Detail Textures for NS?

LePrau · March 2004

I just tried to create a Detailtexture for those diamond floor textures (FLOORDMND), that is how it looks ingame:
<img src='http://leprau.dyndns.org/detailtexture.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

Last time I tried to add sharpness with a very clear pattern, but as the original texture is detailed _but_ (according to the pattern) low-res, it just looked weird, and the detailtexture seemed to be displaced. So I just painted the outlines and added some scratches ... the result may be better, but it is IMO the best detailtexture for this diamonfloor I've seen so far <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

That is how the detailtexture looks:
<img src='http://leprau.dyndns.org/floordmnd.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

And get the .tga here: (zipped)
<a href='http://leprau.dyndns.org/FLOORDMND.zip' target='_blank'>FLOORDMND detailtexture</a>

Windelkron · March 2004

Don't just use detail textures for ugly grate floors and scratched walls!

Imagine a computer bank with detail textures! Real words, real programs running on the computer screens, instead of the HUGE BLINKING CURSOR!

Detail infestation? /drools

Detailed maps and pictures on the wall!

the possibilities are endless. yay

RaVe · March 2004

I think the problem with detail textures now is that noone can use them as well as Hostile Killer.

Generally, all you are doing with detailtextures is making scratches, and TBH, although it does looked scratched, I think it was batter if it were both the fake-bumpmap it's supposed to be AND a detail texture.

Just look at Hostile Killer's details, they're pretty much superior over us. For us....well, you can imagine what I'm gonna say.

PLUS, it won't work on my card (and emulation is pretty bad and laggy)

But TBH, LePrau has it done pretty well.

darkflame_666 · March 2004

I have a grand idea, either people start making a pack we can put in our ns folder to use this new invention or the creators of this mod implemete this discovery in there next version of NS. Great idea aye <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

7Bistromath · March 2004

Question from a complete know-nothing on the topic of mapping here...

Why is it that many of the details for the diamond pattern floor still look so blurry? They do look better with the detail textures, but they still lack the umph they need. They don't seem to draw as much benefit out of the details as other textures do.

<a href='http://www.llamalicious.com/images/tanith_detail.jpg' target='_blank'>This one</a> did look okay when there was a little bit of distance between the view and the image, but in the extreme close-up, the scratches started to look more like noise than accentuation. Also, unless I'm confusing it with something else, I think this one didn't work right for some reason. (Something about tesselation, which I only kinda-sorta get the meaning of in this context.)

Is there just something about this texture that makes it hard to screw around with in a technical capacity? Are people having trouble finding photos of such a surface they could use?

Dark_Soul · March 2004

yeah, someone give infestation a go <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

Papercut · March 2004

At first when I heard of this new feature the first thing the came into my mind was: "Prolly just crap...".

But after seeing some of the work in this thread, Im all for it, is there any way I can help out?

7Bistromath · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dark Soul @ Mar 13 2004, 08:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> yeah, someone give infestation a go <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
Dude, it's already in the pack. Did you go to any hives with that thing turned on yet? It's really excellent.

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (LePrau @ Mar 12 2004, 09:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I just tried to create a Detailtexture for those diamond floor textures (FLOORDMND), that is how it looks ingame:

<snip>

Last time I tried to add sharpness with a very clear pattern, but as the original texture is detailed _but_ (according to the pattern) low-res, it just looked weird, and the detailtexture seemed to be displaced. So I just painted the outlines and added some scratches ... the result may be better, but it is IMO the best detailtexture for this diamonfloor I've seen so far <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

That is how the detailtexture looks:
<img src='http://leprau.dyndns.org/floordmnd.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

And get the .tga here: (zipped)
<a href='http://leprau.dyndns.org/FLOORDMND.zip' target='_blank'>FLOORDMND detailtexture</a>  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
LePrau, thats the best one yet! Great work! <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

can you sharpen the image a wee bit?

RaVe · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (007Bistromath @ Mar 13 2004, 12:28 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Question from a complete know-nothing on the topic of mapping here...

Why is it that many of the details for the diamond pattern floor still look so blurry? They do look better with the detail textures, but they still lack the umph they need. They don't seem to draw as much benefit out of the details as other textures do.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
That would be because the base-texture was made to LOOK photorealistic without detail textures.

