DescentBB

Guys, take a look at this.



I made a random .pog file suited for the optimization of Descent 2 levels to D1 look (with D1 1/2 in mind). I replaced one of the lava textures with the trusty, old D1 one, also the lava waterfalls were remade into the narrow, D1 ones. One green door was replaced by the green, stone door cut out of the game. And most important of all, I managed to sort out all the animated monitors. They all work, and they all animate properly when destroyed, and leave an appropriate texture afterwards too (however they may animate slightly differently due to minor frame conflicts, but that will hardly be noticed). However, there's this one problem I can't seem to find the cause of... Several of the monitor textures, plus the "DANGER" sign completely override the background texture with white. This is weird, since the level editor does recognize them as transparent and they display as such during level edition. What could cause this weird behavior?

Moar screens. Apart from the error, showcasing the replaced textures.

I'm sorry, I've had the same problem and I don't have any idea how to deal with this apart from putting the textures in a D2X-XL mods folder instead of the pog, and that only works with hires textures.
You should ask Pumo, he managed to do it in level 17 of TEW. And I remember seeing some of the specific textures there that are giving you issues.

Oh, so this is a common problem after all. Cool, thanks for clearing that up. I msged Pumo a few hours back.

OK, so lemme see what can be done.

First of all, you must check which palette are you using on the level you're showing here on the screenies (Groupa, Fire, etc.), because if you're using specifically Alien1, Alien2 and Ice palettes, you won't get a normal transparency mask when using pure white color (as D1 and Groupa,Water,Fire does), as on those palettes the transparency mask color is a different one, not pure white.

If you're using Alien1 or Alien2 palettes, the transparency mask color is the next one:

R:236 G:228 B:212

And if you're using Ice palette, the transparency mask color is:

R:231 G:231 B:231

I hope this helps to clear the issue.

EDIT: My bad, I didn't notice the topic title and the fact that only certain textures are not getting transparency, so the issue may be another one.

Plz send me the textures that are not working and your level POG file to my e-mail so I can check what's the problem there.

Thx Pumo, the e-mail went out. I sent it via the on-site form, I hope it will reach.

OK, I checked out the files you sent to me, and TBH, I don't completely understand why they fail to load transparency correctly.

The original textures are right, no problems on any palette entry, but for some reason (maybe a bug in DTX2) some files aren't stored with the correct palette flag in the POG file. You can notice in DTX2 that the 'offending' textures don't have the 'T' flag at their side.

I managed in a test run to solve the problem somehow, by extracting the 'offending' textures from the POG files and re-inserting them again (all in DTX2), and then *poof*! suddenly the 'T' flag appears!
So you may want to use that method or if you prefer, I can do it for you and give you a corrected POG file.

Another option, is to use a PIG file I'm making since some time already for my Mineral Valley project, that uses the D1 palette and textures inside D2, but I haven't finished it yet and sometimes it may be a bit hard to deal with custom palettes on DLE, and it would take me some time from my part to finish it as I'm more focused on other projects, so you would have to wait for a bit of a long time.

Pumo wrote:OK, I checked out the files you sent to me, and TBH, I don't completely understand why they fail to load transparency correctly.

The original textures are right, no problems on any palette entry, but for some reason (maybe a bug in DTX2) some files aren't stored with the correct palette flag in the POG file. You can notice in DTX2 that the 'offending' textures don't have the 'T' flag at their side.

I managed in a test run to solve the problem somehow, by extracting the 'offending' textures from the POG files and re-inserting them again (all in DTX2), and then *poof*! suddenly the 'T' flag appears!
So you may want to use that method or if you prefer, I can do it for you and give you a corrected POG file.

Another option, is to use a PIG file I'm making since some time already for my Mineral Valley project, that uses the D1 palette and textures inside D2, but I haven't finished it yet and sometimes it may be a bit hard to deal with custom palettes on DLE, and it would take me some time from my part to finish it as I'm more focused on other projects, so you would have to wait for a bit of a long time.

Awesome, dude! Thanks for telling me that I need to look out for the "T". If you don't mind, please send me the pog file, it was originally named "d1optimized.pog".

As for making a custom. PIG for Descent 2... how do you do it? I would be very interested in getting hold of a .pig with the D1 palette but textures from D2. Like a seventh D2 .pig, right? That would prove invaluable for the D1 levels of D1.5.

Yeap, I'm making a seventh PIG file that will use the good old Descent 1 palette.

You know what? after seeing this topic and your 1.5 project, I got the urge to get to work on the PIG file again, so I might finish it sooner than I thought, lol!

When I start to work on something like that I usually don't stop that easily, so I will try to hurry up and give you both the PIG file and an your optimized POG file with the D1 textures you want to use, but this time using the palette of my custom PIG.

