- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mar 25 Fév - 20:26
Unaware of this mod, I have been working on something similar, but my ensigns are mostly based on real flags and have correct height/width ratios (I used transparency masks for this). Here are a few examples, though you will hardly appreciate the translucent details of their fabric against an uniform background:
Their release is imminent. Once they are released, you are welcome to use my textures with your mod if you think that they can fit in it
Their release is imminent. Once they are released, you are welcome to use my textures with your mod if you think that they can fit in it
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mer 26 Fév - 11:44
gap72 a écrit:Unaware of this mod, I have been working on something similar, but my ensigns are mostly based on real flags and have correct height/width ratios (I used transparency masks for this). Here are a few examples, though you will hardly appreciate the translucent details of their fabric against an uniform background:
...
Their release is imminent. Once they are released, you are welcome to use my textures with your mod if you think that they can fit in it
Thank you very much ! These flag textures are very very nice, and the colors are perfect, far better than mine (taken from wikipedia, but still better and more accurate than SH3 ones...). Congratulations ! I'm going to try a few of them with SH3 flags.
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mer 26 Fév - 16:19
Admin a écrit:
Thank you very much ! These flag textures are very very nice, and the colors are perfect, far better than mine (taken from wikipedia, but still better and more accurate than SH3 ones...).
Sure, those textures are mostly based on real WWI and WWII antiques. In most cases adding weathering effects was not required, as those flags were already weathered. As a matter of fact, in a few cases I had reduce the weathering, because it was a bit too much. Nonetheless, some of my textures are based on modern flags, or on modern reproductions of WII flags. In that case I "antiquized" their look, though not too much.
Admin a écrit:
Congratulations ! I'm going to try a few of them with SH3 flags.
The full-resolution previews I have posted here are in png format. For use in SHIII you must paste them on a 1024x512 TGA texture, and you must store the relative alpha channel (extracted from RGB channel's opacity mask) in the same file. Once finished, make sure to save as 32 bit TGA, or the alpha channel will be discarded on saving. Let me know if you need help with that. As for the rest, I think you know already how to set up a transparent texture in S3d.
If everything works, don't forget posting here some in-game screen-shots
If I didn't make any mistake, you should be able to see the sky and the scenery through the flags, as in the picture below:
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mer 26 Fév - 20:38
gap72 a écrit:If everything works, don't forget posting here some in-game screen-shots
All good. The transparency of the flag was not noticeable, so I put it to 230. I also changed contrast and luminosity of the texture. Result :
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mer 26 Fév - 22:10
Admin a écrit:gap72 a écrit:If everything works, don't forget posting here some in-game screen-shots
All good. The transparency of the flag was not noticeable, so I put it to 230. I also changed contrast and luminosity of the texture. Result :
Thank you for testing Kendras!
The visual result is already amazing but in theory the subtle transparency effect should come from texture's alpha channel, not from material's opacity property. Messing with the latter setting will cause flags to look uniformly translucent, but the fabric texture that I have stored in the alpha channel would be lost.
This is how US flag's alpha channel should look like if you saved it correctly:
If your alpha channel looks different, please reset flag's opacity to 255, replace the texture file with this one (you can replace the RGB channel with the one edited by you if you prefer), and check again the result in game. If that still doesn't work we should probably play with alpha channel's luminosity/contrast too.
