[1.3.1]TextureReplacerReplaced v0.5.4

[Wyzard]

1 hour ago, Cetera said:

I'll see if I can manually convert my texture files, and see if I can't ramp up the quality a bit with less compression in the conversion using Paint.Net.

DDS uses S3 texture compression, which has a fixed compression ratio; there's no slider to adjust quality and size like there is with JPEG.  For an image with no alpha channel, each 4x4 block of pixels is converted to a 64-bit number, regardless of whether those pixels are solid color, random noise, or something in between.  (That makes it possible to decompress each block independently of others, which allows the GPU to store compressed textures in memory and decompress portions "on the fly" while rendering.)

A better encoder may be able to provide better visual fidelity for that same compression ratio, though, so it's worth trying different conversion tools.

[Cetera]

This is what I get manually converting them:

 

It is better, not perfect.  It is certainly preferable to the other using the DDS converter tool.  

Interestingly enough, the DDS file is 683 KB, while the PNG file is 185 KB.  It does have mipmaps, which I'm led to believe increases the file size by about 30%, but it seems strange to me that converting to DDS results in a file almost 4x the size of the original in PNG.

If I were to keep the files in PNG format in the pack, they still get converted to DDS anyway in-game, correct?  Is that something that happens by TRR, or the Unity engine?

 

[Wyzard]

28 minutes ago, Cetera said:

Interestingly enough, the DDS file is 683 KB, while the PNG file is 185 KB.  It does have mipmaps, which I'm led to believe increases the file size by about 30%, but it seems strange to me that converting to DDS results in a file almost 4x the size of the original in PNG.

PNG compresses better, but the tradeoff is that you can't directly access arbitrary pixels in the compressed data: you have to start at the beginning of the file and decompress everything until you get to the pixel you want.  That means it's not suitable for use with a GPU, which needs to be able to quickly access arbitrary pixels within a texture during rendering.  So PNG can give you a small file on disk, but you have to decompress it into memory in order to actually use the texture.

DDS (really, S3TC) doesn't compress as well, but it can stay compressed when loaded into memory, because the GPU is able to directly use it in its compressed form.  On disk, the DDS may be bigger, but in RAM, it's one-sixth the size of the uncompressed image that you'd get from the PNG.

[HaArLiNsH]

The .DDS seems bigger but as @Wizard said, it take less RAM memory , has already the mipmaps and load faster  

Also, as you have noticed, DDS converter is better than paint (it use the "official" nvidia compression tools) but you need to invert vertically your image  (use gimp + batch tool) to convert multiple files.

 

BUT, I know what is the real problem of your conversion, and you won't like it   Your base model has already too much different colours in it, it seems that your base image is already compressed somehow. If you look closely, the black lines are not plain, you have transparency on the edges, and this means that the pixels between the blue and black parts are a mix of black and blue and this lead to artefacts when converting/compressing. (you have also the same issues on the exterior part, its not black but different level of transparency) 

And I know where this problem come from... paint.net   I already noticed that years ago and this is why I use Photoshop (gimp can offer you good tools too).  You could correct it by hand but this will take more time than just redraw your logo with a good vectorial program (again, gimp or photoshop)

[HaArLiNsH]

7 hours ago, Cetera said:

If I were to keep the files in PNG format in the pack, they still get converted to DDS anyway in-game, correct?  Is that something that happens by TRR, or the Unity engine?

 

Its TRR I think (could be wrong on that) , but you will have the same bad compression as paint.net because either Unity or TRR don't use the nvidia tools

[Cetera]

@HaArLiNsH I think you're confused on which one is which.  Paint.Net actually does a better job of converting the file than does the nVidia DDS conversion tool, with fewer artifacts.

I take your point, though, about the root cause being the original texture.  Unfortunately, that's life.  I didn't create any of these logos.  I used existing ones to match what was already being done elsewhere.  The original wrench and beaker logos were being used in the PortraitStats mod.  I found versions online to use.  I didn't care for the cursor-looking style icon for pilots, so I found a free icon online to use instead, and did the same for the gear icon.  That's one of the main reasons I'm not going to redo everything in a 4k texture, as I have no technical artistic ability, other than manipulating and recoloring and minor touchups of existing texture files.  I have no idea how to create them myself.

