Sennacherib 0 Posted October 29, 2006 Quote[/b] ]Do you know if DDS are supported from Ofp??? i don't think dude. i hope to see all these modern files useable in Arma. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Linker Split 0 Posted October 29, 2006 So do I man, so do I Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
feersum.endjinn 6 Posted October 31, 2006 DDS as in DirectDraw Surface files? Not directly but OFP supports DirectX compressed textures and that's exactly what DXT1 textures are. PAA format isn't exactly same as .DDS but compression used is same. I used exactly same DXT compression library from Nvidia when writing PAATool as Nvidia used on their .DDS plugin for Photoshop. PAATool just doesn't have preview window Nvidia plugin has but many of the options are same. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ian Malcolm 0 Posted October 31, 2006 DDS as in DirectDraw Surface files? Not directly but OFP supports DirectX compressed textures and that's exactly what DXT1 textures are. PAA format isn't exactly same as .DDS but compression used is same. Just wanted to write almost the same. Thank you for saving my time Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fab. 0 Posted November 1, 2006 Yes. But optics on weapon is a bit different thing. All "cockpits" and optics are drawn last and smooth alphatransparency can be used on them without unwanted artifacts. But alphasorting between separate objects in the scene is almost impossible. That's why isn't smooth alpha used on original OFP trees or bushes. one funny thing is the BIS cloudlets. they dont have that alpha bug despite using more than one bit for alpha channel... now u may think maybe there's something hardcoded in there that makes the cloudlets being filtered correctly.. well it doesnt seem to be so. i tried to replace them by custom cloudlets of the same size and all alpha formats (4-4-4-4, 8-8 etc..). no luck (alpha bug instead of good working cloudlets) i tried converting them back to tga and converting them to paa again.. in all format.. still the same bug - so they went from working to not working after converting them back to tga and paa again. (all using the same BIS model without actually opening it - just swapping the texture) i tried moving them to another folder, changing the config, i tried yelling at them and reasoning with them... no way to get BIS' cloudlets paa to bug like any other paa... (well i didnt try to stick them on another model like a vehicle to see what happens but as cloudlets they work well whatever you do to them - i think i even tried to make a custom model to make sure it wasnt from some odd hidden property in the original p3d but still they worked ok) so in the end i took a look at paa tool's source code to get the .paa file format, made a little visual basic application and tried to open some random textures - so the application worked, it returned the number of mipmaps and so on... then i tried opening the BIS cloudlets... so they are supposed to be in 8:8 format (8 bits for colours and 8 bits for alpha), but they didnt return any of the properties, its like they are in some unknown paa format... so i sent a PM to Suma from BIS about getting the official paa/pac file format description but he replied they didnt have anything like that at BIS (?! and had no time to make one now. But still you can open them in PaNtool. here's what it says in his readme : Quote[/b] ]Thanks to BIS for the great game, Suma for the paa headers, hottentotten_mike for the english readme,the team of WrpTool & AEF (esp. Lester who was always involved in the development of this tool) so apparently he got the file from BIS (about two years ago ?) so maybe they lost the documentation for their texture format and cant provide it anymore, i dont know so at the time i tried to email him (Dschulle@ofp-editing.de) but his email address was not valid anymore... i just made a search on ofp.info, seems like he's from the wrptool team and has been active lately, so now i have an idea about where to start to get touch with him... cheers Fab Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ian Malcolm 0 Posted November 1, 2006 But it doesn't matter what kind of compression you used. Cloudlets are something special and what's making them so special isn't how they are compresssed, but how engine works with them. Same can be said about clouds. But it doesn't mean you can use it on the world objects. Feel free to try, but you are wasting your time. Even ArmA isn't using "smooth" transparency on grass or trees... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fab. 0 Posted November 1, 2006 yeah but at least i'll be able to make custom cloudlets work properly besides, arma prolly doesnt use multi bits alphas on their vegetations because of performances... (multi bits alpha lags way more than one bit alpha which lags a lot more than no alpha at all) i dont see why they wouldnt have goten rid of that problem in arma, since this is exactly the same problem you get with car windshields and you dont see that in any other games if i'm not mistaken... if we reached a point where we can create such awesome lights and shadows, with pixel shadders and you-name-it, i'm pretty sure now we do have the technology to handle multi bits alpha channels properly... im gonna quickly try to map an object with the bis cloudlet textures and see if it works... it'll just take 2 mins to try anyway [edit] yeap, doesnt work with vehicles, binarized or not. but as i said at least we could have descent working customized cloudlets in the future... even thought that wasnt the point of the thread (sorry, my bad) @ linker split : you could always use a nicer resolution for your grass texture using one bit alpha channel only so it doesnt look so pixelized around the edges... i dont mean crazy resolutions, but i have done A LOT of vegetation since 2004 or so and i think the final result looks pretty descent.. and besides, one bit alpha channel makes for much better performances too Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
feersum.endjinn 6 Posted November 1, 2006 It is probably true that BIS didn't really write any internal documentation about .PAA format, if you read ther post mortem of OFP at Gamasutra, one of things they mentioned doing wrong is lack of documentation. However PAA format has been reverse engineered and documented by community ages ago, check it out in Community Wiki. http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Paa_File_Format Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fab. 0 Posted November 1, 2006 ouuuh thanks thats awesome... i barely checked out that wiki for some reason Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Linker Split 0 Posted November 4, 2006 thanks for your interest guys! I will do textures with a better resolution, so they will not look so pixelized as Fab said... Btw, is there any way of trying to force the OFP engine to handle multiple alpha channels? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fab. 0 Posted November 4, 2006 Btw, is there any way of trying to force the OFP engine to handle multiple alpha channels? the conclusion of this big discussion is, nope there isnt (at least none that we can figure out) good luck with ur textures and keep up the good work, Fab Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Linker Split 0 Posted November 4, 2006 ok men, thanks anyway... no problem, I'll still try to do the best i can Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
