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Soldat Talk => General Discussions => Topic started by: daaw on January 29, 2016, 09:39:44 am

Title: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on January 29, 2016, 09:39:44 am: So soldat didn't have a style..huh
so made up one - called smoothely-smooth-smooth;

A great tool i found GpuAkf (https://code.google.com/archive/p/gpuakf/)

(http://s16.postimg.org/5mso51qjp/compare_Gpuakf_s.png)

(http://s12.postimg.org/vj1htn1gd/yopartyyo_small.png)
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Bistoufly on January 29, 2016, 09:54:47 am: That is pretty awesome!!!
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 29, 2016, 10:00:15 am: App is nice and it should be handy on some projects, but its not to good for textures on Soldat. its just remove details keeping contours/dark spots more visible.
Its like selective blur with oil-paint effect, but with nicer output.

But even if for me its not that great for soldat, if someone use it on sceneries and other graphic soldat could get more cartoonish look that some people would like.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on January 29, 2016, 10:22:12 am: ..and thats what we want.. soldat to be more animated / cartoonish... style.. than this hyper-realistic textures...

.
.
?
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 29, 2016, 10:33:58 am: well this is one of question that I asked before and didnt get respond.
Because we have realistic sceneries, ugly polygon maps, cartonish character, and we saw few concept of map/part of map that shoozza showed up that dont fit to anything.
Half of people that work with soldat want to fap to polygon style of maps, other want realistic look, and other dont know what they want...
Its just look like no one have precise idea to what do with soldat(from player/user perspective). The same with overall idea of keeping soldat, that contain advertising it... something that just doesnt exist.

But still textures are cool :D
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on January 29, 2016, 04:01:57 pm: feels hard to settle down for anything here....wonder if we will have this little discussion...before ill try apply this to some sceneries..

kinda default style was complete realistic.. to me this feels better than that nothing... this this smoother..
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: urraka on January 29, 2016, 04:52:50 pm: Would be nice to try it on 1 map to get a better picture of the style
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on January 29, 2016, 07:12:29 pm: hmm didn't find any good map with big sceneries..did bunch trees..as they large

(http://s2.postimg.org/kmwkqzuid/scenery_smoothley.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/kmwkqzuid/)

...btw urraka your forum avatar creeps me out, haha
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Name on January 29, 2016, 08:03:33 pm: They look familiar but I'm still glad sort of.. cause they are good. Most of VTT's stuff were good.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 30, 2016, 03:41:26 am: Quote from: daaw on January 29, 2016, 07:12:29 pm
...btw urraka your forum avatar creeps me out, haha
perroAZUL - blue dog :D

But beside that I found one problem with this style. On typical resolution(windowed 720p and fullscreen 1080p) its hard to see the difference between normal texture and sceneries and this one after applying filter.
Sceneries are small and textures are... also smaller So you actually dont see this style. Tree look like small tree, bush look like bush, texture look like a bit blurred normal texture. On res bigger than 1080p like 2560x1440 you see more changes and you see that oil pain style but still changes are not that visible like on single image.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Illuminatus on January 30, 2016, 07:45:05 pm: I've just checked most of the default dm- and ctf-maps and I really like the art-style it creates. Looks good for me in most maps; some need some more polishing to smoothen out the edges though.
And yes, you do notice the difference to the original textures. "Lowering the resolution" of those hyperrealistic textures by smoothening the image helps in reducing the flickering which sometimes happens if you have so much detail and yet are moving really fast.

I wouldn't mind this becoming default.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: CCalp on January 30, 2016, 09:49:27 pm: Quote from: Illuminatus on January 30, 2016, 07:45:05 pm
I've just checked most of the default dm- and ctf-maps and I really like the art-style it creates. Looks good for me in most maps; some need some more polishing to smoothen out the edges though.

Could you share some screenshots, please? I'm too lazy to try out myself...
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Illuminatus on January 30, 2016, 10:52:51 pm: Simply create a new folder under the "mods"-folder called "smooth" for example and extract the "textures_smoothely_smooth_smooth.zip"-file into it. Then use the "starter.exe" to start the game.
Doesn't really take more than a minute and won't hurt your original textures.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Shoozza on January 31, 2016, 03:08:45 am: I'm interested in this. The trees look nice, we should try this out.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 31, 2016, 04:58:30 am: windowed 1280x720
typical resolution that I found most people use.