If you can point me to a good tutorial on using gimp to create vector-based logos, I might eventually get around to trying it out, but that'll largely be a project for another day.  At least for now, my suit pack will "ship" more-or-less as-is.  

[HaArLiNsH]

4 hours ago, Cetera said:

@HaArLiNsH I think you're confused on which one is which.  Paint.Net actually does a better job of converting the file than does the nVidia DDS conversion tool, with fewer artifacts.

I take your point, though, about the root cause being the original texture.  Unfortunately, that's life.  I didn't create any of these logos.  I used existing ones to match what was already being done elsewhere.  The original wrench and beaker logos were being used in the PortraitStats mod.  I found versions online to use.  I didn't care for the cursor-looking style icon for pilots, so I found a free icon online to use instead, and did the same for the gear icon.  That's one of the main reasons I'm not going to redo everything in a 4k texture, as I have no technical artistic ability, other than manipulating and recoloring and minor touchups of existing texture files.  I have no idea how to create them myself.

If you can point me to a good tutorial on using gimp to create vector-based logos, I might eventually get around to trying it out, but that'll largely be a project for another day.  At least for now, my suit pack will "ship" more-or-less as-is.  

Oh my bad for the confusion, if you have better result with paint stay with it, I use DDS converter because it convert in batch, and I nearly never convert only one file. I do all my test in png them convert everything once.

I don't say you have to make 4k texture to have clear result, you just need to clean the border of your lines , even on smaller resolution. If you paint all the pixels that are not in your "pure blue" in blue and the transparent black in "pure black" you can nearly fix your artefacts problem. Maybe you don't have to because nobody can see the difference ingame?  

 

If nearly all of your drawing are done and you don't know vectoring draw, don't loose your time on this, I already made changes that force you to rework

Also don't look at the suit settings you can find in the devbuild I linked before, they are not final, I worked on that today. The V0.5 will have them fixed once for all  (I hope)

 

[Cetera]

LOL, OK @HaArLiNsH, no worries.  I love what you're doing with this mod, so I'll just be patient.  My suit packs probably aren't ever going to be the most amazing thing out there.  They provide some differentiation and some color, and that's pretty much all I was going for.

If anyone wants to collaborate or even rework my stuff, I'm happy to help and support them in doing so.  I don't have a lot of ego in this.  I'm doing it to learn, as a hobby, and for fun, to enhance my own stuff.  If others like it, great!  If they want to make it even better, heck yeah!  

[Cetera]

Question when it comes to normal maps:  Is there anything in particular I need to do there?  I've been puttering with different things, and made a new normal map for my helmets, just to test.  However, it comes out a very purple color, when a lot of the other normal maps I've seen for KSP are pink, and somewhat transparent.  Do I need to be doing something differently?

 

[HaArLiNsH]

I don't think the color theme really matter. The old NRM where in pink but when I make them with NormalMap-Online , they seems to be more purple. And if you convert them with DDS converter, they become light brown.

The important thing is the kind of DXT you set when converting them in DDS. They should be in dxt5NormalMap

 

 

[Cetera]

OK, all of my textures have been manually converted to DDS.  Still need to do screenshots and more testing, and waiting on the final-ish product for naming conventions and config file building.

[MajorThomas]

Hi All (HaArLiNsH, Cetera, et. al.)

Not easy to bust into a thread that's about a mod obviously in progress, but I thought I'd ask a couple general status questions!

But first off, took me a while to discover this "TextureReplacerReplacer" as probably the main, or best way to update the look of Kerbals in-game.  My KSP is up to date; I found that the GUI button for the previous TR did not even work, but TRR's does in v1.3 of KSP.  So far, so good.

