Author Topic: TXIng my patience  (Read 860 times)

Legacy_s e n

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TXIng my patience
« Reply #15 on: October 27, 2012, 07:53:43 pm »


               I just realized that when I changed pc 2 years ago I moved from ati to nvidia, and for the 1st time I can see shinywater in game luls

Rolo, with the new texture everything looks the same... iridescent envmap works only if applied from 2da (dunno why).

sidenote: On a closer look, you forgot an N in the middle of e and v in the irridescent name entry in the txis

my tests and conclusions:
-using 2da to apply envmap, maps every texture of the model whenever an alpha layer is available, so using this method doesnt allow to "mix" alpha channel transparencies with envmapping, in meshes of the same model.

-using txi to apply envmap to the wings, well... seems to doesnt work at all. it keeps using the alpha channel to manage transparencies, thats it. be it under the a dummy or under the root dummy, the trimesh bypasses the envmap txi information. applying a skin to the mesh, does the trick but, sadly, its another dead end: with skin it reads txi information and reads the alpha as an environmental information, it just doesnt apply the selected texture but seems to blend black ink in the texture, the amount given by the alpha as it should do with the envmap, but no reflection.

about the transparency rendering issue, i really dont have it '<img'> you shure you havent solved?
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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TXIng my patience
« Reply #16 on: October 27, 2012, 08:02:17 pm »


               <feling a little...>

s e n wrote...
I just realized that when I changed pc 2 years ago I moved from ati to nvidia, and for the 1st time I can see shinywater in game luls

*turning green*

Rolo, with the new texture everything looks the same... iridescent envmap works only if applied from 2da (dunno why).

sidenote: On a closer look, you forgot an N in the middle of e and v in the irridescent name entry in the txis

evmap_irrid is the name of the map provided by bioware for the umberhulk and stag beetle.

my tests and conclusions:
-using 2da to apply envmap, maps every texture of the model whenever an alpha layer is available, so using this method doesnt allow to "mix" alpha channel transparencies with envmapping, in meshes of the same model.

-using txi to apply envmap to the wings, well... seems to doesnt work at all. it keeps using the alpha channel to manage transparencies, thats it. be it under the a dummy or under the root dummy, the trimesh bypasses the envmap txi information. applying a skin to the mesh, does the trick but, sadly, its another dead end: with skin it reads txi information and reads the alpha as an environmental information, it just doesnt apply the selected texture but seems to blend black ink in the texture, the amount given by the alpha as it should do with the envmap, but no reflection.

Yeah, I *want* to apply it in the txi, but... *sigh* I think it's something to do with how wings and tails are dependent on the creature geometry.

about the transparency rendering issue, i really dont have it '<img'> you shure you havent solved?

Just tried it again (*I* had the right bumpmap, btw... *sigh again*). Still flickering. But maybe it's because I'm on a laptop with an nvidia mobile card...

<...jealus>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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« Reply #17 on: October 28, 2012, 04:48:05 pm »


               <hastily wiping...>

Ok, anyone point me to the bioware 3DS export pack with the famous "example.txi"? The link on the Vault is zombie. :-P

<...all the spilled coffee of his vault map>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_OldTimeRadio

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« Reply #18 on: October 28, 2012, 05:38:39 pm »


               Weird, I thought there was a place on the Vault that had these.  Maybe Big Bene's (sp?) CC pack?

Here you go:
'Image
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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« Reply #19 on: October 28, 2012, 05:46:12 pm »


               <flexing his...>

I'll update the Vault entry so it's available.
Let me know if there's any other Bioware content that is redirected to their front page :-P

<...skinny old-man muscles>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist

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TXIng my patience
« Reply #20 on: October 28, 2012, 07:01:15 pm »


               Cool, glad you found those...

By the by, while I was searching my local repository of files I have grabbed over the years, I found the updated nwn model compiler that fixes the import/export issues with nwnmdlcomp.exe, the one that Joco created.  I think this one is already located on the vault, but I am not positive of that.  My copy, the archive has been renamed to include Joco's name so that I could easily figure out which one it was.

Anyway, I can NOT seem to find this one on the vault anymore, likely just using bad search phrases, but tell me where to send it Rolo, so it gets re-uploaded to the vault.  Ideally, it should be placed on the same page as the original nwn_mdl_comp with a description to explain that this was a repaired version, IE, more up to date.

Edit:  Ok, nevermind, the version on the vault IS the one that I have, I had already corrected it on the vault a few years back... bad memory it seems. Torlack's Mdl Compiler, corrected by Joco to handle animation imports
               
               

               


                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 28 octobre 2012 - 07:06 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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« Reply #21 on: October 28, 2012, 07:05:15 pm »


               <opening mouth...>

Send it to rolo@amet... er, send it to me :-)

<...closing it and looking sly>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist

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« Reply #22 on: October 28, 2012, 07:07:14 pm »


               dang it, you read too fast buddy.!  The one on the vault IS the corrected version now, I had already corrected it a few years back, just about when DLA disolved.

