[Obsolete] SS2 SHTUP (Shock Texture Upgrade Project)

[6741dd2658a2eDrowning witch]

yeah. kinda ashamed that I didn't think about this earlier - as NewDark supports animated world textures, all that needs to be done is batch convert SHEMP gifs to pngs, modify filenames and create the mtls, dump everything into the FAM/tech folder, done. did the part you can see on the screenshot in about 15 minutes, the rest would require two more hours of work, give or take.

does this mean we can soon expect you doing that work voodoo47 or are you just providing info for us less mod literate to do it ourselves?

Either way, awesome stuff 

[6741dd2658d49Marvin]

Damn, enhanced SHEMP version, new ADaoB version, continued development on ACC, (possibly?) accelerating SHTUP development, vurt's work and now this ... I never would have guessed what an impact NewDark would have. 

[6741dd2658fbbDrowning witch]

Damn, enhanced SHEMP version, new ADaoB version, continued development on ACC, (possibly?) accelerating SHTUP development, vurt's work and now this ... I never would have guessed what an impact NewDark would have. 

I know. its almost making me start learning to mod this game.  i mean, how else could i pay bak everything that this community has done for my favorite game of all time.

[6741dd26592a1ZylonBane]

yeah. kinda ashamed that I didn't think about this earlier - as NewDark supports animated world textures, all that needs to be done is batch convert SHEMP gifs to pngs, modify filenames and create the mtls, dump everything into the FAM/tech folder, done. did the part you can see on the screenshot in about 15 minutes, the rest would require two more hours of work, give or take.

As long as you're just doing this for yourself that's fine. Bear in mind that the actual community patch will be using upgraded SHEMP textures. Also the MTLs will need to set specific animation rates for each texture set. They don't all run at the same rate.

[6741dd2659443voodoo47]

yeah, I know - this was just a quick jab at things, I certainly don't plan to turn this into a full mod (as I assume the next version of SHTUP will have this covered anyway).

but the screens on that picture do have proper mtls;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGIlvRmRNKs

[6741dd265956fKolya]

Wow, very nice!

[6741dd2659650ZylonBane]

I really need to do something about that glass grid pattern. But I'm not sure what.

[6741dd2659761voodoo47]

giving them more transparency alleviates the problem a bit.

[6741dd2659ad7Simplex]

As long as you're just doing this for yourself that's fine. Bear in mind that the actual community patch will be using upgraded SHEMP textures.

Is there any rough ETA on the community patch? (I assume you refer to an update to SHTUP, or a standalone SHEMP?)

[6741dd2659d41ACC]

Why would ACC bother remaking all the monitor textures that I already remade for SHEMP?

To add environment mapping (the shinny glare effect) and use script-oriented animations (makes it look way smoother; it is possible to ignore the frame per frame animation system in most cases). Frankly, I will never get as close as you to the original textures (plus that would be pointless to do the same stuff twice).
If it's possible to make these textures together, that would be great (I just hope you still have the sources)

About the terrain/mesh issue: you can use the exact same material file for both, I did it with four hundred (look for the mtl files in obj/); So it IS possible to make them once and share them for both models and world.

[6741dd2659e33voodoo47]

almost sure the NewDark version of SHTUP will include some of those nice effects.

[6741dd265a186ZylonBane]

To add environment mapping (the shinny glare effect) and use script-oriented animations (makes it look way smoother; it is possible to ignore the frame per frame animation system in most cases).

I intend to include a generic INC hook in all my material files for whatever post-processing effects people care to apply to them. Shiny glass, incidence fading, scanline effects, etc.

As for material-based animations, already on it: http://youtu.be/HoIkE3iYWcs

This is something I'm unsure about pursuing though. Many monitor animations can be reproduced with material effects, but many are simply too complex to pull off in a reasonable number of material passes, if at all. The result could easily be super-smooth 60FPS tech animations side-by-side with good but chunky-by-comparison traditional animations. And I'd rather not blow out all the video cards of the world with megabytes of frame data for each monitor.

[6741dd265a297Marvin]

If you do (almost) everything with material animations, you could provide two versions: A hi-res version with a very high framerate and a basic one with normal animation speed. But I guess you would want to keep everything in one place for a project like SHTUP anyway.

[6741dd265a3f4Simplex]

I hope I won't be stoned to death if I politely enquire as to a tentative release window of a new version of SHTUP and/or SHEMP

EDIT: In other news, I just entered Hydroponics and noticed that one of the magazines has old texture (see screen). Interestingly, SHTUP contains a file for this texture (beua.pcx) but it is exactly the same file as in the original game. Does a remastered version exist? I hope it does, because high resolution magazines look really great.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bk4fksv8q038c5r/Shock2_2013_02_21_03_11_46_578.png

[6741dd265a508Marvin]

ZylonBane, could you explain why you implemented new versions of saveload.fon and mainfont.fon in SHTUP? I have to include updated versions of both in my new german translation so I was curious about what changes you made. I cannot see a difference between the original BMPs and yours, but I guess that you weren't just bored on Christmas Eve, 2004.

[6741dd265a5d9ZylonBane]

Where are you seeing BMPs from me?

[6741dd265a6dfMarvin]

I was being imprecise: By converting the .fon files to .bmp with thieffon.

[6741dd265a805ZylonBane]

Voila. The differences are subtle-- I just cleaned up some of the ragged edges. This was before I'd realized what font the interface fonts were based on. If/when I update them again, I'll be a bit more aggressive in cleaning them up.

[6741dd265aab9Olfred]

Maybe for future purpose. For identifying fonts I had good results with http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

[6741dd265ac15Marvin]

Thank you. I guess I cannot use Chokboyz' fonts after all as they are based on the unmoddified originals ... can I use yours then? All of them will lack the "ö" umlaut and the "ß" character sticks out like a sore thumb, but those modifications will be a lot easier for me than enhancing all the Latin-1 fonts.

@Olfred: The font is already known: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=1735.msg582#msg582

[6741dd265ada6ZylonBane]

More playing around with material-based animation, this time on the slot machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd3F0oSr35A

[6741dd265ae8evoodoo47]

ooh, shiny!

[6741dd265b108blaydes99]

Very nice ZB! Are the three slots are on different texture animation speeds to achieve this? ...and/or are they scrolling textures?

[6741dd265b2c9Salk]

Very good job with those slot machines!