#arma3_texture

Oooh that's neat!

the result is pretty amazing

the welding, curling and the text - it was all floating geometry
https://abload.de/img/2016-08-1314_11_17-maq2paq.jpg

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Texture_Naming_Conventions
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Texture_Map_Types

does the latter apply to all texture types? or in other words is there a difference of terrain textures and the rest? (aside from special ones like _sky or _lco)

naming convention is there so the engine knows how to translate and convert texture from TGA/PNG to .PAA (compression type and channels) and handle it internally

no other reason

well the engine still parses the filename and looks for the post tag, right?

the reason i am asking as one can use these also for procedural textures

it does yes

thank you!

Anyone know what the max texture size is?

4096?

really you don't want to go above 2048

You won't notice at all unless you're right up to the asset at full ultra settings and even then it ain't much of an improvment

I'm just asking what the max is.

4096 yes

Anybody in here use SP2?

My textures look really good in SP2 then when we bring them into arma they are all fuzzy and just bad

For example http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/260467680382930113/5B0631CE26EF6AD3B64BE2809DD6EDFE71870F1E/

are they 4k?

did you convert them correctly? where they 24bit tga before converting?

check if your UV layout in OB is still correct or if something broke

The max I can export as in TGA is 8 bit

In SP2

what is SP2?

Substance Painter 2

well 8 bit per channel i would assume

AFAIK it means 8 bits per channel

ah @silver gull ninja'd me

seems logical since the exporter is where you choose what channels are included in the maps

24 bit would simply be defining the map as RGB rather than RGBA

but I've never used SP2, I'm inferring from what I've seen of the UI

i use SP, but i export tex in png and then to paa

Do you have the same issue?

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/260467529876014470/4165C8255F1B1CBD4F61480790CA7D30F7351D74/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/260467529876014615/8185873F78A086865261CBA9D945FF456201C59B/

The blurriness is really bad and its almost unbearable

is the texture also blurred in texview?

I'll look when I get home

I'm working on the textures. Tried a few different tricks that helped a little but still look bad. I lowered the specular power in the rvmat which helped a lot but cause shading issues. I tried exporting in different formats and bits, most of which cause texview to not load the textures, and I exported in 4k compressed the image in texview then downscaled to 2k. This also helped a lot but they still arent good

24bit tga (or in other words 8bit RGB, not RGBA) is the goto format.

4k textures get mipmapped early, supposedly. (but i do think it's dependant on texel size on the screen -> small object gets mipmapped earlier than large)

4k gets mipmapped early even when you use it for fullscreen modeloptics

and doesn't display at 4k at all below the High graphics setting

Well they are 2k in game. I'm trying to trick the texview compression into not destroying the textures

They look fine in SP but horrible in arma

Sorry was driving home from eating. But yea I tried multiple export types, currently it's 24bit tga. I'm going to test some more stuff shortly

@nocturne lake how can you tell? unless you have a screen that can display the higher res in the modeloptic, you're not getting anything out of extra res. Chances are it looks even shittier than a native resolution would be

I was just thinking that... but I dont know much about such texture tech so heh. I mean can you really tell how 4k texture looks if youre running 1080p resolution monitor? (just thinking out loud, I dont know jack heh)

for modeloptics - no not really. For ingame objects yes (because you can get closer/further away from them)

the good old "stick your face in the wall and yell "low texturequality"" trick

i guess for interface/GUI 4k could be useful in some cases?

@silver gull because the optics go really blurry https://feedback.bistudio.com/T82022

Only 4k texture I know of in A3 is the road texture for the main street on Tanoa

I'm not even 100% sure it is 4k

when Arma mipmaps 4k, it doesn't just do it to 2048, it goes down to like 512 or something. Looks shite

tigr from rhs uses 4k map

yeah, some stuff the guys made remains at 4k but generally we do everything with 2048s for the reasons I outlined

even if it means more sections

Anyone got any ideas of how it can be fixed?

yeah downsample to 2k

That makes it worse

I'm going to check all the maps today to see at what point in the process they are becoming blurry so maybe that will tell me something more

upload the textures somewhere so we can have a look. stabbing in the dark is just wasting your and our time

Ok. It will be this afternoon before I am home but I will then

regarding the downsampling - i have no problem with my large tank (size of MBT x2) which is using 4K

Neither do I in the VR map, or for a while playing on other islands. But eventually my VRAM runs out and that stuff gets mipmapped

and I'm not one of the people who runs the game below "very high" texture quality

but not everybody does run "very high" or "ultra"

having 4ks in the pilot LOD seems to be the worst offender though since they're the ones that are mipped even in close when you would normally want high texel density. So weapons, attachments, uniforms, cockpits etc.

