Additional textures for infinity

[Samus]

1. Yes, they would leave the old bitmaps untouched unless ScreamingFool is the fool his name makes him out to be. It would simply be adding bitmaps.

2. It depends on the textures. By those 3 he showed. I would say yes, they keep the marathon as they are made, combined or based off using the original textures. Aslong as they stay at such a high standard, I would make people download them and would be happy to use these.

3. Most of the community hasn't seen the textures yet. Once the set is done they most probably would. When the texture enhancement packages came (which I hugely dislike TBH), they were and still are FB's Top downloads and are widely used. I simply don't use them because they don't keep the same marathon feel and look, as they look like cartoonish deranged forms of what they are meant to replace and they don't run on all computers. Software rendering which I use can't take external textures, So if this was made as a shape file. It would provide a stylish High quality texture set for both opengl and software.

I seem to be blabbling alot. I have no association with this project yet I am defending it like it is one of my own. I think I better shut up b4 i get a warning.

[Bobwithkeycard]

One requires every player to download a ginormous shapes file, or else be excluded. The other is just a level. Hmm.

But that is not the case. If you don't have the shapes files then you can still participate in the game, but in those spaces where the new textures are applied in the map you will see black walls instead ( thanks to anti-texture smearing ).
Also maps that have been created with the supplementary textures in mind could carry an abbreviation in their map's name when its being hosted, similar to the information about the map's size in brackets or the host player having it in is name, like people usually do when hosting a scenario.
I'd find it quite sad if comments a la the 'dumbest idea I've heard' would discourage you from pursuing this further, scremin'fool

[Bourne]

You forgot about the people who already have the most recent version of AO...and, not everyone is going to want to download this new Shapes file. Heck, some might not even like it because it doesn't have just the original textures.

Forcing people to download something that isn't necessary to make AO run probably isn't a good idea.

That is correct. I'd rather not have any new textures. I don't care how "good" they are, they could be the sweetest textures ever, but what is Marathon without it's originality? I for one don't want to change anything of the graphics, cause then you take away what's a part of Marathon.

Then there's the pain of having to d/l them. If people want to use them that badly, then you can treat it as a conversion. You'll use it the same way you would use, say, TGI. But for all the time? I don't think so, it would probably diminish the already small amount of people that play on meta.

Anyways, that's just my thoughts...

[Sam Lowry]

Infinity is a known. If you want to make something extra, its a tc/mod/scenario.
Add it to the long list of other projects.

Unless you want to write code?
Send out textures for net games?
Texture support in map files?

[treellama]

But that is not the case. If you don't have the shapes files then you can still participate in the game, but in those spaces where the new textures are applied in the map you will see black walls instead ( thanks to anti-texture smearing ).

First of all, color the void is disabled by default, and you can't enable it except by going into the prefs file, because a lot of scenarios depend on it being off for their special effects. So, in its default state, if there are missing textures, the game is unplayable.

Second of all, even if you somehow convinced everybody to turn it on (which you won't), it would still look like ass.

So, yes, he should be discouraged from doing something that's going to make the experience of joining a net game worse for the majority of people who just want to play Infinity and don't want to download his shapes.

If embedded texture support is added, then this becomes a cool idea, because each map could contain 8 or 10 additional textures, and he could build a whole library of them for people to add. So, making the textures is OK now (although the ones I've seen so far don't look very good), making a scenario with them would be cool, but trying to integrate them into Infinity's shapes or just making net maps with them is a horrible idea.

[Bobwithkeycard]

Ok, I see your point. Memory was playing tricks on me, guess I was thinking of untextured walls and I had a lot of trouble running the experimental 'floating poly' maps that rely on untextured areas cause this is a rendering feauture that actually isn't editable from inside the windows sdl builds and untextured stuff just shows up as black by default.

so fingers crossed for maps with embedded textures then

[treellama]

Ok, I see your point. Memory was playing tricks on me, guess I was thinking of untextured walls and I had a lot of trouble running the experimental 'floating poly' maps that rely on untextured areas cause this is a rendering feauture that actually isn't editable from inside the windows sdl builds and untextured stuff just shows up as black by default.

Ah, you must have turned it on at one point. The default is not to color the void (i.e. smear everything).

If you want your floating poly maps to work, you can turn it off by editing the ogl_flags. The void color bit is 0x2, so convert to hex, turn that bit off, convert back to dec.

[Bobwithkeycard]

ah, thanks for the info. Am not realy happy with all the tricks utilizing untextured polys as they tend to smear a bit from certain angles.

