Using the Nmtools package

[t00fri]

It??s done.

I don't believe it!!! Concrats, Daniel! Anders you'll get the golden 'Celelstia medal' ...

Bye Fridger

[steffens]

Cool to see that someone can do tiles with it.. any more suggestions of how to improve it?

In the vtgen.bat you offer for downloading, I found the line

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halfsize 32768 < world64k.bin > world32k.bin

Shouldn't this be

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halfsize 65536 < world64k.bin > world32k.bin

:?:

I have noticed something strange too.

This line doesnt work, this line gets excluded from the "Earth Normal.ctx" file.

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echo    BaseSplit 0> ctx.3"

But this do.

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echo    BaseSplit 0 > ctx.3"

While this work, but adds a space after the 0 in the "Earth Normal.ctx", which is NOT the correct way to do it..

Is Celestial really that picky about an extra space in an ctx file? It shouldn't be!
I don't know a workaround for this, as "0>" means not to redirect standard output to the file but some other channel (no idea which, I'm using Linux). You can try

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echo    BaseSplit 00> ctx.3

which will not produce an extra space but a double zero. Celestia should be able to interpret this as 0 anyway, but I haven't checked.

steffens

[ANDREA]

It??s done. But how can I name the normal map?I need,too,a .ctx file;but I don??t know to do one.The only thing I know is that the normal map is 64k,levels 0-5,in DDS format and in tiles of 1024 pixels. I not only produced DDS files,but also PPM format files...

Danielj, now that you have the dds images in 5 levels, add the ctx file to the "hires" directory, where must be the "XXXXX" directory containing the level0-level1 directories and so on, using the following one as example, changing the only different thing, i.e. the image directory name:

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VirtualTexture
{
        ImageDirectory "XXXXX"
        BaseSplit 0
        TileSize 1024
        TileType "dds"
}

Obviously "XXXXX" will be the name of YOUR directory containing the image level0-4.
That's all.
Enjoy!.
Bye

Andrea

[guest jo]

What about the mipmaps ? Fridger didn`t include them in his tutorial.
Are they really useful ?

[t00fri]

What about the mipmaps ? Fridger didn`t include them in his tutorial.
Are they really useful ?

Mipmaps are a must for non-tiled DXT textures, since they improve the performance substantially in this case. Mipmaps are nothing but a set of reduced textures, each smaller by a factor of 2 than the preceeding one.

In case of VT tiles we have the various VT levels which precisely take over the function of the mipmaps. One exception is level0. There one might request the building of mipmaps, which might improve the rendering speed a bit at larger distances from the body.

Bye Fridger

[danielj]

Thanks,but nmtools don??t separate in levels 0 to 5.He did the normal maps as a whole.So now I will have to know wich files goes to level 0,which to level 1 and so on.It produced the normalmap in the vtgen folder...

It??s done. But how can I name the normal map?I need,too,a .ctx file;but I don??t know to do one.The only thing I know is that the normal map is 64k,levels 0-5,in DDS format and in tiles of 1024 pixels. I not only produced DDS files,but also PPM format files...

Danielj, now that you have the dds images in 5 levels, add the ctx file to the "hires" directory, where must be the "XXXXX" directory containing the level0-level1 directories and so on, using the following one as example, changing the only different thing, i.e. the image directory name:

Code: Select all

VirtualTexture
{
        ImageDirectory "XXXXX"
        BaseSplit 0
        TileSize 1024
        TileType "dds"
}

Obviously "XXXXX" will be the name of YOUR directory containing the image level0-4.
That's all.
Enjoy!.
Bye

Andrea

[danielj]

And I have another question:what I do with the .ppm files.I search in Google and found there is an intermediary format.So I don??t need to place it in levels 0-5?
I know that files 0_1 and 1_0 are level 0.So I need to manually search the BMNG and found which tiles goes in each level or is there an automatic way to do that?


[quote="danielj"]Thanks,but nmtools don??t separate in levels 0 to 5.He did the normal maps as a whole.So now I will have to know wich files goes to level 0,which to level 1 and so on.It produced the normalmap in the vtgen folder...

[tech2000]

In the vtgen.bat you offer for downloading, I found the line
Code:
halfsize 32768 < world64k.bin > world32k.bin

Shouldn't this be
Code:
halfsize 65536 < world64k.bin > world32k.bin

Hi Steffens, thanks. Ofcourse it should read 65536 since it is the world64k.bin we are shrinking.

It??s done.
But how can I name the normal map?I need,too,a .ctx file;but I don??t know to do one.The only thing I know is that the normal map is 64k,levels 0-5,in DDS format and in tiles of 1024 pixels.
I not only produced DDS files,but also PPM format files...

Download and run the script again since something is wrong there. The script should generate the ctx file for you too.

cheers, Anders

[danielj]

No!Besides the ppm and DDS tiles,the script generate 2 other files: world32k.bin(with 262144 KB) and world64k.bin(4194304 KB).
Did I do something wrong?The script take hours to generate the normal map...at least more than 1 hour.

