DescentBB

I love the new hi rez shield orbs and energy sparks. 2 comments though:

I would like to see the shield orbs with a slight fuzz around the surface, a bit like the atmosphere haze you see around planets, with the lightning looking as if it's moving through the atmosphere rather than across the surface. This was always the impression I had about them.

The look of the energy sparks is great but I feel that the yellow is not bright enough. The D3 sparks are a vivid yellow but look a bit small. I think that your shape and size and their colour would be perfect!

Actually, I think that all the HiRez images are fantastic and I'm grateful for each one that appears, I just had to put my 2c worth in. Well done!!!

Nice work on the new look for the energy powerup Dizzy!
I love it!

The look of the energy sparks is great but I feel that the yellow is not bright enough.

Sorry but, how about no more changes to the energy powerup?
I mean, everybody is going to have an opinion as to how something will look. If we keep changing everytime someone says this or that.
We'll never have a finished product!

I think its fine the way it is now.
Lets move on to the next job.

After all. He's the only one doing the job.

Oh and Dizzy..... YOU'VE BEEN STICKIED!!!

Dizzy,

I have to say that imho your textures look better than what Novacron has produced. The \"natural\" materials definitely do, and I like your metal textures very much.

I only found 1 texture that didn't look convincing: rock071. It looks a little 'plastified', and with too many reddish tones and too bright. The original texture is a pretty dark, fine grained material - like black granite.

Do you think you could rework it?

If not, np - you are already doing an awesome job - my compliments!

Thank you very much.

Diedel

Aus-RED-5 wrote:Oh and Dizzy..... YOU'VE BEEN STICKIED!!!

He definitely deserves it. Most definitely.

Man!!, Thanks all ,I feel all sticky now, heh
I sure appreciate the comments..
I posted new textures pretty much just for minerva ,Ive been testing the orbs and stuff in there often and got tired of the few that werent complete so I went ahead and did them, (I know there's prolly more pressing stuff to create) and put them with a replacement rock071 texture request from Diedel, Its funny as you all bring this stuff up I totally see where your coming from, Some of the textures in (what is it 8bit) and the color sceems leave me wondering what exactly they had in mind
Im glad you all are here with other perspectives.
http://dizzyrox.koolbear.com/textures/071andminerva.zip

Diedel wrote:Duper,

grab D2X-XL v1.6.95 - I fixed powerup animation speed there.

I was playing D1.

Haven't tried D2 yet.

Sorry I was kinda rushed at last post and forgot a screen of the textures.

Dizzy,

a word about your web site at KoolBears: It's painfully small. The days of 640x480 are history. If you find the time, maybe you want to make it bigger.

Edit:

Yay! at rock071! Goooood work!

Diedel wrote:Dizzy,

a word about your web site at KoolBears: It's painfully small. The days of 640x480 are history. If you find the time, maybe you want to make it bigger.

Will Do Diedel, Ill get somethin done with it soon.

I wanted to show you all what Ive been working on.
First ,Im still working on a new shield orb, Im jus tryin to take my time with it.

This panel is close to completion,It started working on this last D2X-XL patch, so now I can try to get it right.



I have a completed texture door, da purple one in lvl 3, Im going to try to create a few more of them this weekend and post a door pack sunday or early next week



and one for Neumaenni, here's a door is also in development with Novacron, Again though Its not finished (needs slight bevel and lighting maybe a hair of brushed look), but for some reason you cant see through it, as the wall texture covers opening
Ive tryed the gltexmerge change in the d2x-xl.ini but
then you see a high rez door and can see tru it,but the animation is the old door,once its finished it goes back to the high rez frame1.
Any ideas Diedel?



Ive got a hostage in the works to, but am undecided wether they should look real i.e..Like a picture or keep to the lil blue guys keeping even the cartoonish aspect ,What do you all think?

Please send the door animation to karx11erx at googlemail dot com, I'll have a look.

Man, you're a texture creation powerhouse!

Diedel I accidently sent that to the hotmail account,Do you need me to resend to this email?
So much for reading carefully.

DizzyRox wrote:Ive got a hostage in the works to, but am undecided wether they should look real i.e..Like a picture or keep to the lil blue guys keeping even the cartoonish aspect ,What do you all think?

Into Cerberon has a Model of the hostage in the works.
Looks really good and looks alot like the one from Descent..
I'd say make it look pretty close to that one.

HOSTAGE


Oh and just a thought about the doors.
I wouldn't make them look to clean looking. They should look a bit used or dual.
After all.... We are in a mine.

But thats up to you and Diedel.

No, it isn't. We need as much input as possible. Btw, I think you're right. Dizzy, can you give the doors a more worn look, like some scratches and a stain here and there?

O_O^2 I can't wait untill I get a computer that can run D2X correctly...