for some reason the game seems better at doing mipmap transitions for other objects in the scene than it does for the player's objects - those just seem to get stuck at the lower mipmap level where buildings etc. in the scene seem to transition okay back to high-res when you get close

0 distance propably doesnt have enough weight in the algorithm then

that was my thinking. It gets annoying having to bump texture quality down to low, then back up to Very High to completely refresh e.g. a weapon's texture back to proper resolution in pilot view

is there no auto-Vram flush tool magingy available?

the "flush" cheat command didn't seem to do anything

The textures we used in game that I'll show yall later are 2k. What I tried was exporting from SP in 4k converting them to paa do the compressor did its thing, converted them back and scaled to 2k, then converted them back to paa. It's a stupid work flow but it looked way better. I seem to be having my problems when converting, like the compression is screwing the colors

Turns it blocky almost. When I post the maps I'll show you some before and after stuff of all steps so maybe there is a sign showing what I'm doing wrong at what point

I tried exporting 2k and I tried using 4k in game but the best luck I had so far was with this stupid scaling trick someone told me about

I also heard of adding light noise to the image to try and keep the compression from making it blocky but I haven't tried it yet

anyone looked into TexMerge.bio2s yet? (from OB\o2scripts)

NEW                  - creates empty project
SAVE [filename]      - save PTM file
GENERATE [path]      - generate textures
AUTOARRANGE set,grow - autoarranges textures
                         set = <index>|current|all
                         grow = (on|off)
ADDSET               - adds new set and selects it as current
SETSIZE width,height - sets with and height of set
SETTEX filename      - sets texture of set
INFOSET              - displays information about set
INFOSET[]            - displays information about set-script form (array)
DELSET i             - removes set
SELSET i             - selects set
CURSET               - shows current set
NSETS                - displays number of sets
ADDITEM filename     - adds texture to set
DELETEITEM i         - removes texture from set
INFOITEM i           - informations about item
INFOITEM i[]         - informations about item in script form (array)
NITEMS               - displays number of items
TRANSFORM texture    - calculates transform matrix for texture, and show
                       name of merged texture
TRANSFORMBACK u,v,tex- transforms back from merged to unmerged
                         u,v - coordinates of center of bounding rectangle
                         tex - merged texture name
                       To get u,v parameters,take all uvs from face(s) and
                       calculate the center of UV bounding rectangle
TGAMODE [on|off]     - enables or disables TGA export
FOREACHSET command   - function repeates command for each set.
                     - note: use %d as index
                     - note: Each command prints status
FOREACHITEM command  - function repeates command for each item.
                     - note: use %d as index
                     - note: Each command prints status```

http://i.imgur.com/BdgpKh2.jpg

played around with the substance painter, it is for a destroyer i am modelling with interior

You're using SP on the high poly?

its just a test

just trying to learn substance painter. i have both quixel and substance painter and have to test both to see what i like, but leaning towards SP

i think to remember that merging sections/removing duplicate sections was very important for performance; is this still true/necessary to do manually these days?

like is it fine if in the resourceLibrary in OB a texture is listed multiple times under sections?

sample:

http://i.imgur.com/YWtCAna.png

if they share both texture and material then no, you should try to merge them

the window width is too small but a couple of entries are duplicate in there

it's easy enough to do: ctrl+double click the texture name then faces move top (if alpha) or move bottom (if opaque)

the section count wont update until you go to another LOD then back

unless you cut and paste the object out then back in - that refreshes the section count instantly

but that's not always a wise thing to do if the model has two textures applied to welded geometry

since cutting the part out will remove the connecting faces

so the move top/bottom dance is safer if a little slower

thanks! very good advice - i would have tried to automate this but probably needs case by case human judgement

does this apply per LOD or is this a global per model thing?

unfortunately it's per LOD

usually you'll find that the top visual and pilot LODs are most affected though

did you or someone else look by chance if this can also be done via o2scripting?

easiest way is to glance at the section number and at the list of textures to see if there's roughly the same ammount

I have no idea about scripting whatsoever unfortunately

BI has added some o2scripts to O2/OB itself already; a few also have a dialog for interaction or input

like one is to rename selections for example

another is about merging textures

yet i know too little about O2/OB/models and o2script to judge it; will ask T_D - maybe he knows

I've used the UV set removal script a few times but not really investigated the others

@silver gull http://www.mediafire.com/download/l1c2o1hpuo5qi9d/blurrytextures.rar These are the textures of ours that are blurry and look terrible. I also included RVMAT

Again, we have no idea why

@worn jasper no wonder , your textures are set for PBR

and normal map barely got any details in it so the diffuse map too

Do you know if there is a setting in SP to change it?

