How to do "seamless" UV mapping / texturing?

[DiodeLadder]

 

Wait, you have a DDS texture open in Visual Studio?

WHAT?!

How?

And most important. why?

 

 

.DDS format is part of DrectX, so VS can open it natively, I think. Or maybe it is because I have the Unreal + Unity package for VS installed? I don't have anything else that can open .DDS in BC7 on my system, so this is the one I use to preview and convert those files.

 

The reason I stuck with it is that I was having problems importing with the old NVIDIA plugin for old Photoshop. GIMP didn't support BC7 back then, and VS was unexpectedly useful for converting .DDS files to .png to work on retexturing in Substance Painter. I use Elric for converting .TGA files to .DDS, so I don't really need an image editor with .DDS support at the moment.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

 

Well, "concrete texture" can't really look "upside down", right?

Fo something to look "upside down" you would need something that indicated the "upside" and the "downside".

And a regular flat simple concrete texture doesn't have that ...

This is true for the texture I used here. In which case the one fitting it with 3 parts inside the texture would be best.

BUT... the texture you said you want to use, the one I used in my later example, does have a top and bottom.

 

If you look closely you can see traces of liquid running down the concrete, as with many (almost all) concrete wall textures the game has.

 

Liquids do not flow up.

 

I didn't look at that texture that closely, I just picked a random texture that "kind of looks like concrete" ...

Just to have "something" to do the UV mapping with ...

[RoNin1971]

 

 

Well, "concrete texture" can't really look "upside down", right?

Fo something to look "upside down" you would need something that indicated the "upside" and the "downside".

And a regular flat simple concrete texture doesn't have that ...

This is true for the texture I used here. In which case the one fitting it with 3 parts inside the texture would be best.

BUT... the texture you said you want to use, the one I used in my later example, does have a top and bottom.

 

If you look closely you can see traces of liquid running down the concrete, as with many (almost all) concrete wall textures the game has.

 

Liquids do not flow up.

 

I didn't look at that texture that closely, I just picked a random texture that "kind of looks like concrete" ...

Just to have "something" to do the UV mapping with ...

 

Well, as you can see the UV mapping depends on the texture in question.

In case of a true tile-able non-directional texture, you should indeed use 3 parts (2x wall, 1x ceiling) and make each part fit the texture. (in all directions for easy aligning amongst different meshes)

The stretch would be minimal and nobody will notice in this case.

 

Usually the same would be true when using a different ceiling texture.

 

This case is a bit special with the rounded ceiling and a texture which should continue on the wall.

 

Of course you could always create a custom texture for the ceiling, which matches with the wall.

[South8028]

 

ÃÂ

Wait, you have a DDS texture open in Visual Studio?

WHAT?!

How?

And most important. why?

ÃÂ

ÃÂ

.DDS format is part of DrectX, so VS can open it natively, I think.ÃÂ Or maybe it is because I have the Unreal + Unity package for VS installed?ÃÂ I don't have anything else that can open .DDS in BC7 on my system, so this is the one I use to preview and convert those files.

ÃÂ

The reason I stuck with it is that I was having problems importing with the old NVIDIA plugin for old Photoshop.ÃÂ GIMP didn't support BC7 back then, and VS was unexpectedly useful for converting .DDS files to .png to work on retexturing in Substance Painter.ÃÂ I use Elric for converting .TGA files to .DDS, so I don't really need an image editor with .DDS support at the moment.

Is bs7 used in fo4? For all textures N and S in fo4 BS5 is used. For a small number of S textures, bs1 was also used for the light green channel and chrome effect. For all D textures, nvidea is used in general. dxt1, dxt3, dxt5. There were a number of articles where this was discussed and people could not understand why bethesda used intel and nvidea at the same time Edited July 6, 2021 by South8028

[DiodeLadder]

 

Is bs7 used in fo4? For all textures N and S in fo4 BS5 is used. For a small number of S textures, bs1 was also used for the light green channel and chrome effect. For all D textures, nvidea is used in general. dxt1, dxt3, dxt5. There were a number of articles where this was discussed and people could not understand why bethesda used intel and nvidea at the same time

 

 

BC7 is what I use for my own projects. Bethesda formats are :

 

_d = BC1 (without Alpha), BC3 (with Alpha) I believe HD texture pack uses BC3 for all diffuse maps.

_n = BC5 (only Red and Green channels used, blue is empty)

_s = BC5 (Red channel = Specular, Green channel = Gloss)

_g = BC1 (maybe BC3 used on some assets, too, I don't remember)

 

I'm pretty sure Bethesda used Elric and processed things in batches from .TGA format (I think Microsoft's texconv.exe does the actual encoding, and Elric is just a UI).

 

The real issue I had with the NVIDIA plugin was that when importing Bethesda normal maps, it would add the blue channel automatically, and somehow adds something else in the process. Normal maps imported using this plugin always looked wrong to me. I remember an LOD tutorial on YouTube was using the NVIDIA plugin and the textures offered for download had the same issue. Basically what happens is that direction of the light hitting the asset would look wrong (it's not simple matter of flipping the green channel like with OpenGL - DirectX conversion, either). My solution was to just avoid using that plugin. It may have been due to my misuse of the plugin, though, so I didn't mention it in my last post.

 

(When opened, Bethesda normal maps should look yellow-ish, because they contain no Blue channel. I assume this was done to save the file size when packed into .ba2 archive.)