All the textures look good, I think this within itself could draw more people to at least D2, I certainly think D2 looks ALOT better. (BTW, I'm not forgetting about Diedel! His work is important too! )

For the door, I agree, make it look used, it is in a mine...
For the hostage, I would suggest to make it look as close to the orginal,but clean it up, make it hires (if that makes sense...)

BTW, are you planning on doing the robot textures? or have those been done already?

Sorry its been abit, I posted an 8 pack of Doors/Panels/and grates here http://webpages.charter.net/ericengland ... s8Pack.zip
hope you like

the other three are Texture doors from already created textures.

I almost forgot, these all worked/are working in 1.6.95 / 1.6.99 I think 92 also ,Im not sure why in 1.6.100 the panels dont work right for me, prolly on my installation , i dunno yet, need to clean install maybe.

Aus-RED-5 wrote:Into Cerberon has a Model of the hostage in the works.
Looks really good and looks alot like the one from Descent..
I'd say make it look pretty close to that one.

Man that is awesome looking!! ,I wish I could do modeling thanks for the headsup on that..ill definatly try to work some of that look in there.

d3jake wrote:O_O^2 I can't wait untill I get a computer that can run D2X correctly...

All the textures look good, I think this within itself could draw more people to at least D2, I certainly think D2 looks ALOT better. (BTW, I'm not forgetting about Diedel! His work is important too! )

For the door, I agree, make it look used, it is in a mine...
For the hostage, I would suggest to make it look as close to the orginal,but clean it up, make it hires (if that makes sense...)

BTW, are you planning on doing the robot textures? or have those been done already?

I agree with you all on the door,it was actually my intention to do that at the end, but I made a mistake in the way ive created it (frame by frame with the center pieces not at full length under the folds ), has brought me to, not being able to animate the blemishes correctly, or no drifting blemishes as the door opens,,a novice mistake Im sure,, live and learn I guess,Im going to try to get something good from it, But i think ill need to create another one. sux

I hear ya on hostage,hopefully/maybe I can find something in the middle ground.

Seems like there was somebody maybe working the robots now, Ill have to find the thread.But thats why I kinda steered clear of that for the moment

Personally, I think the textures should be as close to the originals as possible.

You and Diedel have done a great service to the Descent legacy. Keep up the superb work.

Trackball wrote:Personally, I think the textures should be as close to the originals as possible.

I think they may derive somewhat for the sake of credibility and good looks, as long as they keep the original "feel".

DizzyRox wrote:Sorry its been abit, I posted an 8 pack of Doors/Panels/and grates here http://webpages.charter.net/ericengland ... s8Pack.zip
hope you like

Nice work from the new master of D2 hires texturing again.

These doors will only work if not used as overlay textures (actually they don't need to be used as overlays as they cover the entire face they're attached to, so just take this as a hint).

Where did the suggestions thread go?

Anyways - it might fit in here, too.

The 109 textures released so far take up 190MB coz they are uncompressed Targa Format with Alpha channel, so it's 32 bit or 4 bytes per pixel.

Why not use Portable Network Graphics Format (PNG)? It supports 8 bit alpha channel, too and features lossless compression, so the 109 textures take up only 51MB - what a difference: filesize reduced to about a fourth!

I don't know how hard it would be to implement PNG support in OpenGL, but DirectX (or at least Managed DirectX) supports it by default.

Neumaennl wrote:Where did the suggestions thread go?

viewtopic.php?t=8606

Fith thread from the bottom of the stickies.

Why not use D3's texture format? You would have lossless compression, source code already available and plenty of converters. While it only supports 16 bit textures, the filesize is plenty small.

For example, a 640x480 24-bit TGA sizes from 900KB to 175KB.

OGF supports both 5.5.5.1 and 4.4.4.4 types of images where the numbers are RGBA respectively.

Probably because OpenGL supports TGA textures? With the textures that Dizzy's making, color banding would be very visible if he were to use a 16-bit format.

I could implement PNG for D2X-XL, but it would still have to be converted to 32 bit bitmaps for OpenGL, so the only advantage was smaller files to download or store on harddisk. OpenGL supports less precise image formats too, but that would come at a loss of image quality.

well I know that an image has to be decompressed by the software to display the image, it's the same with JPG and every compressed format - but the main thing I was going for was the smaller download size and space requirements on the HDD

I think Neumaennl has a good point. Textures should be compressed. It serves many purposes, not the least of which is HD thrashing.

It makes little difference what format OGL uses in that you have to read the texture into memory and buffer it. You can very easily implement a decompressor and that was one reason I suggested using OGF format. I would be more than happy to share the source code with you.

Leaving the images on the drive as TGA's is silly. It wastes HD space, increases load times, and is only marginally easier to implement in software.

It's only a few MB compared to 100s and 100s or even gigs of modern games, so wtf.

