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MSTS Engine And Livery Skinning

Texture quality suck

Started by Jonatan October 7, 2004 17 posts 8 min read

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 7, 2004 12:49 PM

LAST EDITED ON Oct-07-04 AT 08:59 AM (EDT)

I'm trying to weather my loco but it comes up like this, my Plymouth didn't have this problem at all. Sure it looks a bit better then the plain grey but still, is it something in the model texture options I can change to make it look better? I've seen other steamers with better results in weathering then this./JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 2 Texture quality suck – image 3 Texture quality suck – image 4 Texture quality suck – image 5
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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Texture quality suck – image 6
http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/41653d80100c9f8f.jpg

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RE: Texture quality suck., yellowdog, Oct-07-04, 09:27 AM, (1) RE: Texture quality suck., Jonatan, Oct-07-04, 09:48 AM, (2) RE: Texture quality suck., pwillard, Oct-07-04, 07:04 PM, (3) RE: Texture quality suck., Jonatan, Oct-08-04, 03:25 AM, (4) RE: Texture quality suck., OkrasaGhia, Oct-08-04, 05:48 AM, (5) RE: Texture quality suck., Jonatan, Oct-08-04, 07:11 AM, (6) RE: Texture quality suck., OkrasaGhia, Oct-08-04, 10:26 AM, (7) RE: Texture quality suck., KeltikSylk, Oct-08-04, 10:50 AM, (8) RE: Texture quality suck., yellowdog, Oct-08-04, 11:23 AM, (9) RE: Texture quality suck., Jonatan, Oct-09-04, 01:34 PM, (10) RE: Texture quality suck., MartinW, Oct-10-04, 07:30 AM, (11) RE: Texture quality suck., Jonatan, Oct-10-04, 07:31 AM, (12) RE: Texture quality suck., OkrasaGhia, Oct-10-04, 08:31 AM, (13) RE: Texture quality suck., Jonatan, Oct-10-04, 09:43 AM, (14) RE: Texture quality suck., scottb613, Oct-10-04, 11:28 AM, (15) RE: Texture quality suck., dadbill, Oct-10-04, 12:56 PM, (16)

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yellowdogCharter Member · 1808 postsOct 7, 2004 1:27 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Um, jpg quality sucks. . . Could you post a little bit better example? Thanks.

Clayton

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 7, 2004 1:48 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

No sorry, I restored to the clean textures but the textures look horrible. It's like when you use alpha channels and the texture gets messed up but here I only use transparent./JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 8 Texture quality suck – image 9 Texture quality suck – image 10
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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pwillardCharter Member · 1748 postsOct 7, 2004 11:04 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

It's like when you use alpha channels and the texture gets messed up but here I only use transparent. I guess you figured it out. That's exactly what happens.Pete Willard
Texture quality suck – image 13
http://www.trainsimstuff.com

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 8, 2004 7:25 AM

RE: Texture quality suck.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-08-04 AT 03:25 AM (EDT)

Well I don't use alpha, only the trans, no gray or anything, just black. But Howcome other steamers get better results then this? Even with alpha. Any option I can set in the texture box?/JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 15
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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OkrasaGhiaCharter Member · 1586 postsOct 8, 2004 9:48 AM

RE: Texture quality suck.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-08-04 AT 05:48 AM (EDT)

Jonatan, are you sure you converted it to an ace with transperacy and not with alpha. Both will work with your model, even an ace without transperacy will work. Just that the alpha channel is only using black is not enough, you must specify the correct ace output format also.
Second question would be the tga file you use as input for the ace does that have the right color depth?

