blackdog~ 0 Posted July 12, 2003 Jackal326's advice is to convert from BMP format to get clear textures. Rifleman says that switching RGB to Indexed Color works for him.. I'll ask him what format that was. If you have a compression tip, please post it here! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philcommando 0 Posted July 14, 2003 Here are some compression data for those going into texturing.     Image size      File/Hardisk size   Memory size 1024 X 512 tga image =   1,537,000b   2,037,000b 1024 X 512 jpg image =   245,000 b    2,037,000b 1024 X 512 paa image =   342,000b      342,000b 512 X 256 tga image =    393,234 b    525,288b 512 X 256 jpg image =     94,666 b     525,288b 512 X 256 paa image =    86,000kb       86,000b 256 X 128 jpg image =    31,787b      132,072b 256 X 128 paa image =   22,000b       22,000b Definations of terms:- b = bytes, blocks of information. In an image, 1b holds the position and colour. Harddisk size = size of file on your computer harddisk memory size = size the video card's ram need to spare to display your pic on the computer, be it in a programme or ingame. The lesser the bytes = less clearer image as compression alogarithms will pick the closest colors and blend it to a single color, meaning if u have different shades of grey in an area, it will compress those shades into one grey shade, or eg, if u have a thin black line within a grey area across a pic, compression will 'guess' that line as grey and give it a grey color, thus making your line disappear. The more bytes = clearer pics, close to the original, with little blending of colors but your video ram will have to spare more space to display your pic, making it possible only to display a few pics at a time or not showing up at all or lag as the processor is bogged down with too much bytes to read and access. The user/addon maker must decide on their own what is best, but the best and hope is that Nvida or Ati will make better  ram chips ( if they can figure out how to cool down those frying pan hot ram chips). If that is possible, i am sure BIS would use mainstream TGA compression as it will make OFP in terms of graphics comparable to the much favorite beach vollyball game featuring lucious babes in skimpy wear playing vollyball. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Donnervogel 0 Posted July 16, 2003 Information from BIS on *.pac/paa images: PAA/PAC ( 12 bit RGB + 4 bit alpha channer / 8 bit grayscale + 8 bit alpha channel / 16 bit DTX DirectX compressed texture format with optional 1 bit alpha channel) now I wonder if it is possible to create a kind of color table for graphic programs that only uses the colors that are available in pac/paa. I think it would help very much if you can be sure that it won't screw up the color completly when you convert it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted July 16, 2003 now I wonder if it is possible to create a kind of color table for graphic programs that only uses the colors that are available in pac/paa. I think it would help very much if you can be sure that it won't screw up the color completly when you convert it. I tried.....it didn't work very well. I suspect you would have to get exactly the right colour, otherwise it will screw it. I tried all sorts of things, but found the best way was to use tga's, don't try and blend colours that are too different from each other (ie red blending to green), and use sharp edges between different colours where possible. Oh and re-open the paa or pac file in Texview once you've made it because those annoying texture glitches don't always appear first time. Grrrrr. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kegetys 2 Posted July 16, 2003 now I wonder if it is possible to create a kind of color table for graphic programs that only uses the colors that are available in pac/paa. No, since the PAA/PAC is not an indexed color format (it does not have a palette) but an RGB(A) format. The artifacts it has come from the DXTC compression it uses, which, from what I know, is a bit like JPEG compression, dividing the whole image into smaller cells to which certain limitations apply on what it can contain. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Donnervogel 0 Posted July 16, 2003 hmm ok thanks for info. So I will continue to hate OFP texturing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
earl 0 Posted August 12, 2003 I've had success with adding some noise to the original TGA. During the conversion to PAC/PAA, a light noise pattern helps break up the artifacts. Photoshops "artistic> film grain" works nicely if you subdue it. Also, use monstrous image dimensions, that helps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