Quite possible that I turned it on at one point, heh, like in 2003 or something cause I'm using the same prefs file for years now and just throw in new executables ( lazyman's paradise )

[RyokoTK]

1. Yes, they would leave the old bitmaps untouched unless ScreamingFool is the fool his name makes him out to be. It would simply be adding bitmaps.

You're missing the point. If I make a map using a mixture of the old and new textures, then for someone who doesn't have the proper shapes file, there'd be a bunch of missing textures (and thus, smearing) -- and, as far as I know, the user would go out of sync as well, which would mean that anyone who wants to play on the new maps would still have to download the new shapes.

2. It depends on the textures. By those 3 he showed. I would say yes, they keep the marathon as they are made, combined or based off using the original textures. Aslong as they stay at such a high standard, I would make people download them and would be happy to use these.

What's more likely is that nobody would really play your maps except in the unusual circumstance where everyone is actually willing to make the effort. For most people, however, they'd just ignore your maps, since they take that extra effort just to play when there are many others that are just as good (and have the same guns) that don't require the work. It's a lot like playing netgames in Tempus Irae; the guns are the same, so why swap to TI when there are plenty of Infinity maps that are just as good?

3. Most of the community hasn't seen the textures yet. Once the set is done they most probably would. When the texture enhancement packages came (which I hugely dislike TBH), they were and still are FB's Top downloads and are widely used.

Except the TTEP and screamingfool's project are completely different. The TTEP is optional, because it uses an external file to simply swap out existing textures with new ones for each specific player. There's no way to require the TTEP, so it's completely at the whim of an individual user. With SF's map pack, his maps would be unplayable without the new textures.

That is correct. I'd rather not have any new textures. I don't care how "good" they are, they could be the sweetest textures ever, but what is Marathon without it's originality? I for one don't want to change anything of the graphics, cause then you take away what's a part of Marathon.

Then there's the pain of having to d/l them. If people want to use them that badly, then you can treat it as a conversion. You'll use it the same way you would use, say, TGI. But for all the time? I don't think so, it would probably diminish the already small amount of people that play on meta.

Well, the point behind SF's textures is that they're similar to the old ones, and they fit in properly. A more apt comparison would be with EVIL than TGI, since EVIL's texturesets are more like an extension of Infinity's than TGI's are.

[Bourne]

Well, the point behind SF's textures is that they're similar to the old ones, and they fit in properly. A more apt comparison would be with EVIL than TGI, since EVIL's texturesets are more like an extension of Infinity's than TGI's are.

That wasn't really the point, I was just using TGI as an example of a mod. Thus it would be the same as using any mod, like Evil, TGI, Rubicon, etc.

[Samus]

What's more likely is that nobody would really play your maps except in the unusual circumstance where everyone is actually willing to make the effort. For most people, however, they'd just ignore your maps, since they take that extra effort just to play when there are many others that are just as good (and have the same guns) that don't require the work. It's a lot like playing netgames in Tempus Irae; the guns are the same, so why swap to TI when there are plenty of Infinity maps that are just as good?

No, its not the same as Tempus Irae. TI doesn't let you play inf maps, well you can but your gonna see some pretty sizzling architecture. This would allow play of Inf maps and new style maps with out effecting the inf maps.

And people don't have to make an effort to play my maps the only ones I got on FB are crap hunks of crap that have mml and shapes files required to play and theyre not worth it (xept castle, that one is 'ok'), unless they're really really obese and they can die from a heartattack by clicking the mouse, then I would consider that as an effort. I play my maps alot with people and I have usually if not always gotten good feedback. I smell a hint of corruption.

[kineticturtle]

Samus, as usual, you don't make a goddamn bit of sense. What are you even talking about?

[RyokoTK]

Corruption?

...a... are you...

Corruption?

I just don't even know where to go when Samus calls anything in the Marathon community "corrupt." What?

[Sam Lowry]

"This would allow play of Inf maps and new style maps with out effecting the inf maps."

There is no forward/netgame compatibility.
Infinity users joining your 'plus map' game without the 'plus shapes' will be unhappy.

All interested users would need the new shapes and can then play just like any other tc/mod ect. Great, wonderful, gl.

[goran]

A tip from goran, ignore the nay sayers, and plow ahead

[Bourne]

A tip from goran, ignore the nay sayers, and plow ahead

A tip from Bourne, shut up. This would kill marathon. Seriously, this is one of the most idiotic ideas i've heard on here for ages. Remember where we are? The Pfhorums. This place is full of idiotic stuff. So that's saying a lot.

[RyokoTK]

This would kill marathon. Seriously, this is one of the most idiotic ideas i've heard on here for ages.

