.

I agree with Turboman that on large scaled textures like the rockfaces they could be usefull, but to me, on the lower scale, i dont know, i am not convinced if they are usefull at all.


For instance when i look in Deck16 at the crates having the detail textures on(with the low resolutuin textures), i keep thinking, why not add that detail directly to the texture itself ? And the S3TC counterpart is on averidge 8 times bigger, which means the surface is 64 times the original. This also means theres 64 times more detail on them, and you gotta scale that up allot before you run into problems. And that means in my opinium, that Detail texures are certainly less usefull to S3TC textures, if at all...........


While working on the SG1 textures i tried several times ingame to see if there was an advantage adding Detail textures to the normal textures. And each time, at best i was just thinking, this is messing up the texture i carefully created, and it doesnt add anything usefull to them  :-/ I am still pretty much in limbo what to do there.


As for the settings, i think it would be cool if you could set it to both a minimum size and a maximum size. And while were at it, there should by definition be an option to have Detail on but the possiblillity to exclude that from screens and lights. The bands visible on the various screens were cool when the rendering couldnt achieve higher quality textures. But with the S3TC screens, i think that setting ruines them unnecessary.


If any, i would see an option to be able to split up Detail textures for those.
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[Turboman.]

No. s3tc textures should be made with no detail mask, simple, make it with no detail layer. Leave roughness, bumpiness, reliefs, to grayscale textures.

However I keep detail textures disabled because as MX440 has only gotten 2 texture units.

Lightmap + texture itself = 2 textures per pass limited.
Lightmap + texture + detail = 3 textures per pass, which means 2 passes for me, which ultimately kills fps.

it barely has an effect on fps with such little involved.

looking at any post-2000 game we're dealing with an insane amount of layers, an average texture including lightmaps, bumpmaps, heightmaps, bitmaps, specular maps, detail maps, displacement maps, cube maps, environment maps, opacity maps, color maps, and alpha maps.
so i see completely NO problem with performance when only dealing with 3 layers unless you're running on a tnt2...


i'm heavily for using macrotextures next to detailtextures on overscaled surfaces, unlike detailtextures which fade after a certain distance macrotextures will be rendered from ANY distance with no annoying artifacts related to mipmapping.

ps: a 227 question: wouldn't it be great if detailtextures, macrotextures, and enviroment maps on MESHES? for some reason meshes ignore any other thing then the bitmap itself (it could be solved with renderoverlays)

[sopa_de_letras]

I have a MX440 and with detail textures on they does kill fps, in any game I lose around 50% fps by enabling them.