Unreal Texture UT site and S3TC releases

[Diehard]

@ ecv: best avatar i've seen so far

Yeah, yeah i know, i should have a decent one lol, here it is. The Wait from Luis Royo
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[Lynxx]

Slightly off-thread but of interest to those who follow this thread (I hope).

I've imported some of Diehard's textures into UT2004 and I'm interested in the general opinion regarding the use of detail textures for these textures.

The enhancements that Diehard applies to the textures do tend to give a detail texture effect.

Attached is a "with detail" and "without detail" texture shot (in editor).

I tend to the view that a detail texture is unnecessary for these textures (in general) but I'd be interested in hearing the opinion of others.

If the texture is meant to be used for flooring, as this one in particular often is, the without detail example looks much more akin to something that has been 'used'. And, at least to me, the 'without detail' example exhibits much finer detail. I think that one looks amazing, at least upon close examination.

What I'd really like to see though is each texture as seen from a player's standing view height...?

 

[Dark Pulse]

Hey Diehard, any updates on the main packages? There's been quite a few updates, and it's been nearly 4 months since you did a full package update as far as I can tell. Two of them haven't been updated in nearly a year.

UT_S3TC_Hi_End_Texture_Package_01.zip from 1/11/2009, 2:46 PM
UT_S3TC_Hi_End_Texture_Package_02.zip from 1/11/2009, 3:35 PM
UT_S3TC_Hi_End_Texture_Package_03.zip from 6/26/2008, 6:27 PM
UT_S3TC_Hi_End_Texture_Package_04.zip from 6/26/2008, 6:38 PM

 

[Diehard]

I am afraid not, almost entire 2008 i have been ill, and 2009 was even worse. I have been pretty much badly ill from December 2008 till about 2 weeks ago, and wasnt able to concentrate on anything. Its a bit better now, but picking up where i left on the DecayedS package is still very, very difficult.



And on top of that stupid Vista isnt helping at all, its just a worthless piece of @!%& It barelly can handle files that i can easelly work with on my other (10 year old) system. It cant open files that are larger than 2 gigabyte, it cant flip flop textures around(to make them tilable) that are larger than 2048 pixels while my old computer does files 16384 pixels and opens up files as large as 3.75 gigabyte within a couple a seconds(Count 20 seconds instead 2 minutes on Vista). Painting in Photoshop feels like the mouse is held by a piece of rubber, reacting awfully slow. Which i havnt seen anymore since i worked my first 60Mhz pentium I system. And i can go on about Vista for weeks...,,, As said its a worthless piece of @!%&



I am still thinking if i should try out XP(which i never liked) to see if that will do the trick alot better.


But where i could, i have been working on the textures, its not i have done nothing. I did work on a few upgrades on already released packages for the Extreme End versions, but again it goes slow, because i have to turn to my old system to be able to safe the files since my brandnew top notch system on Vista isnt able to do so. And moving the files back and forth between the 2 systems goes very slow.



But i have DecayedS about 75% done and the filesize at this moment is about 325 Mb, so i still have some 100 Mb to go. I am also working a bit on the to be re-released CTF package for Unreal and UT, but i still have to go take photos from wood, for 3 textures in that package. And for that i have to wait till the weather improoves a bit(too rainy and dark now).



And as said, i am also working on the Extreme End versions from multiple packages, which involves DecayedS(as experiment) SkyCity and GenEarth(i already know the package will be around a friggen 680 MB so it will be rediculous big alright ) But i still need to do the soil for those packages, and i still cant find decent soil around here thats usefull to take photos from. But i keep looking around



All together its not completelly standing still, but it aint fast either. But ill do what i can, and if my health doesnt improove enough comming weeks, i may release the DecayedS as is. But it would be alot cooler if i could say the entire package is 100% done and complete. Effectivelly i wanna be able to say; i have no idea where the textures surface, but in ALL maps that make use of the DecayedS package, period....
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[Dark Pulse]

I am afraid not, almost entire 2008 i have been ill, and 2009 was even worse. I have been pretty much badly ill from December 2008 till about 2 weeks ago, and wasnt able to concentrate on anything. Its a bit better now, but picking up where i left on the DecayedS package is still very, very difficult.



And on top of that stupid Vista isnt helping at all, its just a worthless piece of @!%& It barelly can handle files that i can easelly work with on my other (10 year old) system. It cant open files that are larger than 2 gigabyte, it cant flip flop textures around(to make them tilable) that are larger than 2048 pixels while my old computer does files 16384 pixels and opens up files as large as 3.75 gigabyte within a couple a seconds(Count 20 seconds instead 2 minutes on Vista). Painting in Photoshop feels like the mouse is held by a piece of rubber, reacting awfully slow. Which i havnt seen anymore since i worked my first 60Mhz pentium I system. And i can go on about Vista for weeks...,,, As said its a worthless piece of @!%&



I am still thinking if i should try out XP(which i never liked) to see if that will do the trick alot better.


