(EM) 4k Asteroid Texture

Vyperhate · Post by **Vyperhate** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:42 am

I made an earlier attempt at this and decided, you know what? I can do better. So I upped my asteroid texture to 4k.

I did not make this texture. I made the normal and specular maps and converted for use in EM.

For now this is only for stony asteroids, I may do others later. I do not believe I can fix the texture stretching where the texture comes to a point, I think it's a limitation of the model. If not I'd love for someone to direct me on how to fix it.

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/5894/asteroids.jpg

Get it here:
http://www.filesonic.com/file/tbm2mm9

If you are having crashing issues after installing this texture then I recommend trying out the solution posted by Valor below. Otherwise you can delete the normal and specular map files to force the game to use the default maps. However this will change the look of the textures a bit so I recommend trying Valor's fix.

[Edited on 1-21-2012 by Vyperhate]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:26 am

Hi Vyperhate, welcome to the game and forum....Nicely done and thanks for sharing.
As for the problem your friend is having it could be that the mods are taxing his Graphics card and/or memmory to much!
Evochron Mercenary is a Graphicscard and memmory taxing game so the more complicated highdefinition mods the more problems some low graphics card and low memmory systems will have!....

Thanks for sharing the astroid mods, they look great!....

Vyperhate · Post by **Vyperhate** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:39 am

From post: 124513, Topic: tid=8406, author=Maarschalk wrote: As for the problem your friend is having it could be that the mods are taxing his Graphics card and/or memmory to much!
Evochron Mercenary is a Graphicscard and memmory taxing game so the more complicated highdefinition mods the more problems some low graphics card and low memmory systems will have!....

This is my assumption as well. For now the best workaround for people that have this issue is to delete the custom specular map (aster1shader.dds) and possibly the normal map as well (aster1normal.dds) if just the specular map doesn't resolve the issue. This will cause the game to use the default specular and normal map. This does however completely change the look of the asteroids, so it's up to the use whether it is worth it or not.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:19 pm

Nice work on the textures Vyperhate, looks pretty realistic! I do think though that a 4k texture will be a bit too much to render for some players their computers, especially since asteroids never come as one but always in pretty large groups. That's a lot of rendering.

The stretching I think could be caused by the way the textures are mapped onto the objects. I'm pretty sure I've noticed the standard textures doing the same thing. I guess you could work around it and darken the edges of the textures a bit so the stretched parts will look like scorch marks, but only trial & error will tell you how that looks for real.

[Edited on 1-20-2012 by Viper]

Valor · Post by **Valor** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:18 pm

I think I fixed the problem with the crashing. I used this tool here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=41423 to recompress the files. The normal and specular maps dropped size considerably (90MBish to 10 and 20 respectively).

I haven't encountered any problems when loading after doing this, whereas before it became impossible for me. Comparing the screenshot you posted I don't think any quality has been lost from what I've seen in-game either.

Here is a link to the recompressed files if you want to have a look: http://www.box.com/s/ghu1d5x2v3bqmz3a67jn

Post by **Marvin** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:01 pm

Before I JSGME this mod, I need to ask: does it include a new version of the texture when the asteroid is heating up?

Raynor · Post by **Raynor** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:13 pm

Nice. I'm looking forward to trying it later. Last night i was still playing EM vanilla and then within 30 mins on this modding board i had high res capital ships, improved nebulaes, improved civilian ships textures, improved planetary rings, a new cockpit and hud, new cities, bloom effect and now asteroids. Keep up the good work everyone!

Vyperhate · Post by **Vyperhate** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:02 am

@Valor: Thanks, I'll have him give that a try. I've taken a look at both the compressed versions and the uncompressed versions in Photoshop and GIMP. There doesn't seem to be any real difference in quality. Good find, I'll have to remember that program for future projects.

@Marvin: As of now, no, this still uses the default emissive map. However it looks fine IMO. Even so I am considering making a new emissive map.

[Edited on 1-21-2012 by Vyperhate]

Malix · Post by **Malix** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:55 am

From post: 124657, Topic: tid=8406, author=Valor wrote: Here is a link to the recompressed files if you want to have a look: http://www.box.com/s/ghu1d5x2v3bqmz3a67jn

These are splendid, thank you, kind sir. These are just what the spacedoctor ordered.

[Edited on 1-21-2012 by Malix]

Valor · Post by **Valor** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:50 am

From post: 124797, Topic: tid=8406, author=Vyperhate wrote:@Valor: Thanks, I'll have him give that a try. I've taken a look at both the compressed versions and the uncompressed versions in Photoshop and GIMP. There doesn't seem to be any real difference in quality. Good find, I'll have to remember that program for future projects.

No problem.

I hope those future projects include more high-res textures for EM, because these are awesome!

Vyperhate · Post by **Vyperhate** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 8:18 am

No problem. I hope those future projects include more high-res textures for EM, because these are awesome!

I would like to make more 4k textures, however I believe most of the ones I would really like to do (such as planet textures) are hard coded and since I'm into graphics design and not coding there isn't much I can do.

Currently there are a couple of things I'm working on that you can hopefully keep an eye out for in the future:

Planetary Haze Textures
New Emissive Map for Asteroids
Engine Exhaust Textures
Asteroid Cave Textures
Ice and Metal Asteroid Textures

[Edited on 1-21-2012 by Vyperhate]

Rakshasas · Post by **Rakshasas** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 11:16 pm

I was looking to download this file, but filesonic seems to have changed their policies, and only the person who uploaded it can download it:

All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:29 am

They probably got scared of what happened to MegaUpload and PirateBay. Long live the free internet!

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:08 am

The link to download isn't working anymore!

Any chance to host it somewhere else so I can download?

Or, you could email the mod and I'll host it on my site if you want.

ijon · Post by **ijon** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:31 am

hi guys.

if people are still interested:
the asteroids texture distortion is caused by the fact that a sphere has been used as basemesh. those have one problem: the poles. the mesh is always leading from one last row of triangles to one vertex. so X faces meeting at one point.
(thus you use quad meshes in high detail visualizations and rather attempt to turn a box into a sphere than using a sphere mesh, because its basically impossible to unwrap.)

it can be countered by counter distortions rather than trixing with colors. if you are interested in that stuff:
http://paulbourke.net/texture_colour/texturemap/
there is one paragraph dealing with that problem in a very comprehensible way.
all you have to figure out is: which side of your texture leads to the poles of the roids. (i guess the final form is caused by a generic noise. if it wouldn't be simple uvw sphere coordinates, custom textures would look even worse.) then get to work.

pretty much in the middle, btw.
will i ever manage to post without editing?

[Edited on 2-28-2012 by ijon]