ALLIED TRUCK MOD COMPLETE!!!

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FinnN:

The term 'dpi' has no meaning in 3D texture graphics, the important part is how many pixels there are. The term for this (as you probably know) is resolution. However, providing you don't refer to specific numbers, saying something along the lines of 'it's a higher dpi texture' whilst technically incorrect isn't going to confuse anyone about what you mean. Note that final image quality isn't just based on the resolution of the texture though: it also depends on how the texture is applied to the 3D model, how the game engine handles the rendering process and also the level of detail in the texture. Oh and did I mention artistic ability...

Have fun

Finn<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Aha! Now put that in your pipe and smoke it. A professional has come forth and proved what I was saying all along.

My point all along has been that with the way that CM's engine applies the textures to the 3D model has nothing to do with dpi, but with the dimensions of the image (number of pixels). dpi is the density of the pixels, is it not?

Tiger, I honestly would not harp on you as much as I do if it wasn't true. I mean look, you are always commenting that you have changed the dpi. No other modder, except for Kwazydog as you say, has changed the dpi, yet no other modders' mods are as pixelated as yours. So I say again, coincidence? According to FinnN here, my theory is holding up. When you change the dpi, you are actually corrupting the image for CM's sake.

Isn't it just nice to have a professional back-up your theory.

[ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Maximus ]

[Tiger]

Finn's post supports your theory in no way Max, except how much "spin" you've put on it. Pixels are what make up and image. The image is not "stretched" over the pixels as you've suggested before. The "skin" of pixels gets applied to the 3-d model according to the paremeters of the program, this is true. The variations in a pixels coloring, it's hue and brightness and saturation, are what can lead to pixelization. Really detailed textures increase the chance for slight pixelization because there's a greater variation of the hue/lighness/saturation across a smaller area. Fewer pixels = greater chance for larger variations in the texture across an image. That's why less pixels = lower resolution = greater chance for blurriness .

I have not seen the way that CMBO applies a bmp to a model affecting mods in CMBO in any way. The only recent example I've seen has been in Tribes 2 where the game resolution and your video card have a large impact and can really screw up a skin. I have yet to see this in CMBO, though there is an issue with some apple users having problems with higher dpi bmps (it's not pixelization either, it's a full graphical corruption of the bmp). So CMBO is ok regarding increased dpi in regards to applying it to a bmp. This is not what causes pixelization as far as I've observed working with both 72 and 144 dpi and switching back and forth, etc.

Pixelization will occur when you try to sharpen a texture too much. This increases the hue/lightness/saturation between pixels to a point where a pixel's nearest neighbor has too much variation and there's no smooth transition between pixels. All increasing the dpi will do is increase the # of pixels which means you'll get a smoother transition bewteen pixels (and also more pixelization if you sharpen too much), unless you've over-sharpened (as in any dpi)and it allows you to get a smoother texture due to the increase in resolution.

I have not been over-sharpening for quite a while, as I realized this was causing pixelization some time ago. So yes you may see pixelization in older mods.

I use mostly stock textures when starting a new mod, and if you look at the stock textures you will find quite a bit of pixelization on many of them. This can be smoothed out to a point but you're losing clarity in the process.

A number of my early mods were blurry because I had "use smartsizing" checked when I increase the image size/dpi. I haven't been doing this for along time either though.

Not only KwazyDog but Fernando and even Marco IIRC have used increased dpi in their bmps. Magua's (?) superb buildings were even a much higher dpi. You've made a claim that all my work is "pixelated" (though I do not think you know what the term means) and come up with some weird theory that it must be caused by increasing dpi, something you haven't sounded too sure about yourself.

Intrestingly enough Max I can look for and find pixelization on anybody's mod, even Marco's; there's no such thing as zero pixelization.

-Tiger

ps~ and you can drop the "concerned for my modding welfare" routine Max.

[M Hofbauer]

Wouldn't those wood panels in the railings be covered with the same thick olive drab paint job like the rest of the vehicle instead of showing wood texture?

[FinnN]

Just to make it clearer what my position is, there are elements of truth in what both of you are saying. Tiger you are very close to being correct, except that you are using 72dpi and 144dpi. In these types of images these terms have no meaning, what you've done is 'double the resolution'. Or you could say I'm using a '256x256' rather than a '128x128' texture size or something. Although your paint program will say 72dpi (eg Photoshop will have that as the default) that would only refer if you were putting it to an output device with a measurable size such as a piece of paper in a printer or a notional monitor or something similar. In this matter 'maximus' is 100% correct. Just to repeat though, if you *do* use those technically incorrect terms no-one is going to be confused about what you really mean.

