Got something interesting I picked up (I think Trp Jed alerted us) on detail textures in HL...it's a "poor mans bump map" technique that was to debut in CS-CZ and the code ended up in the latest HL release. Go to Verc (http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?doc=1076548934-94242500) for information on how.

Here's two shots with the technique applied on one of them. I'm not a very good texture artist so my attempt at a detail texture is amaturist at best...but this hints at the possibilites to add a layer of texturing to plain textures...like adding a grain to sandstone for instance. I'm not sure on performance hits but that link above has some discussion on it.

No detail Texture (http://mysite.verizon.net/warewind/images/glider1a.jpg)
Detaile texture applied (http://mysite.verizon.net/warewind/images/glider1b.jpg)

Open each one after the other in a browser window and then quickly bounce between the two w/your back-n-forward arrows

Like I said...not that good...but you can see additional depth in the brick road and a texture on the wall...so there's some potential here. In a nutshell the detail texture is applied over the regular texture by the engine transparently and it picks up the contrasting colors to provide some depth to the texture...set r_detailedtexture 1 and follow the directions on the verc site and you can create your own detail textures for your favorite maps (it's a client thing)

Now...don't go complaining that "They" should have "Fixed" something before they added this capability...nonsense. Certain drops of code like this are scehduled months in advance and they drop as the schedule permits regardless of bug fixes.

The Verc article really explains it to death.

If it’s any thing like the detail texture in the original Unreal it will murder frame rates.

Stop spreading rumors...no frame drop on my PC at all...that's not to say it's a freebie...we just need to figure out what the cost is

In my opinion detail textures hides the real depth of the original textures which is not good thing.

interesting, but I fail to see its practicallity. Yes they is a little more sharpness in the texture, but the overall difference is negiliable in my opinion. I think its only use would be if you have a texture that is just coming out really bad in game and it needs to be sharpened a bit.

i don't really notice a difference in either. maybe you should try it on a lower quality texture :P

either way i don't understand the purpose, i mean, unless it's for an 'area' effect so you don't have to add a new texture just for a burned effect on part of a building, but i still think it's probably a minimal thing.

Detail textures scare the poop nuggets out of my boxers....ehhhhh wait.. They screw the original textures - that's what I meant to say. All it does is layering a second texture ontop of the actual texture so it all sorta blends together and creates a blobby mess that looks worse than anything would ever look without "detail" texture...it's lame, and the name doesn't reflect what it really does (screw the art up)

Well...remember that I have no idea what I'm doing so those pictures you see are..."poop" (hehehe...hopefully not yours klieners)...i'll bet a good artist can make a detail texture that really adds to a maps look regardless of what the mapper or the original artist intended.

Indeed...regardless of what you and I think about it, this is the logical step towards bump-mapping...which all of you guys who make textures will have to learn how to do if you intend on supporting DoD2 in the future (which appears to me to be getting closer and closer).

Anyways...since it's a client thing my guess is the dod team will not push it...especially considering that it's new and I doubt many understand the impact on resourses it has. I think the dev team is trying as hard as they can to optimize the client so adding stuff like this at the 11th hour isn't such a cool thing to consider. I just like it because it's cool-geek-code stuff and I like the potential it has.

If your interested in seeing what it can do d/l this: FILE (http://mysite.verizon.net/warewind/files/dod_glider_detail.zip) and unzip it to your steam day of defeat directory. Detail textures only appear if the cvar r_detailtextures is set to 1

I can see the difference and the wall looks better but the floor doesnt. What I don't like is I heard it takes up a fair bit of Texture Memory, so you have even less to play with in official maps.

Oh....

I thought these detail textures were going to be hi-resolution replacement images. Oh well maybe not.

It sort of seems to do what Serious Sam (ugh), NOLF and Tomaz Quake do with textures. Which is layer some gritty texture over them.

Still it does look slightly better; although I think I'm not so bothered about DOD maps (the difference seems minimal). I'm more interested in seeing this on nobby looking CS maps like cs_office and that warehouse map.

Oh and FD, from the CZ pictures I've seen, the new cz_assault looks crappy (look at the arid ground), so maybe its not all that great really. Although dust DOES look majorly improved. BTW, why the hell does CZ only actually have 3 new maps?? It was supposed to have like 20!!!!!! I'd rather have the 20 maps that were made, at least there'd be some variety on the servers. Oh well, I suppose the bots should provide some fun on custom maps.

