Must have Tools for the descerning mapper:

[Bikerdude]

Evening

 

While waiting for dinner to cook, I went in search of some new texture/image tools and found the following -

• SageThumbs - https://sourceforge.net/projects/sagethumbs/
• FastStone Img Viewer - http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm
• MindTex - http://frozenflamecorp.com/site/pages.php?page=entryview&category=products&entryid=2

I will update this thread as I go.

Edited December 18, 2017 by Bikerdude

[rich_is_bored]

Normal maps are interpreted by the engine as surface normals rather than colors and the form of compression applied must account for that. There are compression schemes well suited for normal maps and in fact DDS supports some of them. However TDM does not.

 

Here's a cool experiment that proves the point. Convert a normal map into a jpeg. Now compare how it looks in game when applied as a normal map versus on the desktop as an image.

[grayman]

Brilliant!

[Bikerdude]

Here's a cool experiment that proves the point. Convert a normal map into a jpeg. Now compare how it looks in game when applied as a normal map versus on the desktop as an image.

Will do!

Brilliant!

I reckon the above tools have decreased my texture creation times down by 75% or so.

 

Now if someone could create a little app or script that would recursively look at all file names in a given folder and using a material template, insert and create a single material definition for said textures - this would get the above figure upto 90% or more. Calling Freyk, I believe this would be right up your street young man!

[Bikerdude]

Thigh rubbing...

 

[Spooks]

Irfanview is also a nice, freeware imageviewer with a batch convert option which I've personally used for a long time. I think it can open .dds files with the right .dll but I've not been able to find the addon in that Web 1.0 website of theirs.

[LDAsh]

Yous dudes might find this interesting:-
http://www.imagemagick.org

Particularly, the ability to use command-lines to achieve complex manipulations and easily share them with BAT files. I was looking for a way to batch-process mipmaps with certain adjustments, stuff like making glass more opaque at a distance/angle, and trying to make glass then completely opaque so it can then be used to close a portal. I don't know if TDM has distanced-based portals in it, I think Quake 4 but Doom3 did not. I'm also trying to have greater control over foliage, etc., to help thicken or thin the alphas out at a distance. There are a bunch of things one might want to toy with mipmaps to achieve, and this is great software for it:-
https://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30567&p=138376

Edited December 30, 2016 by LDAsh

[Bikerdude]

@Ldash - we use LOD and we can turn this off at distance, so this is something we could use.

[Bikerdude]

Now if someone could create a little app or script that would recursively look at all file names in a given folder and using a material template, insert and create a single material definition for said textures - this would get the above figure upto 90% or more. Calling Freyk, I believe this would be right up your street young man!

Calling Freyk..

[freyk]

You Rang?

I have some experience with image magick - Convert (created a batchscript and frontend for it earlier).

 

And for the list,

How about paint.net (and its many plugins)?

and the online http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

Edited December 30, 2016 by freyk

[Bikerdude]

• I have some experience with imagemagick (created a batchscript and frontend for it earlier).
• And how about paint.net (and its many plugins)?
• and the online http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

• Ah yes, can't see the page with the ImageMagic info though...
• There was a plugin for batch processing image but it was buggy and stopped being compatible above PDN 4.x
• That looks like ti can only do one file at a time.

What my request above was for is a small tool/utill that can look at all the files in a folder & sub folders and then using a material definition template create a single .MTR files with all the material defs. | ask because as I do a lot of the texture import work for the mod this would greatly speed up that task.

[freyk]

If someone could take a look at convert with a powershell script, to convert images.

and change this to create some the mtr files.

Edited December 30, 2016 by freyk

[Bikerdude]

I'm confused, atm I'm not actually trying to convert any files via a script at this point.

 

What I am looking to do (if its even possible) is -

1. look at all the image files in a folder and sub-folders and make a note of all the file names.
2. then create a template (in this case a standard material def file)
3. Then using the above template, create a material definition for each of the image files.

The end result would be a single .MTR (material definition) file with material defs for all the files in the above said folder...

[Epifire]

Evening

 

While waiting for dinner to cook, I went in search of some new texture/image tools and found the following -

• SageThumbs - https://sourceforge.net/projects/sagethumbs/
• FastStone Img Viewer - http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm
• MindTex - http://frozenflamecorp.com/site/pages.php?page=entryview&category=products&entryid=2

I was going to do a write-up, but then remembered a picture or in this case a video is worth a thousand words...

 

In response to SageThumbs this is a fantastic little piece you've stumbled upon. Also as a user pro-tip, go into the 64 bit settings and change maximum size of image file to 50mbs. This allows you to view thumbnails on 4k images (before compression to dds). It's handy since I atlas pack a lot of my sets into 2k or 4k res image sheets. Most of us have adequate amounts of RAM to easily support that function, so it's really not hurting performance either. Now if you were wondering why you weren't seeing some thumbnails, this is why

[Bikerdude]

Sweet, just out of curiosity - what do you use for the other two apps I found..?

[Epifire]

FastStone looks extremely useful for general viewing and batch naming as you had pointed out. MindTex however doesn't serve a lot of use for me as I always produce materials from scratch now (using heightmaps). While normal map conversion is handy if you're basing it off of a diffuse, it's not near as accurate as using a heightmap. The reason being is that any light/dark areas aren't explicitly representing true height values (when extracting from a diffuse image), so it skews the ending result. For instance, a dark colored bolt or rivet will be considered to be depressed into the surface (even if the intended appearance is that it sticks out of the object) simply because it's calculated from a diffuse.

 

If anyone remembers crazy bump, I own a copy of that (which really just collects dust for me) and it attends to the same functions if need be. The big thing now is I've switched my workflow to Allegorithmic's Substance tools, and it fills the role of my material creation since I prefer to have control over the look of my models from start to finish. However, for anyone who doesn't mainline their approach via modeling or even Substance Designer as standalone material creation, MindTex is definitely your next best option.

 

Mainly because of dynamic control factors, the old fashion image copy methods of rummaging old photo repositories are becoming obsolete for the industry. The only real world data being sought after now are being translated into Mega Scans and different information maps of the like. This largely has to do with new rendering methods such as PBR and greater processing power to handle more complex and dynamic materials. Old image dumps such as CGtextures are hopping on board with getting scans on their sites now as a response to the change in workflow. For me personally I've found that id4's dynamic lighting actually achieves some very good results for an old engine. Banking on a more modern theory of less lighting info (in the diffuse) and more reliance on normal maps. For a modeler like me, it's a lot more attractive than the very subpar bumpmap/lighting pass in a similar dated engine such as Source.

[Arcturus]

I recently took part in a contest by Allegorithmic for a material made in Substance Designer. Entire material was made in SD from start to finish, though it would be easier to import some svg shapes.

 

Rendered in Iray (built-in raytracer) with tessellation and displacement on:

 

https://i.imgur.com/m6FlkV4.jpg

 

https://i.imgur.com/rxI03vM.jpg

 

https://i.imgur.com/8DafEzM.png

 

[teh_saccade]

nice!

(but wow, the detail on that shotgun... and the wool).