Trouble Loading RXGB DDS Files

[SneaksieDave]

Gildoran, some problems with the wood:

 

-there's no image in the texture browser

-the image in the cam window is very blurry - is that a space saving low res image, or just error? (perhaps the missing one from the tex browser is showing there??) If that is the intention, I'm not sure we should have an additional texture just for low res editor... if it adds space anyway, and degrades the look/makes texture alignment in cam mode difficult?

-you must not have used the latest submission (the one I pm'd you about) as the starting point because it lacks my tiling fixes

-it's not lighting properly, take a look

 

What do you want to do?

 

Edit: here's the link to the tiling fixes I had made: http://208.49.149.118/thedarkmod/textures/...ave/woodfix.rar

[Gildoran]

That's something either New Horizon or I need to make an announcement about... the main CVS repository is only including the necessary files for normal or low quality. You're probably on high or ultra quality, which will cause D3 not to load some of the DDS files.

[OrbWeaver]

Does Doom 3 not load a DDS file in High or Ultra even if there is no TGA image? This could present a problem if DDS is going to be used as the primary format for textures.

[Gildoran]

Yes... On High DDS files aren't loaded for normalmaps, and on Ultra no DDS files are loaded.

 

I figure we're effectively using the sorts of resolutions that are more suitable towards nextgen machines, such that current gen machines only have memory for medium quality. Thus for now we're only keeping the assets for medium quality on CVS (and in alpha releases) to keep bandwidth and storage space down.

[OrbWeaver]

OK, although it will need to be documented as part of the installation that either Medium quality must be set, or the respective CVARs will need to be enabled (probably image_usePrecompressedTextures, image_useCompression and image_useNormalCompression).

[SneaksieDave]

No, I'm not using the high res repository - this is from plain ol' normal CVS sync. And I run Doom with fairly modest settings, as I only have a 1.4GHz machine. The problems listed above - you're not seeing them? I'll put up comparison shots if you need them. I'm saying that I believe that error(s) are in the material or perhaps files were switched.

 

If I look at the brick you put up from me, it looks the same in cam or render mode. But if I look at the new wood, it is very blurry in cam, and good in render mode. This is not the media browser texture, but the actual texture on brushes - it doesn't look this way for any other texture I've put up, and so I believe there is an error. Plus it lights wrong in render mode (shown in image above). Plus, the image used was not my up-to-date submit, so it has tiling problems.

 

So what do you want to do? I'll handle the textures themselves if you're on other things, but I'm thinking there might also be material errors.

[OrbWeaver]

Does it look OK in-game?

 

I seem to remember enabling image_useNormalCompression 2 to see what the online RXGB compression looked like, and getting a very similar effect to that (unwanted and abrupt lighting falloff).

[Gildoran]

To me it looks like you're running Doom 3 in High quality mode. (check your system settings). That'll cause it to try to use uncompressed normalmaps, which haven't been distributed for that texture. In your screenshot, it looks like it wasn't able to load the normalmap. As for the texture appearing blurrier in cam mode than in render mode, that's normal. The cam mode texture only has 2 texels per doom unit, whereas the diffusemap has more than that.

[SneaksieDave]

In game is okay, but it's basically unusable in the editor. This fact indicates even more that something is switched/out of place/whatever. No other texture does this.

[Gildoran]

Does stone/floor/brick_006 do the same thing?

[SneaksieDave]

Yes. In fact apparently exactly the same symptoms.

 

(I should point out that above, I mean no other of my textures do the same thing - I haven't checked everything, obviously )

[Gildoran]

What happens if you switch to low quality, then back to normal quality and restart D3? (I'm really inclined towards thinking your copy of D3 isn't loading DDS normalmaps which suggests it's in high-quality mode ... I had made your older brick texture at a time when I was having trouble with DDS normalmaps, so its normalmap is uncompressed)

[SneaksieDave]

Low quality what? I've never made any such switch, ever.

[Gildoran]

In the D3 main menu, go into options then system. Under video quality, select medium quality, and apply changes. Then restart D3.