P.S: if you decide to play with those settings, make sure to take note of your adjustements, as the other flags might need similar tweaks as well
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mer 26 Fév - 22:13
PPS: if you want to quickly preview how that flag should look in game, import a flag frame in Wings3D, assign my texture to it keeping standard material properties unaltered, and place any 3D object/colour background behind it ;-)
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Mer 26 Fév - 22:39
One last note; I have the following flags ready:
Albania
Argentina (merchant and naval)
Australia
Belgium (merchant and naval)
Brazil
Bulgaria (merchant and naval)
Canada
Chile
Republic of China (merchant and naval)
Colombia (merchant and naval)
Cuba
Denmark (merchant and naval)
Dominican Republic (merchant and naval)
Egypt (merchant and naval)
Estonia (merchant and naval)
Faroe Islands
Finland (merchant and naval)
France
Free French Forces (merchant and naval)
Germany (merchant and naval)
Greece (merchant and naval)
Honduras (merchant and naval)
Hungary
Iceland (merchant and naval)
India
Ireland
Italian Kingdom (merchant and naval)
Italian Social Republic (merchant and naval)
Japan (merchant and naval)
Latvia (merchant and naval)
French Mandate of Lebanon
Lebanon
Lithuania (merchant and naval)
Mexico (merchant and naval)
French Protectorate of Morocco
Spanish Protectorate of Morocco
Muscat and Oman
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua (merchant and naval)
Norway (merchant and naval)
Palestine
Panama
Peru (merchant and naval)
Poland (merchant and naval)
Portugal
Red Cross
Romania (merchant and naval)
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Soviet Union (merchant and naval)
Spain (merchant and naval)
Sweden
Syria
Thailand (merchant and naval)
Tunisia
Turkey
United Kingdom (merchant and naval)
United States (merchant and naval)
Uruguay
Venezuela (merchant and naval)
Yemen
Kingdom of Yugoslavia (merchant and naval)
Do you think I should add any more? I feel like African and Asian countries are underrepresented, but at that time many modern states were still colonies and their shipping was either limited to small private boats that probably didn't fly any flag, or -with few exceptions - using the flag of the colonizing country...
Albania
Argentina (merchant and naval)
Australia
Belgium (merchant and naval)
Brazil
Bulgaria (merchant and naval)
Canada
Chile
Republic of China (merchant and naval)
Colombia (merchant and naval)
Cuba
Denmark (merchant and naval)
Dominican Republic (merchant and naval)
Egypt (merchant and naval)
Estonia (merchant and naval)
Faroe Islands
Finland (merchant and naval)
France
Free French Forces (merchant and naval)
Germany (merchant and naval)
Greece (merchant and naval)
Honduras (merchant and naval)
Hungary
Iceland (merchant and naval)
India
Ireland
Italian Kingdom (merchant and naval)
Italian Social Republic (merchant and naval)
Japan (merchant and naval)
Latvia (merchant and naval)
French Mandate of Lebanon
Lebanon
Lithuania (merchant and naval)
Mexico (merchant and naval)
French Protectorate of Morocco
Spanish Protectorate of Morocco
Muscat and Oman
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua (merchant and naval)
Norway (merchant and naval)
Palestine
Panama
Peru (merchant and naval)
Poland (merchant and naval)
Portugal
Red Cross
Romania (merchant and naval)
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Soviet Union (merchant and naval)
Spain (merchant and naval)
Sweden
Syria
Thailand (merchant and naval)
Tunisia
Turkey
United Kingdom (merchant and naval)
United States (merchant and naval)
Uruguay
Venezuela (merchant and naval)
Yemen
Kingdom of Yugoslavia (merchant and naval)
Do you think I should add any more? I feel like African and Asian countries are underrepresented, but at that time many modern states were still colonies and their shipping was either limited to small private boats that probably didn't fly any flag, or -with few exceptions - using the flag of the colonizing country...
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Jeu 27 Fév - 9:28
gap72 a écrit:Thank you for testing Kendras!
The visual result is already amazing but in theory the subtle transparency effect should come from texture's alpha channel, not from material's opacity property. Messing with the latter setting will cause flags to look uniformly translucent, but the fabric texture that I have stored in the alpha channel would be lost.
This is how US flag's alpha channel should look like if you saved it correctly:
...
If that still doesn't work we should probably play with alpha channel's luminosity/contrast too.
P.S: if you decide to play with those settings, make sure to take note of your adjustements, as the other flags might need similar tweaks as well
You're welcome.
The alpha channel is ok. In fact, the difference of transparency is nearly impossible to notice in game. So, I think there should be more "contrast of transparency" indeed. I'm going to modify your alpha mask and see what I can do.
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Jeu 27 Fév - 10:13
So, using Paint.net, I started by modifying the alpha mask like this :
But in game, the transparency is broken :
I guess this comes from the "Alpha Mask" addon that I'm using in Paint.net...
But in game, the transparency is broken :
I guess this comes from the "Alpha Mask" addon that I'm using in Paint.net...
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Jeu 27 Fév - 17:41
Admin a écrit:in game, the transparency is broken [...] I guess this comes from the "Alpha Mask" addon that I'm using in Paint.net...
Thank you for testing Kendras!
