Some Texture Fix-ups

[Baddcog]

Sorry to hijack, didn't want to start a new thread but I think it fits here:

 

board_plainblue_hinge01.dds, board_plainblue_hinge02.dds and a few other wood door dds textures don't seem to have a material for them.

 

I'm trying to add all door textures to door skins. If someone knows where they are can they point em out, or do we need to make the materials?

[Baddcog]

@ Dram.

Regarding your mansion doors. I have added these also to the door models.

What I have noticed though is that a few of the locks are on the opposite side of the doors. This means that they are on the side of door as the origin, thus probably making it difficult to get correct rotation.

 

I know it's a pain and kindof an after though, but would it be possible to flip these textures horizontally so all locks are on the same side (right side of texture).

 

I know this would leave you having to flip the orientation of them in Blackheart Manor but in the long run I think it would be best overall.

[SneaksieDave]

I made a new normalmap for /textures/darkmod/stone/brick/diagonal_cross2. The old one (left) has overblown details and looks too harsh in most lighting conditions. The new one (right) is basic, nothing special, just cleaner and makes the texture more viable. The diffusemap is blurry so there's ultimately only so much that can be done with it. I'll upload it if there are no objections.

[greebo]

Looks better, no objections.

 

Is the normalmap as low-res as the diffuse?

[Springheel]

Is it even worth keeping? I think I made that back in 2005 when I barely knew what I was doing.

[SneaksieDave]

Is the normalmap as low-res as the diffuse?

Yes, I didn't size it up or anything. I suppose that could be tried if higher detail is desired.

 

Is it even worth keeping?

I'm torn on that. On the one hand, it's kind've hard to resurrect. On the other hand, doing some mapping the other night, when I first tried it as a floor (in-editor), I liked it (till I saw it in-game). So, I'm not too sure; just wanted to give it a fighting chance with an updated normalmap.

 

Similar treatment/opinion for /textures/darkmod/stone/brick/grainy_blocks01

Image below.

 

My recent dive back into some mapping (in no small part due to ongoing AI optimizations ) has reminded me that we still have a lot to do in the texture library. If I were to give a personal breakdown of it in my head just from a few nights of mapping, I'd say (take this with a grain of salt, no hard numbers, just gut feeling):

 

We have about 5% textures that are "WOW!" material.

We have about 10% textures that are good (this includes the wows)

We have about 50% textures that are borderline/decent/passable (this includes the goods and the wows)

The other 50%, I don't think belong in the mod.

 

I don't currently have opinions on what's lacking vs. not.

 

The repository has improved greatly recently, there is no doubt. However, I think we have quite a few textures that don't live up to what TDM and Doom3 materials can do, and should be. There are games out there like HL and M&B and even Thief 2 -- with lesser technology! -- that look better. That shouldn't be. The real rude awakening was when, two nights ago, I loaded up my old TDS map (which I've started building (for the third time!) in TDM), and so far, it looks better in TDS.

 

Anyway, the point of this is NOT that we suck. The point is, we have a lot of stuff from the old days when we were learning techniques, resources, etc., and those are just that -- the old days. We can do better now, and as such should probably start refining our repository. It's what makes up the picture that the player sees, afterall. Maybe it's time we start looking at them individually, and call for votes when needed.

 

Here's the attempted touchup to the texture mentioned above. Also removed an obvious tiling giveaway in the diffuse (that big dark scorch).

[Baddcog]

I think that bottom texture now looks excellent.

[SneaksieDave]

Really? Thanks that's good to hear because I was unsure about it, afraid I was going to get into a tweaking downward spiral, where I sit there trying to "improve" it 50 times, and every time was no better than previous. I guess I'll put these up then.

[Baddcog]

Yeah I think you did a really good job with that one. Deffinately had too many large bumps before, now it has alot of texture but it's subtle. Looks alot like a rough stone.

 

And I think the block pattern is good for large stone places.

[New Horizon]

Definitely a major improvement. I find that there are a lot of our textures that have overly strong normal maps and it looks horrendous. Time consuming to fix I'm sure, but I think it needs to be done for quite a few. It's mainly that they appear to have been made from a texture in some normal map generator, and all the minor details have not been cleaned up. There should definitely be deep ridges where stones fit together, but man...the bump. lol

[Gildoran]

Yeah, one of the most common mistakes I see in TDM textures is having the "grain" of the normalmap be way too intense... it always makes the textures look like zebras when viewed close up. Though I don't think that's a result of using a normalmap generator, as all my normalmaps come from generators and they don't have that symptom.

 

The other thing I see a lot is diffusemaps that look like paintings rather than photos, or diffusemaps that come from photos with directional lighting... if more of our textures came from high-res photos carefully chosen to avoid directional lighting, I think that would help a lot.

[Dram]

@ Dram.

Regarding your mansion doors. I have added these also to the door models.

What I have noticed though is that a few of the locks are on the opposite side of the doors. This means that they are on the side of door as the origin, thus probably making it difficult to get correct rotation.

 

I know it's a pain and kindof an after though, but would it be possible to flip these textures horizontally so all locks are on the same side (right side of texture).

 

I know this would leave you having to flip the orientation of them in Blackheart Manor but in the long run I think it would be best overall.

 

Whoa, just noticed this now. Sorry to not have replied a bit earlier, but which doors btw? On all my doors I have the origin always opposite to the handle location etc

[Dram]

Just read about tweaking of textures. Very nice Sneaks and yes that is true that we should tweak even existing ones. IMO we shouldn't -remove- any, but only replace them. It is the most de-motivating thing having to constantly replace textures in a map because of a reorg etc. For a small map this is a non-issue, but for something like BM, it's a plain pain in the ass

[SneaksieDave]

@Tels: everything in tdm_stone_flat_mosaic.mtr seems to be broken/have its files missing. Should this file be removed from SVN?

[Tels]

@Tels: everything in tdm_stone_flat_mosaic.mtr seems to be broken/have its files missing. Should this file be removed from SVN?

 

Sorry for late reply, was travelig and then fell ill and just returned home.

 

Oops, must have uploaded that one by accident. The textures for that are still on my computer. I have a look tomorrow and push them into SVN.

[Tels]

Here's the attempted touchup to the texture mentioned above. Also removed an obvious tiling giveaway in the diffuse (that big dark scorch).

 

The right side looks *much* better now - great work! Old version looked like fake plastic or something.

 

Btw, just in case you forgot we also have a high-res repository, so some of the bad textures in the mod might be there in a better version.

[SneaksieDave]

Hopefully, through natural course of time and people learning more, we're starting to move into a level of quality (some recent additions are superb) that eventually any questionable ones can simply be cut adrift as no longer needed. I'm still not sure about the blocks above; I made it in 10 mins of effort as a quick fix for something I didn't think would ultimately stay anyway, and when I tried to use it last night I found that I didn't want it. DOH.