I'm sorry, whenever Cz is mentioned, I have to grumble about WTF they scrapped Gearbox work, which is still the best of the lot. Arrrgh! Errm anyhow...


I notice it says something on the VERC about scaling the detail textures - does this mean that you can paste a 512x512 texture on to say, a 64x64 texture?

I fail to see the difference between the two pictures you posted and besides that I agree on the fact that DoD is overloading the old HL engine already. They need to reduce client and server load until they start including new features which are going to use even more additional resources.

Even if this does not affect fps, I don´t see it as a very valuable addition to the current engine. HL maps do not look pretty and this addition is not going to change that.

Some of you guys are chicken-littles "The skies falling, the skies falling". The dev team is going to try and reduce client-side load but unless they release alpha 1.X over again so the 12 guys who love that version can have at it you're never ever going to see the days where 100fps all the time and no lag on dialup is a common thing...(although I bet they do a good job of server-side optimization)...this bit of code does not do a damn thing to your pc if you choose NOT TO USE IT.

And...it's cool code, I'm a geek and I like it..and since it's a non-default client-side option it's up to the indivudual player to make up their minds. And...it's available NOW and it has nothing to do with anything remotely concerned with all your so called bug-fixes. So go away and find another thread to complain about stuff...and you wonder why dev team guys don't post here...jeeze. :)


PS...Rot...I don't know what pictures you're looking at but there's a huge difference both in the pictures and in-game...load the files in the link above and follow the instructions on the page to see for yourself...this is and will always remain a personal preference thing so there's no sense in *****ing about it...it's like having the ability to use stopsound...your call

Not sure on the scaling thing...what you can do is experiment with the text file to scale your detail texture up or down...those two scaling figures (X,Y) make a huge difference in how the detail texture is applied and how it looks...right now I'm using low scaling (1.0) and you really don't see the texture detail until you get real close...I used the sandstone textureizer deal in photoshop to get at it...I'll post a close up shot in a sec

Glider looks really better with it.

but,

Well if you mentioned it few times by yourself all I can say it's DoD gives more and more headaches, so one sparrow don't make the Spring.

I got to see this new texture style first hand and I must say it looks nicer. I also didn't notice any increased load to me as a player.

That said, when I'm playing I don't generally notice this level of detail. I noticed it more when I was between lives or moving about cautiously.

I think its a nice improvement and, as FD mentioned, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

Here's another example (pic is dark...not so dark in-game):

click here (http://mysite.verizon.net/warewind/images2/detailtexture.jpg)

So far I've not seen a lick of lag of fps drop associated with it...but I'm sure there has to be some kind of performance hit somewhere.

Some of the detail textures could make somethings look pretty good.

Fuzzdad:

That looks awesome! Cant wait to see some more this stuff :)

The second example made it much more prominent, the only issue being, where am I going to get detailed versions of textures that aren't so detailed these days?

:) Actually...what it does is allow you to overlay a transparent texture over a blurred texture (your sweet regular texture is halved and then scaled back up by the engine) and you choose the X&Y scaling. It has the effect of neutralizing some of that incurred blurry. It's almost like using the texture tool in photoshop. And...as stated here countless times, it's purely a cosmetic client-side option that has zero effect on gameplay (unlike ftb and player icons and the like) because you're the only person who see's the effect.

I'm sure there's some kinda performance hit somewhere but I have not found it yet.

I noticed a difference on beta glider and the details on the walls. The castle looks a lot more detailed now. I play on 56k and had no problems what so ever, no lag or fps problems.

Are you making detail textures "universal", I mean using the same for different textures or made special for every one ("synchronizing" shades with cracks, brick, window edges, etc)?

You know Craft some of mine are matched textures and some are generic.

We could create a base set so you'd have standard brick, dirt, grass, stucco, concrete, and rubble detail textures. Perhaps have three sets of them...light, standard, and dark. The harder job will be to create the basic text files for every map because you have to search out all the texture names. It would take a few days...mebbie when I get a break I'll putz with some stuff. IR and I have been playing with it...let me chat w/him and mebbie we can whip something up for anzio or avalanche and see what you guys think.