I don't think that the issue shown in your screenshot comes from Paint.net; in fact, the picture above reminds me of another issue we have recently discussed, regarding SHIII specular masks that, incidentally, are stored in texture's alpha channels as well as opacity masks. Talking in general, there are two methods of transparency sorting: alpha blending and alpha testing.
- The alpha blending method is more GPU-intensive, as it makes textures more or less transparent proportionally to the darkness of the underlying alpha channel. This is the effect I wish to achieve.
- The alpha testing method is more basic, and it makes texture pixels either fully transparent of fully opaque depending on whether the luminosity of the corresponding pixel in the alpha channel exceeds a given threshold value or not. This method obviously applies to the flag in your screenshot and — despite the fact that S3d's 'Disable z-buffer + enable alpha blend' check button seems to suggest the contrary — alpha-testing is the default transparency sorting method used in SHIII and probably SHIV and SH5 too.
Things we can do before giving up my idea: stock flags are fully opaque; subsequently, stock flag.dat materials are not made for supporting transparency sorting, neither alpha blending nor alpha testing. As I wrote a few days ago talking about specular masks, there seems to be some material flags used for switching between the two alpha channel usage methods, but unfortunately S3d won't let us to modify them.
- What we can try, is replacing stock flag materials with other materials which, on the contrary, rely on alpha blending. The best candidates coming to my mind are the material chunks used for aircraft spinning propellers, whose transparency effect supports smooth transitions (exactly the way we desire it) and not sudden changes from transparence to opacity.
- If the trick above won't work (but it should), we can try using instead a stock material which uses a specular mask since, as I said before, the two transparency and specular effects are closely related. Unless I am very much mistaken, the one thing that we should do with "specular" materials for the to work as translucent ones, would be checking the two 'Two-sided' and 'Disable z-buffer' checkboxes (those flags are already checked in propellers' materials and they should be left checked).
In either case, in memory DX2/3 compression shouldn't make much difference as far as opacity effects are concerned, but for a start I would disable it, and I would re-enable it in a second moment, to see if it makes a significant difference in texture quality and in game performance
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Jeu 27 Fév - 22:01
gap72 a écrit:Things we can do before giving up my idea: stock flags are fully opaque; subsequently, stock flag.dat materials are not made for supporting transparency sorting, neither alpha blending nor alpha testing. As I wrote a few days ago talking about specular masks, there seems to be some material flags used for switching between the two alpha channel usage methods, but unfortunately S3d won't let us to modify them.
What we can try, is replacing stock flag materials with other materials which, on the contrary, rely on alpha blending. The best candidates coming to my mind are the material chunks used for aircraft spinning propellers, whose transparency effect supports smooth transitions (exactly the way we desire it) and not sudden changes from transparence to opacity.
OK, I followed your method and... it works ! Visible with the square in the corners, and also the edges of the texture which have different levels of transparency :
gap72 a écrit:In either case, in memory DX2/3 compression shouldn't make much difference as far as opacity effects are concerned, but for a start I would disable it, and I would re-enable it in a second moment, to see if it makes a significant difference in texture quality and in game performance
Tested with and without "in memory DX2/3 compression", and couldn't see any difference. But I know that it can degrade the quality of the colors.
----
I also tested with a semi-transparent texture linked to a specular mask, and it works too. But then, I tried with a ship from GWX, and there is a very strange glitch : the hull is whole black ABOVE water, but NOT UNDER where the texture is perfectly shown... Really, this game has endless problems...
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Jeu 27 Fév - 23:26
Admin a écrit:
OK, I followed your method and... it works ! Visible with the square in the corners, and also the edges of the texture which have different levels of transparency
Success! Time for fine-tunings now...
During your test, did you use the alpha channel that I posted here, or the one whose luminosity/contrast you had edited in Pain.NET? Besides sewn seams, hems, patches, etc - especially with some flags - you should be able seeing fabric's weave in transparence. Would you say that I achieved creating this effect and, more in general, how do the flag with the "new" (propeller) material compare to the one with uniform transparency? Is it worth the extra GPU burden?
If you don't mind, I would like seeing another screenshot showing the whole flag rather than a detail (similar to the first in-game screenshot you posted here)
Admin a écrit:
Tested with and without "in memory DX2/3 compression", and couldn't see any difference. But I know that it can degrade the quality of the colors.
