*goodness* Or Gen Textures

[ascottk]

What I like about tds texture design is the fact that the *goodness* textures could be used for almost anything. In order to use them though, the smeshes' uvw mapping needed to be designed with those textures in mind. For example, the texture could be used on a wall or a vase, or you could use a section of that texture for a coin.

 

It's an efficient and versatile use of textures & I was wonding if a similar system could be/is used for this mod.

 

Here's a typical goodness texture from tds:

 

It could be used as a wall texture or a light post depending on the need.

[Gildoran]

I agree that having textures like that would be great. It also would make it easier to get trim/walls to go together.

[OrbWeaver]

It's an efficient and versatile use of textures & I was wonding if a similar system could be/is used for this mod.

 

Looks more like a hack to keep the XBox memory usage down.

 

The danger of doing things like this is that it makes it harder to modify the texture on a particular object without having a knock-on effect in other places (as both yourself and John P discovered while trying to upgrade the stock textures in T3).

 

That said, there is nothing wrong with having a set of related objects that share skins, or using stock textures on custom objects to keep VRAM usage down.

[sparhawk]

But iof the texture is strcutured like this, and you improve it, wouldn't that be still the same for all objects? I think the UV maps is not absolute coordinates. At least in OpenGL you give a value between 0 and 1 whch would mean more like a percentage. In this case an improved, and even bigger texture, should not really matter.

[ascottk]

Looks more like a hack to keep the XBox memory usage down.

 

The danger of doing things like this is that it makes it harder to modify the texture on a particular object without having a knock-on effect in other places (as both yourself and John P discovered while trying to upgrade the stock textures in T3).

 

That said, there is nothing wrong with having a set of related objects that share skins, or using stock textures on custom objects to keep VRAM usage down.

 

Yeah, I noticed there was a mossy texture (in John P's pack) used for outside scenes as well as inside scenes. Stonemarket was the biggest culprit for those. It used textures from the cemetary as keeper stuff. I really don't understand why they didn't use the same matlibs. Probably to keep memory usage down.

[ascottk]

Oh yeah, another good thing about these textures are you can reskin the object. You can go "I like this object but I want it to be ceramic, not wood. Oh hey! I can just change goodness_wood_lavendar to goodness_ceramic _pink!"

[SneaksieDave]

Yep, because of how the coords and system are set up, with some key combination (shift alt click or something? It's been a long time) you can simply add a new texture to an object.

 

Hm, I wonder if we could do something similar with a generic template skin of some kind...?

[OrbWeaver]

Oh yeah, another good thing about these textures are you can reskin the object. You can go "I like this object but I want it to be ceramic, not wood. Oh hey! I can just change goodness_wood_lavendar to goodness_ceramic _pink!"

 

That can be easily done in Doom 3 with any object, you don't need any special textures to make it work.

[SneaksieDave]

On the model, from within the interface, without changing any material or def (or model!) files?

 

And if so, are you purposely keeping us in suspense?

[OrbWeaver]

On the model, from within the interface, without changing any material or def (or model!) files?

 

You have to set up a .skin file, but once you've done this you can switch from the interface, yes.

[SneaksieDave]

He's toying with us, you realize.

 

So to clarify (I'm not sure how much T3Ed exp you might have): set up some kind of generic skin (details I assume are known?), create an object in doom3, and then pick a nice rock texture, do... something..., and then the vase has a rock texture? Or change it to carpet? Or flame?

 

Are we talking about the same thing? Not making a set, defined skin, but rather being able to change a model's texture to any other, on the fly within the editor.

[Springheel]

How would the use of 'goodness' textures eliminate the need for a skin file to swap textures?

[Gildoran]

I think the whole point of what ascottk is saying, is that since all goodness textures have the same layout, you can swap any one for another (using skins or whatnot) without needing to redo the texture alignment of the object.

[OrbWeaver]

So to clarify (I'm not sure how much T3Ed exp you might have): set up some kind of generic skin (details I assume are known?), create an object in doom3, and then pick a nice rock texture, do... something..., and then the vase has a rock texture? Or change it to carpet? Or flame?

 

Oh, that. You mean when you select a model and apply any old random texture to it that you selected from the texture browser?

 

No you can't do that in Doom 3, model textures have to be named in the model and possibly switched by a .skin file, you can't apply them arbitrarily.

[SneaksieDave]

Right, that. Oh well.

[ascottk]

How should we arrange these textures?

 

I just started making these (Dave's bell set kind of spurred this). So far I have them at the directory:

 

darkmod\textures\gen

 

Is that a good place to put them? And how about subdirectories:

 

ceramic

metal

stone

tile

wood

[Gildoran]

I'm wondering if we really want to have all that in a single texture... Perhaps it would be better to instead make texture sets? The problem is that it's hard to work with textures with lots of sub-textures in them. (for example, if you wanted to fit the trim to something, you'd have a hard time doing so in D3ed)

 

I'd be tempted to suggest a setup like this:

 

darkmod/sets/<material>/<set name>/floor_001

darkmod/sets/<material>/<set name>/trim_001

etc

 

If all the sets had standard proportions for the first image of each type, it would be easy to swap out one set for another without needing to retexture.

[Springheel]

Right now our model textures are in a different place than our brush textures. If we do this I would think they should go wherever they are most appropriate as a brush texture, and then model materials can just reference them as needed.

