Retexturing

[Caiman]

Alright, the first one to get this simple test texture into the game(post a screenie ;) ) wins a free cookie! :thumbsup:

 

I used the Far Manager to get Umodel working to load one of the .upk´s and extract the .dds´s(like ripptide2 wrote here), opened the diffuse map of the kevlar helmet(didn´t even know they were supposed to correspond to armors -.-´) in Photoshop with the Nvidia plugin(works with ATI cards, too ;) ) and made a little texture edit. I included the .psd in case I did something wrong on the export.

 

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?bfwnr5xflx556th

http://www.mediafire.com/?f4d3dy8ha1qbl2m

 

p.s.:

The helmet is from the preorder DLC. If someone thinks he can do it, but didn´t preorder the game I can edit another texture for testing. ^_^

p.p.s.:

I didn´t edit the normal and SPC(specular?) maps, but that shouldn´t be an issue.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Caiman

[Daemonjax]

This is the first game in a long long time where I never said to myself while playing, "Damn, that texture is terribad. I need to stop playing now and mod that." ;)

[Caiman]

Well, this texture at least looked quite simple. I´m just eager to see if someone is already able to make texture-replacers. ;)

[kolt16]

Helmet texture and some more..

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?8wy5aexc8mt1lj1

 

While It's not specified how exactly should I get the texture into the game, I'm quite sure the method used is considered cheating :D. It's done with TexMod, a nifty tool made for Tomb Raider Legends or MassEffect maybe, but it does work with most anything.

 

Back to the issue at hand, I didn't unpack the game resources, so no idea how stuff is stored in there, but trough texmod you generally need dif and color map (the later for items that have customizable color presets, for these dif texture matters little, so I did make a color map for the helmet too).

 

This little experiment also brought out a bug, either with texmod or the game handling helmet textures (I hope only those, haven't seen it with anything else yet). If the character is zoomed in or the resolution is changed, probably when another step of the dds is being called, every step gets a new ID in memory. That means I have to export every id with texmod for every resolution and have my texture inserted for each instead of just the source dds. Again I have not seen this behaviour with anything else I tied retexturing so far. Fortunately I don't particularly like the helmets in this game to begin with :D

 

 

Anyway if you are the type who can't wait for resource packing tools, texmod is a nice alternative solution. It works with pacakges, so in theory it's possible to upload texture packs for any game, this one included. Although I haven't seen many of these. Maybe I'll upload mine and see if it works for others.

 

I do hope there will be some modding tools for this game though. It's a good start, but could do with a few tons of extra stuff :D

[kayttaja]

Helmet texture and some more..

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?8wy5aexc8mt1lj1

 

While It's not specified how exactly should I get the texture into the game, I'm quite sure the method used is considered cheating :D. It's done with TexMod, a nifty tool made for Tomb Raider Legends or MassEffect maybe, but it does work with most anything.

 

Back to the issue at hand, I didn't unpack the game resources, so no idea how stuff is stored in there, but trough texmod you generally need dif and color map (the later for items that have customizable color presets, for these dif texture matters little, so I did make a color map for the helmet too).

 

This little experiment also brought out a bug, either with texmod or the game handling helmet textures (I hope only those, haven't seen it with anything else yet). If the character is zoomed in or the resolution is changed, probably when another step of the dds is being called, every step gets a new ID in memory. That means I have to export every id with texmod for every resolution and have my texture inserted for each instead of just the source dds. Again I have not seen this behaviour with anything else I tied retexturing so far. Fortunately I don't particularly like the helmets in this game to begin with :D

 

 

Anyway if you are the type who can't wait for resource packing tools, texmod is a nice alternative solution. It works with pacakges, so in theory it's possible to upload texture packs for any game, this one included. Although I haven't seen many of these. Maybe I'll upload mine and see if it works for others.

 

I do hope there will be some modding tools for this game though. It's a good start, but could do with a few tons of extra stuff :D

Cool, you think this could be used to change the flags?

