You're coming at this from a much more technical perspective than me so I can't really comment on your approach.

But you seem to be under the impression that one sees pure black and white in every day life and that this is what defines 'contrast'. That really isn't the case.

As for me wanting to do the entire game in my own style -- yes, I do. And will. To be honest I don't think mixing styles from level to level would work. But there's plenty of room for alternative texture styles though, so it's great that yourself and people like John Capon are producing your own versions. And judging by the speed they're appearing, you'll all finish the game way before I do.

Anyway, as I said before, I just enjoy making textures and to a different style and sensibility than yourself. Both ways are valid; I wait with interest to see what you come up with.

Gambit37 wrote:

You're coming at this from a much more technical perspective

😀 unfortuneately the anal-litical bend is the way I'm wired : ) I make the textures first and then try and figure out why the hell it doesn't look the way I want it to 😀

[/quote="Gambit37"]...under the impression that one sees pure black and white in every day life and that this is what defines 'contrast'...[/quote]

erm, that is not my intention , the way I understand it depth perception relies heavily on constrast clues to aid parallax in generating 3-d "depth" info . In the specific case of the TR glide scenario , parallax is not an option AND the contrast has a limited band in which the seperation between black and white ( maybe I should use the term luminousity? ) , I believe takes on an exaggerated ( in terms of perceptional "spectrum") importance.

maybe I am missing the point or using the wrong terminaology in respect to the nature of constrast ?

I have been focusing on B&W simply because some of the colors can vary considerably between photoshop and ingame aspect . Just trying to reduce teh variables to something I can get a handle on ( remember I am still new an untrained in the ways of science , i mean photoshop and all things art) .

Generating textures is fun , addicting too . The best thing about different texture sets is that by the end of it I will be so sick of seeing the stuff I make I won't want to play through the game (for the gazillionth time 😀, but being able to run through looking at your texture will undoubtedly be a refreshing treat . one all the more appreciated I imagine .

hi,
Mr. glidos , sir ,

What types of graphic file formats are recognized (if any ) besides .png , or .bmp ?

I am curious for download size considerations after noticing that due to the nature of some of texture tiles ( like the floor tile ) they can be reduced to a .jpg file with very little loss (almost imperceptible) of quality but a huge reduction in file size .

obviously some of the textures with fine detail or precarious color balance (not to mention alpha channels) don't convert so well , but probably 60-70% of the textures (over-all file size ) could be converted and reduced .

Thanks in advance for your Time

Only .bmp and png at the moment, but it is fairly easy to add another format.

png has the advantage of an alpha component.

Are there decompression time considerations?

I know both PNG and JPG use different compression techniques and that PNG is lossless. But does one take longer to decompress than the other?

I, having about the same programing skill as the average squirrel am also kind of wondering about the existance of any .jpg overhead .

Also if the compression was .gif instead of.jpg could one use animated gifs as textures ? .

You guys have probably already covered this somewhere in these forums so I apologize if I am re-hashing , but glidos seems to not have any problems when running a mixture of texture formats .

For example when working on new textures I have a mixture of png's ( both optimized and not ) and bmp's and don't ( or possibly just haven't been aware ) of any real performance hit ( unless I have the AA up too high).

I am starting to get the hang of using PSP as more than just a cut and paste photo hatchet tool . I have seen the exact photo of the texture below but could not find it again so I tried to generate something worthwhile from scratch .

Still far from perfect but I think the attached fellow came out allright . Although I didn't realize unitl after I had *completed*( nothing is ever really "Done" , at some point one simply has to decide to call it finished ) and set the two textures side by side that I think the original is suppose to be a jaguar or possibly some kind of reptiod .

oh well ,

It's very addicting this texture thing . I am actually startig to get some stuff that is not half bad . I should be able to release a sample pak for thevilla level within ten days or so . until then ...

That looks great! I give up.

Your April's Fool is two days late, Matt 🙄

Lol,

I know I have amateur stuff but it's not that bad 😀

Submitted for your entertainment , be it merry making or other interest 😉, this link : http://www.timewarp.greatnow.com/xmplpge.html

will take you to a kind of texture sample page( warning it's a free site so enable your pop-up blocker) not much there yet as teh site isn't really ready , but there are a couple of tid bits.

That's no April fool -- your last grab is excellent Quest (although the floor is a bit strange I think) -- the switch is really very detailed. I just don't think my recent stuff has been very good.

I took a look at your sample page and I stll think that your contrast is way too high... far too much deep black. Lara's in a cave, not out in the bright sunshine!

firstly thanks,

I built the switch and 'face' using almost exclusively the 'inner' and 'outer' bevel tool , and a bit of free hand shading / highlighting .

I agree with the deep black , but the trouble I am having is in the way the textured get transformed in-game . Well that and I have been using the 'inner ' and 'outer' bevel tool almost exclusively in my attempts at sculpting and have just started to get the hang of hand shading .

I have been fiddling with the villa underwater wall texture , something about it seemed off to me and , per your suggestion , I think I will go back and soften the upper shadows and take another look at other areas where I am ham fisting depth perception with too much deep black like the undersides of the 'feathers' on the switch plate .

The floor texture is a bit strange , but the placement would force one to create a tile with a four way interchageability that also works when the tile is flipped or mirrored .

honestly I just cranked that floor out in about ten minutes because I had this interesting picture of some quartz and I was curious how it would look in game .

Oh, and some of the wall and floor textures ( including the weird floor one ) are up one the example page .

suprisingly the weird 'marble' floor texture works well as it does a good job of conveying wear and age , even if it loses a little something by not being seemless .

