PeppeJ wrote:And if you're not using Photoshop you can use nvDXT from Nvidia DDS Utilities to compress to .DDS
It's a commandline tool so launch it once through commandline to see options.
It should also be noted that the "nvcompress.exe" has far better quality DDS compression, especially for saving the normal maps over the Photoshop Plugins and it is what the team is using now for saving all new/reworked final textures, with only using Photoshop to save WIP textures at the most.
'[R-DEV wrote:Rhino;2109319']Did a little testing here to see how much difference there is and while NVCompress.exe is certainly better, the amount of differences there is really depends on the type of file your saving and the colours in it etc.
First the Chinook CH1, 2048x2048, DXT1, no alpha and full mips, not that much of a difference but still, NVCompress is noticeable better, especially in some small areas like the small red/green anti-collision lights, that the colours of bleed a lot more into the surrounding texture. (.jpgs saved in full quality for preview with not much loss in themselves) Original:http://i.imgur.com/KYLbS5D.jpg PS DDS:http://i.imgur.com/AvHci4Q.jpg NVCompress:http://i.imgur.com/YnsYvnq.jpg Difference: (turned into grey scale and massively bumped up the contrast so no difference is black and biggest difference is white): http://i.imgur.com/WBpD7v9.jpg
Can you possible let me know what the correct settings are in the Nvidia plugin for creating the bumpmap/normal map as im haivng problems comes out completely different to what the BF2 ones are like
Also to confirm for textures on buildings and other static objects is it best to use DXT1 and use DXT5 if its has alpha's like glass and done as a Bundlemesh instead
TBH I haven't used the nVidida PS Plugins to make a normal map in years. I suggest google to find a decent setup but it was never very good from what I can tell and you are probably better off with a 3rd party tool. Personally, I use CrazyBump to convert most of my Heightmaps although there is probably much better tools around now and CB likes to do a lot of its own thing even when given a HM and takes some tweaking to get what you want, but has more control than most ones I've tried.
Can you possible let me know what the correct settings are in the Nvidia plugin for creating the bumpmap/normal map as im haivng problems comes out completely different to what the BF2 ones are like
Also to confirm for textures on buildings and other static objects is it best to use DXT1 and use DXT5 if its has alpha's like glass and done as a Bundlemesh instead
Cheers for the help in advance
There is a tutorial by The Obscure , just search it on google
I wasnt able to find the guide from Obscure but i will give Crazybump a try as that looks pretty good if anyone does have a link to the guide from Obscure that would be handy
MajorIceman wrote:I wasnt able to find the guide from Obscure but i will give Crazybump a try as that looks pretty good if anyone does have a link to the guide from Obscure that would be handy
Cheers for the Link explains alot for the Soldiers but give me some ideas for the Statics and things just wanted to make sure i am laying it all out correctly thats all and using the correct DXT1 and DXT5 for different parts of the models
Take a Weapon for example the main body of the weapon i assume can be done as DXT1 as it doesnt need a Alpha but if you want say alpha on the Scope then you would use DXT5
Same as for eample a building the main part of the building could be DXT1 one and then the Windows would be DXT5
As i would make the building as a Normal StaticMesh and then do the windows as a Bundle mesh and Child object them to the main building so i could dome say some windows clean and some others dirty but all so you can see through them.
