Herge

Thanks for the feedback KEGs! Question: Is the obloha.p3d model used for more than the stormy texture like the other sky textures or do they use fixed in-game model that is scalable sky dome. I wonder if hex editing .exe texture references would scew things up... On your first point, how can PAA/PAC take advantage of DXTC? I just tested to verify that they are not DDS versions. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think DXTC works for non-DDS/custom formats (maybe thru pixel shaders, but that predates OFP). Need to compare DDS DXT1 versus PAC and PAA, but I think DDS wins out with 61,000 more colors.

NVIDIA has some tools a developer uploaded onto their site. It includes a few different things including the photoshop plugin, a command line DDS texture converter, a dll that itegrates into windows explorer so you can view thumnails of dds files, and 3dsMax dds support. < 1-3MB: http://developer.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=ps_texture_compression_plugin An alternative is to download the Microsoft DirectX SDK (>100MB) and use the DXTex Tool. They may have it as a separate download. It supports opening BMP and DDS only and saves to DDS files. There are 5 different compression formats within DDS, and most graphics cards will support few or none of them. Higher compression formats within DDS are a hardware issue, but maybe OFP game engine forces you to use lowest format. If link does not work, go to www.nvidia.com and look in: Developers -> NVSDK -> Textures -> DXT Tools What I think I know about OFP textures. If I am wrong please tell me so: 1. Textures must be: 2^x by 2^y dimensions although TexView will open up any evenly dimensioned textures if in right format. Saving incorrect dimensioned textures in TexView creates null files. 2. TexView will open: TGA, GIF, PAA, and PAC TexView lists JPG, but will not open them. It will NOT open: BMP, TIF, JPG, PCX, PNG, or DDS TexView will convert to PAC, PAA, or TGA You can manually type in extension if you want, but if no extension gets entered, it selects PAA or PAC automatically based on bit depth and alpha channel presence. Typing in non-supported extension (e.g. JPG) creates PAA or PAC file. Unless you rename file from (e.g. JPG) to PAA or PAC, TexView will not open it. When TexView saves a file as PAC or PAA, mip maps get created (since PAC and PAA format have built-in support for mip maps). Bu when saving as TGA, mip maps do not get created since TGA does not support mip maps. 3. Oxygen will open: TGA, GIF, PAA, and PAC Although TGA and GIF get opened, they get immediately converted to PAA or PAC, so they will not get used in-game. If you get error, you are missing some dlls that need to be copied into o2light directly. The textures an Oxygen created model references will either be PAA or PAC. 4. By hex editing Oxygen created models, you can change name/format of textures to alternate formats that the game engine supports. I think there is a texture swapping prog. that does this. Game engine supports: PAA, PAC, JPG, DDS Other formats maybe supported: TGA, PNG, PCX, BMP, The DirectX utility code may read some of these in, but the game engine may not have supporting code/or not let it happen. 5. Ideal Texture Format: Extension Bit Depth(col) Colors Transparency(levels) Mips DiskSpace CPU VRAM PAA 12 4,096 16 Yes Good Good Good PAC 8 256grey 256 Yes Good Good Good JPG 16?24? 65,536 ? No? Bad Worst Good (same as PAA/PAC) DDS 16 65,536 2 Yes(is supported..) Best Best Best Others that might but probably aren't supported: TGA 24/32 16.7million! 256 No? Worst Depends on comp Worst Since DDS is supported on 99% of video cards, requires no CPU processing, supports 61,440 more colors than PAA, takes up the least amount of VRAM and still supports basic transparency, it should be the defacto standard for all addons. The game Morrowind uses DDS for all textures and it's skies look beautiful whereas OFP skies are relatively ugly (To be fair, Morrowind uses terrain paging system where not all textures are loaded into RAM/VRAM where OFP is different so texture requirements are much more important). Going to DDS will allow you to have 16 times the colors than PAA. All newer cards will support DDS, but older cards GeForce2 maynot. DirectX/OFP engine might convert DDS to uncompressed versions if not hardware supported though--so you need not release separate addons. Question: If game engine reads in JPG and JPG does not support mip mapping---will your textures get mip mapped in-game? I think Suma said it doesn't work well or something like that. It is just a filtering effect somewhat like ansiotropic filtering or anti-aliasing filtering. The mips just effect really far away textures which aren't that visible anyway. All ground textures and in-game models will be mipped, so I don't think it will be that apparent. What will be apparent is up close textures that look really ugly due to very small bit depths like PAA. CPU time shouldn't be that bad--all textures are loaded off of disk and decompressed at level load time--not during game play. Is slightly longer level load times worth 61,440 more colors (JPG@16bit vs. PAA@12bit)--I think so. JPGs will not be compressed in VRAM, but neither will PAC or PAA unless they are using custom pixel shaders--which didn't come out till DirectX8. Only problem is lack of mips and longer level load times. P.S. Also on Nividia's developer site, there is a texture library with 50? 512x512 and 1024x1024 textures. It is a free download and is 107MB with textures for glass, metal, cloth, etc. Maybe you will find it useful. All textures are in DDS, do not know what compression level--you may need DXTool to convert them down, but don't think so. For those of you who have fortitude to read this far, I have few questions about changing sky in OFP (thanks to KEGs: 1. KEG's didn't change horizon gradient. I made beutiful gradient based on my Terragen renderings (that took 5 hours), but when converted to PAA, I have horrible banding problems. I want to change textures but also format. Kegetsy just changed texture. The obloha.p3d model references just 1 texture--stormy skies; what about other textures. They are not referenced in any config/resource files. Must I hex edit the OFP.exe--that may not work. 2. Why did KEG's alter obloha.p3d--it seems to have more segments, but wonder if it is something else. 3. I used a program to generate a cubic mapping of a Terragen sky dome. How do I map my 5 textures to OFP's skydome. Using KEG's method, I can modify the sky dome obloha.p3d and hex edit to other formats, but how do I generate the actual U,V coords for Oxygen skydome from 6 textures. Manually will not work... I think I could do spherical mapping in gMax (3ds) and export model with textures, but I thought only planar mapping will import into Oxygen. Anybody got solution? FYI-my 5 textures have spherical distortion.

3 simple solutions: 1. gMax is free. It is the learning edition of Discreet's 3dsMax. 3dsMax is $3000+ and is #1 program used by 3D game artists. (competitors are Maya and Lightwave). The difference: gMax has 3dsMax's modeling/texture capabilities but lacks the rendering component (you can't make movies). gMax has limited import capability but will not save to .3ds and all saving features have been removed from scripting system. The .gMax format is encrypted, and you will not find any 3rd party converters--Discreet doesn't want to give out their $3000 program, or do they? gMax however, supports a few very open game formats--Quake3, UT2003, and some of Microsofts formats. It is possible to export gMax model data as Quake's .md3, convert it into .3ds via Milkshape3D, "fix it", and then import into O2. See a more recent post, "exporting from gMax to O2" on how to do this. 2. Blender is also free. Many moons ago, a large group of people around the world in an act of harmony, shelled out $100,000 to buy the source code to a modeling program that Not a Number (NAN, advertising firm in Sweeden) already distributed freely. This is because so many people believe in the great capabilities of Blender and want to improve it even more. This program is every bit as powerful as the expensive commercial variants (3dsMax, Maya, and Lightwave), but like many Linux programs, it has certain short commings in its interface. It's not really bad (it's better than O2 and that is not that bad), but 3D modeling programs are complicated beasts, and the limited documentation doesn't help matters. There are hundred's of free tutorials on the net, but I haven't seen one that is not limited in scope or really helps begginers. Regardless, Blender is capable of radiosity, volumetric lighting, NURBs, polygonal modeling, metaballs, skelton animation, shadows, particle systems, uses Python scripting, has free plugins that allow digital compositing with Terragen animations for pretty incredible animations, supports 8 different O/S's, has a real-time game engine for interactive animations. It also supports a variety of formats/or has plugins that support them. The only bad thing is the interface has a steep lerning curve, whereas gMax has a more ergonomic interface with extensive documentation and 8 wonderful tutorials. 3. Milkshape3D is $30, but has the capabilities that other programs are charing $300-500 for. It has some modeling capabilities (slightly less than Oxygen), but the real need for it is in it's conversion capabilities. It supports 30-40 different formats and can both import/export from most of them. 4. Irfan View and the Gimp--not modeling programs, but if you need to texture your models, both of these are great. Irfan View is great 2D imaging program supporting 40 formats (and some very esoteric ones), has some post processing capabilties, great browsing capability, etc. Gimp--free competitor to Adobe Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro. Ported to many O/S. Interface is complex though... www.discreet.com/products/gmax www.blender.org www.gimp.org Irfan view has its own web site but is also on cnet.com?