I changed only texture, palm trees, columns, box and lines. Because I had to manually revert alpha channel to images after applying this filter. So bushes and and grass are intact.

filter (http://s26.postimg.org/yimzvlt0p/filter01.jpg)
no filter (http://s26.postimg.org/musy123vt/no_filter01.jpg)

You still can see that changes are not that visible, unless you assuming that everyone play at res bigger than 1080p on 32ich screens and they would look for changes with face 10cm from it :] Then you see all that oil paint details.

On single image ist really cool effect but on more complex things, like map, and with so much variation of resolution you would need to set radius of this effect to really big, and you would need to change most of graphic to fit cartoonish look.

But if you would do this you would end with... soldat before OpenGL HD we have in 1.7 that would be just stretched to bigger resolution...
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: darDar on January 31, 2016, 05:27:44 am: Quote from: Akinaro on January 31, 2016, 04:58:30 am

filter (http://s26.postimg.org/yimzvlt0p/filter01.jpg)

This looks really bad
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 31, 2016, 05:42:16 am: its like using old graphic from 1.6.x

Also I applied smaller amount of this filter on sceneries like palm tree, because with bigger values its look just more blurred.
http://s26.postimg.org/hypb9d3qh/filter02_medium.jpg
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: homerofgods on January 31, 2016, 05:54:09 am: Photoshop has the same effect filter I think
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: duz on January 31, 2016, 06:10:26 am: postimg.org adds an extra compression to the jpg. Looks worst than before.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 31, 2016, 07:17:50 am: Yes, postimage compress it a bit, but I have png screenshoots and trust me it look the same. Its still look like using old graphic on 1.7
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Bistoufly on January 31, 2016, 07:51:14 am: I'll be happy to explore this with daaw for later. Looks very promising. Even on the 720p screenshot it looks fine. So no issue here.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Viral on January 31, 2016, 08:05:29 am: IMO it looks bad in comparison to the non-filter one. It just looks blury, not cartoonish :/
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: darDar on January 31, 2016, 08:05:34 am: Quote from: Bistoufly on January 31, 2016, 07:51:14 am
I'll be happy to explore this with daaw for later. Looks very promising. Even on the 720p screenshot it looks fine. So no issue here.
We can just go back to 169 if you like that blurry ugly textures.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Bistoufly on January 31, 2016, 08:23:59 am: Ok. It doesn't look that great on the 720p screenshot.

Looks pretty nice on my 1440p monitor though. And could be a potential time efficient way to homogenize the graphic style. It's worth exploring.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on January 31, 2016, 09:13:23 am: okey... it has potential...and yes in some case it's too blurry...

i did like combine this filter + overlay on top with high-pass photoshop filter ...which way again was filtered whit this filter

.. filter filter

need to more "research" yes..
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 31, 2016, 10:46:07 am: Well if this is way you want to push soldat, I dont see the reason why to prepare current higher res sceneries, because if you would like to apply this filter(that for me is still nothing more than selective blur) you would need to prepare every scenery to fit this cartoonish look.

And in my personal opinion I have no idea why you even consider this for future of soldat, and want to check it later, because not only its depend too much on huge res to see any changes, it just still do nothing more than oil paint effect.
Even if I play at full screen at 1080p its still nothing more than blurry effect.

And I think Im not alone with such opinion and others would not like to see or even play with such style. Its nice mod for someone but not for default game.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: CCalp on January 31, 2016, 12:23:01 pm: Quote from: Viral on January 31, 2016, 08:05:29 am
IMO it looks bad in comparison to the non-filter one. It just looks blury, not cartoonish :/

I agree.

However, I really like the way Ash looks like (filter only applied to texture, not to sceneries). So it might be worth to go further into this when time has come...
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: darDar on January 31, 2016, 12:47:11 pm: stop wasting your time on that. If you really want to make soldat look well and cartoonish then you should try to polish this (http://www.moddb.com/mods/cel-shaded-soldat-mod/downloads/cell-shaded-soldat-mod-v30) to the new HD standards.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on January 31, 2016, 01:35:33 pm: Please..download texture pack ..dont judge by screens..

http://forums.soldat.pl/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=44180.0;attach=32324 (http://forums.soldat.pl/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=44180.0;attach=32324)

i mean ill try make less blury..whit ascented edges...or smth

Current HD one are far form ideal..this is almost step forward.