However, in my experimentation thus far, I've not yet been able to get a texture made for TR to work in TRR.  Actually, I've not yet been able to replace any textures at all, however the GUI seems to allow that possibility.  I've put in a few (PNG format) files, 1024x1024, in the usual "Heads" directory established by TRR, and modified a config file to point to the appropriate directories for TRR and even to assign a few Kerbals to their new textures.  No luck yet.

Could it be due to the texture files somehow being not right for KSP 1.3?  Is there a way I can test if they work or not?

1.  At this point, HaArLiNsH, are you able to give a quick status post on what your TRR can currently do and what lies ahead?

2.  Are there any texture files (heads, suits) that are known to work with TRR currently?

Many thanks-

 

[Galileo]

24 minutes ago, MajorThomas said:

Hi All (HaArLiNsH, Cetera, et. al.)

Not easy to bust into a thread that's about a mod obviously in progress, but I thought I'd ask a couple general status questions!

But first off, took me a while to discover this "TextureReplacerReplacer" as probably the main, or best way to update the look of Kerbals in-game.  My KSP is up to date; I found that the GUI button for the previous TR did not even work, but TRR's does in v1.3 of KSP.  So far, so good.

However, in my experimentation thus far, I've not yet been able to get a texture made for TR to work in TRR.  Actually, I've not yet been able to replace any textures at all, however the GUI seems to allow that possibility.  I've put in a few (PNG format) files, 1024x1024, in the usual "Heads" directory established by TRR, and modified a config file to point to the appropriate directories for TRR and even to assign a few Kerbals to their new textures.  No luck yet.

Could it be due to the texture files somehow being not right for KSP 1.3?  Is there a way I can test if they work or not?

1.  At this point, HaArLiNsH, are you able to give a quick status post on what your TRR can currently do and what lies ahead?

2.  Are there any texture files (heads, suits) that are known to work with TRR currently?

Many thanks-

 

You have to use RangeMachines version of the original texture replacer if you are going to use the old version. It's linked in the OP. It's also on CKAN.

[MajorThomas]

Thanks...a bit cryptic though.  Do you mean "old version" textures?  I see discussion of converting PNG to DDS...so TTR uses DDS exclusively?  Or is it just recommended?

[Aelfhe1m]

48 minutes ago, MajorThomas said:

I've put in a few (PNG format) files, 1024x1024, in the usual "Heads" directory established by TRR, and modified a config file to point to the appropriate directories for TRR and even to assign a few Kerbals to their new textures.  No luck yet.

TRR requires you to create subfolders inside the Heads folder for Female and Male head textures (with those exact names). The same applies if you were creating a mod of head textures except you'd use your own mod's root Heads folder and a config file to let TRR know to use them.

22 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Are there any texture files (heads, suits) that are known to work with TRR currently?

I haven't come across any heads or suits that don't work provided they're put into the correct folders.

9 minutes ago, MajorThomas said:

Thanks...a bit cryptic though.  Do you mean "old version" textures?  I see discussion of converting PNG to DDS...so TTR uses DDS exclusively?  Or is it just recommended?

TRR will convert any PNG textures to DDS automatically it just takes a little longer to load the game.

Edit: Why is the forum attributing one of the quotes to Galileo? Weird. I definitely quoted MajorThomas for all of them.

Edited September 14, 2017 by Aelfhe1m

[MajorThomas]

Indeed that was it...thank you Aelfhe1m!

Now the female Kerbals are frozen...I think I saw something about how to resolve that.  Off to look that up.

Cheers.

[HaArLiNsH]

9 hours ago, MajorThomas said:

Hi All (HaArLiNsH, Cetera, et. al.)

Not easy to bust into a thread that's about a mod obviously in progress, but I thought I'd ask a couple general status questions!

But first off, took me a while to discover this "TextureReplacerReplacer" as probably the main, or best way to update the look of Kerbals in-game.  My KSP is up to date; I found that the GUI button for the previous TR did not even work, but TRR's does in v1.3 of KSP.  So far, so good.