But where i could, i have been working on the textures, its not i have done nothing. I did work on a few upgrades on already released packages for the Extreme End versions, but again it goes slow, because i have to turn to my old system to be able to safe the files since my brandnew top notch system on Vista isnt able to do so. And moving the files back and forth between the 2 systems goes very slow.



But i have DecayedS about 75% done and the filesize at this moment is about 325 Mb, so i still have some 100 Mb to go. I am also working a bit on the to be re-released CTF package for Unreal and UT, but i still have to go take photos from wood, for 3 textures in that package. And for that i have to wait till the weather improoves a bit(too rainy and dark now).



And as said, i am also working on the Extreme End versions from multiple packages, which involves DecayedS(as experiment) SkyCity and GenEarth(i already know the package will be around a friggen 680 MB so it will be rediculous big alright ) But i still need to do the soil for those packages, and i still cant find decent soil around here thats usefull to take photos from. But i keep looking around



All together its not completelly standing still, but it aint fast either. But ill do what i can, and if my health doesnt improove enough comming weeks, i may release the DecayedS as is. But it would be alot cooler if i could say the entire package is 100% done and complete. Effectivelly i wanna be able to say; i have no idea where the textures surface, but in ALL maps that make use of the DecayedS package, period....
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Hey, size ain't a problem for me. I have dual 1.5 TB HDs. Bring on the size.

I know it wasn't just standing still, but the main packages were missing some things I know got updated (like the new Earth textures in CTF-Face for example) so I was just checking if there was any ETA for some updated releases.

And yeah, Vista can be a bitch on older hardware. If you got newer hardware, no problem, but unless your system's from around 2007 or so XP would probably be a better bet.

 

[Diehard]

I know it wasn't just standing still, but the main packages were missing some things I know got updated (like the new Earth textures in CTF-Face for example)

If correct the Master files contain all the latest updates, and should be the same as the single downloads. Unless i made an error somewhere....

And yeah, Vista can be a bitch on older hardware. If you got newer hardware, no problem, but unless your system's from around 2007 or so XP would probably be a better bet.

No lol, i am saying my 10 year old system performes 20 times better than my brandnew quadra, quadra, tripple quad, dual core pumped whatever super duper theres more inthere(and there is!!). It tells me all the time i run out of memory, or Photoshop stalls, Vista telling me it made a program error while as said, my 10 year old system does the same thing flawless, never ever telling me theres shortage of memory. To me it tells me that Vista must consumes rediculous amounts of memory for nothing, and being uncapable to use the drives for swapfiles/scratchdisks.


Also it lets drives fall asleep even while your working with them, which again consumes time till it can be accesed. It actually takes longer for me to acccess a drive than to access a floppy Explorer doesnt give filesize nor dates, instead of that i get "Date Modified", "#", "Ratings", "Tags", and got knows what they were thinking I mean who needs that @@#$%, i just wanna work...... You are not allowed to open up more than oné explorer at the same time, unless you click and open up a map in and than click on the explorer again You got a left and right pane, normally in the left pane it only shows folders, but no, in Vista it also shows the content like zipfiles, which means endless scrolling to click a different folder, Unreal Texture has 40000 zipfiles, try scrolling that ...............


And if i work on the site, and i use DreamWeaver, stupid Internet explorer gives me a security warning, and asks if i really wanna view the site And for the record, the entire site is pure HTML with a tiny java script so the buttons highlight. And while working on my OWN webpages, on my OWN computer i get a security warning, al that stuff and thousends of other stuff, its just maddening.

Did i mention ergonomics, apearently it doesnt even know what it is........



Sorry for the off topic rant , but trust me Vista, is total useless if you really, really only wanna work , and thats all i ask.......... And stupid idiot i am, thinking if i take the business version than it must be proffesional . Effectivelly they ruined pretty much everything that already worked 15 years ago.



I think its time that Bill Gates spends a couple billion dollar into biotechnology to grow a tree 5 miles high, and than hang him in it.
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[Zur]

Go Windows XP. With a few tweaks it'll look and feel like Windows 2000. Vista was a mistake.

I think its time that Bill Gates spends a couple billion dollar into biotechnology to grow a tree 5 miles high, and than hang him in it.

Gates hasn't been CEO for a while. Steve Balmer is the guy to shout at .

 

[Protos]

Windows 7

Windows 7 RC is out now.

I don't work with the editor so I am not sure if it will work. I 'read' that it will work if you download direct x update files.