If you would like to take a look at them I will go ahead and post the textures I have cranked up for the villa level . they are complete enough to give one the needed cohesion I think , although my plants still suck wang ( and don't seem to be gettign any better) 😀

almost forgot ....

giving up is not allowed ....

😀 😈

Quest wrote:

I know I have amateur stuff but it's not that bad 😀

Aah! No Quest, sorry for the misunderstanding -- I was joking about Gambit's giving up on TRX 😅

Kaminari wrote:

Aah! No Quest, sorry for the misunderstanding -- I was joking about Gambit's giving up on TRX 😅

😀 I had assumed as much , you do not seem the malicious type , and I also hope gambit is just kidding .

His textures have a very 'clean' , as in mentally uncluttered or not overly busy aspect ( lean and mean ) that when veiwed whole as a gameplay experience generate a more relaxed kind of feeling . Perhaps it can be called a superior fung shui .

In contrast I seem to favor a grittier style , no doubt a disease I picked up from reading Alien Legion comics , which can generates more 'distractive' perceptual overhead or anxiety , especially when that "grit" is veiwed at lower resolution or with no filtering or AA . But grit is apparanetly what I like .

Strange as it may be the creative 'process' seems to require one to draw an unusual energy from the body and mind and then trap it on the medium at hand.
And occasionally one leans too far into the mechanical production process or too far in to the speculative creation process to maintian the kind of balance needed to both be creative and productive , hence a situation much like writers block drapes over one like a ( brain ) cloud .

It's the hardwired element of "play" that makes creating / exploring and interacting so much fun . I think it's the same in any endevor. WHen I start to get bogged down I just say to myself ( a line regarding brake failure stolen from the Mckenzie brothers ) , " no point in steering now " and start to fiddle around . Almost every time that nearly random tinkering produces 'accidents' ( that I sometimes cannot re-create ) that lead me to a superior creation that I otherwise would not have thought of .

At any rate it would be a damn shame to lose Matts talents . Perhaps we can convince Eidos ( or whomever owns the TR rights these days ) that they should fund his project and re-release the original TR with the glidos / TReXtra combo on TR's 10 year anniversary next year.

gambit37,

Thanks for pointing out the issue of using too much pure black . WHen I tried to take the black out and use a gentler shading , a problem involving the relationship between game screen size , desktop size and gamma levels became aparent as the culprit .

In fact it illuminated why I have been struggling so much with my textures looking radically different ( color , contrast ...the works ) from desktop to in-game .

The trouble was this : when I am running Glidos/TR at or above desktop resolution I cannot adjust the in-game gamma at all . No matter where I set the slider the in-game gamma remains the same ( looks a bit dark , like perhaps .9 or .85 , but that might just be my perception) .

The title / first menu screen will (sometimes) show a gamma difference , but once the game starts the gamma setting is ignored and returns to whatever the "locked" value is .

I noticed that sometimes on startup the first game title/menu screen will initially appear with the correct 'adjusted' gamma , but that only last a fraction of a second and then it re-adjusts ( gets darker in this example ) to the locked gamma setting.

But if one is playing Glidos/TR in a resolution below the desktop size then the gamma controls and adjustments function normally , although the default gamma is a tad on the high side . My best guess is that the default gamma in this situation in somethig like 1.25 or 1.3 .

Which leads us to the trouble I was having.

In the "locked" gamma mode ( glidos at desktop res or above) the textures look almost exactly in-game as they do in paint shop pro . I do not detect any blur or color distortion ( even in the blues or greens ).

But when at the lower than desktop resolutions ( when I have gamma adjustment control ) I get the color weirdness and bluriness ....
since I have been using a Glidos/TR res less than that of my destop I have been trying to cater my textures to the overly 'bright' default gamma setting .

I feel a bit sheepish 😊 as I should have noticed this way , way , earlier in the process ,oh, well chalk one up for a rookie lesson I wil not soon forget ,as I have tossed a ton of really great textures / colors becauser they looked great until I saw them in game 😦

So ...

The upshot is that i will rework all ( sigh ) of the textures to try and accomodate what appears to be teh default 'locked' gamma setting .

----------

One other interesting item of note is that when I have Paint shop Pro and Glidos/TR running simutaneously ( glidos at below desktop res in a window ) and snag screen shots the screen shots when veiwed in PSP look exactly as they do in the game , BUT if I shut glidos down the screen capture in PSP( done using the PSP tool ) immediately darkens and I have to adjust eh gamma up by about 1.4 to back to 'normal' .

I just noticed that when running @1600x1200 ( with desktop@1024x768) that the 'locked' gamma setting can be 'unhooked' by hitting the 'windows' key .

If I hit the 'windows' key glidos pauses ( as one would imagine ) and the windows task bar appears ( not at the bottom but in the "window' postion that 1024 would fit on a 1600 screen ). if I then click on the 'glidos server' tab , glidos 'unpauses' but also changes gamma level into what appears to be about normal . ( unfortuneately the windows task bar does not disappear and is floating irritatingly in the screen )

after doing this if I exit Tr and then restart it the gamma resets to the darkish 'locked' level until I do teh windows key thing .

perhaps I have some driver issue .

That could easily be some sort of Windows event that I'm not bothering to handle in Glidos.

On the other hand, it is strange. I used to ignore the gamma settings sent by TR1, and lots of people complained about it being too dark, but noe I honor those settings. I suppose you might have a driver issue.