Easily re-texturable addons?

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Recently I felt the need to customize a unit and searched around a bit to see if there was any using .jpg textures because I just couldn't work with the .paa tools made by the community (maybe I'm just too n00bish about them but Adobe Photoshop does the job for me in terms of .jpg's, since afaik there's no direct export to .paa for it... feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though... ).

So besides a unit that I found (the Cowboy from Delta Hawk's 18-wheeler pack, pretty cool but a bit limited in terms of weapon-carrying abilities), I was wondering which other addons of all types (not just units) use jpegs as textures that are easily customizable... the fact that DSA released its DSA Unit Pack with .jpg textures made me feel less bad about asking this, but which other addons (cars?tanks?planes?etc) do you know that use .jpg textures and that are easily customizable? Please include links for reference whenever possible! Thanx!

[Ironsight 1]

BUZZARD @ Sep. 27 2005,14:45)]Recently I felt the need to customize a unit and searched around a bit to see if there was any using .jpg textures because I just couldn't work with the .paa tools made by the community (maybe I'm just too n00bish about them but Adobe Photoshop does the job for me in terms of .jpg's, since afaik there's no direct export to .paa for it... feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though... ).

Why not use Texview?

[JdB 151]

Why not use Texview?

Because it creates worse quality then PAATool, and at a larger size

Also, as to the original question: jpg textures lag too much. If jpg had been possible performancewise, then BIS would have used it too instead of paa/pac

Read this DSA thread for more tips.

[Ironsight 1]

Why not use Texview?

Because it creates worse quality then PAATool, and at a larger size

Also, as to the original question: jpg textures lag too much. If jpg had been possible performancewise, then BIS would have used it too instead of paa/pac

Quote[/b] ]Recently I felt the need to customize a unit and searched around a bit to see if there was any using .jpg textures because I just couldn't work with the .paa tools made by the community (maybe I'm just too n00bish about them but Adobe Photoshop does the job for me in terms of .jpg's, since afaik there's no direct export to .paa for it... feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though...).

[JdB 151]

couldn't work with the .paa tools made by the community

I couldn't work with O2 at first, but did that keep me from trying?

I couldn't work with 3DSMAX at first, but did that keep me from trying?

I couldn't work with Photoshop at first, but did that keep me from trying?

People that say that they can't do something just give up too easily. Addonmaking isn't that hard, you just need to put some effort into it. Even a child can convert textures with PAATool, it is a matter of ''Select''ing the texture and hitting the ''Convert'' button. Texview works in almost the exact same way.

[benus 0]

TEXVIEW is good, it can convert JPEG and TGA into .PAA.

or you just work with .TGA files.

and if you use Photoshop ... you can work on the texture like you do with every .PSD. it can have lots of layers and more.

after that you can save the file with the SAVE AS function as .JPEG or .TGA .

after that convert them with TEXVIEW or some of the other tools here:

PANTool with this tool you can browse a whole folder

PAATool 1.1 if you aren't happy with the quality after using texview or PANTool try this one... it may be better

TEXTURES YOU SEE IN PHOTOSHOP OR IN ONE OF THE NAMED TOOLS WILL BE BRIGHTER INGAME needs some testing to find the best result

... if there are parts that shall be cut out in the game ... it is done with ALPHA channels .... if you use PHOTOSHOP 7.0 you won't find any alpha channels ... the part you want to be cut ingame can just be cut out. problem with Photoshop 7.0 ... when you cut parts out they may have white edges ingame.

IMPORTANT if you have an alpha channel with the texture .. you can only save it as TGA and convert it to paa then. JPEG files can't be saved with ALPHA CHANNELS. the part will be white.

Quote[/b] ]I couldn't work with Photoshop at first, but did that keep me from trying?

SAME HERE

benus

[[aps]gnat 28]

TEXVIEW is good, it can convert JPEG and TGA into .PAA.

Really!? Well my B-52 came out with the cr@ppiest textures ..... yet I tried and I tried but it seems no matter how I manipulated the JPGs or TGAs the results were the same.

I even tried the PAATool except if I remember rightly getting it to accept my textures was a problem.

I use Paintshop Pro.

In the end I found the in-built converter in O2 gave a slightly better quality conversion.

The original texture for the b-52 is a flat one colour with "panel tracing" of another colour ....... and it still comes out cr@p.

For the life of me I'd love to know whats wrong at my end, cuz other addon makers can get some truely amazing textures onto their creations.

