Custom Skybox in Newdark

R Soul on 4/9/2018 at 17:41

The 'MIP map resize' method will affect the appearance a DDS texture from a long distance. I may be telling you what you already know, but a DDS file contains multiple smaller copies of the main image: half the original size, a quarter and so on (called MIP maps), and the renderer chooses which one to show according to distance. When you resize an ordinary image you will have noticed that the fastest option (Nearest Neighbour, without the u) is also the worst. It think it just discards some pixels and squashes the remaining ones together, which can give it a jagged look. Better but slower options apply various smoothing techniques which produces a more natural looking result. The same applies to DDS MIP maps, so where you see the option to generate them, you should also see a list of resize options (in Paint.net it's right underneath the MIP maps option).

However a skybox is always the same distance from the player, so I don't think MIP maps are necessary for them, but for terrain/object textures they're very good.

Cardia on 4/9/2018 at 18:32

Judith as i said before, png Textures are not affecting the performance of missions i've updated. I know that many games use TGA. format which is a heavier format as far as i know. I don't see how PNG format can affect visual, i don't see any difference when using them. With DDs textures it's not about blurry, its rather as if they were animated, when i move around i see this kind of thin lines moving. I´m not spreading misinformation, i´m just telling my experience, and as far as i'm concerned i don't like the way DDS textures are displayed in game mode, that's it, but i agree that for performance DDS textures are the best choice( even though i don't notice any difference)

Nicked, i was not talking about my DDS.textures, for example the objects you did using DDS. textures they cause this noise effect.

Cardia on 4/9/2018 at 19:27

Since were discussing textures formats, is it TGA more recommendable to use over PNG format? Despite its weight?

ZylonBane on 4/9/2018 at 21:23

Quote Posted by nicked

There are literally no downsides to using DDS textures, and to claim otherwise without understanding how they work is disingenuous.

That's not true. DXT compression is (https://shawnhargreaves.com/blog/texture-compression.html) lossy in a way that makes it more appropriate for organic textures. The higher-res the texture the less noticeable it is though. When used on a texture with no alpha channel (so basically any terrain texture), DXT1 provides a fixed in-memory compression ratio of 8:1. This is more than worth a little quality loss when using lots of high-res textures.

Quote Posted by R Soul

However a skybox is always the same distance from the player, so I don't think MIP maps are necessary for them...

That's what I thought at first too, but it turns out it's a good idea to generate mipmaps for skyboxes because it can prevent aliasing when the user is playing at lower screen resolutions.

Quote Posted by Cardia

With DDs textures it's not about blurry, its rather as if they were animated, when i move around i see this kind of thin lines moving.

Ruling out insanity on your part (under protest), I'm going to guess you somehow managed to break mipmap generation when using DDS textures.

bassoferrol on 4/9/2018 at 22:11

Cardia wrote: With DDs textures it's not about blurry, its rather as if they were animated, when i move around i see this kind of thin lines moving.

That happened to me in mission Home Sweet Home by Lady Rowena.
I don´t rememer having that problem in any other mission with DDS textures.
I had to convert all the DDS textures to PNG and now the mission looks nice.
Strange.

Cardia on 4/9/2018 at 22:11

And the TGA textures? why are they used by some authors and in many games?

Cardia on 4/9/2018 at 22:12

Quote Posted by bassoferrol

I had the same experience in that mission and i wrote a comment about it back then.

Niborius on 5/9/2018 at 06:52

Thanks for all the responses,

I think what I can conclude from this is that I should really try using DDS textures as they give a big performance boost compared to PNG textures, but they might turn out to show weird at certain angles? I think I've seen this, near the edges of my screen when walking past the textures.

I always used PNG textures for my missions but often did get a performance hit when using a lot of them. Never knew for sure what's caused it so now I'm thinking it might've been the textures.

I'll try these tips tonight (if I have the time), I'll report back. :)

Judith on 5/9/2018 at 07:07

Quote Posted by Cardia

PNG textures are affecting the performance because they have to be decompressed when player moves around the map, not because they're heavy. You may not see it if you used it only for skybox, which in most engines is loaded during map start and rendered all the time. If you're using PNG for all surfaces and models, you are lowering engine performance though.

Not sure how "thin lines moving" look like, but that seems like the mipmap problem, as others mentioned. The mipmap quality is probably too low during export, or in-game setting is too aggressive (texture anisotropy too low). It also can be something wrong with your GPU driver setting.

Cardia on 5/9/2018 at 07:17

I've used png format for object textures and i still don't see anything being affected. Wolfenstein return to the castle, quake 3 use PNG formats, so that the proves that PNG format is used in games. What about TGA format, why is it used?