And...you can apply the same detail texture to multiple textures...all you need to know is the name of the texture to apply it too...here's an example of the dod_glider_detail.txt file I created to test this stuff out:

rock_yellow detail/mountain1 10.0 10.0
rock_y1_grass detail/mountain1 10.0 10.0
ital_wall4b detail/wall1 12.0 12.0
fd_path6 detail/brick2 1.0 1.0
fd_wall5 detail/wall1 12.0 12.0
fd_wall4 detail/wall1 12.0 12.0
fd_wall8 detail/wall1 12.0 12.0
joe_wreck detail/wall1 12.0 12.0

You need to use tabs between the settings as such:

texture name <tab> location and name of detail texture <tab> X scale <tab> Y Scale

Anything that gives the mapper the ability to add more detail/visual quality to their work is a good thing, IMO. It will of course take more work on the mapper's part though to build the text file with the appropriate calls and test the textures.

Since it requires that it be turned on client-side, if any low RAM/old video card machines do have trouble caching the extra textures, they can simply remove that line from their config after trying.

As I remember, both Doom & Quake users created their own "enhanced textures" to help the game keep up with the times.

Well I DL'ed that example on Glider and my comments are:

I didn't think I had turned it on, i was looking for it and didnt realise I had to be about 30cm from a wall to notice it. If you could see it from further it would be better.

It looked nasty and repetitive and well...tacky.

Its one of those things where your gonna have to either do the whole map like it, or do none of it because it will look weird 50/50.

And...as with everyone it's personal preference...it's like adding a custom model weapon...it's personal choice that has zero effect on the other players of the game and I like it

My son (Sam...he's 12) thinks it looks a lot better with it on so it's fine by me...and as I have said I'm not a texture artist...I'll be folks can come up w/their own versions that are tons better and not so...tacky...looking. :)

I can see promise with it but the thing which made me go :eek: was in the wharf area on the rocks it was really grainy and eww!

The walls also looked a bit too...dense, maybe experimenting with scale will produce a better effect.

detailed textures don't work with MX cards, specifically the Geforce 2 MX(insert a #) and the Geforce 4 MX(insert a #)

considering that a majority of players (according to valves survey) use those cards, hopefully valve will find a way to make it available to all.

Originally posted by kleinluka
Detail textures scare the poop nuggets out of my boxers....ehhhhh wait.. They screw the original textures - that's what I meant to say. All it does is layering a second texture ontop of the actual texture so it all sorta blends together and creates a blobby mess that looks worse than anything would ever look without "detail" texture...it's lame, and the name doesn't reflect what it really does (screw the art up)

I agree. But if someone uses your texture (no matter how good it is) and scales it up by 2x, 4x or 16x (to save r_speeds), the texture would end up a blobby mess, thus detail textures help make the overall scene look nicer. Eg. Operation flashpt terrain textures are 64x64 streched across a 2-4 yards, thus the textures are overstretched. However, with detail textures, it helps make the terrain look a tad bit nicer....I guess detail textures are a means of compensating badly-done textures, or textures that have been stretched to save r_speeds.

Nevertheless, i think detail textures can still work well as long as you properly design a detail texture that would properly suit the texture map (not just dump some random meaningless detail texture on a totally unrelated surface screwing the original texture). Hostile intent seems pretty good with the detail textures, though i think some parts are a bit over-done or badly done.

I know after a few personal tests that some rubble, grass, and mud textures look alot better with them applied. But as glidias said, those textures are often stretched out and blurred beyond repair.

I wonder how SNOW would fair with a detail tex applied to it. Perhaps a more crystally like appearance could be found (maybe for kalt and zalec)

if you want to see a good use of detail textures check out the pics on the newspage of the hostile intent site, they use different detail textures, for each brush etc, and i must say, wow, never knew hl could do that.. good thing is that those detail textures are client side options, but it doesnt have a high load on hl.. maybe will kill like 2-5 frames max

Originally posted by VoodooChild
I know after a few personal tests that some rubble, grass, and mud textures look alot better with them applied. But as glidias said, those textures are often stretched out and blurred beyond repair.

I wonder how SNOW would fair with a detail tex applied to it. Perhaps a more crystally like appearance could be found (maybe for kalt and zalec)

Well IRL snow just looks like a white blob. Although obviously not when its trampled into the mud - so it depends on how thick the snow is (I think KAlt and Zalec look fine BTW).

Maybe on custom maps.

Actually, detail textures might be good for mods that use "macro-mapping" to create large scaled environments. In "macro-mapping" you reduce the size of the player models and player speeds and other physics including the environment scale, so you have an even larger space on the Valve Hammer Editor Grid to create super large environemnts!. Of course, in order to maintain r_speeds, you can't afford to scale down the textures as well because it would add more wpoly. So, keeping the same texture scale and the exact same r_speeds, you'll realise that (being a small player), the textures in the relatively larger scaled environment are far more stretched and blurry. With detail textures, this problem is reduced as you still can maintain a pretty sharp attractive surface with those detail textures.

