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Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 1:03 am
by =ArA=DeathFromAbove
BFV uses a blend of both dds and tga files.
All of my PoE custom load screens use the PoE standard dds template with a custom image in the center. These are much more difficult to get configured through photoshop and into the format for the game to read.
Tga files on the other hand are a sinch and there are very little configuration problems with them. But either works.
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 5:43 pm
by Apache Thunder
I've heard some graphics cards may have trouble with the game using DDS textures. I normally used DXT5 as compression type, but now I recommend DXT1a (same format terrain DDS files normally uses) as I heard that this is the format BF2 uses for it's lightmaps.
Also it may cause further issues if you mix TGA lightmaps with DDS lightmaps in the same map. I generally have all TGA or all DDS. Only time I have not done this is with Buccaneer Bay Night. I used TGA on all the statics except the ship wreck. Since it's lightmap channel isn't exactly top notch, I had decided to use a high res DDS file on it. I have had one user say the shipwreck appeared all white while all the other objects remained the same. (I forgot who that was now)
I have yet to find out exactly why only a few people get this issue. I believe it may be that ATI brand cards puke on the BF42 engine using DDS files on lightmaps for some reason. My only suggestion at this point is to not use ATI brand cards.
Also Intel brand integrated cards (I don't think Intel makes them in the form of add on cards, they are all only exist as integrated motherboard components at this point) will definitely cause possible problems as it's the worst of the bunch. Never settle with using the Intel crap, get Nvidia as that was what the Refractor 2 game engine was meant to be played on.
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:51 am
by reegad
Hmm, tried with dds files for lightmaps in a custom map.
lightmaps didnt show up, they do when i switched back to TGA... i used dxt3 with mip.
any suggestions? <3
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 4:18 am
by Apache Thunder
DXT1 format is recommended. (DXT5 is known to work, but might cause issues with ATI graphics cards)
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 12:41 pm
by reegad
ok thanks
The most amazing thing happened when i had both tga and dds files in my objectlightmaps folder...
insane lighting and the texture was used as lightmap and the lightmap was used as texture.. funky, could just be a glitch with my ATI card tho. but i lol'd x)
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:34 am
by Apache Thunder
My redo's of a couple night maps for my BFH mod is proving that DDS format lightmaps should be the way of the future for any future maps. If you light a map in 3DS Max, go full tilt and use DDS. It will give you full control over the ambient color of the map and you won't be a slave to the limited palette files and grayscale TGA files. You can use different color light sources and HD quality lightmaps for both statics and the terrain.
I redid Midnight Mayhem and I think I outdid my self with this one. It's very close in appearance of the BF2 version of the map quality wise if not better: (click to enlarge)
BF1942's BFH mod with my lightmaps:
BF2's version with BFH's stock lightmaps: (basically how it looks in Battlefield Heroes)
Looks like the same color scheme as the BF2 version of the map which was just about impossible to achieve using the standard pallet and grayscale TGAs typically used by BF42. Also note that the light sources are a different color from the moon light. Also something you can't do with standard grayscale TGAs.
Basically what I did was use a image editor to get the RGB value of of the pixels in the skydome texture and used that as the sky light color in max. Then used one of the pixels in the moon on the texture as the moon light color. Well it appears I was dead on. Before I had tried using settings derived from BF2Editor's light settings for the map, but it resulted in a map that was too bright and lacked enough contrast from the lit and unlit areas. Turns out settings used from the sky dome texture used on the map provides more accurate results.
Ha ha, just wait till I try one of the day maps in 3DS Max.
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:21 am
by Senshi
This is pretty badass indeed.
One question though: I never quite got the hang of editing whole levels in 3ds Max. I recall there being another thread about it already, but I fail finding it atm...Importing the level terrain and the object boxes via the Rexman tools works all fine, but is there a reasonable easy way to replace all the boxes with their "correct" counterparts? I'm thinking File->Replace but that is a shitload of work in itself, not to forget the whole renaming business of every single object.
Question two: what did you use as "light glow" around the lamps or the searchlights? A simple sprite effect?
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:46 am
by Apache Thunder
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:19 pm
by Senshi
Indeed, the weather fake is impressive as well. I recall the troublesome limitations on the snowflakes back then, reaching the particle upper limit
. But that rain/storm looks very good, very convincing.
Your way of going on about this is what I had in mind already. I just
hoped that was a less time and brainmatter-consuming way of achieving this. Hope always die last in modders
.
I'm curious about this because a new mapper for BG42 has created some pretty sweet night maps, sadly he's using BC42 (can't even get him to use Ed42...) so every time I play the map the modder in me comes out and cries "this could look SOOOOOO much more awesome if done right!" I already alleviated the worst problems by fine-tuning the dynamic shadow settings plus the lightmap settings and twiddling and refining the palette.pal, but there's only so much one can do with that. Especially if it's a close-combat-city map...
This dummyobject thing is new to me as well. Back then when I modded vanilla BF42 I had the problem that I wanted to alter the flak gun exp effect. Problem was that on "far range" the effect would very abruptly fade out when size changed (changeovertime). I assume if I added this dummyobject with a bit of a spread (just some 10 units in any direction) this would enlarge the BBox cull distance? If so, this might be awesome. Especially as we are currently planning a Retro-BF42-campaign with vanilla and only the old custom mod I created for it.
If I were to add these dummies to the exp effect with the huge distance (1024) like you did, would this also mean the effect would become visible from the other side of the battlefield (provided the viewdistance is sufficiently high)? If so, this would provide some even more interesting and immersive possibilities
.
Also, I'm REALLY certain that there was a thread explaining this already, but I never did it, so a stupid question in the end: Could you give me a pointer how I'd get 3ds Max to render the lightmaps to textures?
Re: DDS format ObjectLightMaps = performance boost...
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:00 pm
by Apache Thunder
View distance is probably separate and it might not help to extend it's bbox. What you can try is increasing the lod distance setting on the emitters and add a large cullRadiusScale on all the sprites/particles used on the effect. You can set it upwards of 500 and it should work at further distances.
For for rendering for lightmaps, you use the Rexman tools to "set up" the objects in the scene (found in the utilities dialog for the rexmen scripts) so that the position of the object gets added to the texture name. To render/set up the texture sizes, press the 0 key when you have objects selected. I would recommend grouping them by size. I group all small objects under one group, medium on another and large for another. I then set up different texture sizes for each group. Prior to rendering besure the "render to files only" check box is checked and make sure it isn't going to do any automatic uv mapping to any of the objects. (except for terrain, all objects should lightmap on channel 3 uvmap. Terrain uses channel 1 uvmap)
By default it will output them as TGAs. Just convert them to DDS using DDS Converter 2 or via an alternate batch conversion method. I have found that DXT1a works best as I confirm that works on ATI cards with my older computer I got recently and BF2 also uses this format for it's lightmaps.
Oh and be sure there is a skylight in your scene! Without one unlit areas will be ultra dark and you don't want that. How dark and the color of the unlit areas can be adjusted via the sky light once it's added to the scene.