MentalGear

Just for the sake of information: The unique download count went up from 2003 to 3432. http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/42551

@Heffy Well, some do but not everybody experiences this bug in PS as said by some posters here:http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/516316-to-all-mod-authors-useless-white-alpha-channels/. Could have to do with the newest version/older version issue that darthsloth74 mentioned (A current issue with the latest DDS Nvidia plugins is that DXT1 no alpha has a bad habit of saving with an unwanted white alpha channel. This issue does not occur with earlier versions of the plugin). I have this bug but not when importing. For saving DXT1 w/o Alpha I found a method to avoid the unwanted white Alpha channel. Good example of the quality loss, luckily I only make the dds files for my own texture pack from the much larger source .psd file. But as for my corrections on the other mod textures I certainly will have lost quality. Thats why it would be best if the mod authors themselves who have the higher quality source files would correct those unwanted white A-channels.

@mnemnoch A release is out of question sorry, because I have no permission to do so. I already wrote to several mod authors about this problem. None of them has released an update without the aforesaid flaws so far. That's why I opted for making this thread and leaving the users themselves with removing those bugs.

Great info. Will take a look into that tool. I suspect you first create the .psd-file then convert it into TGA and the load it into the ATI tool? I just put on this link for a Compressonator tutorial, if you know better ones please tell us. http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/making-dds-using-ati-compressonator.php Download: http://developer.amd.com/tools/compressonator/pages/default.aspx

I can only say it for PS CS3 where there is a little bug when saving DXT1 format without Alpha channel. If I directly select DXT1 w/o Alpha I get this bug where an Alpha channel with some thin black articfacts of the original texture is added. If I use the dropdown menu of the Nvidia dds plugin and select some other saving mode and then move the cursor to the DXT1 w/o Alpha option it will be saved correctly without an Alpha channel. As for Gimp and other software, I'm not sure. I've read that they do not have all the options available when saving DXT modes which could be a cause for all those useless white Alpha channels. Somebody correct me if you're familiar with Gimp and its DXT saving options.

@mnemnoch Thanks for the clarification. I was just refering to the textures of the creatures that are appearing in the AWOP areas. That would be the creatures of MoMod I guess. I use AWOP with about 15 patches, sorry if I can't keep them apart anymore. But I really don't want to point out any single mod. I was much more speaking generally for mods. @Jeoshua He he, yes thats real overkill :) . It was quite astonishing to see how huge some files were, I mean more than 21MB for a 2048x2048 texture is just mad. Was more than once that I discovered files with way to big filesizes. I suspect they were using other modes for saving than the DXT mode. The Nvidia dds plugin has 16bpp, 32bpp, 64bpp and even 128bbp modes which gives you those overlarge dds files. EDIT: In the other thread this was brought up: ATI Compressionator Tutorial: http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/making-dds-using-ati-compressonator.php Download: http://developer.amd.com/tools/compressonator/pages/default.aspx

If the texture contains a needless white Alpha channel it is double as big as it would be without it. For a 2048x2048 texture that would mean the GPU has to load 5462kB instead of 2731kB. That multiplied, as ishmaeltheforsaken correctly said, by a hundred or a thousand makes up for quite a noticable amount of additional data to load. We know Skyrim has a very high number of textures and texture mods. It gets worse, because you can save .dds files in other modes than the 8bits per pixel DXT mode, like 32bpp, 64bpp even 128bpp modes. The game decompresses and interprets the .dds files in DXT mode anyway so you don't gain image quality by using other bpp modes. By doing this the .dds files get bloated up to being 8x as big :ohdear: . Got some mods than contain 200+ files(and what a pain it was to correct them), every one being 4x as big as they should be. So imagine your graphis card loading something like 16MB for a single object and then you have a scene in your game which maybe contains a hundred or more objects and the VRAM simply can't handle the additional data anymore at some point. On an online site for simulation racing we have the same problem. A lot of users upload their own car skins and the site's server has hundreds of different dds. files to cope with when running an online race with maybe 26 drivers. And because most users sent in files with the same white Alpha channel errors, the admins there now have to check every file for those errors to make the online game run smoother.

Why do all mods here have useless purely white Alpha channels in their DXT1 textures? I ask this because as far as I'm informed fact is: they do nothing except double the filesize and only strain the graphics card without benefit. I've found them in almost every mod here. Another mistake often seen in texture mods is that they use awkward filesizes(way too big). If you take a look at the vanilla textures you'll discover that there are fixed filesizes for certain resolutions. That is because games with .dds texture file format use the DXT1/DXT3/DXT5 standard. So if you know about this system you'll ALWAYS end up with the same filesize for a certain resolution; e.g. DXT1 textures without Alpha channel 2048x2048 always have 2731kB. The last days I took some time to remove all those needless purely white Alpha channels in DXT1-textures and resave the wrongly formatted files (not saved in DXT standard). The size of my texture folder is down from 15,3GB to 13,7GB, no quality loss and less strain for the GPU. So if you own Photoshop+Nvidia dds plugin and want to make you texture folder slimmer while preserving the same quality, open your addon textures and look for PURELY white Alpha channels in DXT1 textures, delete them and save.