So, it's possible to have some OFP-environment sized HL mods or BF1942-envrionemtn sized HL mods and still maintain sensibly sharp looking textures!

I'm asking permission...but I think we'll be able to use the standard tga files that shipped with CS-CZ...they are excellent and we'd be able to get a standard set. If we get the go-ahead I'll post a zip of all the TGA files. Here's a pic:

Detail Textures in Use (http://mysite.verizon.net/warewind/images/detail_texture.jpg)

I'm also asking that the default setting in game be r_detailtextures 0 and that (if possible) a vgui change is made to place a Detailed Textures Button somewhere in the video settings

The stucco looks great, although the floor looks funky. Not really rubble-esque.

CZ really does look good with the detail textures. I was shocked at how much it could help.

Meh i cant use detail textures darn gf4...

wow Fuzzdad, those look really good, you can see the hairline cracks in the earth texture and the "texture" of the stucco comes out nice.

Very impressed.

Yea...it does change the way a map looks...but it carries a price...prolly a good 5% drop in fps is my guess...so as with all things...the user can decide if they want to see them or not via a console command

sounds goood !!! :)

I configured detail textures for dod_northbound.

Take a sneak peek (http://skdr.dodfi.net/nb_detail.jpg)

Originally posted by skdr
I configured detail textures for dod_northbound.

Take a sneak peek (http://skdr.dodfi.net/nb_detail.jpg)

:D

Originally posted by skdr
I configured detail textures for dod_northbound.

Take a sneak peek (http://skdr.dodfi.net/nb_detail.jpg) Hm, I don;t think they look ok on this rubble texture. Rubble should be more detailed, but not adding any "noise". Such noise wold look better on some more solid textures like walls, rocks, sand, etc.
Considering this sshot you should rather try to "raise" bricks on the street, "pull out" a bit stones of far wall and add move "noise" to wall in the fron of you.

Yeah I did some slight changes there and there and changed that rubble too:

Take a look (http://skdr.dodfi.net/nb_detail2.jpg)

hahah klein will kill you and hang your body outside for teh birds to poop on ;D

as for the pic ;> the dryground detail texture doesnt match the material of the rubble m8.. its not dirt/sand like kl_demorub (redish one in falaise,escape & saints )

I'm trying it out now in CS:CZ and it's does make a difference. The close up shots posted so far are from stills, so it stands out alot. In motion, you do not notice the grain and it does add to the atmosphere. My FPS haven't taken a hit either. Same rock steady 85.

Originally posted by IR
hahah klein will kill you and hang your body outside for teh birds to poop on ;D

as for the pic ;> the dryground detail texture doesnt match the material of the rubble m8.. its not dirt/sand like kl_demorub (redish one in falaise,escape & saints )

DAMN RIGHT!!! skdr dude thats just disgusting:mad: :mad: :mad:

Oh well :D

Maybe I should remove them then :p

lol ^^ klein come down and drink a mountain dew with me ;)

You can't "force" a detailed texture on another texture. And never use detail textures for the sake of using it.

Have you seen them in motion?

i heard of this steam feature, that you can have 24 bit textures of 1024*1024 in tga format, (somewhat sameway as detail textures, but instead of 2 layers, you use 1 highres layer, dont know what the effect would be on fps tho :/

i think itwill drop alot, but ill have to take a look at that :O


heres the pic of the 24 bit textures

http://esforces.com/team/DJ-Ready/with_without_24bit.jpg

i "know" the mapper and he said it wasnt detail texture, but real 24bit tga files and you can get those as big as you want


ps: for those that dont know the mod, its a dbz mod for hl (esf) and they have this system that all the players are 5 times smaller compared to the original hl models, so they can have huuuuge maps, so looking at the ammount of detail in that pic, id say its a nice effect

lol ohhh yeah 1024x1024 tga's in Half-Life. HL is like totally going to die if you do that.

Originally posted by Faceman
I'm trying it out now in CS:CZ and it's does make a difference. The close up shots posted so far are from stills, so it stands out alot. In motion, you do not notice the grain and it does add to the atmosphere. My FPS haven't taken a hit either. Same rock steady 85.

I've seen it in test versions of some of the DoD maps and it looks very nice. And, yeah, I didn't notice an FPS hit at all.

skdr, I think that looks excellent. :)