Feature request: DXTC (texture compression)

This has been asked for sooooo many times. I'd really love to know, if BRL are going to add this. It's a really important feature, and i'm sure all of the artists on here will agree on this. Just a simple YES or NO, would really be nice.

Thanks you and happy christmas.

yes, agreed!

I think most people have given up on ever having DXTC added to Blitz3D, but it would be nice to know the reason why it's absent. I guess there must be a technical reason, or something - I'm just curious to know what it is. :)

P.S. Try asking again in about a week - I think it's Mark's Birthday, then. ;)

Wont compressed textures make it tricky/impossible to draw upon those textures?

Is it not possible to mix compressed textures in VRAM with uncompressed (drawable) ones?

The simple answer is to not allow it. Ain't that hard.

Most textures you use in games, don't need to be draw on :o)

you can definately mix textures, allthough possibly not in the same brush.

I've been working with engines that mixed and matched regular bitmap formats and DDS conpressed textures on Xbox DX8 engines several years ago.

Whether DX7 is the same or not I couldn't say. It does seem that adding the feature would be fairly trivial. So it would be nice to at least hear a honest good reason why it hasn't been implemented.

We did get a response to why we have no more than 2 UV's, but nothing regarding compressed textures so far.

Would be HUGE benefit to developers, particularly now that many of us are using lightmaps. The racer uses a single 2048x2048 GI lightmap for the entire test track and takes up well over 10mb of Vram on its own.

The entire demo just barely fits on a 32mb vid card, and the quality of the visuals could more than double if compressed textures were avaliable.

does anyone know if it's possible to add these compressed textures by dll? saying as it's all about Bmax now i think its unlikely that B3d gets this update.

Everyone must know how long and hard I have begged to get DXTC (and tangent space normal maps) - or even small simple yes / no to the issue. No one (from BRL) has bothered to answer so far and I doubt that this thread will be waste of my time too. Just lock and delete this thread now and save some typing time from everyone.

A solution to writing to compressed textures is to decompress them when TextureBuffer is called on the texture, then recompress and send them back to VRAM when the buffer is unlocked (or, if not locked, each time a pixel is changed in the buffer). The least this would require is to have a new buffer class and texture flag added, and that's actually not a lot of work depending on how well-structure the code is. I'm going to err on the side of evil and assume that the Blitz3D code is worse than a disassembled version of Win 3.1. If it is, may god have mercy on Mark's soul.



I believe it's possible, you should ask Scouse (Tom).



I can guarantee I'm well aware of it.

I`ve wanted this for ages too. Come on BR it would be a nice Christmas present for all us loyal fans that have supported you over the years.

Jason.

Even a yes or no, as Mustang says. I've brought this up a few times too, with no answer. All someone really needs to say, is

Yes

or

No

Seeing as Blitz is all about getting your game to work for as many users as possible I would have thought this would be a big thumbs up.

Jason.

Yes you can compress textures you load but there's a slight delay as it does it, dunno why, and the code I had working barfed on ATI cards, dunno why (was DX7 SDK code so ........)

All pointless though, you really need need it native so you can load B3D files using them e.t.c.

I too am quite perplexed as to why this issue has never seen an answer.

Remember the anti-aliasing issue that didn't receive an answer for two years? When there was finally an answer to that, it was simply "It cannot be fixed, blame your drivers (and our inability to upgrade to a better API)".

Quit bitching and finish your games.

Well that is true. But it's true. =]

Even now, Mr Indiepath had played around with antialiasing in the dx module of Max and people are getting similar results - it just doesn't work properly in DX7 anymore. That's hardly BRL's fault.

Whereas texture compression is still working fine afaik.

We can still ask a question, and finish our games :P. For the amount of time it takes to post No or Yes, it's not like asking much.

well, I'd like a reason. Since no reply may as well be no. It's not that we can't make games without it. Just they aren't going to be as good looking as they could easily be.

