LarryG on 18/4/2016 at 21:37

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From the modders notes on the subject of images (textures):

New image formats: PNG, DDS, PCX 32-bit, BMP 24/32-bit, BMP RLE, TGA RLE

Texture size limitations have NOT changed, they have to be power-of-two (POT) sized, i.e. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32,
64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096.

Family palettes are still used for indexed (/palette based) family textures. Only true color image formats (16-/
24-/32-bit) can ignore family palettes.

Image Type Priorities
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Aside from the new image formats, the priority (which type can override another) has been slightly adjusted.
The priority order is as follows, where the first has the highest override priority:

.DDS
.PNG
.TGA
.BMP
.PCX
.GIF
.CEL

Another change, to make texture overrides work seamlessly with objects and meshes, is that the image type specified
in the object/mesh files is disregarded. For example if object ARROW.BIN uses a texture named ARROW.GIF, the game
will search for any image named ARROW, starting with ARROW.DDS, then ARROW.PNG etc. until it finds an existing
file. Consequently it's a bad idea to create another object (usually for an FM), that uses a different image with
the same name but different image type. For example if you create a new object that uses an image called ARROW.PNG,
then the original arrow object will use that image too instead of ARROW.GIF.

Note that you should NEVER have two image files with the same name but different image types in the same family
directory. That will cause a lot of headache. For example you should never have:

C:\Thief2\Res\fam\wood\wdoor1.pcx
C:\Thief2\Res\fam\wood\wdoor1.png

It's however ok to override a fam texture with a different image format in another mod/FM (or resname_base) path,
like for example:

C:\Thief2\Res\fam\wood\wdoor1.pcx
C:\Thief2\mods\texpack1\fam\wood\wdoor1.png

Image Alpha
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There are two types of alpha that Dark deals with. The first is 1-bit (on/off) alpha which is rendered with alpha
testing/keying, unless alpha testing has been disabled. This works similar to chroma keying, where a pixel is
drawn or not depending on the alpha. The benefit of that is that when it's combined with "alpha_test_as_opaque"
(enabled by default), alpha tested transparent objects will always render with correct z-sorting. That's especially
beneficial for vegetation that has a lot of intersecting polygons, but can solve sorting issues in other situations
as well. The only potential downside are the sharper edges, which can be softened a bit with "d3d_disp_enable_atoc"
for cards that support that.

The second alpha type is full alpha, which is the classic type where pixels can have varying degrees of transparency.

The typical 1-bit alpha images are palette based images that use index 0 for transparent pixels. However it's also
possible to make 32-bit images that Dark will identify as 1-bit alpha by either making sure the alpha channel only
contains 0 and 255 alpha values, or by specifying "force_alpha_key" in a material file. Conversely images which
Dark would normally identify as 1-bit alpha, can be forced to identify as full alpha images by specifying
"force_full_alpha" in a material file. It's also possible to force an image to be treated as a non-alpha image by
specifying "force_opaque".


Not stated in the modders notes, but I believe to be true, is that you should not mix non-palettized (non-indexed) textures and palettized (indexed) file formats in the same FAM subfolder.

Cardia on 20/4/2016 at 10:08

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you mean 32 textures in each folder, and 16 folder total?

R Soul on 20/4/2016 at 15:22

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Can we get back on topic and leave NewDark texture requirements to another thread?

Telliamed wrote several things for DarkUtils. FogFix was one. There was also a gamesys program, but I didn't use it much. Now we can export archetypes to DMLs and read them into another mission/gamesys.

LarryG on 20/4/2016 at 18:07

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One tool that I wish we did have would be a modern WYSIWYG editor replacement for ParchEd (or any other readables editor you happen to be using). NewDark has extended the set of special features for books and scrolls to include such things like decals, text color, a single font directory separate from the book art. I think you can even have multiple fonts per text file. ParchEd still works if you stick to the Old Dark text fie limits, but it can't deal with the NewDark text file extensions at all. So a new WYSIWYG editor would be wonderful. The we could retire ParchEd and the other 10+ year old text file editors.

Renault on 20/4/2016 at 18:42

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Darkloader, sort of.