However, in my experimentation thus far, I've not yet been able to get a texture made for TR to work in TRR.  Actually, I've not yet been able to replace any textures at all, however the GUI seems to allow that possibility.  I've put in a few (PNG format) files, 1024x1024, in the usual "Heads" directory established by TRR, and modified a config file to point to the appropriate directories for TRR and even to assign a few Kerbals to their new textures.  No luck yet.

Could it be due to the texture files somehow being not right for KSP 1.3?  Is there a way I can test if they work or not?

1.  At this point, HaArLiNsH, are you able to give a quick status post on what your TRR can currently do and what lies ahead?

2.  Are there any texture files (heads, suits) that are known to work with TRR currently?

Many thanks-

 

So, I can already see that you did not read the explanations for TRR and you didn't tried the TRR_Guide

So to start in a good way, download  TRR V0.4   and the TRR_Guide. And you will see that you can use a different folder to use your texture mods instead of putting them in TRR. 

There are some changes needed from the old TR texture pack, but its close of what it was before.

 

There are not yet fully "TRR ready texture pack" except the TRR_guide. Cetera is close to have his suit pack ready, but I'm holding him because of the last changes coming to TRR.

 

And while I'm at this point, guys I have a 2 good news and a bad news

 

The first good news :  I nearly succeed to make the big configuration menu I wanted for the suits. You will be able to assign the part of the suit (helmet jetpack, etc) you want to use for a defined state. For example, you will be able to use the helmet from your EVA Space suit when you are on IVA, or the jetpack from your EVA ground suit when you are in EVA space or colorize your visor for a particular level. This way, texture pack maker will be able to use the same texture for different elements, and spare some textures files, or the user will be able to configure how the texture pack should be used.

The bad news : well, I always test my build with the TRR_guide, witch has new texture for the default suit, and now we have a problem when we don't use custom default suit texture (and we have the same problem for the heads) The easy solution would be to provide the default texture but as you all know, I can't redistribute textures from squad in my mod. 

The second good news : As I was searching for a way to get squad's textures (a bit like the new navball mod do, so saving/ripping them ingame and reuse them), I found some really interesting things, like I found the textures and mesh from the others kerbals ingame. I mean the scientific kerbal, the hazmat, the worker, ... I mean meshes in civil wears, WITHOUT the space suit and his damned collar.  

So in short, I wanted to look for these after I release TRR V0.5 (witch is really close now) but I will need to find the way to access these textures (and maybe the meshes too). The problem is that they are in the sharedassets and not in the ressources (the squad folder), so we can't access them easily. I'm looking to find the good dark magic to hack these. So I'll ask you a little more patience, but I can assure you that you will LOVE the new stuff coming  

 

 

 

[shoe7ess]

I've read through the guide quite a few times by now but using the examples on the github for the EVAVisor is confusing me a bit. One, the line "In short: you should supply "blue" normal maps when a texture has "NRM" suffix and is in PNG format (JPEGs and TGAs are not recommended for normal maps) and "grey" normal map for textures in DDS format or without "NRM" suffix."  is confusing because I aim to use a Photoshop to create the EVAVisorNRM in .dds format, but given the above line, there is no answer as to how it's supposed to come out. The plugin I use gives me a lot of choices, but when creating a dds normal it creates a blue normal map.

What further is throwing me off are the guide textures for EVAVisor.dds and EVAVisorNRM.dds here. In these downloads (as well as all of the other TRR textures) has an orange normal, not grey nor blue. On the other hand, the EVAVisor itself is grey in the default guide, however in the TRR folder they are a variety of colors (black, black with red stripes, etc).

Basically, I've been working on creating (more-so recreating because the originals have not been reposted anywhere I can find) the old-school gold astronaut visors (and possibly a black version as I progress in my career). So my question is this:

I've been using a dark orange EVAVisor (while editing the config file to give a yellow/gold reflection color), and just converting the texture to a normal in photoshop using the NVIDIA plugin to a create a blue normal map. What color do I need to change and what is the proper way to have the gold visor show correctly?