- Is it TGA format (any variances)?

- Is it JPG format?

- Is it pallet arrangment?

- Is it colour selection?

- Is it Video Drivers ?

- Is it .... Geezz I dont know ....

[Acacyn 0]

BUZZARD @ Sep. 27 2005,14:45)]but which other addons (cars?tanks?planes?etc) do you know that use .jpg textures and that are easily customizable? Please include links for reference whenever possible! Thanx!  

Its really no problem to use .jpg files as textures.

As you can see on my STAR WARS TIE PACK VOLUME II i have used almost only .jpg textures.

I recommend to use them especially as high-res cockpit textures.

[sanctuary 19]

No no no , it is a problem.

with OFP engine , a JPG texture is loaded and uncompressed .

So in the end despite your texture is a JPG you will have in the video memory a texture of the size of a BMP.

OFP engine does not uncompress PAC/PAA , and so it is a lot more performance friendly.

Maybe having 1 kind of units using JPG is not that bad for performance, but try to use several addons with each one JPG textures and you will notice the performance impact.

PAATool from is the tool to use when you want to have a 32 bit TGA being converted without losing to much quality in PAA/PAC.

Texview unfortunately create some compression artifacts on the texture.

[Acacyn 0]

This only depends on the compression of the .jpg files. Most of the files which i have used (TIE PACK II, ARC-170) are very small.

I dont think there was a decreased performance. But i could be wrong of course.

[CanadianTerror 0]

JPG = BAD!

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Gnat @ Sep. 27 2005,14:55)]

TEXVIEW is good, it can convert JPEG and TGA into .PAA.

Really!? Well my B-52 came out with the cr@ppiest textures ..... yet I tried and I tried but it seems no matter how I manipulated the JPGs or TGAs the results were the same.

I even tried the PAATool except if I remember rightly getting it to accept my textures was a problem.

I use Paintshop Pro.

In the end I found the in-built converter in O2 gave a slightly better quality conversion.

The original texture for the b-52 is a flat one colour with "panel tracing" of another colour ....... and it still comes out cr@p.

For the life of me I'd love to know whats wrong at my end, cuz other addon makers can get some truely amazing textures onto their creations.

- Is it TGA format (any variances)?

- Is it JPG format?

- Is it pallet arrangment?

- Is it colour selection?

- Is it Video Drivers ?

- Is it .... Geezz I dont know ....

Try creating your textures at 150-300dpi. Then when you have finished "merge all visible" the layers into one. Then Using the Hue/Saturation/Lightness tool in Image>Adjustments, reduce the saturation by upto 25%.

Save as a 32bit TGA and use PaNTool or PAATool to same it as a .paa/.pac.

Reducing the saturation decreases the colour bleed during the conversion process. You have ot experiment a bit depending on the colours used but it does improve the quality at bit.

[[aps]gnat 28]

Try creating your textures at 150-300dpi.  Then when you have finished "merge all visible" the layers into one.  Then Using the Hue/Saturation/Lightness tool in Image>Adjustments, reduce the saturation by upto 25%.  

Save as a 32bit TGA and use PaNTool or PAATool to same it as a .paa/.pac.

Reducing the saturation decreases the colour bleed during the conversion process.  You have ot experiment a bit depending on the colours used but it does improve the quality at bit.

COOL ! ... some tips Thanks Rock, I'll give it a whirl.

Quote[/b] ]This only depends on the compression of the .jpg files. Most of the files which i have used (TIE PACK II, ARC-170) are very small.

I dont think there was a decreased performance. But i could be wrong of course.

Sounds like an opportunity for a test addon ..... a 10 m cube with at least 5 different textures, put a couple hundred on a map and see what the frame rates are like for each variant. Also check the memory usage of OFP at the same time .... maybe.

[sander 14]

Hi,

Another tip for converting textures to .PAA or .PAC format besides varying contrast and saturation is to reduce the number of colours of the rignal to a maximum of 256 beforehand. In my experience this reduces, though not necessarily completely prevents, the bleeding of colours.

Regards,

Sander

[[aps]gnat 28]

<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:Darkred'>WOW!</span></span>

Those tips all made a HUGE difference, no bleeding at all .... and that was with just TexView.

Now I can even consider "Shiny" implementation!!!

Thanks a million Rock & Sander.

