High Definition Props and Textures - Discussion thread

Xyloxadoria · April 04, 2009, 10:08:44 AM

Quote from: jeronij link=topic=7464.msg236280#msg236280 date=1238839727
I just can second SF's words, and express my interest in such a tool as well ;D ;)
/quote]

Until the tool is done, i have made a tutorial here.
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7495.msg236317#new

buddybud · April 04, 2009, 10:30:18 AM

my two cents.
Caution is obvious because most of this is only a couple days old. As for bandwidth i suggest you just leave space allocated and scrutinneering at present levels and force individuals to choose what they want to upgrade. There is no need to upgrade everything in the game. Put the onus on the creator to justify the use of larger files. If it's seen as not improving things or just far to large reject it.....

Besides i predict that with every good hd texture or prop there will be two that are no different in low res or just plain horrible! If someone insists on uploading something there are many alternatives.......in other words no different then now.

now if someone has another 98 cents so i could get a coffee

Bud

I also want to thank SimFox for those scripts....That is an awesome set of tools regardless of where this goes...Thank you very much

Jonathan · April 04, 2009, 10:46:56 AM

I think a very important thing to be HD, is traffic lights. Because the rest of the networks are HD(because they aren't rendered by BAT) and then you get these pixelated poles(that seem way too tall btw).

Also [generic]signs(ie speed limits) would be great because you could actually read them as well.

Jonathan

Ryan B. · April 04, 2009, 02:07:43 PM

I'm drooling over the thought of my signals in HD. I will be looking forward to further development!

jeronij · April 05, 2009, 02:20:00 AM

I have been trying to create my first HD Prop, but after some hours already, I cant get it to work. I tried with existing MAX scenes. I tried with fresh scenes. I tried with different renders... no luck. The HD prop does not work for me/my model

After searching a little bit with the Reader, I figured out what is wrong, however, I cant find a solution to fix that myself.

I'll try to explain.

It seems that the export process is creating extra fsh (slabs?) for this model. Every s3d file has now two fsh textures but only one material applied:

I tried to manually add the extra material to the s3d:

However it is not fully recognized by the s3d.... and anyway, it would be a tedious work to manually add the material and re-skin the models

These are the fsh for that model:

Oh, if I render the model with the previous CPCameraRig.ms it renders fine.

At this point, some help would be really welcome

EDIT: The LODs are simple boxes.

2ND EDIT: I installed the modified script for MAX only.... shall I install it for BAT as well? .... probably because I am rendering the s3d's with it.... I'll give it a try later

LAST EDIT: This was of course the problem

¡¡¡ The modified scripts must be installed for both tools

Btw, Simfox, everytime I try to download your scripts from rapidshare (direct link) they get corrupted because they are being saved as html files, regardless of how i name them... could you provide zipped files links for both scripts instead?. It would make things easier

.And thanks for the one for MAX

mightygoose · April 05, 2009, 05:58:23 AM

your tyre wearlines look great but i think they stand out to much from the surface, a subtler look would greatly improve the overall feel to the textures, just my 0.02c

Xyloxadoria · April 05, 2009, 06:04:39 AM

I did a experiment where i render out a model normally and then in HD Here are my results

mightygoose · April 05, 2009, 06:27:56 AM

holy cow, thats a real dramatic improvement, truly superb, how does it look at zoom 5 though?

debutterfly · April 05, 2009, 07:34:00 AM

How about this?

-Larry (debutterfly)

Jonathan · April 05, 2009, 07:56:22 AM

From you pictures below, in game the textures look a bit bright,
And in the texture you just posted The curb looks a bit clean, and the place where the street touches the road,
other than that it looks good, the colour is good, and the tire marking are much better.

Jonathan

SimFox · April 05, 2009, 10:10:43 AM

I agree with Warrior it looks too clean to CG. It need some slight irregularities here and there, particularly given that this isn't on-next-to-another tile thing

SimFox · April 05, 2009, 10:17:34 AM

Quote from: jeronij on April 05, 2009, 02:20:00 AM
I have been trying to create my first HD Prop, but after some hours already, I cant get it to work. I tried with existing MAX scenes. I tried with fresh scenes. I tried with different renders... no luck. The HD prop does not work for me/my model

After searching a little bit with the Reader, I figured out what is wrong, however, I cant find a solution to fix that myself.

I'll try to explain.

It seems that the export process is creating extra fsh (slabs?) for this model. Every s3d file has now two fsh textures but only one material applied:

I tried to manually add the extra material to the s3d:

However it is not fully recognized by the s3d.... and anyway, it would be a tedious work to manually add the material and re-skin the models

These are the fsh for that model:

Oh, if I render the model with the previous CPCameraRig.ms it renders fine.

At this point, some help would be really welcome

EDIT: The LODs are simple boxes.

2ND EDIT: I installed the modified script for MAX only.... shall I install it for BAT as well? .... probably because I am rendering the s3d's with it.... I'll give it a try later

LAST EDIT: This was of course the problem ¡¡¡ The modified scripts must be installed for both tools

Btw, Simfox, everytime I try to download your scripts from rapidshare (direct link) they get corrupted because they are being saved as html files, regardless of how i name them... could you provide zipped files links for both scripts instead?. It would make things easier .And thanks for the one for MAX

I'll do that - put Zips on Rapidshare.

May i ask how you do your export form the look of your FSHs something is very wrong with it.
BTW Slab - is a piece of S3d file, FSH is, well FSH... a texture that is applied to Slab.

Also Do get it correct you've ONLY replaced script file in MAX? Right?

Andreas · April 05, 2009, 10:21:46 AM

@SimFox: You should test the compression levels with a FSH file (or a bunch of them), not with BMP and PNG. BMP isn't even used in the game, and PNGs mainly for icons and UI graphics, which do not contribute to the HD prop idea. I noticed that the Nullsoft Installer (used for the NAM etc.) is able to compress FSH textures a whole lot better than a standard ZIP file (that's why the Mac versions are always much larger). I'm using the LZMA compression algorithm, which seems to be the best one so far. I'm not sure what RAR and 7ZIP are using, but even RAR is not as effective as the LZMA algorithm.

SimFox · April 05, 2009, 10:32:41 AM

Andreas:
You are very right, of course... anyway my example was just to illustrate eh fact that already compressed files will not be compressed more... I choose PNG because of its lossless compression.

JoeST · April 05, 2009, 10:36:57 AM

simfox you should upload your scripts .zip to a forum post, would mean no need for rapidshare waiting

debutterfly · April 05, 2009, 10:53:13 AM

how bout this?

-Larry (debutterfly)

SimFox · April 05, 2009, 10:57:50 AM

Do you mean to attach them to the message, right? then which one... the one where links to Rapidshare were or somewhere else?

JoeST · April 05, 2009, 10:59:07 AM

any of them, makes sense to put it in the one with the link tho

JoeST · April 05, 2009, 10:59:59 AM

you should consider a slightly less straight blead from the dark road surface to the street... tis a tad straight atm

SimFox · April 05, 2009, 11:00:38 AM

well...
same thing here... it it absolutely "clean" and regular...
Same problem is with RHW textures - they look totally alien in the game. I don't use them for this very reason. I just hope that with this drive to upscale the textures people will take notice of such things...

You should open any of the Maxis textures and study it... see all the nuances, variations, imperfections.
Otherwise what point in going Hi Def if your texture has less detail than a low def one...

In no way I pretend that this is a ready one but just an illustration of what I have been talking: