Request: virtual texture tool for MS-Dummies

[adamnieman]

First, a big thank you to everbody who is distributing virtual textures and making them easier to create and use.

Bob Hegwood's Virtual Textures for Dummies is excellent:
http://home.earthlink.net/~bobhegwood/id18.html

jim's Excel based virtual texture calculator makes finding your tile much, much easier:
http://www.shatters.net/~jim/files/VT-tile-calculator_2.zip

Lots of people are producing great textures but I think jestr deserves a special mention (in particular because he has produced level 10 textures of my home town )
ftp://81.111.74.239/

t00fri's virtualtex script is clearly the tool to use to split large images into tiles:
http://www.shatters.net/~t00fri/virtualtex

OK, this is my problem despite all this help and support, I'm still not producing virtual textures of my own. The reason is that my Dummydom exceeds even that of Bob Hegwood's target audience. I have tried and failed to get Cygwin, ImageMagick and NetPbm working on my PC (which, as I understand it, is a prerequisite for running virtualtex.) Maybe if I put more effort into it I could work out a) what these apps are actually supposed to do; and b) why they are not doing it. But having never used Linux, the learning curve seems frighteningly steep .

My request, then, is for a little Windows application that will do what t00fri's script does. Is anybody out there who could do it?

Believe me, I'm not a fan of Microsoft - it's just that, for many of us, Windows is all we know. If it were just me, I wouldn't ask but I suspect that the availability of high-level tiles would increase dramatically if the hurdles faced by dumb Windows users like me were lowered.

I think it would be a very popular tool but if anybody thinks there is a better way to get Windows users making virtual textures, please let me know. Maybe we should just learn what this Cygwin thing is all about. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks.

Adam

[Toti]

Adam:

Some time ago I wrote a script that uses GIMP powerful graphic processing routines. Of course it runs on Windows.

1) Download both GTK+2 and Gimp for Windows (about 10 MB in total):
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html

2) Install them (it's easy because an automatic installer is provided)

3) Use the script that is posted on this thread:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4470

Hope this helps

Bye

[Bob Hegwood]

Adam,

On the same page that you found my Virtual Textures for Dummies stuff, you should also see a link from which you can download Toti's Gimp script.

I *do* understand your problem with installing the Cygwin stuff, but when I did it, I just took it one step at a time. I made CERTAIN that I performed each step in the proper sequence, and I verified each step after it was performed.

Now - believe me - if *I* could install Fridger's script, anyone can.

Try again, and take your time. I assume that you also managed to find the appropriate directions on how to install all this stuff. Yes?

Take care, Bob

[Toti]

Adam:

My script (which was written for GIMP 1.2) won't work under GIMP 2.0
This new GIMP version (as I discovered today) has replaced certain internal command references, and it won't understand the old scripting "language"

Of course, if you have an older GIMP version (around 1.2) it will run smoothly

Soon I will post an update of the script in the thread http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4470

Bye

[jestr]

Another program to chop a texture into tiles easily is 'Ulead Smart Saver Pro' I dont think there is a free version and it is a lot of work to rename them afterwards but it is for windows,Jestr

[Harry]

Of course, if you have an older GIMP version (around 1.2) it will run smoothly

Just out of curiosity: how does it handle really large textures, like the BM 43kx21k, which would require >2GB memory? IIRC conserving memory is the main point of using NetPBM...

Harald

[Guest]

Adam:

Some time ago I wrote a script that uses GIMP powerful graphic processing routines. Of course it runs on Windows.

1) Download both GTK+2 and Gimp for Windows (about 10 MB in total):
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html

2) Install them (it's easy because an automatic installer is provided)

3) Use the script that is posted on this thread:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4470

Hope this helps

Bye

Toti,

Are you saying that I should add another Gimp cript to my site? One for a new version of the Gimp?

If so, lay it on me and I'll put them both up there.

Take care, Bob

[adamnieman]

Toti,

Thanks very much. I installed I installed GIMP 1.2.5 and successfully used your script to split an 8K moon texture I had sitting around. I have joined the VT elite . The GIMP route was simpler in my case. Thanks to everybody else for the advice.

Nevertheless, I still think that there is a case for a single purpose tool like the one I proposed. Even though I am up to speed myself, the hurdles remain. This is not a criticism of existing efforts to bring virtual textures to the people. I just believe that further effort would not be wasted effort. I wrote a long and painstakingly reasoned explanation for this opinion but the bulletin board managed to lose it . (When I tried to submit it, I was informed that the session was invalid. All was lost . I’m writing this in another editor – I don’t trust this BB anymore .)

If anyone is interested, I could go through my arguments again but it was all pretty academic really, inspired more by my fascination with how people interact with computers than anything else. The only relevant point I was actually making was that, if anyone out there has the skills and inclination, a new VT tool would very useful (and appreciated) despite the prior existence of excellent tools from t00fri and Toti.

Adam

[Toti]

Are you saying that I should add another Gimp cript to my site? One for a new version of the Gimp? If so, lay it on me and I'll put them both up there.

Thank you Bob. Right now I am a bit confused by the fact that GIMP 2.0 is complaining about code that isn't even present in the script...

Just out of curiosity: how does it handle really large textures, like the BM 43kx21k, which would require >2GB memory? IIRC conserving memory is the main point of using NetPBM...

As I expressly stated on the thread http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4470, GIMP is not very well suited for this task. I only wrote the script for people that can't use more specialized tools.

So performance strongly depends on your computer RAM and HD speed.
For example, in my P3 256 MB RAM WinMe with a very slow HD, GIMP is marginally faster than ImageMagick up to 16K textures inclusive. Beyond that (32K) GIMP's performance steeply decreases.

However, people that want to create 32K VTs, but using only Windows (with lots of RAM) may find this performance/ease of use interchange still worthy.

Toti,
Thanks very much. I installed I installed GIMP 1.2.5 and successfully used your script to split an 8K moon texture I had sitting around. I have joined the VT elite . The GIMP route was simpler in my case

That's good!

Bye

[Guest]

Thank you Bob. Right now I am a bit confused by the fact that GIMP 2.0 is complaining about code that isn't even present in the script...

Okay, well if you revise it, just let me know and I'll add it to the list of tools we can use.

Right now I guess I'll just make certain that people know the current script is for the Gimp 1.2.5

Take care, Bob

[John Van Vliet]

for the maps i am making 32k ones --2gig gimp boggs down to much
and i do like cygwin
but for starting out on small maps(4 and 8 k ) the gimp tool should be fine
but you will end up wanting to install cygwin and image magick, [( or my new toy nip/vips) for witch there is a port of virtual texture ] .
just fallow the steps slowly and there should be no problem .