Unreal Texture UT site and S3TC releases

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

In the past i often wanted to contact texture artists to get the files(never had the time to try though). But last years i came back on that, because no matter what they have, its mega unlikelly they have High End, let alone Extreme End versions. So at the end, i still have to redo them from scratch...

I guess that is true, but then again it is good to have the originals or the exclusive textures, as you know the original crypt2 was a lot different from standard crypt and we never got the original package and I would need it for the project.

If a procedural texture uses another texture as base texture, and that texture is an S3TC texture everything goes bad. You cannot use an S3TC texture as base for procedural textures because they either turn completelly black, blue or red or the scalling gets corupted and they it might even look distorted.


With the stock textures for Unreal and UT this already ment that a few textures never can be updated like the procedural crate texture with that wet spot(Nyleve), or the blood stained floors in Vortex Rikers. Especially the crate texture is a big shame, and its un unsolvable problem(which was explained by Smirftsch and Creavion). The sad that is, the problem is limited to basically like 10-15 textures.


This tutorial however describes how make more procedural (using stock textures) and actually in the S3TC perspective this is a very, very bad idea and simply should never be done. If so, than the used base texture should ALWAYS be put in a new utx package including the procedural version. or also included in the MyLevel. Because its simple, the more MyLevel procedural textures there are made the more the problem grows, and the more textures that are being turned S3TC, than too the problem grows.

And i cannot go start taking out textures that have been used in MyLevel textures. Thats an endless story.........


At best i would advise re-doing those maps and take out the MyLevel part and throw the base and its procedural counterpart in a utx file, or add the base texture to the MyLevel. And that is a better option than going to strip the S3TC packages.


In that respect, i didnt read the actual tutorail, but it would be a smart idea to addapt the tutorial to prevent further mishaps. All together i always though MyLevel is bad, due to the impossibility for S3TC updates. And this now adds to that even more..........

That is very unfortunate then, well the genfluid stuff really shoudln't be updated at all then because even if some texture is not used as procedural in unreal other packs might use them such, but the problem begins when there is other texture as base, as you mentioned the blood stuff or simply the stuff as icetexture as in the prison map or scripted playrshp texture in case of ISVD. Both use SourceTexture a texture that has been S3TCed, so that nails it down I guess.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

[SCREENSHOT]http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3791/shot0155e.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

This texture seems a bit odd in comparison of the other nalicast textures. It feels more human, like if it did not belong to the package. Also I suggest in future fixing the ISV kran crates saying Inuit corporation, there is "nuit corporation" a typo of someone who made the oriignal 2nd CD textures though.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I tried testing openeing the map with the second CD textures and guess what. The map loads with them and that texture was S3TC already, the dirt onefrom genearth, in the second CD. I suggest you look into that. I think it is beacsue it contains two textures, one S3TC and one normal. Maybe you should include them both again and use ucc conform instead of the mergetool.

 

[Diehard]

This texture seems a bit odd in comparison of the other nalicast textures. It feels more human, like if it did not belong to the package. Also I suggest in future fixing the ISV kran crates saying Inuit corporation, there is "nuit corporation" a typo of someone who made the oriignal 2nd CD textures though.

That too was mentioned on Old Unreal, and wil be changed in a next update. Same goes for nuit instead of Inuit, and the CTF flags for UT that have the swastica on them.

I tried testing openeing the map with the second CD textures and guess what. The map loads with them and that texture was S3TC already, the dirt onefrom genearth, in the second CD. I suggest you look into that. I think it is beacsue it contains two textures, one S3TC and one normal. Maybe you should include them both again and use ucc conform instead of the mergetool.

Yeah, forgot to mention that, but i agree, that is likelly the reason why they function properly. As for ucc, that wont work, because ucc cannot handle dds textures let alone Alpha blending. And it still goes that ucc merge does provide 24 bit textures, but its still unclear they actually are dds textures.


Aside that, it also might not held up against botprotection. Its kinda uncharted territory. On top of that, it would also cause other problems. There are more S3TC packages than the stock UT and Unreal textures. They in effect than would drop off. And it would also mean that that those packages will have to be loaded to the server as well, causing the skating player glitch. And to give an example, the textures that will be released from the SGC project. Those will topple over 1.5 gigabyte. If they are merged than that 1.5 gigabyte has to be downloaded directly from the server during mapswitch.


Effectivelly i still believe that redoing those maps is a much more viable option than redoing the S3TC textures. It actually took almost 9 years to convince people to use them in the way they are used now. If that has to be turned back, than it will not end well.

I am not lying there, it took year and years of discussions, and to do all that over.........


Dont forget that 99% of Unreal and UT players do NOT read these, UnrealSP, OldUnreal forums. Its virtually impossible to reach the other people. And i know how that goes because it happened so often in the past. He said, do so, but the other said, you have to that? No really i am the one telling the truth, no its me telling the truth!!! Yes, no, yes, no.


Its like PCX or BMP. Up to this day 95% of the mappers still believe you HAVE to use PCX. And always the same story PCX is smaller in size, which is total BS. And secondary, but Epic did it too !! Yeah but they used the correct palette which cannot be achieved by The GIMP or Photoshop. It can only be done with BMP, period..............


ll together its a task i cannot complete anymore, or do it all over again. And than i am not even talking what it would mean on my end, i simply do not have the health, time and money to pull that off. It would at least mean another investment from around 2000+ dollars in hardrives and computer equipment to do this properly and pull it off. Its undoable.


And no matter how much maps it concernes, they could be redone in a matter of minutes really, and i am happelly to offer the downloads for them.
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[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Actually the swastika flags were in AS Overlord in Unreal Tournament beta, so those were kind of standard but only in beta, they changed it later on obviously.

As for the problem with including both textures, why not that? I mean you can first use the merge tool or something and then use ucc conform, ucc conform makes the package network compatible to another and has same GUID too. I don't get what is the problem, Epic did it somehow with the second CD textures.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Btw, there is one texture which bothers me kind of, in your S3TC you added there nalicastle screenshot thing at the texture itself, the original texture is this:
[SCREENSHOT]http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/4097/shot0191v.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

I think it actually refers to this:

[SCREENSHOT]http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/408/shot0190.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

Either that or it is supposed to be the altar of the souls drawing, as described in the early unreal design doc which I have. In that case, that thing is castle spire instead, but who knows, however from final Unreal the sunspire top is the most accurate thing there.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

As for the procedural texture problem, Delacroix said that the map loaded fine in Unreal with OU patch 227h.
SO it seems to be UT only then?

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

[SCREENSHOT]http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8474/shot0159.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

For some reason this texture appears unmasked, is from Metalmys package.

 

[xvlin]

Hi diehard, are the s3tc removed from your website? I can't seem to find the download

 

[Diehard]

The textures will NEVER be removed its the sole purpose for the sites


http://www.uttexture.com/UT/Website/Downloads/Textures/Textures.htm


Go from there.
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[xvlin]

Thanks. My fault for not navigating the site correctly. Downloaded the extreme end and it looks amazing.