Texture quality sucks!

[Student Pilot 0]

Quote[/b] ]but if you copied your flashpoint.config file to buldozer ..... why didnt you get the same resolution

I don't know, I'm a bit lost on that one. I'm guessing it has something to do with some conflict from my computer using one resolution and OFP using another.

@Messiah and ag_smith

Thanks for that info about dedicated servers. I don't play mp or online so I know nothing about it.

@All

Thanks for all your help, gentlemen. Maybe I'll actually release my addon someday.

-Pilot

[HotShot 0]

I'm not sure if this is related or not, but i've made a texture in PS, i save it, and it looks as it did in PS, but when i try to put it in O2 the texture looks really bad, like a low quality GIF file. I've tried saving it in PS as a GIF, JPEG, and TGA, and they all look fine, but as soon as i put it in O2 (and it converts to PAA), or convert it to PAA via TexView or PAATool, it goes to hell and this seems to be where it gets screwed

This is what the conversion seems to do:

Texture in Photoshop

Texture in O2

I've tried different Resolutions for Texture, and none seem to effect it. Any ideas how to keep the texture looking as it does in PS?

[LoTekK 0]

Still having the same issues with the poor texture mipping in O2. To recap, the mip as expected in-game, but won't seem to mip higher than 256^2 in Bulldozer.

Hotshot, for the texture conversion quality issue, you may want to try one of the external conversion tools listed a little earlier in the thread. Oops. Just read your post again and you've already used them. So the texture doesn't convert properly even from GIF? I wonder, is PAA 8-bit color, or is it less? Because those artifacts look like what happens with color reduction without dithering.

[ag_smith 0]

Try PAATool, select format IA8:8. Try experimenting with dithering option. This should work well for greyscale textures.

[HotShot 0]

When i converted it to greyscale and saved it as a TGA, it didn't ask for Resolution, so i couldn't selected 32, as such i got an error when trying to convert it using PAATool, so i had to change it back to RGB mode, but when i converted using IA8:8 setting it came up in O2 as transparent. And converting the Greyscale TGA to a PAA file via O2 it just came up looking low quality as before.

No other PAATool settings seem to work either But thanks for the suggestions.

I've been able to convert textures over before without this high loss of quality, textures for the same addon infact, so it must be something to do with the texture

[ag_smith 0]

When i converted it to greyscale and saved it as a TGA, it didn't ask for Resolution, so i couldn't selected 32, as such i got an error when trying to convert it using PAATool, so i had to change it back to RGB mode, but when i converted using IA8:8 setting it came up in O2 as transparent.

Most probably, converting back and forth changed alpha channel that makes the texture transparent. Just open it in photoshop or whatever tool you're using, and fill the alpha channel with plain white color. This should help for the transparency.

[HotShot 0]

Thanks for suggestion, but unfortuantly didn't work. Tried filling alpha channel with white and black.

I just tried changing the colours of the texture to brighter ones, incase it was just as it was quite dark, but the colours are still the same low quality.

If anyone has the time to covert this file into a PAA themselves, to see if it is the texture or conversion programmes, i would greatly appretiate it.

ID MKS Texture

[Messiah 2]

had a go at converting it over, and safe to say i had the same results with the different tools i use.

from my experience, although you probally don't want to hear this, certain shades of grey have an awful tendancy to pixelate like that, no matter what you do

[HotShot 0]

Crap, i guess that measn i have to start over with the texture? Tried altering the contrast and brightness to make the shades of grey vary more, but didn't work.

Thanks for having a go.

[Messiah 2]

i'll keep messing around and see what happens - i'vehad similiar problems before with dark grey and black textures - some come out looks great, nice and crisp, the others come out pixelated - will see how it goes

[Guest]

Add a little bit of noise to it? Not enough to really show up but just enough to break up any banding. Sometimes works...

[HotShot 0]

Didn't work unfortuantly. Tried adding yellow stripes over the texture too, to break up the grey, but that didn't work either.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, but it looks like this textures going to have to be scrapped.

I'm just worried that i'll make a new texture, and that will have the same problem. This is my first proper texture i've made though, and learnt alot about texturing metal if nothing else.

[LoTekK 0]

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but nothing I've done has improved the mipping situation in O2. A pic to illustrate just how bad it can get:

The left inset is the texture after conversion to paa with paatool at full 1024^2 size. The right inset is the 256^2 mip. As you can see, buldozer is using the 256 mip, no matter how far I zoom in, and for how long I remain zoomed in.

Note that I'm using my flashpoint cfg for buldozer, and textures in-game definitely mip higher than 256^2, including the ones I'm having trouble with in O2.

Any other suggestions?

[Student Pilot 0]

Are your texture settings in FlashpointPreferences.exe as high as they can go (be sure to click the "advanced" button to check all texture settings)? Is the resolution you are running OFP in the same as your monitor resolution? Are the refresh rates different (no idea if that effects anything)?

-Pilot

[LoTekK 0]

While my typical Flashpoint settings aren't all the way up, they are high enough that I shouldn't be seeing a maximum mip of 256^2. Just for kicks, though, I went in and cranked everything up all the way (everything at 2048^2, and no dropdown), and copied the cfg over to the O2 users folder. Still nada. I tried various changes from my default T&L, to regular DirectX, changed the resolution, still nothing. Refresh rate is fixed, since I'm on an LCD display.

Once again, textures dispay fine in-game. This is annoying me to no end.

[Student Pilot 0]

Oh, I have misunderstood you. I didn't realize the textures were fine ingame.

Really odd that bulldozer doesn't display them right. Did you properly install bulldozer?

-Pilot

[LoTekK 0]

Wow. I feel like the biggest dumbass. Each mention of the .cfg file, I thought was referring to the .cfg file located in the users folder.

I didn't even realize this until I opened up the original buldozer archive and noticed flashpoint.cfg in the main folder.

All's good now. Sorry for all the trouble.

[Student Pilot 0]

Well, I'm in good company. Don't feel bad, look a page or two back and you'll realize you're not alone

Glad you got it solved.

-Pilot

[Messiah 2]

Wow. I feel like the biggest dumbass. Each mention of the .cfg file, I thought was referring to the .cfg file located in the users folder.

I didn't even realize this until I opened up the original buldozer archive and noticed flashpoint.cfg in the main folder.

All's good now. Sorry for all the trouble.

lol - we should have been more specific perhaps

[SWIFT88 0]

Hmm buldozer is a bitch to setup

[Student Pilot 0]

That's a given...

I found it was easy to set up a new drive from Windows XP (tools - Map Network Drive) which, when clicked, leads to bulldozer's root folder. It means I don't have to keep the damn thing on the root of the c: drive. Then just tell Oxygen to look for bulldozer from the new drive.

-Pilot

[[aps]gnat 28]

It means I don't have to keep the damn thing on the root of the c: drive.

? buldozer has to be in the root ? Well mines not, its several directories down and works fine.

[Student Pilot 0]

I always understood that bulldozer had to be in the root. There are work-arounds, like the one Brsseb gives on his site, which seems to me to be the same thing I did when I created the new drive, I just did it without the .bat file.

-Pilot

[Planck 1]

I have buldozer installed in the same folder as Oxygen, which is NOT in the root directory.

In fact it is 2 directories in.

No fixes, no magic workarounds, it has never given me any trouble.

Planck

[Student Pilot 0]

...you mean I've had bulldozer on the root of my c: for over a year and didn't have to?!

-Pilot