Its a fantastic operating system. All the features of vista with the speed and reliability of xp. Some things are even faster. For instance it handles multiple processors much better as well as other memory functions ect.....

Here is the link. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Just doing my part to help you pump out your fantastic work. I think you and Anthrax do more for this game than just about anyone else right now.

/Thank You

 

[Diehard]

Gates hasn't been CEO for a while. Steve Balmer is the guy to shout at .

I think its time that Bill Gates spends a couple billion dollar into biotechnology to grow a tree 5 miles high, and than hang him in it.

Thrust me, for that amount of money it cant be too hard to grow 2 trees 5 miles high

Windows 7 RC is out now.

I don't work with the editor so I am not sure if it will work. I 'read' that it will work if you download direct x update files.

Its a fantastic operating system. All the features of vista with the speed and reliability of xp. Some things are even faster. For instance it handles multiple processors much better as well as other memory functions ect.....

I could try that, and see if that works better for me, when i am a bit better i certainly could give it a try

I think you and Anthrax do more for this game than just about anyone else right now.

Well thanks , but who is Anthrax, he doesnt ring a bell by me.
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[Exus Tecius]

yeah diehard you do a great job idd.anthrax is a coder iirc.
windows 7 makes me curious i must say though i am happy with XP.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

I'm sticking with XP on this new computer for sure. I'll see what happens once the first service pack for Windows 7 is released. Bring on the new texture packages!

 

[Diehard]

Pretty much for the last 10 years i have only worked with Win2000 since that is a super steady platform that always worked like a charm, just as Win98 always did.


Last year oktober my parents bought 2 new computers and have me build them, oné for my dad, oné for my mom. I planned to install Vista on those computers, but decided to go for XP instead, because i know XP by heart, which allowes me to give telephone support. At the same time i also built me a brandnew system on which i installed Vista. But Vista turned out to be a total retarded product so my parents still have XP.


But XP has a few downsides that give problems, Like Vista in the explorer it doesnt allow you(by doubleclicking) to change the name of a folder. That may sound stupid, but Unreal Texture has 123,250 files in 12,917 folders(425Gigabyte of data), and i asure, than it DOES matter.

And the S3TC textures are 69,756 files in 6567 folders (1022 Gigabyte of data), same story there....


Because of the sites i have and all and people and companies i know, i do write alot of e-mails, and there is the other super important problem. If i create and e-mail, i often save it to continue on a later moment. But in XP if i save an e-mail, than the mail is being stored as if it was an received e-mail. In other words i cannot add more writing to it ???? And yeah thats a huge problem really.


But seeing all the other problems i have, it might be wise to switch to XP or give windows 7 a chance .




PS

Unfortunatelly my dad passed away at age 85 on november 17 last year, which is oné day before my own birthday. My mom is 83 and still very much alive, and they both started using computers around 2000 and they always did really well on them. And my mom works alot with Photoshop and is doing reeeeaaally cool stuff with it. And Photoshop being a pretty complex program i think thats a huge achievement for an 83 year old lady And from all the people i know in real life that work on Photoshop, and i do know alot of graphical designers, than shes still somewhere in the top 10, not bad lol.
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[GreatEmerald]

Hmm? But XP does allow you to rename folder by double-clicking on the title, just that you have to do that slowly so you wouldn't open them instead.
As for e-mail, why don't you just use GMail anyway?

Talking about Windows 7, I had the Beta release, and have to say it was pretty good. The only downside is that it didn't ship with older DirectX libraries, so UnrealEds worked worse than on XP, and their window thumbnail preview is also annoying, but other than that, it's pretty cool. I don't use it any more, though, because one time I tried booting to it, and it gave me a really strange boot error, and their error fixer didn't do anything, it didn't even find the Win7 drive! I tried reinstalling, but it failed, I guess the CD is scratched, ah well. Might try RC then.

 

[Diehard]

Hmm? But XP does allow you to rename folder by double-clicking on the title, just that you have to do that slowly so you wouldn't open them instead.

Only in the right pane, not in the leftpane.

As for e-mail, why don't you just use GMail anyway?

I cannot have the website scripts running trough GMail. And it wont help either, because than i have to sent all mail to myself as well to keep records, and i do need the records. Again, that would be tons of work extra, than i might as well transfer it to my old compuer, and that is already annoying. And thats the culprit, and this aplies for work on Photoshop and creating mail. It should be possible to do it on the mainsystem and not having to switch to other computers, either at home or somewhere in the world. As said on Win2000 i never ever had to turn to another computer, which is how it should be !! In all respect, switching to whatever computer is nonsense.

Its like buying a car but you have to lend a set of wheels somewhere else every day, thats no go.
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[Diehard]

And to get a bit back on topic.