In the vtgen.bat you offer for downloading, I found the line
Code:
halfsize 32768 < world64k.bin > world32k.bin

Shouldn't this be
Code:
halfsize 65536 < world64k.bin > world32k.bin

Hi Steffens, thanks. Ofcourse it should read 65536 since it is the world64k.bin we are shrinking.

It??s done.
But how can I name the normal map?I need,too,a .ctx file;but I don??t know to do one.The only thing I know is that the normal map is 64k,levels 0-5,in DDS format and in tiles of 1024 pixels.
I not only produced DDS files,but also PPM format files...

Download and run the script again since something is wrong there. The script should generate the ctx file for you too.

cheers, Anders

[t00fri]

The script take hours to generate the normal map...at least more than 1 hour.

My 64k normalmap tiles are generated in 15-20 minutes altogether...

Bye Fridger

[tech2000]

It??s done.

I don't believe it!!! Concrats, Daniel! Anders you'll get the golden 'Celelstia medal' ...

Bye Fridger

Thanks for the 'Celestia medal' Fridger.

Daniel, let us see some screenshots now..

Bye, Anders

[danielj]

I would like to,but it??s impossible.I saw,earlier,that there is 2 tx0_1 and tx1_0.One located in level 0 of BMNG and another located in level 1 of BMNG.So it??s IMPOSSIBLE to do it manually.And worse than that,the script generates only one of these files,so I don??t know which tile go to each level.
Maybe I should chosen option 4-generate PNG tiles and not 3-generate dxt5 tiles.Is that right?
And the script generate yet ANOTHER file that I hadn??t seen before:nvdxt_scratch.tmp.
The PPM files goes until 63_31 and the DDS files goes only until 33_1
I suppose that ppm files are levels 0-5(64k) and the dds files are levels 0-4(32k).Is that right?
Now I will wait until I get an answer.My partition have too little memory to get another try until I am sure in what I am doing.

It??s done.

I don't believe it!!! Concrats, Daniel! Anders you'll get the golden 'Celelstia medal' ...

Bye Fridger

Thanks for the 'Celestia medal' Fridger.

Daniel, let us see some screenshots now..

Bye, Anders

[steffens]

I would like to,but it??s impossible.I saw,earlier,that there is 2 tx0_1 and tx1_0.One located in level 0 of BMNG and another located in level 1 of BMNG.So it??s IMPOSSIBLE to do it manually.And worse than that,the script generates only one of these files,so I don??t know which tile go to each level.
Maybe I should chosen option 4-generate PNG tiles and not 3-generate dxt5 tiles.Is that right?
And the script generate yet ANOTHER file that I hadn??t seen before:nvdxt_scratch.tmp.
The PPM files goes until 63_31 and the DDS files goes only until 33_1
I suppose that ppm files are levels 0-5(64k) and the dds files are levels 0-4(32k).Is that right?
Now I will wait until I get an answer.My partition have too little memory to get another try until I am sure in what I am doing.

This really sounds like the script stopped in the middle of the action, either because of a bug (the last script posted on the forum has a bug that would cause it to break after level 5) or because you are running out of disk space.
You should:
1. Download the vtgen.bat again, as it contains the latest fixes
2. Delete all generated files of the last run: all *.ppm and *.dxt5nm files, world*bin ... The directory should look like the screenshots earlier in this thread
3. Make sure you have got enough free disk space. I have not checked, how much is needed during processing, but 20 GB should be fine (anyone with hard numbers?)

steffens

[danielj]

But 20 GB in the HD or in the partition?My HD has 160 GB,and is partitioned in partition C and D.
Yes,the program have the tendency to lock down.I think you will have to stay the computer alone,doing nothing during the computation...Is that right?

[steffens]

But 20 GB in the HD or in the partition?My HD has 160 GB,and is partitioned in partition C and D.

You need enough free space in the output directory, i.e. that partition.

Yes,the program have the tendency to lock down.I think you will have to stay the computer alone,doing nothing during the computation...Is that right?

Although working with the computer should not make the script crash, your texture might be ready to use much faster, if you leave the computer alone while splitting this monster file. There's a lot of hard disk activity...

Did you download the script again and try to start it once more?

steffens

[danielj]

I will do as soon as I can,but I??m not at home now.

[danielj]

Ok,now I??m at home.Is it to choose dxt5 or png tiles?Or doesn??t matter?

I will do as soon as I can,but I??m not at home now.

[tech2000]

Ok,now I??m at home.Is it to choose dxt5 or png tiles?Or doesn??t matter?

I will do as soon as I can,but I??m not at home now.

That is exactly what you have to do, choose dtx5nm OR png format.

Regards, Anders

[danielj]

I download the vtgen.bat again from page 9 and the CHOICE problem reappeared.When can I download the newest version?

Ok,now I??m at home.Is it to choose dxt5 or png tiles?Or doesn??t matter?

I will do as soon as I can,but I??m not at home now.

That is exactly what you have to do, choose dtx5nm OR png format.

Regards, Anders

[danielj]

IT WASN??T TO REDOWLOAD vtgen.bat.
Now it??s not working anymore...