Map from 1998!!!

[Melekor]

It would be easier if you just make new posts instead of updating the original.

So the DTEX looks good but the vertex mode blending options make it look all blurry/smudged. It would be great if it would instead identify two layers, and I just paint a second layer with specialized textures instead of blending.

It would be great if we could have support for 32b textures for layer 2 as well so that little details like flowers or rocks could be painted instead of looking all funky depending on the cmap's poor level of detail. IE, with the 8b alpha for blending. Or you could do it with 24b by checking the hue and not blend those pixels (of course not as powerful as 32b but more compressed).

There are undoubtely lots of ways you could think of to make the system better, easier, more powerful, etc. The current system was designed with specific hardware constraints in mind - for example it had to run decently on geforce 2 series hardware, which is what I was using while developing the system. At this point, the system pretty much is what it is, I don't see much of a case for investing a whole bunch of time making a new one. Frankly, while the current system is fairly dated as graphics technologies go, it still strikes a pretty good balance between performance and visuals - IMO.

It's very time consuming to export all the texture graphics by one. Would be great to dump them all to one folder.

You mean import right? You shouldn't really need to export the dtexes to images in order to dtex your map. I'm not really sure what you're trying to do here.

Also it's very, very tedious to create a new DTEX and assign it over and over and over and over as you are testing (can't overwrite and have to go through the GUI). I must have made and tested 20+ dtexs of the same thing to get something that finally looks right at the proper Myth zoom distance.

You can paste from the clipboard into an open dtex editor window. The change will then automatically and immediately be reflected in the mesh editor.

[KYRIC]

Purdy dtex.

Thanks owe it all to you and Melekor.

[KYRIC]

There are undoubtely lots of ways you could think of to make the system better, easier, more powerful, etc. The current system was designed with specific hardware constraints in mind - for example it had to run decently on geforce 2 series hardware, which is what I was using while developing the system. At this point, the system pretty much is what it is, I don't see much of a case for investing a whole bunch of time making a new one. Frankly, while the current system is fairly dated as graphics technologies go, it still strikes a pretty good balance between performance and visuals - IMO.

Alright thanks much. I appreciate all your effort.

What about the ability to export/import terrain meshes so I can paint in 3DCoat or Zbrush to line up my CMAP with the dtexes?

[Pyro]

Open a mesh tag in Oak. Right click, New Detail Map (From Terrain). It will do it based on the terrain map it has. You could always edit the terrain map first to suit your needs. Use it for Oak and then switch the terrain back to what you think it should be at.

[KYRIC]

Open a mesh tag in Oak. Right click, New Detail Map (From Terrain). It will do it based on the terrain map it has. You could always edit the terrain map first to suit your needs. Use it for Oak and then switch the terrain back to what you think it should be at.

My problem isn't filling in the detail map, it's lining up things like little rocks in grass on the cmap with a custom dtex.

[Graydon]

what you're asking for is essentially what I wanted on day one and has been denied for years since that day one... a decal system, where you could paint very tiny very specific masked details in addition to the base textures. The current system is such that any given triangle can only be assigned one single texture. The basic structure of that is not going to change, making what you're asking for an impossibility. It sucks, I'm with you there, but we just have to make due....

One sort of intermediary step would be to blend two or 3 textures as desired in PS ahead of time, and then sub that custom texture in to add a variation on top of the normal texture, so you get patches of flowers here and there or whatnot. Not quite like you're imagining though.

Edit: To comment on your question about terrain maps... Loathing can import and export just terrain maps...

[KYRIC]

what you're asking for is essentially what I wanted on day one and has been denied for years since that day one... a decal system, where you could paint very tiny very specific masked details in addition to the base textures. The current system is such that any given triangle can only be assigned one single texture. The basic structure of that is not going to change, making what you're asking for an impossibility. It sucks, I'm with you there, but we just have to make due....

One sort of intermediary step would be to blend two or 3 textures as desired in PS ahead of time, and then sub that custom texture in to add a variation on top of the normal texture, so you get patches of flowers here and there or whatnot. Not quite like you're imagining though.

Edit: To comment on your question about terrain maps... Loathing can import and export just terrain maps...

Yeah I'm making all the dtexs and hopefully scenery will fill in the rest.

I don't mean the 'terrain map TM' from Myth. I mean the actual landscape mesh with all the triangles so I can load it and my cmap+dtexes into a 3D paint program like zbrush or 3D Coat. I've exported the displacement but I've gotten crappy/unexact results in other software.

I think the current system is good if I can coordinate it well.

[Graydon]

Ah, I see what you're saying.

You might be able to get better definition out of the displacement map if you edit the range. It's one of the options under displacement. Make the range much larger, something like -10 to 10, and it should include a wider variation of greyscale, ultimately providing more detail per triangle. It still won't be perfect though.

[vinylrake]

I don't mean the 'terrain map TM' from Myth. I mean the actual landscape mesh with all the triangles so I can load it and my cmap+dtexes into a 3D paint program like zbrush or 3D Coat. I've exported the displacement but I've gotten crappy/unexact results in other software.

I think the current system is good if I can coordinate it well.

you've probably already thought of this/tried this, but would it be of any use to import the PS/png triangle-mesh template image into your 3D paint program to use as a guide when you are creating your dtexes?

i

[KYRIC]

I don't mean the 'terrain map TM' from Myth. I mean the actual landscape mesh with all the triangles so I can load it and my cmap+dtexes into a 3D paint program like zbrush or 3D Coat. I've exported the displacement but I've gotten crappy/unexact results in other software.

I think the current system is good if I can coordinate it well.

you've probably already thought of this/tried this, but would it be of any use to import the PS/png triangle-mesh template image into your 3D paint program to use as a guide when you are creating your dtexes?

i

Yeah, the problem is lets say there are some rocks, flowers, dirt, lichen/whatever on your dtex. Well those have to line-up with 1-3 pixels of the CMAP (including the UV smear on the mesh).

Without a 3D program to adjust the CMAP it's a ton of guessing and jumping between programs to just get one pixel aligned. One cmap pixel is a huge splash of color on a dtex (especially since there is no hardware landscape filtering on the CMAP other than bilinear I think).