Here's another set of 5 textures. hope you like,
Ive kinda been slowin down since I took on a new job. Diedel I finally got updated to 101 ,nice work, the animations and all look good man

http://dizzyrox.koolbear.com/textures/d ... s5pack.zip

p.s. there's a replacement rock21 texture in there jus replace the old one.As it had pixelation that I didnt notice some how in it I mustve been half asleep makin that one, my apologies..

here's the screens

As long as you are going to keep making them. Take your time bud.
We understand.

Thanks again!

hey dizzyrox - you put in ceil21 instead of rock21 - was it past bedtime AGAIN?

no offense - keep up the amazing work

Oh Yeah Aus-RED-5 , I do plan to keep movin on the textures, Jus been wore out from work, lol

ARGGG! sheesh, I guess it was definatly past my bed time ,I got it fixed!!
BIG! Thanks for the headsup on that Neumaenni

Dizzy,

could you create a hires version of that round segmented door (door05) for me please?

Oh Yes you read my mind, Ive got one Ive been working off and on for a week now,Ill show ya a screen later tonight see what you think.

Wonderful.

Did you by any chance also have the fan stacked somewhere on top of your mental hires texture to do list?

A hint if you do it: Its blades must have the same width as the original fan's ones, and it must rotate at (about) the same speed, both for gameplay reasons. If you make the blades wider or spin faster, you might not be able to shoot through it anymore.

Novacron had made a fan and had failed to consider this. He also gave it a very awkward spinning 'scheme'.

As the fan has three blades, you'd only need to make enough frames to make it rotate 120 degrees. The original D2 fan has 8 frames.

Diedel wrote:A hint if you do it: Its blades must have the same width as the original fan's ones, and it must rotate at (about) the same speed, both for gameplay reasons. If you make the blades wider or spin faster, you might not be able to shoot through it anymore.

Novacron had made a fan and had failed to consider this. He also gave it a very awkward spinning 'scheme'.

As the fan has three blades, you'd only need to make enough frames to make it rotate 120 degrees. The original D2 fan has 8 frames.

Diedel!! HUGE thanks for that headsup
these hints have really helped keep the backtracking to a minimum..


Edit: Does anyone know where I can test this Spawn door at? (Where it opens)

Just use DLE-XP to test the door.

Create 2 cubes, and add the door you want to test between the 2 cubes.
Save it in missions folder and luanch it to test it.

Here's a shot of the Door, But DLE-XP says its too large to use when i try to put it between the cubes But ive never made a level before so I may be doing it wrong, any ideas.

DizzyRox wrote:Here's a shot of the Door, But DLE-XP says its too large to use when i try to put it between the cubes But ive never made a level before so I may be doing it wrong, any ideas.

I know its a work in progress, but.....
Some how that just doesn't look right.

I don't know. It just looks like you are looking through a sniper scope or something?

The black shadow/ ring around the door need to go.
Its ment to be the frame around the door.
But if you are trying to give it a dome look.
Then I would think that the shadows are way to dark.

Plus the textures of the door are way to bright with colour.
The original is more gray looking.

What you have sofar would be ok in gray, black and white.

But I guess thats just me?

Nice work sofar Dizzy.

DIT:

Here is another look at it with the colours of the door textures toned down.

Its not gray scaled. Just less bright.

The spot you have to hit on the hi-rez trigger seems to be quite small. I have had to shoot it numerous times in different locations on the switch before hitting the correct spot to activate it. I don't know if that is your doing or a program thing.

Weyrman

I had teh sam eproblem in D2, lvl1 in the side room where oyu get the spreadfire cannon, I wasted like 10 energy trying to hit the panel correctly through the grate...

Aus-RED-5 wrote:I know its a work in progress, but.....
Some how that just doesn't look right.

I don't know. It just looks like you are looking through a sniper scope or something?

The black shadow/ ring around the door need to go.
Its ment to be the frame around the door.
But if you are trying to give it a dome look.
Then I would think that the shadows are way to dark.

Plus the textures of the door are way to bright with colour.
The original is more gray looking.

What you have sofar would be ok in gray, black and white.

But I guess thats just me?

Nice work sofar Dizzy.

DIT:

Here is another look at it with the colours of the door textures toned down.

Its not gray scaled. Just less bright.

I think I see where your headed with this.Something more like this perhaps.

Weyrman wrote:The spot you have to hit on the hi-rez trigger seems to be quite small. I have had to shoot it numerous times in different locations on the switch before hitting the correct spot to activate it. I don't know if that is your doing or a program thing.

I had the same notion but as far as I know they are to spec.I have tried to work this issue as if I could fix it but, There's only a couple things involved past the graphic itself (and their outlining is very close to the originals).I dont believe its the textures.

DizzyRox wrote:I think I see where your headed with this.Something more like this perhaps.

Mmm, I think that looks better as well. Is it just the weird perspective, or is the center of that door off, though? (And have you animated it yet? )