Without those base-textures now, NS wouldn't have such eye-candy back then when r_detailtextures was in the making for CZ

Now if we were to have it look plain (aka Hostile Intent base textures) and overlay it with LePrau's details, it would look extremely good. However, the attempt at realism with the current textures make it look rather bad.

Daxx · March 2004

Would it be possible to replace the base floor texture with a less detailed one, then apply the detail overlay? Or would this fall under a modifying No-No? (Aka, steam validates and says you have hacked files)

LePrau · March 2004

Depends. If you want to use a new floortexture in a new map, it won't be much of a problem, but as soon as you change the original texture in the original wad, it differs from the "official" release, therefore you become a ch34t0r <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' />

I've updated my Detailtexture-Picture, you can see my infested and my floor_dmnd detailtextures. (top is without detailtextures, bottom has them enabled)

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

Would this be made easier if we had the originals for the textures? ...because I believe 'Squeal like a Pig' claims that he pretty much did ALL of NS's textures by hand. If that is true, maybe he still has the originals, and maybe, they may be much higher res...

LePrau · March 2004

No, it won't make anything easier. The point is that the Natural Selection textures have much more detail and contrast than the Hostile Intent textures ... just look at this small sample:
<img src='http://leprau.dyndns.org/thw/nsorg0001.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

As you can see ... the base texture has almost no detail, almost a face with only one color (well ... almost), therefore the detailtextures may contain all detail, and it just looks superb, but if you do to the diamond-floor, it would look like this:
<img src='http://leprau.dyndns.org/thw/nsorg0002.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

The detail just looks fine, but as the "lowres" detail from the basetexture can be seen THROUGH the detailtexture, it just looks weird and displaced. As almost any Natural Selection texture has such detrails, it is almost impossible to add texturespecific detail that looks good. Scratches and some noise works fine most of the Time, bumby detailtextures work fine sometimes, but as soon as you use detailtextures with high contrast and clear patterns, you are screwed. That is why my detailtexture is not sharper ... it would just destroy the kind of look it has now .. it looks a little bumpy, more detailed than the original and with some scratches on the floor, you also have the impression of a much higher textureresolution.

Umbraed_Monkey · March 2004

Is it not possible to have a sharp overlay that follows the shape of the originals EXACTLY? In your example, you were clearly placing diamond shapes over what (from the lowres original) is obviously an oval-like pattern. If you made an oval that fits the originals' better, it make work out well. (I know, easier said than done <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />)

What you said about Hostile Intent is true, in the same screenshot you used in your example, you can pick out parts in the pattern where the detailedtextures' tile went against the originals (originals were //, detailedtextures were \\). Not only that, but I believe even the size of the tiles were changed. It is virtually impossible pick these out with the detailedtextures applied because the originals were so faint.

Soylent_green · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Is it not possible to have a sharp overlay that follows the shape of the originals EXACTLY?</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Of course, if your willing to make a detail texture that is a multiple of the original texture in size and 32-bit(ouch). Or if the texture tiles inside itself(EXACTLY), e.g. some sort of tiles or bricks or something.

I'm just going to blurt out a few tips and some info on detail textures:

Do make sure that you have no out of place looking marks that will make the tiling of the detailtexture painfully visible.

Be sure to preserve luminosity, an easy way of doing this when using photoshop(and approximate) is to gaussian blur the entire texture(edit: blur VERY much so you just smudge it out into one colour), take a colour sample and see if it's close to 127 127 127 then undo. If it is not close to that shade of grey, make a custom filter, fill it with zeros and a 1 in the middle, and use the offset to make the average colour close to 127 127 127.

To make it tile use the offset filter and offset the entire texture in both x and y directions with half it's size. You will now quickly see if it tiles or not. If it does not tile use the healing brush or clone stamp with a suitable brush size and softness to copy material, either from a source image or from the texture you are working with to hide the seams. Make sure that you do not make it to bland on the seam or any other uncarecteristic marks.

edit: if a texture appears to sharp ingame you can create a new layer in photoshop, fill it with 127 127 127 and set it's transparency until it appears soft enough.