I want make current ones look less odd.

(http://s27.postimg.org/ibnqylff7/smoothely_smooth_smooth_cat.png)
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Illuminatus on January 31, 2016, 01:39:21 pm: That's what I was about to ask too: Have you actually tried the textures from the first post for yourself, darDar?
The one screenshot Akinaro posted shows only one map where the difference is not so big. The textures actually shine in other maps.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Akinaro on January 31, 2016, 03:05:57 pm: So we have:
Textures that are good only at few maps.
Filter that its too depend on hug resolution to actually see difference.
Sceneries that with too many filter look like blurred 1.6 graphic, and with small amount of it look the same.
We have only few people that actually like it, but they are a bit biased because they want cartoonish look at first place.
We have old but WAY better idea like darDar post but for some people it's better to play with new average filter.

We can play with this filter and if we try to use it as default we probably lost most of players that even without it run away from soldat.
Or we could finally remake maps(or choose ones that are remade from forum and polish then a bit) and after that we would have good looking game that would not need such filters.
Because only reason why we even talk about it is because we still have 10 years old maps look on high res screen.

If we would have good looking maps we would not need filters that are made just to hide ugliness of some part of game.
And yes I'm biased towards more realistic look than another candy cartoonish game :]
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: %%%%%%% on January 31, 2016, 03:40:37 pm: daaw, continue to work on it if you want.
Let us see what it looks like when the entire map's textures and sceneries are filtered but not blurry.

Until then, no use in talking about whether it can be the default look.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: L[0ne]R on February 01, 2016, 04:30:37 am: the textures do look somewhat blurry in-game (probably because of stretching) and the stylish effect from the filter isn't really noticeable on most of them because of this. The ctf_Ash texture does look nice though, probably because of the nice contrast created by the cracks which makes the filter work well. On most other textures it just makes them less detailed, so just running them through this particular filter won't do much good. You can probably still make something nice with a combination of other carefully picked filters.

Personally, I don't find anything wrong with current realistic textures. I actually like how detailed and fuzzy some of them feel (ctf_Hormone is absolutely lovely for example). But that's beside the point.

IMO current "art style" (or lack thereof) works better for something as community-driven as Soldat. It's very neutral. This means it's easier for mappers to create custom assets and mix them with default ones without making different styles clash. This lets mappers without great artistic skills to still create decent-looking maps. And yet at the same time there's also plenty of room to get creative and come up with something of your own even while using default assets. Soldat's art style comes not just from textures and sceneries, but also from different shading, coloring and texturing techniques and other creative tricks. Simply changing textures and sceneries won't necessarily create an art style, but will also raise the bar for other mappers who will have to adhere to that default art style if they want to add custom assets and make them look consistent.

Don't worry about trying to give Soldat some kind of art style. Most of Soldat's visuals is the maps, and the art style of maps should be left up to the mappers. What devs can do on their part is add some nice effects like proper polygon edges, better lighting or something like that that will affect all maps equally.

That said, there's nothing wrong with making a custom texture mod either. If you want to give Soldat a new look - go for it, I'm sure some players will still appreciate it as a mod. (As long as it's a good mod of course).
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: Furai on February 01, 2016, 05:22:44 am: Stop derailing threads. Cleaned up a bit.

Good job daaw.
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: daaw on February 01, 2016, 08:21:05 am: noo...i missed ..what it said..was late on partey

well..eventualy made better variants of current textures ..less noisy..commited

also Fuc k u you darDar, this is second time you bust out on me.. i dont even know you..we never talk on irc

k bye
Title: Re: smoothely-smooth-smooth textures
Post by: CheeSeMan. on February 01, 2016, 02:28:35 pm: Yeah fuck you dardar stupid grammer nazi go watch your blinkenlichten!

cheeseman fights the bullies! Hes the people's champ!