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"ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE"

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sniper297 (1463 posts)
Jan-31-02, 01:18 PM (EST) "ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE" I think everyone is familiar with the problem, you download a neat object somebody made, put it in your route, then when you go to upload the route you find that ace files don't compress in the zip. So some suggestions to you 3D object making wizards;1. If at all possible, try using one or more of the default textures that are already in the game for your object. The S and SD files are very small and compress smaller, and if the S file for a new bridge calls for the rusty red texture from JPbridge7, for example, distribution would be much simplified. Obviously that's not always possible, you could skin a new station using one of many concrete or wood textures for the platform and an ace from a building about the same size for the stationhouse, but anything with signs or something highly detailed and totally new would be impossible.2. So the next best thing is to make the ace file as small as possible to begin with. Reducing the size from 512x512 to 128x128 works, but then the resolution is so poor it mucks up all your beautiful artwork.
The trick I've found to shrinking ace files without making them fuzzy is the color depth.
TGAtool2 sends the image to Paint Shop Pro 7 as a 16 million color bitmap. After editing, it's automatically saved as a 16 million color bitmap. In the above example, the coalmine head house with the operating wheels, I use the "count colors used", and find that the number of unique colors in the image is 23,855. Well, 16,000,000 - 23,855 = 15,976,145 available colors that are not used, and a bitmap image stores all that information for the number of colors whether they're used or not. So when using TGAtool2 to reload after edit, the file exports at 441k. If I reduce the color depth to 32k 24 bit, it will export at 274k with no loss of quality at all. The enginehouse for the same object is 538k, altering that with the same method results in a 311k ace file. So the two regular textures start at 977k, I reduce them to 583k, and the structure looks exactly the same.Jason's palm trees are even more dramatic, the number of unique colors in tree-tropical-03.ace is 1,873. Putting it thru the color reduction, I start with a 1,413k file and end up with a 220k file, again no loss of quality.
Try it, you'll like it. Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE DKlemm Jan-31-02 1 RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE stationmaster Jan-31-02 2 RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE sniper297 Jan-31-02 3 RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE ChooChoo Feb-01-02 4

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DKlemm (1080 posts)
Jan-31-02, 01:39 PM (EST) 1. "RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE" Thanks for the tips. I've been using the 24bit already in my new stuff. TSM has an issue where files below 256x256 cause random crashes. So what I've done is create 512x512 that are used by 3 or 4 objects, thus achieiving the smaller size per.
David Klemm
Illinois Central Route
Illinois and St Louis Divisions
Ver 0.6 uploaded
Working on Decatur IL
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stationmaster (322 posts)
Jan-31-02, 02:46 PM (EST) 2. "RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE" I've done the same thing for some small objects (sharing ace files). It can definitely save disk space, but I have wondered if it has an effect on frame rates. Help, hurt or no difference - anybody have some insight or data?Ron Paludan
Railway Station Productions, LLC
http://www.railwaystation.com
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sniper297 (1463 posts)
Jan-31-02, 06:07 PM (EST) 3. "RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE" I can't think that it would hurt at all, the only question that came up in the RE forum was on banding. I'm running MSTS at 1024x768 32 bit on a 17" Gateway2000 Vivitron with a GEFORCE 2 GTS/PRO 64mb AGP card, and I haven't seen any quality or banding problems on anything I tried it on so far. I also tried it on my GP38;
going from 1488k down to 964k for the two ace skin files.
I wouldn't think it would help the framerates much either unless there were a lot of objects and trains this were applied to. It strikes me that since the stuttering is caused by files swapping in and out of RAM, and it takes quite a few ace files to fill 256mb of RAM. So you probably wouldn't notice a significant improvement unless there were formerly 300 ace files at 1 mb each loading, and you reduced them all to 220k, you probably would see some reduction in stuttering since it wouldn't fill up the available RAM as fast. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ChooChoo (17 posts)
Feb-01-02, 02:48 PM (EST) 4. "RE: ADD-ON OBJECTS - REDUCING SIZE" Making distribution files as small as possible is GREAT advice.Too bad this technique DOES NOT WORK on COMPRESSED .ace files. In fact compressed ace files may become LARGER with reduced bit-depth due to dithering introduced in the depth-reduction process. It seems, however that many people don't know that COMPRESSED .ace files even exist. The new makeace utility fully supports compression in the conversion from both .bmp and .tga to .ace, and the results are DRAMATIC:An original 24bit 512x512 .bmp image has a fiie size of 769KB - when converted to .ace without compression, it yields an ace file size of 1029KB. Interestingly the exact same image reduced to 8 bits (256 colors) as a .bmp is only 258KB BUT it will also yield an uncompressed .ace file of 1029KB (contradicting the advice given above - which may apply to 16bit images but I didn't test that bit depth).Now when we use the exact same original .bmp fies with ace compression turned ON, the 24bit image compresses to a .ace of 130KB, but the 8bit image yields an .ace file of 156KB! As you can see, the original 1029KB file is compressed to 130KB WITHOUT reducing the 24bit depth. I would say that this is more effective than reducing the file to 964KB by using 16bit depth.If you want to know more about ace compression, I highly recommend TGATool2 by Martin Wright available for free download at:
MW Graphics http://fly.to/mwgfx/ BTW if you are using Train Sim Modeler, I have observed that it does NOT compress the .ace files, so you have to do it manually if you use that program. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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