Thanks for taking a look and finding the issue ntw

well there should be something in the exporter but honestly i dont know if that will help

What do you mean by it won't help?

@worn jasper first thing: AO map is wrong. The proper designation in Arma is ambient shadow (_as), which has completely white Red and Blue channel, Green contains the AO greyscale map. results in white-pinkish texture

also, your Gloss map (B channel in _smdi) is very chunky https://abload.de/img/2016-08-2220_52_21-cobcs3y.png so it's no wonder that "shininess" may look bad / low res

you are also wasting alot of UV space, by the looks of your AO https://abload.de/img/2016-08-2220_59_14-coyuzsq.png. Did you use automatic unwrapping? It sure looks like it.

And lastly, your rvmat has way too much specularpower ->256 is alot and specular value of 0.3 in rvmat is also alot when the texture has ~ 145 color value makes the errors in the gloss channel really obvious

try lower values (specular 0.2 and specular power between 60 and 100).

Sorry, I didn't make it home in time to get these files together so these are actually old ones. In the new ones I changed the rvmat to closer to 40 specular power but I'll try your values. The AO I rename to AS and let texview convert so it removes all the unused stuff and gives it that pinkish color
Not sure if that's the best way to do it

your baked AO also is flakey and where objects penetrate there is a bad transition between dark/black and white. It looks like you baked in 3dsmax with light tracer. Increase ray count in light tracer (500 usually works for me), enable a supersampler (max 2.5 start at the least, hammersley with 0.3 - 0.4 a bit better quality. takes while though)

And before you bake, apply a white material with "2 sided" flag in material editor enabled

Not sure why smdi is blocky but I'll look into it tonight. I've been thinking that was the main issue

I baked AO in SP

is there no way to increase quality?

The uv mapping was done mostly by hand. Some of the smaller stuff was auto unwrapped but there are just a ton of things in this pit. I actually changed up a big chunk of the map but that isn't shown in the files he sent.

I'll have to read about it. I haven't had a need to until now

Every other game engine the AO looks great so I never even looked into it. I'll look tonight, better quality can only be good for all engines

I think fixing why it's exporting in PBR will be a big help like RH was thinking

I'll go through the exporter and make sure all my channels are correct too.

Hopefully this all fixes it. Thanks for the help fellas

the ring around penetrating objects in the AO is also really obvious ingame. The texture map only has finite precision, so some white parts will shine through when penetrated areas are not darkened https://abload.de/img/107410_screenshots_20bbkue.jpg Fix 1) fix by handpainting Fix 2) bake AO in 3dsmax (if no HP is used, it's really easy) with double sided material. You only need to smooth the transitions with smooth in PS (propably SP as well) alittle bit. Fix 3) ??? maybe there are other solutions i dont know off yet

Just looked up the baking in SP and there is a tab I didn't know about for AO, allows you to customize the bake. I'll toy with it tonight. Worst case I can hand paint AO in SP too

be warned: it's tedious 😛

I haven't been texturing long so this is all a big learning experience lol

I hand painted some on the new exterior and it definitely was. SP makes it waaay easier though

ok guys, so im a bit new to this whole arma 3 modding stuff, i have got some objects textured before but theve been the whole object the one texture map. ive selected the wheels to my vehicle, selected which texture it needs to be, selected the rvmat:
ambient[]={1,1,1,1};
diffuse[]={1,1,1,1};
forcedDiffuse[]={0,0,0,0};
emmisive[]={0,0,0,1};
specular[]={0.28,0.28,0.28,1};
specularPower=250;
PixelShaderID="Super";
VertexShaderID="Super";
class Stage1
{
texture="hawkei_mod\wheel_normal.paa";
uvSource="tex";
class uvTransform
{
aside[]={1,0,0};
up[]={0,1,0};
dir[]={0,0,1};
pos[]={0,0,0};
};
};
but when i try it in bulldozer or ingame, it shows the wheels up as being invisible

i think i may have just found the problem, is it the PixelShaderID="Super";
VertexShaderID="Super"; ?

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/RVMAT_basics

your rvmat is all kinds of messed up. Use a real one (e.g. from vanilla vehicles)

where might i find one that i can modify?

