Editing sky textures

Discussions on Modding of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC & Clear Sky

Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 18 Oct 2010 01:43

Maybe someone knows the answer to this. I'm trying to optimise some sky textures in stalker but whenever I save the textures they aren't saved right and thus don't display properly ingame. I've tried using paint.net, gimpshop, and photoshop CS3. CS3 comes closest to saving the images properly using the nvidia DDS plugin but whenever I try and save the texture as a cube map it complains about the texture size (which it shouldn't.. 1024*1024) and it also complains it needs 6 images next to eachother.. which they are. Does anybody know of any software that can effectively edit and properly save the sky textures?
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
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RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby Nightwatch on 18 Oct 2010 09:21

To make it clear in my mind: are you talking about sky graphics "shaders" which are postScript files, or the textures in the gamedata\textures folder, which are of course DDS files?
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 18 Oct 2010 12:18

I'm talking about the actual sky textures, not the shaders ;)
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby Nightwatch on 18 Oct 2010 14:33

Photoshop is the best one to do this job. Though, I haven't experienced the sort of problems you're referring to. If you can post all the settings that you choose when saving, hmm, also the settings when you're working on such a file, I can try to possibly replicate the situation tonight; I had checked earlier, the CS3 still remains installed on my PC.
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 18 Oct 2010 15:10

Alrighty. Heres the versions of the plugins I've tried and the settings I use;

Legacy plugin 7.83
Latest plugin 8.23
(http://developer.nvidia.com/object/phot ... ugins.html)

In Photoshop CS3:
Resize from 12282*1024 (pixels) to 6141*512
Select to save as DXT5 cube map
use existing mipmaps

CS3 DDS plugin spits the following "errors" at me when trying to save as DXT5 cube map: "Need 6 images side by side and width equal height"
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby Nightwatch on 18 Oct 2010 16:15

Plug-in 8.23 sounds right. I haven't yet get to home and able to try it, of course, but I remember from the past that it had given almost that kind of same prompt before when the picture was not in equal dimension. I think it was asking for square size. Try it like that once original image as being a square.
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 18 Oct 2010 16:30

Ok, I'll try square dimensions and try saving as a cube map. Hopefully stalker will use the texture correctly.

ED - Even resizing to 1024*1024, still the same error as in my last post.
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby Nightwatch on 19 Oct 2010 03:12

It's after 3 am (in UK time) and I couldn't get to photoshop yet to try to go through the chain of work. However, There's one plug-in tyhat may actually be quite useful in what you're aiming to do.

DDS Photoshop Plugin + NVDXT Tools

Its READ Me says (in extractions) :

"This program compresses images,
creates normal maps from color or alpha,
creates DuDv map
creates cube maps
writes out .dds file
does batch processing
reads .tga, .bmp, .gif, .ppm, .jpg, .tif, .cel, .dds
filters MIP maps

Options:

-nomipmap : don't generate MIP maps
-fade : fade MIP maps
-browse : browse for directory
-dither : add dithering
-timestamp : Update only changed files
-list <filename> : list of files to convert
-cubemap <filename> : create cube map <filename>.

Files specified with -list option
-all : all image files in current directory
-outdir : output directory
-file: input file to process

-swap : swap rgb
-binaryalpha : treat alpha as 0 or 1
-alphaborder : border images with alpha = 0
-fade : fade map (color, normal or DuDv) over MIP levels
-fadeamount : percentage to fade each MIP level. Default 15
-fadecolor <hex color> : color to fade to
-fadealpha : fade alpha over MIP levels
-border : border images with color
-bordercolor <hex color> : color for border

Texture Format options. Default DXT3:
-dxt1c : DXT1 (color only)
-dxt1a : DXT1 (one bit alpha)
-dxt3 : DXT3
-dxt5 : DXT5"

Download and more info from here:
(Filefront/Elite Force 2)
http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/file/D ... 69x#148888

=============================================================================

Lets see if it can do what it claims on your case, too.
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 19 Oct 2010 12:35

You're the man nightwatch! All the dds plugins I tried didn't work and the first one you find works perfectly :-bd
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby Nightwatch on 19 Oct 2010 20:53

You're welcome. :mozilla_smile: I'm glad that it worked. :thumbright:
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 21 Oct 2010 12:54

Heres a unexpected problem.. I got around to testing the editied sky textures and they look fantastic, HOWEVER, for soom reason the "seams" of the cube map are visible where colours don't quite match up. Default textures don't have this problem obviously. Perhaps its the way I'm saving the cube maps? I don't think I'm doing anything that would make these "seams" visible.

Process;

Despeckle
Reducing noise in the image
Despeckle
Saving as 24bit cube map (no noticable quality loss from 32bit and keeps the images around 4.5MB, and thus, under the 2GB memory address limit issue X-Ray has)
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

STALKER: Singularity (SIN) homepage
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ket
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby Nightwatch on 21 Oct 2010 16:27

Not quite qualified in these matters, in such details. But I'd suggest, from the top of my head, try different resolution; but I guess you've already done that.
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Re: Editing sky textures

Postby ket on 21 Oct 2010 17:14

The only way is up as they say. Textures when saved as a cube are default 512*512. I'll try 1024*1024 if what I'm doing atm doesn't work out. I decided to save the textures as a simple DDS image and not a actual cube. Will see how that works out.
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

STALKER: Singularity (SIN) homepage
User avatar
ket
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Posts: 1262
Joined: 14 Sep 2008 11:57
Location: The solar system


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