[ascottk]

Right now our model textures are in a different place than our brush textures. If we do this I would think they should go wherever they are most appropriate as a brush texture, and then model materials can just reference them as needed.

 

These textures could be either model or brush textures which was the point of bringing this subject up. I might convert some of the models to use this too (i.e. the water pump).

[Springheel]

Yes, but all our static mesh textures are in one big folder. I don't think adding a whole bunch of generic textures to that is a good idea. If these textures are going to be separated by material type, then it might be better to put them into the 2d texture folder structure instead, since it's already set up to accomodate that.

[Gildoran]

I agree with Springheel. Also, the example texture you gave seems more readily suited towards map architecture.

[ascottk]

Okay, now you're making me prove a point although this is a piss-poor example (using tds textures). Dave's bell is using 2 different skins & one default. Those other skins are the same textures as the wall:

 

 

Just in case I included the unedited shots:

[ascottk]

I'm wondering if we really want to have all that in a single texture... Perhaps it would be better to instead make texture sets? The problem is that it's hard to work with textures with lots of sub-textures in them. (for example, if you wanted to fit the trim to something, you'd have a hard time doing so in D3ed)

 

I'd be tempted to suggest a setup like this:

 

darkmod/sets/<material>/<set name>/floor_001

darkmod/sets/<material>/<set name>/trim_001

etc

 

If all the sets had standard proportions for the first image of each type, it would be easy to swap out one set for another without needing to retexture.

 

I must've missed this post. What I'm doing is a texture set. I'm not sure where you got the idea about sub-textures but all textures in this set will have the same layout.

 

Your suggested setup seems a little complicated. I think it could go something like this:

 

darkmod/sets/stone/gen_stone1.tga

darkmod/sets/stone/gen_stone2.tga

 

darkmod/sets/wood/gen_wood1.tga

darkmod/sets/wood/gen_wood2.tga

 

As for that example at the top of the post, I think just about every prop mesh in tds used that uvw layout. I'll put together a stronger argument for using this idea so I'm going to remap a few chosen meshes so they would use these textures then use them on the walls.

 

Another thing tds did was use existing tileable textures (in all directions) & incorporated those into the goodness/wall/gen textures (walls used a similar layout & those were indicated by having 512 in the name, i.e. CEMwall512A_D.dds). Hmm . . . maybe I should submit these to tdm since these are original based on the OM textures (need to fix normal map though).

 

 

Here's how that "wall" texture was used:

 

Hopefully this clears up the confusion.

[Springheel]

Your suggested setup seems a little complicated. I think it could go something like this:

 

Do they need to be put in a separate folder from other textures? It seems like it would be intuitive to just use the same folder structure that we are currently, but call them gen_* to indicate that they're generic.

[ascottk]

Do they need to be put in a separate folder from other textures? It seems like it would be intuitive to just use the same folder structure that we are currently, but call them gen_* to indicate that they're generic.

 

They do have a specific function (or nonspecific depending on your point of view). They can be used for meshes or walls which can't be said for the rest of tdm's textures, with a few exceptions.

 

Sorry guys, but I'm going to rant . . .

[rant]

There's other reasons for pushing this idea though. A lot of people working on this mod do not have the skills to have a clean uvw map & this kind of urks me When I started looking at the textures for the models, I was astonished on how messy the textures looked, especially the characters. Another reason is I can't apply another skin to a model because the texture is model specific & if I don't like the look, I'd have to figure out how that modeler mapped the mesh & create a new texture and skin. With this idea, all I have to do is apply another gen* skin to it.

 

The problem with a community mod is the skill levels of each person vary so the quality of the work varies. Some people submit textures that don't tile and others submit broken models. This causes grief down the road because someone has to take the time to fix these things which delays more important tasks. I can't imagine how much further this mod would be if things were close to being right the first time.

 

For example, the character models are being redone so we can have facial expressions. This should have been brought to the table in the first place. Another thing that urks me are decisions that could have been made on certain features are not in the mod yet because people disagreed about it. UI design and the back story are a couple of those "features" that's been delayed due to disagreements. Either vote on it or just implement one of them until a concensus has been made.That's why most forums have voting features & I wonder why voting isn't utilized more often in this mod.

 

I went against the design documents for the noisemaker because I didn't look that the design documents (I should have). But when I presented the new noisemaker design, the mod team liked it. That's one example of implementing something, without all the discussion/voting, that actually worked. It definately doesn't work all the time but it's something to keep in mind.

 

*Good grief I have to stop complaining here, but here goes . . .* The Dark Mod is held in high esteem & high quality is expected by this mod. When those expectations are not met, people can be total asswipes:

 

That video was pretty awful. I'm not sure that kind of thing is going to give the Dark Mod the kind of image it probably deserves.

 

Sure were not going to please everyone but when any "pros" take a look behind the scenes, then we'll definately hear about it. I'm not saying GBM is a pro btw

 

In short, I think we should be more consistant with voting proceedures because a lot of discussions so far have been counterproductive. Either that or just implement the damn thing.

 

Don't get me wrong on community projects (or this one for that matter), I love them, but these problems rub me the wrong way. Sorry to keep being a thorn in the members' sides.

[/rant]