[KMA]

This is the first game in a long long time where I never said to myself while playing, "Damn, that texture is terribad. I need to stop playing now and mod that." ;)

 

Really? You did not notice the UVunwrap errors, or the myriad of low quality textures that are rubbed in your face due to the glam-cam? Most vehicles are 2048^2 except for the Skyranger and Interceptors (forgot to check Firestorm) which are only 1024^2. I mean, the bump map on the skyranger alone should have had you shuddering the first time you saw it. Diamond plate (the loading ramp) with no separation at all on the diamonds?!? Some of this was well done, but some is pure console-crap. Sorta like Rage. Oh ya, the weapons (even vehicle) are 512's. If they had been smart about it, they would have kept the camera far enough away to not need good textures. So it is up to us to normalize all the texture sizes, and bring the quality up to 2012 standards (if we can get them back into the game).

[Caiman]

I don´t care for "cheating" as long as it works!

You deserve that digital cookie, kolt! :thumbsup:

Here it is, your extra big cookie:

http://files.softicons.com/download/system-icons/crystal-project-icons-by-everaldo-coelho/png/48x48/apps/cookie.png

 

I guess yours will be the first texture pack out on the Nexus, so DO IT! 8)

 

Let´s see if I can get a look at TexMod during the weekend... :laugh:

Edited October 18, 2012 by Caiman

[kolt16]

@Caiman: Thanks :D, will see about the texture pack, I'm still not quite satisfied with it. Not to mention only the base armor and the base weapons are done.

 

@KMA / kayttaja: I'm guessing most units and items can be done, flags for sure, I tried the ones on the soldiers back that works, one could probably do the interface element ones too. Environmental textures look weird though, no idea what to do with those.

 

 

A bit of general info for those who would be interested in texturing:

 

DDS formats:

DTX5 ARGB for all textures with alpha channels.

DTX1 RGB for the others

 

Texture types for standard items:

Diffuse - Alpha channel has Specular data

Normal (haven't touch any of these yet)

 

Texture types for custom colorable stuff like armors:

Diffuse - no alpha

Normal

SPC - see details below

 

 

The SPC textures (looks like a red outline in TexMod) are used as 4 independent grayscales instead of an RGB and an alpha for transparency.

Red Channel: Specular

Green Channel: Glow? - It should be but I could see no difference in game.

Blue Channel: Custom Color 1

Alpha Channel: Custom Color 2

 

 

I'm guessing something similar is going on with the environmental textures, maybe the channels are mixed between the two texture files in some way, to save space? Not that I'd plan to touch those, but someone else might, and I'm still curious.

[Daemonjax]

Really? You did not notice the UVunwrap errors, or the myriad of low quality textures that are rubbed in your face due to the glam-cam? Most vehicles are 2048^2 except for the Skyranger and Interceptors (forgot to check Firestorm) which are only 1024^2.

 

Haha, nope.

 

Then again, my fav games are Chessmaster and the original xcom. I try not to stare at individual textures. :D

 

One thing you could try doing which I noticed makes all games look better, is disable the ingame texture filtering and just force 8x AF through your GPU's control panel. It makes a difference on pretty much every game, at least for ATI cards, and carries no performance cost.

 

And set AA to low ingame. Depending on your LCD, jaggies may not be a big issue. I haven't looked into it, but my initial assumption is that it's FXAA.

 

 

But, yeah, if the graphics are a gamestopper for you, then go ahead and make a graphics mod. :D

 

Be sure to take comparison screenshots, and don't just up the res and throw a sharpening filter on stuff. Take your time with each texture fix. Add more information to the texture file by either manually using a brush, or by layering new textures to make it full of win. Just make sure it still matches the existing art style and surrounding textures ingame. :D

Edited October 19, 2012 by Daemonjax

[Caiman]

Thanks for the Intel, Kolt. :)

 

I still think you should take the chance and upload the first Xcom EU texture pack. ;)

 

Look at the ones for Skyrim- often enough they get updates or start with *some* armors instead of everything. :)