Gambit,
the new site looks real good! By the way, can you perhaps give us news about Quest ? He's talented but he seemed like he disappeared from this Forum ? Keep it up with the girl (not the real one...I meant Lara...) 😁 Thanks to all you artitsts here (and Mr Glidos himself of course)!
Yes! Quest! Where's Quest? Or r2d2 (whatever his new name was).
Right, I've signed up for a hosting package. 10GB available. Do you have control over your DNS? I could host download.resonantedge.com maybe.
Blimey! OK, I'm not around much at the moment, but this is something probably better discussed off-line. I'll email you soon!
What are the costs? I'm on a limited budget but could conceivably donate something towards this -- it wouldn't seem right for you to be paying this yourself.
The cost is "nothing to you" 😁
It seems exactly right me paying, since I get some income from Glidos - not much, but enought o cover this.
Anyway, we can chat about it by email.
Mr. Glidos, is there no chance to get free hosting (perhaps with advertising) so that you don't have to bear the costs ?
Its $4 a month. I'm quite happy paying really.
$4? What exactly is that 10GB -- disk space or data transfer (bandwidth)?
He he. Disc space. Transfer is 100GB. And I've yet to find out something crap about them.
Jeez. We need to talk! I'll be in touch.
How about if I create an ftp account for each of you so that you can at least upload you texture packs, and maybe make some index pages via which people can download them?
When the TRX site is sorted, it should be easy enough to rejig everything. For now I could put links into the Glidos home page for each author.
I'm not going to be ready for a while yet - I decided to go back and do my own version of 'Caves' and, using the equivalence file, this is prompting me to do a major reworking of my Peru levels. Progress on this is being slowed somewhat because I'm playing Legend in my spare time, and spare time is a bit sparse at the moment!
I'm doing some work on the site today.
JC, I'm still unsure about how best to release packs using the new equiv files. How do you intend to manage this now?
Well I'm aiming to re-release my reworked Peru levels all together, either as a unit or as a set of add-on packs. Both options are viable, the only real consideration is whether people would prefer smaller downloads. I have all of the Peru levels working smoothly with the equiv file - I spent some time purging them of duplicate textures and link files and now have a nicely streamlined and efficient set of working folders.
So you're not using link files at all now? Does this mean you've ditched 'nice' named folder mappings and are just putting everything into the weird named folders and relying on equiv to sort out duplicates?
What happens when someone downloads another 'level-set' pack in the future but doesn't have the first level set -- do you bundle all the common tetxures in there as well?
I think we should make some decisions on how to do this and stick to it rather than trying to create packs in lots of different ways and with different dependencies because we're trying to help out different kinds of users.
Personally, I favour a different approach now that equiv files are available:
1) Texture a group of levels together purely in terms of their environments (no sprites, creatures etc) and release with their own equiv file
2) Texture other items on a case by case basis (Lara, Wolf, Bear, etc) and release each one as a stand-alone pack with it's own equiv file that then 'inserts' this object into all levels
3) Once (1) and (2) are done, bundle up the whole thing as one massive download with one merged equiv file.
Of course, this only works if we can use multiple equiv files -- Paul, is that possible?
Actually, maybe that's nonsense and too much work.
I'm just getting stuck on how to manage 16 levels worth of medipack mapping or passport mapping or lara mapping or... you get the idea. It still seems like there is a huge amount of manual work involved...
I am still using link files, but there is only one link file for each texture - the equiv file does the rest where a given texture gets re-used.
Regarding a user having missing 'level-sets'...I was working on the assumption that the downloads would all be in one place and that each level release would be an 'add-on' pack. I don't see any reason to have each level function as a fully working unit in its own right - surely anyone that is really interested will download the full set? So long as the download page makes it clear what packs will be needed why would there be a problem?
I agree that it is a good idea to have environment textures available as a seperate downloadable pack to the 'common' objects (lara, weapons, enemies etc.) - but only one equiv file is necessary: for example, in a situation where somebody may run a level without the 'common' files installed everything would still work - if the equiv file points to a replacement texture thats not there then the original textures would just appear instead.
I'm just getting stuck on how to manage 16 levels worth of medipack mapping or passport mapping...
All 'common' objects are dealt with by the equiv file which feeds off of just ONE link file for each piece. If you would like this to function independently in each level pack then you would just need these 'base' link files to be included in each pack - a relatively weightless inclusion since they are merely text files!
wrote:I am still using link files, but there is only one link file for each texture - the equiv file does the rest where a given texture gets re-used.
OK, so your link file still points to nice named textures in nice named folders? How do you ensure that you delete all the duplicates of this texture in all the other capture folders? Do you simply work on one at a time, create it's link then visually look in every folder and delete the duplicate, knowing that any later packs will "just work" because you already created the quiv file for the entire game?
wrote:Regarding a user having missing 'level-sets'...I was working on the assumption that the downloads would all be in one place and that each level release would be an 'add-on' pack. I don't see any reason to have each level function as a fully working unit in its own right - surely anyone that is really interested will download the full set? So long as the download page makes it clear what packs will be needed why would there be a problem?
This is exactly the problem and why I've had such difficulty getting my head around the whole thing!
Paul wants to mix and match levels. Other's have slow download speeds. Some people want just textures and not objects re-done. We can't keep everyone happy AND keep the management of packs under control to facilitate this -- we'd soon go mad.
So, if you are doing you work on the assumption that each new release simply builds on existing ones, and that users MUST have early packs before down loading later ones, then I will also work that way and I think anyone else doing packs should also.
wrote:I agree that it is a good idea to have environment textures available as a seperate downloadable pack to the 'common' objects (lara, weapons, enemies etc.) - but only one equiv file is necessary: for example, in a situation where somebody may run a level without the 'common' files installed everything would still work - if the equiv file points to a replacement texture thats not there then the original textures would just appear instead.
I assume here that the equiv file you refer to would be a complete one for the entire game?
wrote:How do you ensure that you delete all the duplicates of this texture in all the other capture folders?
Yes, a problem that has been worrying me. Its not a problem for new packs, but its difficult when you try to use the equiv mechanism with existing packs. To help with this, I've updated the equiv tool so that it can scan a texture pack and report duplicates.
wrote:This is exactly the problem and why I've had such difficulty getting my head around the whole thing! […]
wrote:Regarding a user having missing 'level-sets'...I was working on the assumption that the downloads would all be in one place and that each level release would be an 'add-on' pack. I don't see any reason to have each level function as a fully working unit in its own right - surely anyone that is really interested will download the full set? So long as the download page makes it clear what packs will be needed why would there be a problem?
This is exactly the problem and why I've had such difficulty getting my head around the whole thing!
Paul wants to mix and match levels. Other's have slow download speeds. Some people want just textures and not objects re-done. We can't keep everyone happy AND keep the management of packs under control to facilitate this -- we'd soon go mad.
So, if you are doing you work on the assumption that each new release simply builds on existing ones, and that users MUST have early packs before down loading later ones, then I will also work that way and I think anyone else doing packs should also.
I think there is a way to still have separate self-contained levels, but I don't really care that much about that. Levels that build on existing ones, with no facility to mix and match is fine with me.