Essentially in real time 3D graphics you are always trading off between texture size (and thus frame-rates) and quality. A higher resolution texture size will generally allow for greater detail, but sometimes you'll be in a situation of diminishing returns where doubling the resolution will not double the quality. Also if a high resolution picture has too much detail for the screen output and the rendering engine isn't anti-aliasing (I don't think CMBO does this) you'll lose pixels which allow for sharp details to blend in with the background they're set on. I'm not saying that a higher resolution is bad, just that you have to use it sensibly and watch what you're doing. In certain circumstances no matter what you do you'll always get either slight blurrines or slight pixellation no matter how high or low resolution your texure is. Tiger is correct though in saying that things like the variation in colours/contrast are far more important providing your resolution isn't way out of the acceptable range. And to my mind both of your are very good at that!

Have fun

Finn

[Gyrene]

Tiger and Maximus, both of you are excellent modders and there is little that is lamer than 2 artists bashing each other in my opinion. Whether either of you give a flying rat's ass about my opinion is a different story, but here are my 2 cents:

When you have a 72dpi 128x128pixel skin and you increase the density in Photoshop, or whatever to 144dpi, hoping to be able to make a 256x256 skin out of it, the graphic info in that file will be stretched to fit the new pixel count and the program will add anti-aliasing to counter pixelation, hence the blurriness. If the new image wasn't anti-aliased by the app, the new skin would be visibly pixelated as the original pixels would appear to be twice the original size (1 pixel would be replaced by 4 identical pixels)

AllTextures taken from screen shots are at 72dpi, so increasing their density is a bad idea.

Graphic artists always start at a higher resolution than they require when dealing with raster art. 300 dpi is the minimum accepted for print work, anything smaller will look fuzzy, so if your desired image is to be 300 dpi, then its a good idea to start at 400dpi or higher to give you room for resizing, should you need to increase the size of the picture. There is no penalty for reducing the size.

DPI count does not affect how an image is displayed on the screen, but it does affect how much you can magnify that image. A bmp with a higher dpi density would be displayed the same in CM, but it would take up more memory.

The best thing to do is to start with the bigger, high res version of a mod texture and then make the smaller version from that one, or better yet, start with a much larger version like 512x512 and make the others from that one.

Anyway, creative people bickering over petty stuff and nitpicking in a non-contructive way is pretty sad. Go flame people for other stuff, like asking who the best soldiers were or something dumb like that.

Gyrene

[Thomm]

1) dpi = Dots per Inch ... printer resolution, totally irrelevant to "skinning".

2) Texture quality cannot be judged from jpeg picture due to loss of quality inherent in compression method.

3) M.Hofbauer, did you ever receive the scans I sent to the email address in your profile?

4) Regards, Thomm

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rollstoy:

1) dpi = Dots per Inch ... printer resolution, totally irrelevant to "skinning".<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's what I've been saying all along. A computer screen can only display 72 dpi. That's why a photo-quality printed image looks better than what it does on-screen.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2) Texture quality cannot be judged from jpeg picture due to loss of quality inherent in compression method.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I run CM in 1152x864 resolution. I take a screenshot. Jpeg compression set at about 80 or 85% quality (can't remember which). Shrink the screenshot by about 30 or so percent to display on Forum in a decent size. Apply the sharpen filter to the screenshot on lowest setting to clear it up a bit after shrinking it.

NOTE: I am dropping this whole stupid debate as of now. But just one last comment. To help with creating hi-res mods, increase the dimensions of the image, not the dpi.

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

Wouldn't those wood panels in the railings be covered with the same thick olive drab paint job like the rest of the vehicle instead of showing wood texture?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, they would - to preserve the wood from rot and protect it from the weather. Also because no ordnance guy would bother masking them before painting.

If they were hastily replaced in the field, perhaps they would still be natural in colour.

I sent you an email a while back; did you happen to get it?

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rollstoy:

3) M.Hofbauer, did you ever receive the scans I sent to the email address in your profile?

4) Regards, Thomm<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I detect a pattern, here....