Have you extracted the game data?

The files in P:\a3\sof_f_someSuffix should have ones you can look at, someSuffix will be in what "update" they were added in

ok thanks, its weird coz when i select the normal map as the texture it shows up

but when i select the actual image i want as the texture it doesnt

nvm, ive fixed it. but now for some reason the shading is buggered up: http://imgur.com/a/3MSab

Lazy mode reteexture, does havnyone still have these PSD for indie vest laying around: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/140743-psd-templates-for-nato-soldiers/ ?

nvm there was a copy on armaholic stil

Quixel's Megascans just went public, comes with some neat tools too - https://megascans.se/

Nice. Will have to have a look later on.

anyone know how to get these black lines out of my normal map? (normals created in blender)

Just had a good chat over in model makers. Does anyone want to retexture a truck into a train and replace the engine/acceleration/brake sounds to make the truck a train? No scripting invovled, just making it appear as a train.

you cant just retexture a truck to look like a train.... otherwise it will just look like a truck that has bits of a train stuck on it.... you need a train model thats really a truck with wheels

@timber hound https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/183408-russian-railways-mod/

Check #arma3_model

You could port the Arma 2 train and turn it into a car I guess

yo guys i got wicked pixelated textures on all of the vehicles, is that only me?

Finally getting the hand of going from quixel -> arma...
http://imgur.com/a/Qywwy

If only someone made the "Fire Hedgehog"...

@subtle sentinel Get on this shit

ehhh, no

I always did love unique and odd weapons of war

My absolute favourite is this abomination:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/North_American_XP-82_Twin_Mustang_44-83887.Color.jpg/300px-North_American_XP-82_Twin_Mustang_44-83887.Color.jpg

Anyone know what could be causing this issue

https://images-2.discordapp.net/.eJwNyksOwiAQANC7cADmI4xjL2MIJbSmFQLjynh3u3mr93WfcbjFbWZ9LgDrPnMbq5_WRqrF19bqUVLfp8_thGSW8naWt01glKAiD1EKF3pjYFImIVSNihTvQa9FgsqBOSLpk_yrV_f7AybgIzQ.dWFXTGbB5upFyw_CGnu1r9MO0ZE.jpg

Looks like it could be caused by an alpha channel existing in a texture. Check that all textures have a suffix, and that ones with no alpha channel have the suffix _co before you convert it to paa

kk thx will have a look

that solved the issue thanks pennyworth

having troubles with insignia and mod logo, made with gimp, saved with save-to-web plugin to png-24, converted with _ca ending via texview2 to paa, but some of the logo/insignia apear invisible, especially darkcolored ones and those with alot transparancy dont show up ingame

Is the texture size a power of 2? For example 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc...

I use GIMP, but I haven't used that plugin so I'm not sure if that's the issue

300x300

I read we should especially use that plugin to be able to save as png-24, that with the alpha channel iirc

try to make it 256x256 or 512x512 like penny suggested

ok, will try

😮 oh my, rescaled modlogo down to 256x256 for quick test, it works! thanks alot

*suddenlyMagicHappendAndItWorked"

yea , arma hates resolutions that arent power of 2

I actually dont know where I got that 300x300 from for the logos/insignia.. Ive been making magazine and weapons pics before, both in 256x256 and 512x512, so I feel abit stupid now 😄

Yeah, you should 😄

j/k 😛

He really should

hi everyone=) i have trouble with AS texture in game it looks like specular map. Can you help me to fix it?

https://pp.vk.me/c604823/v604823302/1e07/ZTPfsYBhvQA.jpg

are you applying it in the correct stage of the .rvmat? should be in class Stage4

the _as should be pink and white like that after it has been converted to .paa though. Arma only uses the G channel from the _as so greyscale information from the R and G channels is discarded under conversion

@nocturne lake thanks. i didnt know about class Stage4 . My _as was in class Stage2

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Super_shader explains what each state is for. If you don't have a texture map for it then one uses a procedural texture code e.g. texture="#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1,DT)"; for the Detail Map in Stage 2

what is the optimal texture and NOHQ size? will it work fine if i have 4k textures and normal maps?

I've heard people say that 4096x4096 is kinda broken, but I've seen things with 4k texture maps so you'd probably want to test it yourself

If the UV is too large for that you could always spilt it into multiple 2k maps?

any ideads if hiddenSelectionsMaterials compatiable withthe wounds system?

cause i tried to apply new rvmat for the unit and when i shot it wounds didn't appear