//Okrasa
Chief Engineer
okrasa @ xtracks.tk
http://www.geocities.com/okrasaghia
http://www.xtracks.tk

Texture quality suck – image 20

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 8, 2004 11:11 AM

RE: Texture quality suck.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-08-04 AT 07:12 AM (EDT)

I drew all textures on 512 x 512 pixel bitmaps then exported them as .ace with trans so the color depth is max I guess, 12 million colors I think./JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 22
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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OkrasaGhiaCharter Member · 1586 postsOct 8, 2004 2:26 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Bitmap does not support alpha channels, you need tga files for that.
What program do you use to convert to ace?
Personally I use TGATool2 which also lets you view an ace file directly and then you can see what type ace it is.

//Okrasa
Chief Engineer
okrasa @ xtracks.tk
http://www.geocities.com/okrasaghia
http://www.xtracks.tk

Texture quality suck – image 27

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KeltikSylkCharter Member · 1196 postsOct 8, 2004 2:50 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Maybe I'm missing something but it really doesn't look bad to me, just very dark.. I took a hint from scale model rails (John Allen and others) who suggest that black not be used on any model, just a very warm grays. I feel the same way about things in MSTS. On my PRR centipedes I ran a gamma correction on the TGA and that lightened it up just enough (for my tastes). Like this...
Texture quality suck – image 28 Frank MusickMoving America into the 19th Century!

www.kelticsylk.com

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yellowdogCharter Member · 1808 postsOct 8, 2004 3:23 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

If you look at the tender (assuming the poor quality is from the original locomotive and not the jpg file), you can definitely see what the original poster is concerned about.

Clayton

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 9, 2004 5:34 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-09-04 AT 01:38 PM (EDT)

Yes. That's what I tried saying, it's like reducing a 32 bit image to 8 bit.EDIT: Posted a pic of how it looks without weathering./JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 31
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

Attachments
Texture quality suck – image 35
http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/4168220f361d9b56.jpg

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MartinWCharter Member · 129 postsOct 10, 2004 11:30 AM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Trainsim reduces all textures to 16 bit when displaying.
This means that unless you pre-dither the image data you will find areas where there are subtle changes of shade displaying with this nasty "banding" effect as trainsim applies a brute-force colour reduction on it.Best display output is done by reducing the colours yourself first to 16 bit (64k colours) using the best dithering options your paint program offers.24 bit Ace goes to 16 bit 565 (65536 colours)
24 bit+trans goes to 16 bit 555-1 (32768 colours)
24 bit+Alpha goes to 16 bit 444-4 (4096 colours)So
Don`t use alpha unless you absolutely have to.
Don`t use trans if you don`t actually need any transparency.
Pre-process the image before converting to ACE so it gives the best possible 16 bit display in your paint program.

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 10, 2004 11:31 AM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Ok, I'll try that, thanks./JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 37 Texture quality suck – image 40
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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OkrasaGhiaCharter Member · 1586 postsOct 10, 2004 12:31 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Another advice is to add noise, helps with reducing the banding effect.

//Okrasa
Chief Engineer
okrasa @ xtracks.tk
http://www.geocities.com/okrasaghia
http://www.xtracks.tk

Texture quality suck – image 42

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JonatanCharter Member · 2245 postsOct 10, 2004 1:43 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

I tried noise, looks better now. Even unweathered./JonatanSteam rules!
Texture quality suck – image 44
Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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scottb613Member since Apr-13-03 · 305 postsOct 10, 2004 3:28 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

Jonatan,Nice looking steamer...Hmm - Looked at your original posts - and - as you stated the quality does look poor... Seems like something has to be misconfigured... I am new to 3D Modeling - but - in my paints - it seems like there are two ways a modeler can map to an object... One is the size of the texture map is like 1:1 - the map seems to match the area of the object it is covering... The other is that the texture map is smaller than the object it is covering - and it is "stretched" to cover the full area... Could your maps be "stretched" giving you the poor quality ??? It seems very similiar to problems I have seen before while painting...Regards,
Scott

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dadbillCharter Member · 610 postsOct 10, 2004 4:56 PM

RE: Texture quality suck.

that's what I was going to say, noise. add it on a separate layer so you can vary the volume of it.

db Texture quality suck – image 48

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