Could you be any more melodramatic?

[Tomgun]

A tip from Bourne, shut up. This would kill marathon. Seriously, this is one of the most idiotic ideas i've heard on here for ages.

Here's what I simply do not understand about some of you guys:

Complaining about sizes and load times.

Regardless of the Shapes issue (and I personally find messing-about with a Shapes file to be no fun at all), things like hi-res textures linked externally via scripting and sounds that are full-blown 16-bit stereo add massive amounts to the game, at very little overhead.

Who can complain today about sizes of things when hard disks are so incredibly cheap, fast, and huge? RAM, the same. Video boards, the same.

I read one post here where somebody said something to the effect that they actually LIKE the low-res 128 textures that shipped with the product back in 1996 (or whenever it was). Are you kidding? You must be playing at a locked 320x240 screen size on a widescreen plasma or something.

It's interesting that so many of you are willing to sacrifice quality for some perceived "savings" of space and resources, as if someone's trying to take something away from you, or as if you have little of either. I never understood this miserly mentality, even back in the day when resources were few. For instance, guys who'd build a scenario and then cripple the sounds to 8-bit because, God forbid, the hi-res sounds might take an extra 45 seconds to download.

If your machine is THAT pathetic, buy a new one. If your RAM is low, buy more. It's not that expensive these days.

I'm running A1 with a mix of 1024, 512, and 256 textures. All the textures are replaced in all the flavors either with stuff from the Hi-Res Texture Set off the Ar'Kive, or with my own creations that mimic or duplicate the original look, feel, and intention of the Bungie textures.

I play at 1650 wide, with the HUD. I use the Landscape Enhancement Package.

The images I see are really incredible and sometime downright mind-blowing. I cannot possibly imagine using low-res garbage. It's as if Marathon were reborn. Some of these scenes are so beautiful, they almost look real.

Sacrificing quality to save resources that need no savings is, to me, a sign of mental illness. I can't do it. Never could. Never understood those who think it's okay to do so.

I would never hire a person who thought this way, and never work with a person who thought this way. Quality is job one, as the old saying goes. People who accept less will always have and be less.

Thank you.

[treellama]

Well, some of us play it because it runs well on the hardware we already have.

And some of us don't care so much what the graphics look like--we actually enjoy stuff like, oh, you know, gameplay, and story. You remember, the things that made Marathon great?

Thank you for implying people are mentally ill just because they're savvy enough to make intelligent trade-offs between quality and requirements, so as to make something suitable for a larger audience. And thanks for an over-all trollish post that really doesn't have anything to do with the topic!

[megabyte]

hey tomgun if you want amazing graphics go outside!
nothing more real than that!

i always thought marathon textures looked cool even when pixelated. i play with the enhancement pack only because i can. i still play on old computers with pixelated graphics as well and don't really notice a differnce in gameplay witch is all that matters.

[Samus]

....My friend plays marathon in 8Bit software low resolution, no worries to him. His computer sucks really bad and he can't be fucked buying a new one, he builds computers and sells them but he doesn't really give a shit about what his one is. He plays hypercard games too. I play on software and I actually like it better now, all I see when I switch back to opengl is that it is blurred which hurts my eyes and a very thin black outline around each sprite. Software also runs at 30fps and I can view landscapes that don't have to be 1/4 size to view......
The only thing worth viewing in opengl to me with texture enhancements would have to be tempus irae as they a nice and crisp still.

Marathon doesn't need fancy graphics, hard core sounds. 3D models or any of the latest shit. This game was made 10 years ago. And if you havn't noticed yet, every ol timer that as introduced themselves have talked about remembering the story and playing it. Thats all that really matters.

[treellama]

I play on software and I actually like it better now, all I see when I switch back to opengl is that it is blurred which hurts my eyes and a very thin black outline around each sprite.

You can turn that off by disabling distant sprite filtering in the advanced OpenGL settings

[screamingfool]

so none of this is really relevant to my topic, since i'm not talking about making hi res textures. my plan is to make more textures that dovetail perfectly with the original infinity textures, using the same resoultion and cluts, nothing fancy. solely for mapmakers who use textures like i do and want a few more versitile ones.

[Samus]

You can turn that off by disabling distant sprite filtering in the advanced OpenGL settings

Apart from landscapes being 1/4 of the size so all I get is 1 pink pixel or it is the infinate black mirror.

[Sam Lowry]

re "dovetail perfectly"

Make more textures.
Get your mod added to the long list on http://marathon.bungie.org/scenarionews/
The A1 community can then make great maps with the new mod.