(P.S. How do you force 32bit in PSP? most it seems to go is 24bit)

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Gnat @ Sep. 28 2005,13:46)]<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:Darkred'>WOW!</span></span>

Those tips all made a HUGE difference, no bleeding at all .... and that was with just TexView.

Now I can even consider "Shiny" implementation!!!

Thanks a million Rock & Sander.  

(P.S. How do you force 32bit in PSP? most it seems to go is 24bit)

Glad it helped.

I dont use PSP so im afraid i dont know - but there were some threads expalining a work around some time ago.

[Acacyn 0]

It will be automatically 32bit ( If you make alpha channel textures) just enable "transparent" option if you create a NEW image

[Arne 0]

Gnat @ Sep. 28 2005,14:46)](P.S. How do you force 32bit in PSP? most it seems to go is 24bit)

I've never used PSP do create 32Bit TGAs, but this might help:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

Editing Alpha Channels

with Paint Shop Pro

by toadlife - (toadlife@hotmail.com)

This tutorial was done using Paint Shop Pro 6. There is a misconception that Paint Shop Pro is not powerful enough to do advanced texturing for OFP add-ons. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Paint Shop is a powerful program that costs a fraction of what that other graphics program costs. People assume that it is only good for simple graphics editing because of what they read.

This short tutorial assumes you already know:

* How to use texview

* The basics of Paint Shop Pro and image editing in general.

* How to convert images using texview

* How to swap textures in OFP models

About TGA (.tga) files

TGA files feature a background and an alpha channel. When you open a TGA file up using PSP, the picture will appear all black. This is the "background" part of the picture. The background is all transparent, and isn't seen when being displayed in the game. The alpha channel is the part that will be shown in the game. Think of the background as being a window and the alpha channel as being paint that covers parts of the window. When you look at the window you can see through everything except the painted part.

Getting Started

Open up Paint Shop Pro and open up the TGA file that you want to change. In order to view the alpha channel, go to the "Masks" menu and select "Load from alpha channel". Once you have the Alpha Channel loaded, move to the "Selections" menu and click "Select all", then copy and "paste as new layer". This copies the current alpha channel to a new layer, which you can freely edit. If you don't do this you will only be able to edit the painted part of the alpha channel.

Editing the Alpha Channel

Now that you have an "editable" alpha channel layer, go to the "Layers" menu and delete the original alpha channel layer so that the only layer left is the new one you just created. Edit the alpha channel to your hearts desire.

Saving your new Alpha Channel and scrapping the original one

When you are done, go back to the "masks" menu and select "save to alpha channel". A window should come up which show the current alpha channel present in the image. First, you must delete the original alpha channel, and then save the one you have just edited to the image as a new one. You now have edited the alpha channel of the image. Save the TGA file. (IMPORTANT: Make sure you save the TGA file as" 24bit uncompressed" format!)

Restoring the background

The last thing you need to do is close the file and then re-open it. The image will appear white instead of black (this is the "background" I mentioned before). Fill in the whole image with black, and then save it again (IMPORTANT: Make sure you save the TGA file as" 24bit uncompressed" format!). Now your background is the same as it was before you edited it.

Congratulations!

You now have an image that is just like the original, with your new updated alpha channel!

-toadlife

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

First of all, thanks to all for the replies!!!

But, I didn't intend this thread to turn into a discussion on how to use other texturing methods besides jpg or why jpg textures are good or bad... Ironically, as this thread demonstrated, it's a lot more complex to use other texture file types other than simply jpgs (takes some trial and error even just to get the colors right!! ) .

I wanted this thread to list addons that use jpgs for ppl that are just starting off to get to texturing or, just want to quickly be able to use a personal-textured addon. I eagerly await the result of your tests to see if massive use of jpg-textured addons slows down alot or not that much on PCs, but in any case it cannot hurt to have even if just a couple of units with jpg textures... well, except maybe for owners of old PCs...

But for people that can handle them, and all others interested in just having a quickly-retexturable addon available to customize, could all addon makers report in any addons they might have that use jpg textures (working download links as well whenever possible please!! ) ?

Thanks again for your contributions to this thread!!

[franze 196]

Put 16 of these exceptional looking Royal Tigers on a map (any), then tell me how well it ran.

[nephilim 0]

jpegs arnet really good for textures in ofp

ive tried them myslef in ofp and results were soso..

also tehy indeed lag

specialy if there bigger the 512*512...

use pantool or paatool to get the best results

use paa format for rgb based textures

and pac format for greyscale textures like gun texes.