Spring RTS Engine

if he is like me, he probably collapses expands collapses as he goes, I usually stay within 3 layers for each texture and when I am done I collapse it all.

The CA guys already scaled it down to a 512x512 for both on the ingame model.

It's Dxt-5 compression .dds, I don't know how to get it any more compressed without turning ugly/washed or pixelated on the alpha channels for either.

I've just stopped making the 512x512's myself, as the CA guys usually like to do some editing to the textures anyway, and with the full 1024x1024 the quality stays high enough for them to play around with.

Total size for 2 512x512's assigned to each unit, thats about 1.5 meg per unit in textures x200 or so units = 300 meg dedicated to just unit textures.

Now that isn't bad if you're comparing to most modern games nowadays, especially Supcom that uses multiple layers + normal maps, but for spring it might be a bit expensive, meh.

I should probably just go back to using Dxt-3 for Texture 1, and Dxt-1 explicit(1bit alpha) for texture2, like on my earlier models such as the Instigator and Goliath, which at 512x512 each texture was around 513-450 kb, but the alpha channel and overall texture got grainy.

MR.D wrote:I should probably just go back to using Dxt-3 for Texture 1, and Dxt-1 explicit(1bit alpha) for texture2, like on my earlier models such as the Instigator and Goliath, which at 512x512 each texture was around 513-450 kb, but the alpha channel and overall texture got grainy.

My experience is that DXT3 has a much better alpha channel quality than DXT5, with dithering it gives a more than useable result. Also why use 512^2 for texture2? 256 and 128 are more than enough for it.

because you lose detail, ie get reflections in places that are panel lines.

His models rarely use such strong and detailed reflections which would make it noticable.

Mostly texture 2 needs the extra clarity because of how I do the wheels on my units, as a flat plane I need to ensure that the transparency channel is crisp enough to stay circular around the wheel and not to allow black edges bleeding through, and that the teeth in the sprocket wheel don't get all blobby.

ahh I forgot the transparency :<

MR.D wrote:The CA guys already scaled it down to a 512x512 for both on the ingame model.

Really? In version 3493 the 1024x1024 version is included - must have been updated in the meanwhile...

MR.D wrote:Now that isn't bad if you're comparing to most modern games nowadays, especially Supcom that uses multiple layers + normal maps, but for spring it might be a bit expensive, meh.

Yeah - Spring's really something that doesn't need the latest hardware so breaking the 256MB limit sure is a sad thing but in the end I see no real solution for games with unit numbers in TA scale. The problem might be though that with 300+ units even 512MB starts running short...

Yeah - Spring's really something that doesn't need the latest hardware so breaking the 256MB limit sure is a sad thing but in the end I see no real solution for games with unit numbers in TA scale. The problem might be though that with 300+ units even 512MB starts running short...

Wait... what? 512x512 textures are ok, 256 is too less.

300+ units even 512MB starts running short...

Not really, if I have 30 a.k.'s they all have the same texture map.

And when all ta units have been redone a bad computer is much better than a bad computer now.

Hoi wrote:

300+ units even 512MB starts running short...

Not really, if I have 30 a.k.'s they all have the same texture map.

And when all ta units have been redone a bad computer is much better than a bad computer now.

he meant distict units as in 29 of the other units are NOT aks.

Hoi wrote:Wait... what? 512x512 textures are ok, 256 is too less.

I wasn't talking about texture sizes in that part but just about video ram...

Hoi wrote:Not really, if I have 30 a.k.'s they all have the same texture map.

And when all ta units have been redone a bad computer is much better than a bad computer now.

Of course units share texture maps - without that we'd have a horrible situation. I also wouldn't think that in like 5 years 256MB of video ram has become an oddity. When looking at the Steam reports for example where you probably will end up with a rather high portion of so called "gamers" less than 40% have 512+MB cards. Look at how many players around here play on Durons & stuff and depending on the mod/map even 512MB might become an extremely tight budget for mods with 300+ units - not that this is going to be a problem in the next few days but it's something to think of in the long term...

the current map format does not help with the memory issue
+sm3 poke+

I am off to bed :)