 

Anyway, here are some assets I've created from scratch, with BC7 textures applied.

 

(Guns) https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1151/images/34555/34555-1608719158-483950534.png

(Kitchen furniture, floor) https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1151/images/34555/34555-1613887280-1319527751.png

 

I think BC7 looks cleaner and sharper in general (less noisy), especially when zoomed out. They tend to pop out better IMO.

 

 

I'm sorry, this is way off topic. Hopefully someone would find the info useful, though. :tongue:

[DieFeM]

All information DiodeLadder shared with us is the same than I've found out by myself by checking Bethesda's texture formats with texdiag (DirectXTex) and, in my opinion, is very accurate information.

 

At first I was using BC1 for diffuse and glow maps, and BC5 for normal and specular maps, but later I've noticed that only BC3 processes alpha correctly.

 

I never used BC7, good to know it works and looks better.

 

I do use texconv from DirectXTec git with my own batch scripts, so I can just drop whatever image format on to my bat file and get it converted (or a bunch of them).

 

 

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set argCount=0
for %%x in (%*) do (
   set /A argCount+=1
   set "argVec[!argCount!]=%%~x"
)

echo Number of processed arguments: %argCount%

for /L %%i in (1,1,%argCount%) do C:\PathToFolderContainingDirectXTexFolder\DirectXTex\texconv.exe -y -f BC3_UNORM -ft DDS "!argVec[%%i]!"
Pause

 

 

 

Hopefully someone would find the info useful, though. :tongue:

 

I do.

[South8028]

 

ÃÃÂ Is bs7 used in fo4? For all textures N and S in fo4 BS5 is used. For a small number of S textures, bs1 was also used for the light green channel and chrome effect. For all D textures, nvidea is used in general. dxt1, dxt3, dxt5. There were a number of articles where this was discussed and people could not understand why bethesda used intel and nvidea at the same time

ÃÃÂ

ÃÃÂ

BC7 is what I use for my own projects.ÃÃÂ Bethesda formats are :

ÃÃÂ

_d = BC1 (without Alpha), BC3 (with Alpha)ÃÃÂ I believe HD texture pack uses BC3 for all diffuse maps.

_n = BC5 (only Red and Green channels used, blue is empty)

_s = BC5 (Red channel = Specular, Green channel = Gloss)

_g = BC1 (maybe BC3 used on some assets, too, I don't remember)

ÃÃÂ

I'm pretty sure Bethesda used Elric and processed things in batches from .TGA format (I think Microsoft's texconv.exe does the actual encoding, and Elric is just a UI).

ÃÃÂ

The real issue I had with the NVIDIA plugin was that when importing Bethesda normal maps, it would add the blue channel automatically, and somehow adds something else in the process.ÃÃÂ Normal maps imported using this plugin always looked wrong to me.ÃÃÂ I remember an LOD tutorial on YouTube was using the NVIDIA plugin and the textures offered for download had the same issue.ÃÃÂ Basically what happens is that direction of the light hitting the asset would look wrong (it's not simple matter of flipping the green channel like with OpenGL - DirectX conversion, either).ÃÃÂ My solution was to just avoid using that plugin.ÃÃÂ It may have been due to my misuse of the plugin, though, so I didn't mention it in my last post.

ÃÃÂ

(When opened, Bethesda normal maps should look yellow-ish, because they contain no Blue channel.ÃÃÂ I assume this was done to save the file size when packed into .ba2 archive.)

ÃÃÂ

Anyway, here are some assets I've created from scratch, with BC7 textures applied.ÃÃÂ

ÃÃÂ

(Guns)ÃÃÂ ÃÃÂ https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1151/images/34555/34555-1608719158-483950534.png

(Kitchen furniture, floor)ÃÃÂ https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1151/images/34555/34555-1613887280-1319527751.png

ÃÃÂ

I think BC7 looks cleaner and sharper in general (less noisy), especially when zoomed out.ÃÃÂ They tend to pop out better IMO.

ÃÃÂ

ÃÃÂ

I'm sorry, this is way off topic.ÃÃÂ Hopefully someone would find the info useful, though.ÃÃÂ ÃÃÂ :tongue:

I came across a table with all formats of textures for creatures and static meshes. It exactly specified the formats for d - nvidea. Moreover, for creatures, different dxt compressions are used for hands, heads and bodies. For normals and speculars, bs5 is used.All normals in the game are inverted, hence the yellow channel.For S static meshes, you can use other compression besides bs5.Since it is sometimes difficult to achieve quality metal surfaces with bs5.

I first ran into this while solving the brown face problem. The brown face error occurs precisely because mod makers are using the intel texture for D, or the wrong compression and resolution standards for n and s. This was the case for all overlays. Then I found the table and after that I did not have more than one problem. Before the table, I also used bs7. But bs7 is heavy and not used in vanilla principle. After the table, I was surprised to find that dxt1 (if we are talking about a texture without an alpha channel) gives absolutely the same image clarity as bs7. But dxt1 weighs much less. Accordingly, there is no point in using something that weighs more and eats resources.

Edited July 7, 2021 by South8028

[niston]

 

I don't have anything else that can open .DDS in BC7 on my system

 

 

I suggest getting paint.net.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

 

 

I don't have anything else that can open .DDS in BC7 on my system

 

 

I suggest getting paint.net.

 

Yes!

PaintNET is awsome!

 

It is like a "easy to use version" of GIMP!