Why do all mods here have useless purely white Alpha channels in their DXT1 textures? I ask because fact is: they do nothing except double the filesize and only strain the graphics card without benefit? I've found them in mods like EVE, AWOP, Project Nevada, NMC and countless others. Another mistake often seen in texture mods is that they use awkward filesizes(way too big). If you take a look at the vanilla textures you'll discover that there are fixed filesizes for certain resolutions. That is because games with .dds texture file format use the DXT1/DXT3/DXT5 standard. So if you know about this system you'll ALWAYS end up with the same filesize for a certain resolution; e.g. DXT1 textures without Alpha channel 2048x2048 always have 2731kB. The last days I took some time to remove all those needless purely white Alpha channels in DXT1-textures and resave the wrongly formatted files (not saved in DXT standard). The size of my texture folder is down from 15,3GB to 13,7GB, no quality loss. So if you own Photoshop+Nvidia dds plugin and want to make you texture folder slimmer while preserving the same quality, open your addon textures and look for PURELY white Alpha channels in DXT1 textures, delete them and save.

Thank you for the info. But I still don't understand how it can be that it shows 1244 unique downloads and then 3 hours later less. And both numbers are still lower than the sum total of all the unique downloads that have been made so far when I count together all the dwlds from my previous file versions and the newest one. Or were those numbers not reliable info(like containing double clicks or something)?

For the second time now the number of unique downolads reduced itself because of some failure in the count system. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=42551 The first time it was about four weeks ago, where about a hundred unique downloads got lost for some unknown reason. This time it was today. At 3 o'clock pm I had 1244 unique downloads, now it shows (wrong again) 1177. So the real number should be around 1340. Can someone please look into this and correct the too low number? It is pretty frustrating. How can it be that the system reduces the number of unique downloads at all? Something is not right there.

I wish they would have taken a very close look at Two Worlds 2 and picked up on the good stuff. Its a much, much better roleplaying game than I thought. You can craft almost every item or dismantle it and use the ingredients to strengthen your weapons, amulets , gear, armor and whatnot. You can create your own new potion formulas by mixing different ingredients and save them for later use. You can colorize you gear with color bags that can be bought or found. 5 different magic 'schools' - Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Verita with matching gear and staffs. The skill system is quite complex for todays standards, You've got four different main skills(endurance, strengh, precision, willpower) and 51(!) sub-skills divided into 6 groups(warrior-, ranger-, magic-, assassin-, crafting-, common-skills). You can create you own spells in a menu by combing magic cards with different properties. The textures and character faces are far superior to Skyrim. The attention to detail in buildings and cities or small villages is just amazing, the artwork is also very detailed and lovely. The menu is about a century better than Skyrims. In combat you can fight one handed, one handed with torch to confuse enemy, one handed plus shield, two-handed, bow n arrow(one shot, double shot, triple shot, fire shot), wield magic with staff and still have the ability to block melee weapons of enemy. Plus you have two defensive moves. Of course it has its weak points too, but for my taste TW2 is more of a real roleplaying game because of all this options it gives you to develop your character and its unique skills. Only things that I like more in Skyrim is that the steering of the charakter and horse is more direct than in TW2.

Hello First let me say I never used the Geck before, but I want to use it to change my favourite revolver. I figured out how to open the window for changing this weapons parameters by trying around but now I have to know some more of how this really works. There's a column for 'Game Data' and a column for 'Art and Sound'. I guess that is where I can change the animation type, right? http://www.abload.de/thumb/untitled-1pgvx2.jpg Now, what I'm trying to do is change the animation to the .44 style. The uploader says it uses the .357 animation, but that means the weapon has to be cocked every time before shooting which is baloney. Can one of you experienced Geck users tell me where and how I change the animation for that? There are sections for Reload Anim, Hand Grip, Attack Anim, Animation Type. I presume its one of those? And when the changes are made, how do I save them? Just by pressing OK? Cheers MG

Great! Thank you :thumbsup:

Hello to Admins I was wondering if it would be possible to remove 4 of my needless 6times post please, my browser stopped working atm. That would be kind. It was in the comments for this mod: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38434 Greetings Mental Gear