Milkshape3D at www.milkshape3d.com will import/export from both .lwo and .obj A convertor p3d2obj will get data out of Oxygen

Not a post...

A little background info... gMax is the 'learning edition' of the $3000+ 3dsMax. It has most of the modeling features of 3dsMax, but leaves out the rendering component (you can't make movies). It is also free. It will let you save to gMax files but that format is encrypted and Discreet is the only one who understands it. They do not want to give away their $3000 program for free, so you will not find any 3rd party programs who can do this. Although it would make sense for 3dsMax to open gMax files, Discreet probably left this feature out. The major appeal of gMax is that it allows mod Makers to make new 3D content for games where the developers have entered into an agreement with Discreet. All the developer does is buy a developer version of gMax (that doesn't have the export feature locked, and is probably cheaper than 3dsMax) and creates an export plugin to distribute with their game. This plugin runs within gMax and allows saving to the vendor's game format. One and a half years after the initial release of gMax, only 10 games take advantage of this really sweet deal. This low number just demonstrates that most vendors have no desire what so ever to allow their game modded. To incorporate gMax for modders is so easy, and cost conscious, it is just plain riddiculus that few people seem to know or care about it. Perhaps the game designers want to solely control what gets modded, so they can reap all the profits thru expansions...who knows. It seems most would rather take the Micro$oft approach to game development--make a good game, but never a great game (Mechwarrior, Freelancer, etc.). Even BIS wan't initially enthusiastic about releasing any tools/supporting mods (but in absolute fairness, BIS is #1 in modding support ever--they regularily read the forums, aswer questions 2 years after launch, have released 10? patches that add many new features, incorporate new scripting commands to help mod groups like CoC). Who else in the history of gamming has given this much support? Fortunately, 3 of the smartest people in game development have decided to support gMax: ID, Microsoft, and now, Epic. The Quake3 format is extrememly well known, and practically a standard. Exporting as quake format from gMax is how you will get models into Oxygen. Proceedure: 1. Download the Tempest plugin for gMax off of Discreet's site. This will let you export model data as .md3 2. Import your .md3 into Milkshape3D. Get it off of www.milkshape3d.com It is the defacto standard in low poly count modeling. It sells for $30, but demo runs fully functioning for 30 days. Export as .3ds from Milkshape3D. 3. Unfortunately, .3ds format that Milkshape exports from is not compatable with Oxygen. You need to use a converter that is a bit more lenient when parsing the 3ds file, and resave it as a compatable 3ds format. I use Quake Model Editor. I think the guy wrote it in college, and his college web page is no longer available, nor to be found via Google. If any one wants this I will e-mail it to you. 4. If all goes well in QME/some other converter, you can now import into Oxygen. It works pretty well up to 20,000 polys, and takes about 1 min, but have not tried it with textures. P.S. The export process may seem like a pain, but since you are getting a $3000 program for free, it isn't that bad. Hope it works out for you.