Having a higher contrast detail texture is OK, if you have more detail to display than the original texture then it is okay to slightly rough up a texture, but if all your doing is increasing the contrast of the original texture then you don't have to use detail textures at all. Textures are usually bland for a reason, the bilinear texture filtering(a sort of averaging process for points rendered that lie inbetween texels of the actual texture, to see how horrid things look without it set gl_texturemode gl_nearest_mipmap_nearest ingame. To use trilinear set gl_linear_mipmap_linear, this also gets rid of the horrible mipmap line a set distance from the player by interpolating inbetween mipmaps. The normal bilinear filtering is done with gl_texturemode gl_linear_mipmap_nearest) can only hide the lack of detail if the textures are bland enough to begin with.

Textures often try to create the illusion of depth, with seams, rivots, beams and such detail drawn on the texture. If you apply a detail texture to such a texture it is very likely that it will destroy the illusion of depth by adding a layer of scratches and stuff that doesn't look like it follows the beams and such in the texture. The only ways that I see for getting around this is to use a texture that is mostly just noise or bumps or using a HUGE detail texture that covers the original texture in 1 to 1 scale(this could cost several MB's for just 1 256x256 texture and is out of the question for any official maps).

One of the simplest ways to get at the names of textures of a map you didn't make is to copy all nessecary ns resources so that you can play the map using half-life. Enable sv_cheats and developer before loading the map. Then use noclip to get out of the ready room. Use impulse 107 to see what textures are named(will not work on some textures, most notably alpha testing rendered ones of small size, for those other textures there is no choice but having the actuall wad and poking around or decompiling the map to get at included wads).

Detail textures can be used on alpha testing textures(e.g. {texturename set to render as solid) without any problems.

Detail textures are bad at doing things like adding detail to monitors and such which cover only part of the texture, firstly, they sort of multiply the luminosity of the object where 127 127 127 is multiply with 1. So it is not possible to do anything with a black surface such as a blank screen. If the monitor is only part of the texture it is difficult to just detail texture the monitor, it requires a huge texture and it must be 32-bit, this is a horrible idea. Even simply making the monitor from one normal and huge texture would be better(e.g. each monitor is a blank screen on the base texture with a 256x192 texture(4:3 ratio, common for real life screens) set to render as additive ontop of it and invisible faces NULLed).

Soylent_green · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Just a bump to ask Soylent if he needs any help for that texturing task</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Oh, by all means. I haven't got much time right now(i.e. this week) more than to take a quick look at the thread, the tech support forum and the theinquirer.net(hardware gossip and speculation, finally a tabloid for the geeks <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />) and a few games of ns. A situation I have gotten myself into as usual(putting of work until you HAVE to do it, I work better under stress).

Guspaz · March 2004

I've done some experimenting, and I've found that by using a neutral coloured background (127x127x127 gray, I think) with a 24-bit colour detailed texture, you can use detailed textures AS the texture, in effect allowing you to break through Half-Life's 8-bit max on textures.

The next step, of course, is to calculate the detailed texture required to be able to have an 8-bit base texture that becomes 24-bit when detailed textures are enabled, so as to support detailed textures being both on and off. However, this is more involved than my experimentation, as it involves writing a program to compute the detailed texture.

And, off topic, where did people hear about the 22-detailed-texture limit? I mean, actually hear about it, from the source? I read through VALVe's official info on it and I don't recall having seen anything about it...

KungFuSquirrel · March 2004

Valve -has- official info on it? <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

I also have seen the 22-limit speculation, and while it does indeed seem to be speculation, it makes detail texturing essentially useless on a large scale. This is really a feature that has to be used uniformly or not at all - we can see the results of detail-textured objects against non-detail-textured objects quite clearly even in the HI screens, and the apparent resolution difference between them can really detract from the overall effect.