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

Wouldn't those wood panels in the railings be covered with the same thick olive drab paint job like the rest of the vehicle instead of showing wood texture?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Technically, yes they wood, no pun intended. However, it would negate the cool effect they have in the mod. We (I and Rick Klein) just thought that the truck needed an overhaul and the wooden slat look looked pretty cool.

[M Hofbauer]

Oh, it's you Thomm!

so you are going by rollstoy in these waters. Hmmm, no, I don't remember any email of that kind. But I would look it up - can you tell me the exact "absender", date, or subject/title?

Same goes for you Mike. What was your email about? I haven't goten any email from you recently. Of course, like always and like anybody I suffer from the usual "lost email" paranoia but maybe this time I have reason to really mistrust gmx reliability?

[Michael Dorosh]

I will resend it when I get home from work - but basically, I put a link to your Panzerfaust website at my own site at

http://landser.freehosting.net/

and was wondering if you would reciprocate.

[Thomm]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

so you are going by Rollstoy in these waters. Hmmm, no, I don't remember any email of that kind. But I would look it up - can you tell me the exact "absender", date, or subject/title?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Dear Markus!

Never mind the nickname !

I sent you two Panzerfaust pictures I have scanned from an old "Wie geht das" magazine. Good, theatralic stuff! Thought you might have use for it on your Panzerfaust page.

Unfortunately, I did not keep copies of the files, because I do not want military pictures to lie around on my institute account (my own, personal "Feind hört mit" paranoia).

As soon as possible I will re-scan the pictures and post them at Photopoint ... A pity that the first attempt failed, though.

Freundlichen Gruß,

Thomm

[Thomm]

PS.: Absender = thommson@hotmail.com

[M Hofbauer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rollstoy:

3) M.Hofbauer, did you ever receive the scans I sent to the email address in your profile?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

wait a minute both of you....are you sure you sent it to the gmx email address, or didn't you sent it to the email address (zz7@usa.net I think) given on the panzerfaust site?

Because the latter has basically been left unchecked for months, so I might very well have gotten your email but never checked it out...? I will see if I can find my password again for that email and check if I got your emails there...

[Doug Williams]

Maximus said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Technically, yes they wood, no pun intended. However, it would negate the cool effect they have in the mod. We (I and Rick Klein) just thought that the truck needed an overhaul and the wooden slat look looked pretty cool. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps you could include an optional BMP with olive drab slats for those of us who prefer historical over cool?

Tiger and Maximus, please don't fight. I like and use mods from both of you, and think you are both very talented artists.

-Doug

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Williams:

Maximus said:

Tiger and Maximus, please don't fight. I like and use mods from both of you, and think you are both very talented artists.

-Doug<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks, but what's funny is is that my mods can be done very simply if you know what you're doing. For example, for the winter mods, all I do is select "white", use the "Hue & Saturation only" filter. Paint in the areas which I want white. This basically grey-tones that area. Then I do a precise selection with the "mask tool". Then I finalge the Brightness and Contrast setting for that selection which whitenes up the greys. That's all there is to it. I usually do 2-5 click-ups on the brightness which washes out the image. Then the same amount of click-ups on the Contrast which brings back the darkeness of the image but in effect whitenes the grey. Same thing with the desert versions. Except I use a light tan color first instead of white.

Every now and then I do some cutting and pasting from other images.

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>NOTE: I am dropping this whole stupid debate as of now. But just one last comment. To help with creating hi-res mods, increase the dimensions of the image, not the dpi.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Let's hope you also drop this stupid vendetta you've had going on for some time where everytime I used to post a mod you'd nit-pick it apart, making innuendo-laced references to my mods when posting about someone else's mods, et. al. Stop throwing rocks when you live in a glass house Max.

Don't forget to ask Fernando, KwazyDog, Marco, et. al why they increase the dpi and size on their bmps before guessing on why you shouldn't. Oh wait you "beta test" their mods (except KD's) for them but not mine. Now I see where you're coming from.

-fini

Tiger

[ 05-08-2001: Message edited by: Tiger ]

[Doug Williams]

Maximus,

You were the one that "winterized" Fernando's latest PSWs, right? Any chance you would do the same for his halftracks? The winter SPWs that I am using are, I believe, just low res winterized versions of the original BMPs.

-Doug