SS2 "tech" texture families

[6740f36e199c6ZylonBane]

That reminds me, would there be any value to including high-framerate but original-resolution animations for use in the stripped levels?

[6740f36e19be6Nameless Voice]

Well, they'd only really work for mods with a custom gamesys to change the animation speed.  But they wouldn't require changing the levels...

[6740f36e19cf9ZylonBane]

True enough. I just want to verify that animation rates can still be adjusted in stripped levels, even if the texture scales cannot.

[6740f36e19e2aNameless Voice]

I haven't specifically checked it, but I'm fairly sure that they can be.  The change is in the gamesys, not the levels themselves.

[6740f36e1a1b4ThiefsieFool]

they can

[6740f36e1a2b7ZylonBane]

Oh crap, wait. The texture names in stripped levels can't be changed either, can they?

[6740f36e1a3ecNameless Voice]

As far as I understand it, Telliamed has a tool that will let you change the texture names - even in a stripped mission - but you can't change the texture size without portalising (which you can't do in a stripped mission).

Changing the animation rate ought to work fine in a stripped mission, though, since you don't have to change the surfaces at all.

[6740f36e1a545ZylonBane]

My concern is that if I provide replacement high-framerate textures for the stripped missions, they'll have to override the original tech textures, which is a bit more all-or-nothing than I'm comfortable with.

Eh, I suppose the worst case is that overlooked screens will end up animating more slowly than they should.

[6740f36e1a6d2ZylonBane]

I think I may have gone overboard trying to enhance this one. Screw it, after staring at it for almost two days I don't care anymore...

Image: http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/4121/p0029xwp6.gif

God knows what I'm going to do with the one that's literally nothing but a grid of shifting orange dots. Suggestions?

[6740f36e1a816Nameless Voice]

Maybe it's not worth bothering with?

As far as I can tell, it's only used once in the entire game, behind some eggs in the room under the QBRM on Command2 (near the escape pods).

[6740f36e1a90bZylonBane]

It's at least also used in the Rickenbacker bridge, on the big round table/screen thing.

[6740f36e1aae5ZylonBane]

Okay, I need someone to perform a little stress-test experiment. I've heard that Dark may have some kind of limit regarding the size of animated texture sequences. I'd like to make sure I'm not wasting my time creating animations that can't be used.

Here's a test FAM containing a single 20-frame, 256x256 animation. Should use a 50ms frame rate.
http://home.att.net/~clay.h/techtest.zip

Who wants to see if they can get this working in-game, at the correct scale and speed?

[6740f36e1ac5fThiefsieFool]

Well it works in the game technically, but there's definitely too much stress. It starts loading frames after the tenth as individual textures,  not part of the animation, both in the gamesys and in the palette, you're not supposed to actually use those textures or try to edit their animation rates, only edit the animation rate and texture brushes of/with the very first texture entry that controls the whole animation.
I imagine this could also put too much pressure on the max-textures-per-mission limit.
Probably a good idea to lower framecounts for something that's good at around 100/125ms.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[6740f36e1ad6dZylonBane]

So you had to individually set the animation rates for the 11th-20th textures to get it to look right in-game?

[6740f36e1ae86ThiefsieFool]

Nope, just the very first entry that isn't a separate frame. It's all nothing more than an odd way of storing the additional frames, you don't touch the extra frames in any way.
Though someone else should probably check it out too because i'm getting the same thing with the water texture family (and i THINK that's not supposed to happen)

[6740f36e1afaaNameless Voice]

Same thing happens for me, in both ShockEd and DromEd.  Also, closing the editor after having that family loaded will cause a crash.

[6740f36e1b0bcZylonBane]

Bummer. Okay, no 20-frame 256x256 animations. Fortunately, that animation was just a test. Everything else I've created so far maxes out at 8 frames.

[6740f36e1b1c4ThiefsieFool]

That's around double the usual frame count which means a delay of 125ms right? Which means I wouldn't have to change the rate at all

[6740f36e1b2baZylonBane]

Default animation rate is 200ms.

[6740f36e1b41aThiefsieFool]

Huh, coulda swore the default was 250 like that hardcoded limit, guess it's 100ms for the new rate then.

[6740f36e1b50bZylonBane]

Wait, d'oh, you're right. I just checked it out in DromEd. Default rate is indeed 250.

[6740f36e1b61aThiefsieFool]

Yeah, but AnimatingScreenTex has it set to 200, and most if not all tech textures inherit from that.

[6740f36e1b6fdZylonBane]

Yay, I'm not totally losing my mind!

[6740f36e1b7ecThiefsieFool]

the internet