OPEN BETA - NEVER! Hahahahahahahaahaha..ha

Discussion related to the New Vision mod.

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Will you try out the Beta?

Poll ended at Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:46 am

Yes
20
91%
No
2
9%
 
Total votes: 22
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DaveW
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OPEN BETA - NEVER! Hahahahahahahaahaha..ha

Post by DaveW »

This will be the first and probably only open beta for the New Vision texture project.

What we want people to do is take a look around the game! If you find a problem, post a screenshot showing the texture tiling multiple times if possible and its location – we’ll do the rest. A problem is defined as:

-A texture looking out of place. Colour, tiling with nearby textures.
-A texture having noticable tiling issues (I.e. you can see it's obviously repeating)
-Simply a bad looking texture. We want this to be of the highest quality, and some textures are probably rubbish.

The next beta will be much, much further towards completion so we think it’ll be fairly “closed” – so only a limited amount of people will get access to it (oh we're such a tease). We’ll be deciding who after this beta.

To install, just replace your current textures. Although, I would recommend you keep a backup if:
-You play online (these will NOT WORK and will cause a package mismatch error!)
-You use UnrealEd (these will crash the editor)
Otherwise, they’re fine to use.

Make sure you have the enhanced renderer HERE. Go into your DeusEx.ini, and under [OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice] put the following line anywhere:
UseS3TC=TRUE
And obviously set your rendering device to OpenGL. Obviously in the final this will be automated, but this is a beta so deal with it.

If you want to disable high resolution textures, simply change “UseS3TC” in your DeusEx.ini to FALSE. The original textures are contained in the packages so they’re all still there. However, this will not fix either of the problems mentioned above.

The beta will begin soon (i.e. as soon as I finish compiling the package.[/list]
Last edited by DaveW on Thu Oct 30, 2008 1:11 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Trestkon
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Post by Trestkon »

Exciting!

*camps out*
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Ok. Problem time. This was so obviously not going to work well due to Unreal being an utterly shit engine to mod with, but I didn't think it was quite this annoying.

So far the project's been waiting on an S3TC compiler from the guy that runs OldUnreal.com. This is so we can have net-compatability with our packages, and requires the textures in .DDS format. Unfortunately he lacks the ability to multi-task between that and the "227" patch he's working on for Unreal. So it's going to be another 6 months before work can even begin on that.

So, I figure - there must be another way of generating these packages. And there is! UCC.exe (part of the Unreal SDK) has a function built in. So it's all good, you might think. Not really. This requires the textures in .BMP. Not only that, but it also cannot import masked textures in S3TC format, and the compiler ignores imported .PCX files. So, no transparancy. Furthermore the game randomly ignores certain textures from the packages - that isn't very good. Summary - I would have to manually convert over 1300 textures to .BMP and it still wouldn't work right.

Due to the possibility of cheating, which on a 10+ year old game with around 50 players at best is INCREDIBLY high from a reputable project that's been around for over a year, they can't just give us the S3TC compiler they're using for that. This would not mean net-compatible packages, but an easier way to create them. We'd also be able to work with transparancy.

But, and I'm sure you all saw this coming, this project is just a cover for my true goal of obtaining the said compiler and using masked textures in Unreal. That is why I've been spending this past year creating high resolution textures, so I can possibly perhaps cheat a bit at Unreal.

Seriously. This is just stupid.
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Trestkon
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Post by Trestkon »

Is an email campaign in order?

It seems like that may be the case, but to be sure, please disable sarcasm and summarize ;)
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Sarcasm-less summary of the beta release:

Image
Last edited by DaveW on Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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fox
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Post by fox »

I don't think I understand the cheating-argument. What does he fear?
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

It's not his fault, it's just they have to keep it within trusted people.

I think, if it's anything like the Source engine, I could put a masked texture on everything in the game so I could see through walls. That would require a huge amount of effort, not really be very useful, and I wouldn't cheat anyway. If I did that now, it wouldn't let me join a sever due to package mismatch.
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Post by EER »

If 'they' are afraid the compiler gets out, why not have 'them' create the packages? Something about a mountain and mohammed...
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Post by Salk »

DaveW,

tell me if I understood well: the project is on halt because you can't obtain an S3TC compiler.

Such compiler is needed for net-compatibility and for working with transparencies.

Is it so?
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DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

Kind of. We need a special S3TC compiler for net compatability, but Unreal has a function built in to allow you to create high-res packages. But it requires textures to be in .BMP, not .DDS, meaning I have to convert all of the files.

As it stands I can convert them all to .PCX and then .BMP, but that comes with all the .DDS mip maps that I need to somehow delete. So, the beta might not be too delayed.
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Post by DDL »

Couldn't you use something like the editor from unreal2? Or is it not in anyway backwards-compatible?
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Post by loony636 »

This may sound a bit stupid, but a google search yielded this:

http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/file/D ... rter;29412

Could that be used to convert the .DDS to .bmp files? It seems to have an option of "build mipmaps" which you can un-tick...
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Post by DaveW »

I...I...I think it works. Sneaky program. I figured out it's little game.

On schedule for a release tomorrow - maybe about mid-day GMT.

Oh, also, we're at 50% now. I figured it out with my calculator :)
Last edited by DaveW on Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by loony636 »

O.o. Good work. Now work harder! *whip crack*

If anyone took that seriously, you need to be slapped.
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Post by Nameless Voice »

So... who voted 'no'?
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