Yes, DX compression divides textures in groups of 4x4=16 pixels, for each group it stores two 32 bit colors, and it interpolates all the other colors between these two extremes. Its artifacts should be especially noticeable in small textures, or textures with many small details that must be preserved. Anyway, with our huge flag textures, image degradation might be not so noticeable, sousing in memory compression might actually have more advantages than disadvantages ;-)
Admin a écrit:I also tested with a semi-transparent texture linked to a specular mask, and it works too. But then, I tried with a ship from GWX, and there is a very strange glitch : the hull is whole black ABOVE water, but NOT UNDER where the texture is perfectly shown... Really, this game has endless problems...
Weird, but in this case I wouldn't complain. Specular masks and opacity maps not being reciprocally compatible is a known game limitation; we can have either one or the other, but for our purposes I think that a well done opacity map will be more than enough. Don't you agree?
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Ven 28 Fév - 1:53
gap72 a écrit:During your test, did you use the alpha channel that I posted here, or the one whose luminosity/contrast you had edited in Pain.NET?
If you don't mind, I would like seeing another screenshot showing the whole flag rather than a detail (similar to the first in-game screenshot you posted here)
For the US flag, I changed luminosity/contrast of both RGB and alpha channels :
Also, I took your Panama flag without modifying it at all.
1. With detailed alpha mask and without texture compression :
2. Without detailed alpha mask (opaque flag) and without texture compression :
3. Without detailed alpha mask (opaque flag) and with texture compression :
- - - -
4. With detailed alpha mask and without texture compression :
5. With detailed alpha mask and with texture compression :
gap72 a écrit:Besides sewn seams, hems, patches, etc - especially with some flags - you should be able seeing fabric's weave in transparence. Would you say that I achieved creating this effect and, more in general, how do the flag with the "new" (propeller) material compare to the one with uniform transparency? Is it worth the extra GPU burden?
Yes, you did a very great work. Although you have to be at a very short distance to be able to spot this semi-transparent details, I think it's worth to keep them, and without texture compression.
gap72 a écrit:Weird, but in this case I wouldn't complain. Specular masks and opacity maps not being reciprocally compatible is a known game limitation; we can have either one or the other, but for our purposes I think that a well done opacity map will be more than enough. Don't you agree?
Yes, not needed for the flags of course. But I'm thinking about World of Warships' ships (and also perhaps my Liberty ship). With the Bismarck that I converted, I applied the alpha mask directly on the main texture in Paint.net, and then added a specular mask controller to the new material node in S3D. And it works very well !
- gap72
- Messages : 30
Date d'inscription : 26/07/2018
Localisation : Palermo
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Ven 28 Fév - 19:27
Wow, what a nice screenshots!
I think you have found a perfect balance! Could you please send be back the texture edited by you?
That's not bad either
Okay, thanks. I hope that the translucent effect is faint in a realistic way. I felt that overdoing it would have spoiled it
So you managed getting those specular maps to work at last! I am glad that my suggestions were useful and that you finally realized the importance of a well done specular mask for the realism of our textures! That's an aspect that I think many valent modelllers of SHIII units have overlooked in the past... Many custom SHIII units are very well done, but they use very dull textures...
Admin a écrit:
For the US flag, I changed luminosity/contrast of both RGB and alpha channels :
I think you have found a perfect balance! Could you please send be back the texture edited by you?
Admin a écrit:
Also, I took your Panama flag without modifying it at all.
That's not bad either
Admin a écrit:
Yes, you did a very great work. Although you have to be at a very short distance to be able to spot this semi-transparent details, I think it's worth to keep them, and without texture compression.
Okay, thanks. I hope that the translucent effect is faint in a realistic way. I felt that overdoing it would have spoiled it
Admin a écrit:
Yes, not needed for the flags of course. But I'm thinking about World of Warships' ships (and also perhaps my Liberty ship). With the Bismarck that I converted, I applied the alpha mask directly on the main texture in Paint.net, and then added a specular mask controller to the new material node in S3D. And it works very well !
So you managed getting those specular maps to work at last! I am glad that my suggestions were useful and that you finally realized the importance of a well done specular mask for the realism of our textures! That's an aspect that I think many valent modelllers of SHIII units have overlooked in the past... Many custom SHIII units are very well done, but they use very dull textures...
Re: [WIP] High resolution, historical and weathered flags
Dim 1 Mar - 13:55
gap72 a écrit:I think you have found a perfect balance! Could you please send be back the texture edited by you?
Sure !
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