First thing people see of an Indie game is usualy graphics on a web page. First thing I have to do as an artist is make nice artwork that works on a minimum spec.

Indie gamers often use neolithic systems to play games on. So my base system is a 32mb GF2.

In todays games 32mb isn't a lot unless you have compressed textures. At which point you should be able to increase the visual quality at least 60%.

If your just making super simple casual games, you don't need any more than whats there already. But anything that has more than the smallest gameplay area needs a hell of a lot more budgeting that it should.

Quit bitching and finish your games

Quit bitching and saying 'only bad programmers blame their tools'.

Rob's sure contributed a lot to threads lately.

Yeah, he should quit posting and FINISH HIS GAME!

;-)

i bet it would be a nightmare to try and add dxtc to blitz3d at this stage of its development. just a wild guess though. :)

And yet in other areas where this is true, they've said so. Makes you wonder why not do the same here.

well, i suppose if we all went on about it for long enough, started a "we want dxtc movement" or something, then we'd probably get an answer one day. :)

however, i think if you're at the level where you actually need dxtc, then you've really just outgrown blitz3d and you should be moving on to something else, like torque or whatever has dxtc in it.

True, but it's a pain to learn everything from the start again - and of course where can I find a forum half this good? DB forums? Naa, don't think so... :)

Blitz3D is so close being "perfect" DX7 game programming langage, so why leave few final goodies out of it?

I believe you've misread the original question. As I read it, Ross said he had reached the pont where he need to know if Blitz3d was ever going to get dxtc, not that he had reached the point where he needed dxtc. While similar, they're not necessarily the same thing.

at the risk of contradicting you Gabriel, no he didn't. :)

I know I rely heavily on good-looking textures to make my
games look good. The more I can fit onto a graphics card,
the happier I'll be.

This cause has my vote!

I'm with Mustang. Blitz3D is SO close to being the perfect DX7 game dev tool, it surpases most of the competition overall.

I can think of 4 things in blitz that prevent it from creating AA quality commercial games. And all of those features are not inhibited by B3D's use of DX7.

I imagine DXTC would be the easiest to implement. on top of which there are DXTC plugins for photoshop that are compatible with Paintshop pro.

And there is a XP windows thumbnail addon that allows you to browse compressed textures with XP's default bult in viewers.

Most 3D apps support them natively too, so I don't feel that the format is inaccessible to all but a elite few with exotic tools.

I use at work custom converter apps for DXTC and normal map stuff, but there are numerous free tools available for everyone like Evak said... so nobody can use that as an excuse for DXTC being for "Elites only" or something. :)

In fact, DXTC is really useful when developing for older 3D-cards because they don't have enough Vram for modern HQ textures, so having DXTC as an option in game would enable them to run the games too.

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html

http://download.nvidia.com/developer/NVTextureSuite/Paint_Shop_Pro_Steps.pdf

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_thumbnail_viewer.html

Add it! Add it! Add it! Add it! <crowd chants>

Well I've never had problems getting all my textures onto my vid card (64mb) however, there no good reason why I won't have a problem in the future so...

Add it! Add it! Add it! Add it! <crowd chants>

If its an indie game you may want to have it run on a Geforce 2 era vid card with only 32mb of ram. And in windowed mode you can easily go over 64mb

Lightmaps on my fairly small size track comes to 12mb alone. To keep the VRAM down I often make a colour chart and apply single colours to many trackside objects of objects and try using the lightmap and a brush effect to disguise the fact as best as I can. Only use 1 skin on the cars and tint them in code, that kind of thing.

Ooops, sorry... accidental *bump*ing :P [And yes, I was right]

It's here Mustang, it only took 4.5 years of nagging, so now what are you gonna do?

Darkheart

BIG textures of course - and start whining about the lack of proper (right kind & easy to code) normal map support :) Yup, got myself nicely setup for the next 4.5 years me thinks... ;P

Wunnerful!