Pumo wrote:Yeap, I'm making a seventh PIG file that will use the good old Descent 1 palette.

You know what? after seeing this topic and your 1.5 project, I got the urge to get to work on the PIG file again, so I might finish it sooner than I thought, lol!

When I start to work on something like that I usually don't stop that easily, so I will try to hurry up and give you both the PIG file and an your optimized POG file with the D1 textures you want to use, but this time using the palette of my custom PIG.

Spiffy

But one thing, is a .pog insertion capable of changing the .pig file used for the given level? I know that in DLE, once any original texture is replaced with a random one, it becomes impossible to switch the .pig via the DLE interface unless all the textures are reset.

I tried to replace the textures - indeed the problematic textures had no "T" next to them. I replaced them. Now all the textures have Ts next to them. Still, when I import the ready POG to my D2 level file, the same textures still don't display as transparent and obscure the rest of the field with white. I wonder what could cause this -__

EDIT: I have managed to make the "Alpha" sign with the symbol of the moon transparent as it should be. It seems that manually replacing the texture within DLE solves the problem. What's curious, the texture now behaves in the editor just like it did in the game (white wall etc), but in the game it works fine. Weird, weird, weird.

Oh, and then there are the monitors. These are the most problematic, since I can't get DLE to show frames. I can only replace the first frame, which makes the wall behind flicker from white to textured. If only I could see the frames!

EDIT2 - SOLVED:

It seems like everything works fine if the textures are given their T-flags in DTX2 and the POG file is immediately inserted into the HOG file using DTX2, completely bypassing DLE. Manually replacing them in DLE also does the trick. This does mean that DLE screws with the transparency flags for those textures upon opening the level. This is good ticket material for Diedel, I suppose.

what program are you using to swap palettes? and import?
you should be using DTX/DTX2.
transparency is a certain color for each palette. (usually a purple shade)

Exactly. All texture work must be done in DTX2. Luckily, it's quite possible to set everything right and save it as an auxiliary POG file and then just simply insert it. Still, DLE shouldn't screw up these textures, as it doesn't screw up different textures. The palette's not the problem here, it's something more complex I think. Oh well, Diedel's already got his ticket.

Oh, and btw these screenshots were taken with GROUPA.PIG. As of right now, the level looks practically indistinguishable from a D1 level, only thing that could make it better is the D1 palette for D2 that Pumo's making.

glad you got that straightened out

yea, DTX is a much better HOG manager/importer then DLE.

ThugsRook wrote:glad you got that straightened out

yea, DTX is a much better HOG manager/importer then DLE.

Still, Diedel's gotta straighten this out. It's unbelievably annoying to have to reinsert the POG using DTX2 every time you make a small edit in DLE. This definitely shouldn't be an issue.

DTX doesn't really manage HOGs, only POGs. It does give you pretty good control though.

I guess I might as well take a look at this too, while I'm doing my DLE stuff.

Sirius wrote:DTX doesn't really manage HOGs, only POGs. It does give you pretty good control though.

I guess I might as well take a look at this too, while I'm doing my DLE stuff.

It's just a bug I suppose. Not one you can't get around, but it costs needless time and work. DLE can also work as a HOG manager, but the functionality is rudimentary ,and the window can only be seen while opening a mine. So you'd have to open each mine more than once if you wanna insert something into it. Good thing there's DTX2.

Uh... yeah, DTX2 doesn't let you add things to HOGs, as I was saying. You tend to need an external program for that (though for me DLE and before it, DLE-XP/DMB2 have been enough; I just keep my working data separate and add the files in in one shot). It does let you add stuff to POGs that are already in HOGs though.

Ah, D1/2 filename extensions. So silly.

Sirius wrote:Uh... yeah, DTX2 doesn't let you add things to HOGs, as I was saying. You tend to need an external program for that (though for me DLE and before it, DLE-XP/DMB2 have been enough; I just keep my working data separate and add the files in in one shot). It does let you add stuff to POGs that are already in HOGs though.

Ah, D1/2 filename extensions. So silly.

What do you mean it doesn't? It sure as hell does! I did it several times myself. Like, yesterday.



You just load a HOG, click the HOG button and get this nice window. Using the option "add/replace" you can stuff anything you want into that HOG.

A more specialized utility would be HAMM97. It's quite a bit better at what it does, sure. But that doesn't mean DTX2 can't do it as well

Hmm... there may be a feature I didn't find. Ok!

FYI: the pattern was that the top quarter of the non-transparent textures was empty.

That may give you a hint what was wrong

Top quarter? Of the non-transparent ones? I don't get it, non-transparent ones display fine O_o

Probably fixed in 1.11.77...

It indeed is! Great job, Sirius