The other question, if this limit exists, is does it refer to entries in the file, or individual detail texture files? individual files is workable, as they could be easily re-used with multiple textures, but individual entries would likely cause pain and suffering <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

LePrau · March 2004

The limit (if there is one!) must be the amount of detailtextures, NOT the amount of lines in the _detail.txt file. Means: muiltiple use of one detailtexture counts as one <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' />

Therefore even 22 detailtextures is quite a lot as this is "per map". For texturesets one single detailtexture works great, another for some groundtextures, a third for infestation, and again 3 or so for different metal and material types ... 22 detailtextures is quite a lot :]

I'll try out if 22 detailtextures is really the limit, as soon as I have fixed some other thingys <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Soylent_green · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The other question, if this limit exists, is does it refer to entries in the file, or individual detail texture files? individual files is workable, as they could be easily re-used with multiple textures, but individual entries would likely cause pain and suffering</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The limit (if there is one!) must be the amount of detailtextures, NOT the amount of lines in the _detail.txt file. Means: muiltiple use of one detailtexture counts as one </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>

Nope, add more than 22 lines, even if they are just garbage and one valid detail texture assignment at the end(might there be an alternate syntax that allows assigning a detail texture to more than one texture per line?), and you should see that only the first 22 lines are even read.

LePrau · March 2004

Cant be soylent, as I have 45 lines (40 lines with Detailtexture assignments) in my _detail.txt file and all are used ... yes, even the last one, and the first one too O_o

Therefore the only possible limit with 22 as value can be the amount of different detailtextures if there is a limit >:P

PS: sent you a pm with d/l of my map, so you can see for yourself :]

[edit]
Maybe it depends on the amount of texture memory your graphics card provides or something, I use a ge4ti 4200 with 128 megs of ram O_o
Mabye it's different on ATi cards or ge3ti

Soylent_green · March 2004

I'll have to look closer at it then. It uses no more memory if you use the same detail texture many times and the memory usage is very small unless you use huge textures(no more than a few MB on an allready low texture usage game).

I've definetly had it "break" for some reason and only the 22 first detail textures appeared to be in use, the other lines where not, switching the order the 22 first where still the only ones in use. I haven't looked closer at it than that.

Soylent_green · March 2004

More then 22 works without a problem. (I did try and move that 23 one when I was encountering the problem, it still would not use more than 22 detail textures so I still have no clue on what was going on there).

Anyway, 1 garbage line is enough to break it. Comments lines are no problem (start with //), it does not seem to care if you use tab or space, it does not seem to care if you use empty lines in between.

That certainly makes things easier(and adds a bunch of work going through maps and looking at what textures I didn't include).

EEK · March 2004

Bump... any updates?

EEK · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Namron @ Mar 9 2004, 05:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I would just like to add that the Hostile Intent screenshots aren't edited or anything (a guy that have a better card than me - Pharcae is his intarweb name - checked it out, and I have a whole bunch of screens that he sent me: it's true, it looks godly good). I guess most of you have already seen what Hostile Killer did with his map hi_alandalus, but here it comes again (140 kB):

<img src='http://www.halflife.nu/images/hlnu_nyheter/HI/andalus_det_1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
One thing about this: The detail texture of the brick is good and all... but it sucks. Why? Because it almost seems like he intentionally REDUCED the quality of the original texture just to make it look BETTER COMPARATIVELY. The brick with DT on? That's not that fancy, I can see that being a regular texture. But compared to the original lousy hideous texture, it looks great.

Kouji_San · March 2004

I'm going to use that light overlay idea in achio (also more for achio textures I will release them with the map so everyone can us them)

<span style='color:purple'>Using detail textures as overlay pros and cons:</span>

pro:
- looks much better then overlay
- doesn't use an extra func_illusionary (more room for entities)

cons:
- 3dcards without the support for detail textures will see the overbright texture <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' />

ah now lets show you all a screenie to see it in action:

KungFuSquirrel · March 2004

Using them as light overlays looks no different than just darkening the border of the texture around the regular light texture, which any user can see. There's really no reason to bother with doing it that way.

Kouji_San · March 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuSquirrel @ Mar 18 2004, 03:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Using them as light overlays looks no different than just darkening the border of the texture around the regular light texture, which any user can see. There's really no reason to bother with doing it that way. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
So what your saying is do this on the origional texture and get the same effect?
I didn't know that, going to try it right now, tnx m8 <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

Kouji_San · March 2004

The result, again tnx<b> KungFuSquirrel</b> that helped me a lot and should save me a lot of entities-overlays... (still tweaking to get it a bit more shiny like the detail texture)