[HaArLiNsH]

3 hours ago, shoe7ess said:

I've read through the guide quite a few times by now but using the examples on the github for the EVAVisor is confusing me a bit. One, the line "In short: you should supply "blue" normal maps when a texture has "NRM" suffix and is in PNG format (JPEGs and TGAs are not recommended for normal maps) and "grey" normal map for textures in DDS format or without "NRM" suffix."  is confusing because I aim to use a Photoshop to create the EVAVisorNRM in .dds format, but given the above line, there is no answer as to how it's supposed to come out. The plugin I use gives me a lot of choices, but when creating a dds normal it creates a blue normal map.

What further is throwing me off are the guide textures for EVAVisor.dds and EVAVisorNRM.dds here. In these downloads (as well as all of the other TRR textures) has an orange normal, not grey nor blue. On the other hand, the EVAVisor itself is grey in the default guide, however in the TRR folder they are a variety of colors (black, black with red stripes, etc).

Basically, I've been working on creating (more-so recreating because the originals have not been reposted anywhere I can find) the old-school gold astronaut visors (and possibly a black version as I progress in my career). So my question is this:

I've been using a dark orange EVAVisor (while editing the config file to give a yellow/gold reflection color), and just converting the texture to a normal in photoshop using the NVIDIA plugin to a create a blue normal map. What color do I need to change and what is the proper way to have the gold visor show correctly?

The explanations on the TRR's github are from the oldTR, I should modify them but I don't have time to changes these now, as I'm putting all the time I have free to finish TRR first, so don't take care of these. 

You were right to go to the TRR_guide to have to right explanations (even if they are also not completed)

So, first don't worry about the colour of the NRM, long time ago they were blue, then pink , then kind of purple and now some are light brow. It doesn't really matter. Also you don't need a NRM for the visor if you don't want to make inscriptions with volume on it (so if you want it to stay "flat" don't use NRM, or you can make one but it's kind of useless)

The reflection color configuration is not working any more, it will soon and you will have a excrements load of options, but I'm still working intensively on it

So the simplest way to have colored visor actually, is to make a colored texture with transparency, you can even make one per level. But, for now , you can't change the reflection color.  

As the TRR_Guide explain, you need to convert it in .dds with this setting :

- Use dxt5 with "Mipmaps" and "alpha" checked for the visor

[shoe7ess]

17 hours ago, HaArLiNsH said:

The explanations on the TRR's github are from the oldTR, I should modify them but I don't have time to changes these now, as I'm putting all the time I have free to finish TRR first, so don't take care of these. 

You were right to go to the TRR_guide to have to right explanations (even if they are also not completed)

So, first don't worry about the colour of the NRM, long time ago they were blue, then pink , then kind of purple and now some are light brow. It doesn't really matter. Also you don't need a NRM for the visor if you don't want to make inscriptions with volume on it (so if you want it to stay "flat" don't use NRM, or you can make one but it's kind of useless)

The reflection color configuration is not working any more, it will soon and you will have a excrements load of options, but I'm still working intensively on it

So the simplest way to have colored visor actually, is to make a colored texture with transparency, you can even make one per level. But, for now , you can't change the reflection color.  

As the TRR_Guide explain, you need to convert it in .dds with this setting :

- Use dxt5 with "Mipmaps" and "alpha" checked for the visor

Thanks for the reply, this helps me quite a bit. I'll just keep a visor, but I do want it semi-transparent, so I've taking a .png with around 90% transparency and since the program I use won't let me save a .dds and keep the transparency (that or I don't know how) I attempted using the .dds converter you have a link for with those options checked but it also loses it's transparency so I may stick with a .png visor for now. Somehow when I was just messing with different colors along with a normal map for the visor it would come out transparent in game with a slight tint but now the colors are all flat, so I don't know what I did to change that and I unfortunately lost my backup.

Regardless, thank you for picking this up and after seeing some of the changes you have coming I am excited for what will ostensibly be Texture Replacer 2.0 :D. Looking forward to what comes next and thanks again for taking the time to reply!