Oh, the description is very wrong on the file now though, this was actually sourced by DLA, not MDA or scriptwreck or whomever.  It contains the original version by Torlack, AND the corrected .exe version by Joco.
               
               

               


                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 28 octobre 2012 - 07:10 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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« Reply #23 on: October 28, 2012, 07:15:43 pm »


               <grinning...>

Write me a new description and I'll post it :-)

I'll also move Torlack's broken link to "Duplicate Entry" so it doesn't confuse people :-P

<...like a fool>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_OldTimeRadio

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« Reply #24 on: October 28, 2012, 07:55:51 pm »


               

Rolo Kipp wrote...
I'll update the Vault entry so it's available.
Let me know if there's any other Bioware content that is redirected to their front page :-P

Thanks and will-do.  I actually slammed most of that stuff in the Omnibus, at least in HTML form.  Someone got the builders reference stuff either on the Vault or on here as a project, can't recall.

If you want to start getting EMBM on things, the easiest way to start is to copy tcn01_water01.txi to your override directory and rename it to the name of a texture on your mesh.  The requirements aren't going to mesh well with your wings, AFAIK: I believe shiny water will have to be on in the options, the object will have to be set to static, the card doing the demo will have to be NVidia and there will have to be static water in the scene, in the form of a water tile.  Otherwise, IIRC, it will show up black.  At best, it will result in a strange sort of blue "skin" in the shape of your mesh with bright highlights like shinywater. 

All EMBM that I've ever seen from screenshots of games looks exactly like this.

I was able to trick it to work on a shield but I don't have the model handy.  Basically I did all sorts of strange things in the model hierarchy, like burying a false _a node just under a fake mesh object named after the model base- like really crazy stuff.  Even then there was a really bad black shadow thing that went all over the scene and I don't think I figured out how to solve that.

The way shinywater basically works is this: A texture is applied to a mesh with a TXI (like the tcn01_water.txi example, above) and that points to two other textures: A "bumpyshinytexture" (a cubemap, without which EMBM won't work) and a "bumpmaptexture", in this case shinywater.tga.  Anyway, the cubemap is nothing special but it has to be a cubemap.  IIRC, shinywater.tga has to be in a specific format (i.e. like the one in game) and its TXI file actually controls what is seen (the water effect), not the actual contents of shinywater.tga.

Now "bumpmapping" in NWN, the way 99.999% of people think about it, is really just non-moving shiny water.  Or, put another way, shiny water without the arturo proceduretype.  I just think of it as "frozen shiny water".  And instead of using shinywater.tga, using a normal map which is appropriate for your texture.

I do not yet know how to make what I consider a true replacement for shinywater.tga  though I have been able to fake it with grayscale images.  But faking a normal map with a grayscale image, while it sort of works, is not really what NWN is looking for- that's my belief anyway.  I believe NWN is looking more for KotoR style normal maps, which are also similar to Dragon Age:Origins normal maps.  Especially in KotoR, two channels of the image hold specially distorted X and Y data. 

I'm working on ways to not have to do it like this, but don't have anything that works yet.
               
               

               


                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 28 octobre 2012 - 08:13 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Michael DarkAngel

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TXIng my patience
« Reply #25 on: October 28, 2012, 08:54:01 pm »


               

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...

dang it, you read too fast buddy.!  The one on the vault IS the corrected version now, I had already corrected it a few years back, just about when DLA disolved.

Oh, the description is very wrong on the file now though, this was actually sourced by DLA, not MDA or scriptwreck or whomever.  It contains the original version by Torlack, AND the corrected .exe version by Joco.


That description is correct, in that it was uploaded by Script Wrecked using the version that was available from my website.  At the time whatever listings were on the Vault led to dead links.

[EDIT]
It appears I spoke too soon.  The updated date on the file is different from the updated date at the top of the page.

I apologize.

'Image
  MDA
               
               

               


                     Modifié par Michael DarkAngel, 28 octobre 2012 - 10:30 .
                     
                  


            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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« Reply #26 on: October 28, 2012, 10:40:37 pm »


               <running as fast as he can...>

How utterly odd. You'd almost think there were gremlins on the Vault ;-)

If *anyone* is unhappy with the description, pm or email me a better one :-)

Actually... *wanders off to start a new thread*

<...and the blasted gremlin *still* beat him to the mouse hole>
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist

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« Reply #27 on: October 29, 2012, 07:37:34 am »


               Yeah MDA, if you read the replies down the page a bit, you will see when that file was replaced with the DLA version that included both the original Torlack version AND the version corrected by Joco that fixed the animation import/export issues.

I don't understand why it was sent to that specific page though, it should have gone into the one from Torlack, the one that had the dead links to his site.  That one also had a better description I think, but since Rolo adjusted it to a "duplicate" listing, it is no longer viewable I think.  At least, I was unable to find it again after he posted about that change.
               
               

               
            

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

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« Reply #28 on: October 29, 2012, 04:55:10 pm »


               <kicking burros...>

Of course, I can go back and muck about some more...

<...and taking names>