 

Unfortunately, I believe that as a side-effect that can reduce anisotropic filtering, which can result in textures getting blurry if they're at an angle to you. You can fix this by typing "image_anisotropy 4". (for different qualities, try different exponents of 2) Hopefully TDM's advanced video settings menu will have a choice box for anisotropic filtering.

[SneaksieDave]

Yep, it already is...

[Gildoran]

And the problem persists if you switch to low and back to medium? (I've seen a case where doing that fixed somebody's graphics problems)

[SneaksieDave]

No, it doesn't - I checked anyway, despite the strong belief it's not my system.

 

I just opened boards_new_001_local.dds in photoshop. Attached is an image of what I see...

[Gildoran]

Hmm... I'd be interested in finding out if other people are experiencing this. I'll delete the DDS and re-download it from CVS just to check if it's my system.

[SneaksieDave]

Also attached, the blurriness problem. On the left, cam mode. On the right, render mode. I understand a low res version can be used for the thumbnail (though not necessary), but it's not to be used for the cam port, right? It makes alignment difficult and eyes hurt.

[Gildoran]

It is used in the camera viewport. That's why things like caulk show up when not in rendermode.

 

Update: I just re-downloaded the DDS, and it still runs fine on my computer. I've double-checked the material file to ensure it points to the right places, and it does. Also, I've checked and I don't have any TGA versions of the normalmap in my darkmod directory.

 

Can you load up the DDS file in the Compressonator?

[SneaksieDave]

But... why are we doing that? It adds an extra file, as opposed to saving space, and makes the cam port blurry. Why not just use the base files as before? Is it not possible with DDS? Speed? Memory?

[Gildoran]

The reason is so that when you load up the texture, it has the proper proportions and scaling. For example, the source files for the wood are 1024x512, but with an editor image, the texture gets scaled down to appear like 768x512 (the original texture sizes). Also, with textures this high-res, when you load them in the editor they're huge, so you always have to scale them down. (I find that inconvenient, especially when I want to compare textures by switching between them) Using a proper-sized editor image causes the editor to scale the textures to the right size for you, and I don't think it has any effect on in-game memory usage.

 

Just out of curiosity, why are you avoiding render-mode for texture alignment?

[SneaksieDave]

Ah, my poor texture thread.

 

I'm not sure what that is, but I'd rather not install more rogue programs, to verify something what Photoshop is showing me... I guess it'll have to wait for more people to speak up. Guys?

 

Barring that, I can do it on my test machine (though that might not verify anything), or I could ghost my machine first.

 

I'm confused as to why we're going through all this complexity. It makes adding textures time consuming and difficult, it likely isn't saving much space (since more files are needed), and I thought it was a written rule never to compress normalmaps and speculars anyway?

 

/rant, sorry, just getting weary

 

Edit:

The reason is so that when you load up the texture, it has the proper proportions and scaling.

 

But when I look at decorative_001 in the media browser, it doesn't have proper proportions - it's badly squeezed together.

 

Edit2: to use render mode for alignment, I'd need realtime activated, and that makes DoomEd quite unstable for me.

[Gildoran]

I've asked New Horizon to take a look at it to see if he experiences the same symptoms as you... hopefully other people will chime in as well.

 

Anyway, using DDS files allows us to increase resolutions alot, using 1024x1024 images instead of 512x512 ones, and the savings apply both to file-sizes and memory. In fact, for diffusemaps, I think it might even be possible to go up to 2048x2048 without increasing sizes past 1.5 megs. As for compressing normalmaps/speculars, it depends on the kind of compression you use. DXT1 usually works just fine for diffusemaps but leaves artifacts on normalmaps. We're using DXT5 for normalmaps, which doesn't compress as well, but doesn't leave artifacts the way DXT1 does. (and in any instances where it does leave artifacts, we can just go with uncompressed TGAs)

[SneaksieDave]

I've just used separate tools, the command line DDS tools available on nvidia's page to open the wood normalmap file. It's a series of black (with some random corruption here or there) mipmaps.

 

Edit: one of the mips uploaded to see (there isn't much to see):

 

http://208.49.149.118/thedarkmod/texures/s...e/brokenmip.tga

 

Edit2: nevermind, http access seems to be still screwed up.

 

Edit3: screw it, image attached. How silly, posting an image of an image of a black rectangle.