The Texture Chopping Block

[Springheel]

Maybe what's needed is some kind of simple testmap with the textures people want to get rid of, so that we can walk around and see what they look like in a real situation. I find it hard to judge from screenshots.

[SneaksieDave]

Good idea; I will make some kind of a changing map for display of the textures currently being put to question and commit to svn.

[SneaksieDave]

Okay, up on SVN as test/texchop.map. It's just a simple square room which allows for fully displaying up to four different textures for nomination (one per wall). The walls show the texture at three scales, and it's also plastered up on the ceiling and floor, to give all views of it. The map has a friendly guard who walks around with a torch for the sake of lighting and movement, and to simulate something at least "semi-real." Plus he gives a good contrast between textures that look bad and those which don't (his own). I was going to make him cast no shadows, but then his attached parts did anyway, so I figured meh, it's not necessary.

 

To get him to stop at a particular spot for you while you take a closer look, just bind a key to "toggle g_stopTime 1 0". And if you want to take a closer look on your own, there's a handy lantern on the floor right in front of you. Also, be sure to check it out with and without r_skipbump and r_skipspecular. Interestingly, even with these settings off, the good textures still look good, unlike the bad ones. Perhaps that's a good litmus test.

 

For this first version, I included the two nominated textures mentioned above, and for the other two walls, just included two of our best textures for contrast. I trust it is obvious which ones are the good ones.

 

For anyone who changes the map to show other textures in the future: please be sure to keep the scaling on the walls (1/2, normal, 2x). It's easy with DR's 'apply to selected surface' functionality from the Media browser. It'll paint the texture on the face without changing the scaling.

[Tels]

Okay, up on SVN as test/texchop.map.

 

Yeah, I can see what you mean. The white bricks might be unfixable, need complete repainting.

 

The other one might just lack a decent normalmap, but it is non-tiling, too?

[SneaksieDave]

Not sure, let me look again... No, I think it tiles(?) Close enough if not.

 

Anyway, one of the points that is hopefully made by such a demo is that, even though something could be repainted, or given new normals, time spent on fixing it, etc., we must judge textures based on aesthetics -- and some are just butt-ugly.

 

Also, this should probably be put out there to ease discomfort of such a task: no offense and much apologies in advance to any authors for nominating any textures. I'm sure that goes without saying for all of us, but among friends it's a bit hard to say "I don't think this is good enough." I suspect that's probably partly behind the fact that we never remove any. Hopefully it's all good though; I expect several of my own will be nominated, and I agree (especially that crappy boards one, yuck).

[shotgun]

Hey, I'll be getting back on top of the textures next monday, so I can help out with whatever you need here.

 

Generally speaking, I thought some of the textures in St. Lucia should have softer normals (and/or spec level) vs. the diffuse. If the level of detail (pixel density) in a texture isn't as high as the one the normal pretends to push out of it, it looks conflicting. Most textures aren't super-uber 1-pixel sharp, so it is the normal that needs to be blurred slightly. The somewhat-unrealistic-yet-moderately-cool specular level of some of these textures promotes highlighting these 1-pixel normal details even more, making the contrast even more visible.

 

Examples (from st lucia):

- stone/cobblestone/rough_masonry01

- stone/brick/tight_large_singleblock01_local

[OrbWeaver]

Sometimes it is valid to have a high-detail normal map over a low-detail diffuse map, for example a concrete texture might have high-frequency bumps in the normal map but much larger smears and dirt patches in the diffusemap.

 

This is why I generally use a diffusemap of 512 pixels with a 1024-pixel normal map; the detail in the normal map eliminates the need for a similarly high-res diffuse.

[Arcturus]

I uploaded rough_wood_fungi02 and rough_wood_grey02. I say we should keep the originals.

[Tels]

I uploaded rough_wood_fungi02 and rough_wood_grey02. I say we should keep the originals.

 

Can you please take a screenshot of the old/new ones side-by-side? In the second shot is that the old or new one?

[SneaksieDave]

Looks good from here.

[Springheel]

Of the two in the map, only the white blocks seems bad to me. The cobblestone one could just use a decent normalmap.

[Arcturus]

Can you please take a screenshot of the old/new ones side-by-side? In the second shot is that the old or new one?

 

New one. Diffusemaps are quite similar but the old one has stronger normalmap resulting in slightly different character of the texture.

[SneaksieDave]

I'd like to compare as well. Are they still on SVN? So far the 'chopping block' has only lead to the increase in size of the repository.

 

The normalmap for the granite one is beyond my talents or patience (too incoherent for me to get any results without hours and hours on a texture I dislike) so someone else will have to do it or it's just wasting space and memory and should go. I also see that it has a 1024X1024 specular map which is not to regulation and completely unnecessary, so I'll bump that down.

[Springheel]

I also see that it has a 1024X1024 specular map

 

[OrbWeaver]

The granite flagstone one doesn't appear to have much lighting in the diffuse, so a normal map could probably be created by 3D-modelling the stones and adding to a noise-based normalmap generated directly from the diffuse.

[SneaksieDave]

I don't see or can't find the "texture crematorium" or whatever SVN repository. Can someone please create that? We might have the first candidate.

 

Also @Dram: did you have anything further (the shots) on that first candidate's removal, or are you okay with it?

[Tels]

I don't see or can't find the "texture crematorium" or whatever SVN repository. Can someone please create that? We might have the first candidate.

 

Should that just be a directory inside out SVN (I can do that) or a completely new repo? (sparhawk is da man)

[SneaksieDave]

Not sure how that works, but just a single parent folder outside I'd guess. Almost like a wastebin.

[greebo]

Hm, I'm not sure that it should be in the darkmod_hires repository - that's not the right place for old and crappy textures.

 

@sparhawk: can you create a new SVN repository for us? "darkmod_cemetary" would be ideal, because we can dump any kind of old stuff in there, not just textures.

[Arcturus]

I'd like to compare as well. Are they still on SVN?

 

Old one is rough_wood_fungi, mine is rough_wood_fungi02.

Texture on the right is the old one. It's in smaller scale to match the pattern:

 

Same scale, closeup:

[SneaksieDave]

Looks really nice to me.

 

Edit: and it's pretty different from the original, so they are both valid entries IMO.

[shotgun]

Looks really nice to me.

 

Edit: and it's pretty different from the original, so they are both valid entries IMO.

 

I concur. Yhe old one should be as sharp is all.

[Tels]

I concur. Yhe old one should be as sharp is all.

 

That's my only complain with the old texture - it is too blurry. Could that be "fixed" by just upscaling it and the normal map, then "sharpening" both?

[shotgun]

That's my only complain with the old texture - it is too blurry. Could that be "fixed" by just upscaling it and the normal map, then "sharpening" both?

 

If the normal was baked, it can be re-baked in high-res, if someone has the original model. In any case, there's no way to reinvent the diffuse. Someone will have to redo it.

 

...Why is everyone looking at me?

 

...err ok I'll redo it. Who has the originals?

[Tels]

If the normal was baked, it can be re-baked in high-res, if someone has the original model. In any case, there's no way to reinvent the diffuse. Someone will have to redo it.

 

...Why is everyone looking at me?

 

...err ok I'll redo it. Who has the originals?

 

Do you have access to the highres repository?