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

Now the count for unique download is up to the correct value. Thank you for sorting this out if somebody did. :thumbsup:

Hello I've checked the number of downloads on my mod page today and over a hundred unique downloads are missing from the number that was shown yesterday. Todays unique download count was 1009, yesterday it was 1124, why would that be? :ermm: The number of total downloads is still correct though. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=42551 My mod isn't that much frequented and I try a lot to get more downloads and then the statistics takes it away. There seems to be an error in the count system for the unique downloads.

A week should normally be ok. I visit the site pretty often(daily), I have to admit that I missed that one. Never really look at the Hot files anymore, because there were too many disappointing files for me the past two months. Glad to discover it now and that wasn't thanks to Hot files. But it gets cold outside now, so maybe the good stuff will pick up too.

Nobody said anything about hot files covering everything. That would be nonsense. The comparison was just to show there are 'hotter' files out there than the ones currently shown and their 'hotness' does not stop 10 days after release. Just an example what I would call a 'Hot File' that isn't currently on the homepage for NV: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=44215

How about 142 pictures and 5 updates with more content :smile:. Have already done those things you suggested and then some. I'm not so sure about mods with 15 endorsements or less as the first thing you can see on the homepage, when there are 32 pages(!, using advanced search) of mods with 100 endorsements or more. There is as you say the point 'meaning of quality', which will differ greatly from user to user, so its nearly impossible to say this one is quality and this one is not when standards are that divided. Guess I just have to strain my brain to find more and new ways of advertising.

Hehe, thats true. Word-of-mouth recommendation should even things out a bit, in fact I seem to profit from it. But make a good mod plus recieve the honor of the homepage would mean xxtimes more satisfaction for more people who were downloading and the mod author. I understand that its difficult to find a solution that would be fair for everybody. But it should be a good thing if we get the quality mods shown before we get to the small mods.

Hello I'm wondering quite a lot about the 'Hot Files' mods that are on display since the change of design. I see a horrific decline of quality. Is it just me or are there quite a lot of mods that really don't deserve to get the huge advantage of being shown on the home page? Huge advantage = mod on frontpage gets xxxtimes more views/downloads/endorsements than others. I mean nothing against the mod authors. They do what they do best, but come on. A hat fix or a simple retexture of just one(!) object is deemed more worthy to be on the frontpage than the considerable number of mods which took a lot more work, time and include carefully balanced changes? Why? Are we now a site that rewards the fast'n'easy mods for doing less? That is lowering the standard of this site and it is unfair in my book. Backstory: Mod authors like me spend months for their mods to deliver and raise quality, but now constantly see those 1 item mods getting all the homepage crowd. Its very demotivating. Why should we carry on to raise quality and diversity when the cheap stuff gets much more attention? I wish for a more reasonable choice of which mods get the mega-benefit of the homepage. ATM it seems almost random to me. Cheers MG

There you said it yourself: The wasted space is of course not a problem in itself. Well then name the child by its name I would suggest instead of complaining about the wasted space, duh. And I gracefully oversee your unintelligent use of the word stupid. By the way its called ease of use 2x. :wink:

A function I just ticked: Show images in file categories and results http://www.abload.de/thumb/firefox2011-08-2513-12yprz.jpg The result list then looks much better and reminds me more of the way it looked before(if I think away the orange beam): http://www.abload.de/thumb/firefox2011-08-2513-12bpm7.jpg Maybe this should be ticked as standard, because its more convenient the look through the lists with an image of the mod and most users won't find this function anyway.

I really have no idea why so many people are worried about the unused space left and right. My solution took 2 seconds : Press 'crtl and +' two or tree times and now it looks like this: http://www.abload.de/thumb/firefox2011-08-2512-4948nn.jpg No unused space at all, so where is the problem? There seems to be a glitch with the updating of the 'Edited files' list. I updated my mod yesterday and the list still shows an older time of updating. Another strange thing: The time shown for my last update is therefore not only wrong, but it jumps between 10.30h and 11:30. This has occurred several times, one time it says I made the update at 10:30, next time it shows 11:30(maybe a summertime/wintertime thing). Only if I go onto my Nexus mod site it shows the correct time of my last update which was: Last updated at 22:13, 24 August 2011.