[HaArLiNsH]

4 hours ago, shoe7ess said:

Thanks for the reply, this helps me quite a bit. I'll just keep a visor, but I do want it semi-transparent, so I've taking a .png with around 90% transparency and since the program I use won't let me save a .dds and keep the transparency (that or I don't know how) I attempted using the .dds converter you have a link for with those options checked but it also loses it's transparency so I may stick with a .png visor for now. Somehow when I was just messing with different colors along with a normal map for the visor it would come out transparent in game with a slight tint but now the colors are all flat, so I don't know what I did to change that and I unfortunately lost my backup.

Regardless, thank you for picking this up and after seeing some of the changes you have coming I am excited for what will ostensibly be Texture Replacer 2.0 :D. Looking forward to what comes next and thanks again for taking the time to reply!

If you look at the visors in the TRR_Guide, they go incrementally from 100% transparent at level 0 to 0% transparent at level 5.   If you want to see it and have the transparency , try around 70-80%. 

You need to save them in .png uncompressed before the convertion and check if your .png has transparency ( that's what we call the alpha). and when you use the DDSconverter, double check if you convert them in   DXT5 with the option "alpha" (and mipmap but it don't affect the transparency).

You should try several level of alpha,  make one at 20% , 40%, 60%, 80%  and compare them to find the one you prefer

 

If you have problem with the conversion, I can help you, just  link your .png and I'll convert them for you

 

 

 

[shoe7ess]

Sure, I'd love the help. The .png I'm using is the perfect transparency in game for me (slightly gold tinge, though can't see a reflection from the menu screen, haven't checked in EVA yet). I'd definitely prefer it to be in .dds format though and I've tried keeping the alpha when converting but it was still coming out opaque as a .dds, so if you can help convert I'd be extremely grateful!

Here's the current visor (it looks pretty opaque from imgur but you can see the transparency in photoshop or whatever program you usually use): 

Spoiler

Appreciate the help!

Edited September 18, 2017 by shoe7ess

[HaArLiNsH]

5 hours ago, shoe7ess said:

Sure, I'd love the help. The .png I'm using is the perfect transparency in game for me (slightly gold tinge, though can't see a reflection from the menu screen, haven't checked in EVA yet). I'd definitely prefer it to be in .dds format though and I've tried keeping the alpha when converting but it was still coming out opaque as a .dds, so if you can help convert I'd be extremely grateful!

Here's the current visor (it looks pretty opaque from imgur but you can see the transparency in photoshop or whatever program you usually use): 

  Reveal hidden contents

Appreciate the help!

There you go 

You will find several things here :

- your original and your original in 1024x1024

- variations from 10% to 100% transparency (not exactly the same as you original because the base color was at 90% alpha, so you have a little variation) in 1024x1024

- a "flat" NRM in 1024x1024

 

You have all of this in png and in dds and you will also find the custom folder that you should use with your custom textures (and you have your original in 1024x1024 +NRM in it)

 

Edited September 18, 2017 by HaArLiNsH

[cyberKerb]

Probably a silly question - would I need to create a whole suit texture to get the transparent visor?

[HaArLiNsH]

3 minutes ago, wile1411 said:

Probably a silly question - would I need to create a whole suit texture to get the transparent visor?

There are no stupid questions, better ask than staying ignorant

No you don't need to make the full package of course.

If you just want a particular visor (just like @shoe7ess ), just make the transparent .png you want (better in 1024x1024) with the right name (here EVAvisor)  and put it in the default/ folder of TRR. 

 

BUT, if you want to make the job well, you need to convert it in .DDS  (literally 3-4 mouse clicks with DDSconverter) and make YOUR custom folder like the one you can find in the TRR_guide or in the link I provided to shoe7ess.

The easiest way : 

- dl the last link above,

- in the "ready to use" folder, you will find the custom folder, rename the "shoe7ess" folder and the shoe7ess.cfg with the name you want (like Wile1411)

- in the .cfg change the paths with the name you used

keep the NRM and make you own texture for the visor and voilà

 

It took me 5min to make the stuff I provided to shoe7ess, its not difficult