Theres also good news. About a month ago, i bought an extra battery for my camera (Canon 400D 10 Megapixel SLR) for aprox 100 dollars. Which than means theres 2 batteries in the batterypack, and up to this day the camera keeps telling the batteries are 100% And i must have taken some 400-500 shots with it, so the new battery seems to help alot there. It pretty much looks like, whatever i do, taking lots of photos, using the flash endlessly, they just seem unable to get empty lol. I guess that was a good investment.



Today i was able to take a shot from the wood i wanted for the CTF package, and here is the result:



Yeah, its pretty ugly wood

Now i need to find decent wood for the other 2 textures.
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[Dark Pulse]

Wow. That's quite sexy.

Perhaps that's the secret to awesome textures... really good cameras.

 

[Diehard]

Well, i asume it help, but it needs to be said, my old camera 4 Megapixel was a horrible thing, and the photos were only, so, so. But i have made some great textures with it never the less. And it ws super sensetive to motion but i had a steady hand. Now i got a super camera, but my steadyness went into the drain in the meantime.


But the texture below was partially made of photo from my old camera:




But i agree, its definatelly not a bad thing to have a good camera, a good base after all is very important. And as i posted on Old Unreal a while back:

The texture above is entirely made from this foto:




These scratches:




And this circuitboard i got from the net:




And as i told on Old Unreal, you pretty much can make anything out of anything. Its mostly having a good idea, like, oh wait, i can use that for that, and that for that. And that is actually more important than anything else. But of course it helps having a good camera that can take sharp and correctly focussed photos
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[Protos]

Progress at last

Can't wait.

Now if we can get troublesome to fix the Window 7 issues with UTDC we are happening !

 

[GreatEmerald]

Only in the right pane, not in the leftpane.

Oh, that. Well, use F2 instead.

I cannot have the website scripts running trough GMail.

Why is that?

And it wont help either, because than i have to sent all mail to myself as well to keep records, and i do need the records. Again, that would be tons of work extra, than i might as well transfer it to my old compuer, and that is already annoying.

I don't really follow... But anyway, you can make GMail fetch mail just as good as any Outlook could, and there's nothing I know that programs have and GMail hasn't.

And got your PM, thanks for the explanation, but I would have understood it correctly anyway

 

[Diehard]

Oh, that. Well, use F2 instead.

Tried that, and it does help a bit, but its still extra work, which i try to minimize as possible.

Why is that?

CGI mail and Formmail has to run through the mailserver from the site, and connot be redirected to another account outside the site without running into problems or even break the law. Some forms on UnrealTexture do run through the Celtic Warriors site, but that site owned by myself as well.

I don't really follow... But anyway, you can make GMail fetch mail just as good as any Outlook could, and there's nothing I know that programs have and GMail hasn't.

For starters, i pay alot of money for my sites, which also enables me to sent mail that is obviously comming from the site. Like:

If i would turn to gmail than it would be something like this: [email protected] And that would apply to all my adresses, and thats not what i want, and pay for. My own adresses are also maintenance free, and have sheer endless space. The account above has an inbox as large as 1 gigabyte and can be upgraded any time i want to even rediculous sizes as 1 terabyte. And that also aplies to all other accounts.


Aside that, in this case it is happening to Gmail. Most of the spam is running from Gmail nowadays. When i look at my forums than 95% of the spambots register through Gmail and more and more admins will block Gmail all together by adding *@gmail.com to the blocklists. Previous years this was mainly mail.ru which got blocked by pretty much any webadmin in the past years, rendering it useless for both (unfortunate)normal users as well as spammers. I suspect it wont be long anymore and Gmail becomes as useless as mail.ru. Last weeks i have been close to do it myself like already done with *@mail.ru, *@*.cn, *@oppa.firstvds.ru (which means 100% of all chinese sites have been blocked, which is actually super uncool ) Believe me, if i say gmail is first and on top of the list getiing a permanent ban from all admins worldwide. Which of course is super, super uncool for legitemit users like you.


And stuff like that will simply never happen to adresses from my sites. All together its just retarded that the whole problem is with XP not being able to safe editable mails


But running my mail from a remote site, still requires me to login, and go through the web which is slow and takes time, while i should be able to do similar stuff with lightningspeed on my own system, without delays, and i can store and prepare as much mail i want. Not to mention that it does happen that gmail and such run into maintenance problems, are offline, etc. None of that stuff happens with my own site accounts. The Celtic Warriors site, is running since 2002 and has not been offline for a second since than !


I honestly admit, i always bought my operating systems, but now i downloaded and XP Pro SP2 to see if it does the trick. At this moment i am simply too pissed off at Microsoft to go Buy another usesless OS. See first, than buy,....maybe.
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