Using .jpg for textures

[delta99 34]

Not sure if this is the right forum to post this in or if BI Tools would be better but starting here and hopefully a mod can move it there if need be.

I don't know anything about textures etc. but I have been able to create a .jpg texture to be used in game for a flag texture. I'm finding that the flag is black until you get close enough to it and then all of a sudden the texture I created is shown properly. I have since grabbed the TexView 2 and converted the texture to a .paa and this seems to resolve the issue.

But, I wanted to know more about the options of TexView 2. I have no idea what type of texture I should create and just went with the default "_NO - normal map". Is this the right one? Is there more info about textures I can read up on?

[b00ce 160]

You want _CO (color), normal maps are for lighting.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Texture_Naming_Rules

[delta99 34]

You want _CO (color), normal maps are for lighting.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Texture_Naming_Rules

Thanks b00ce. Do you know of a reference that explains the different types for those of us not familiar with textures etc? Are these different types industry standard sort of speak?

[W0lle 1052]

:ph34r:

[delta99 34]

I originally went with .jpg because I read somewhere that .jpg is supported by the flag texture stuff and I never had a graphic editing program that could output to .paa format. When it was only semi-working (as describe above) I got the TexView 2 tool to convert to .paa but wasn't sure what format I required. My original file was in .jpg but I can easily create .png's or .tga's if that works better for converting to .paa for some reason.

[W0lle 1052]

Since ArmA I experienced problems with flags saved as jpg as they were initially black and switched to their texture after some time. The main advantage of tga/png is that these formats support transparency while jpg doesn't. In the end it's always better to use the internal paa format over the others.

There's no graphic editing program around that natively supports paa, for that our little niche game here is not important enough :)

There's a Photoshop plugin that allows to save as paa, but I strongly suggest not to use it as it's causing more problems than it solves. If texview works for you, I'd save the files in that format for maximum compatibility with the game.

[delta99 34]

Thanks W0lle, I am definitely doing that at this point. Using TexView 2 was a breeze other than knowing what format to use. Hence my post here really was about learning about textures and the various types that are created using TexView.

[max power 21]

If you use a tga texture, you can preview your texture map in O2 by using the directx viewport. Then buldozer will automatically convert your texture to paa when you load it. When you pack it, you can leave your file references to tga and it will use the paas that buldozer creates.

[delta99 34]

If you use a tga texture, you can preview your texture map in O2 by using the directx viewport. Then buldozer will automatically convert your texture to paa when you load it. When you pack it, you can leave your file references to tga and it will use the paas that buldozer creates.

I'm not using O2 or buldozer or any of the texture/model building stuff. This is strictly used in the scripting command "setFlagTexture". It is supposed to handle .jpg and sort of does as explained above but not well. So, I was forced to try and create a .paa file. With the .paa file the texture seems to load straight away no matter what distance I am to the object rather than having to get up to about 10 meters from the object before the black (I assume no texture) is replaced by the texture I created.

In any event I think I am good on this for now.

Thanks for all the replies guys.