Lightmaps: How Can You Stop the Graininess?

[Majestic]

Everytime I apply lightmaps the textures get all grainy on me, ruining in my opinion the quality of the textures. Does anyone know the cause of this or better yet how to stop it?

 

[Syf]

Not sure I'm following you on this one! I've not noticed the grainy-ness of a lightmapped texture.

 

[Atlantis]

The alphamap is a separate channel, so it shouldn't do that =S

Not sure tbh

 

[Syf]

Exactly. The maps are stored in seperate bits (channel), which should have nothing to do with grainyness. I'd like to see a pic of what your talking about Maj.

 

[Jetfreak]

Grainy? You mean like this?

Spoiler: comparison

 

[Syf]

Looking at that image, I'd say it was a "size" issue on that comp jetfreak. It looks like the lesser quality image is a smaller image, thus making the difference in the quality.

 

[Majestic]

What I mean:

Spoiler: Grainy

You can see above all the textures have been screwed up, giving a grainy effect making the textures of less quality like a bad gif file.

Spoiler: Not Grainy

The above image shows what the textures actually look like both after lightmaps are applied and opened in a graphics program and in game when no alphas are added to the textures.

When I don't apply alpha channels this grainy effect doesn't happen and I have played around with the ambient etc settings and put them to white and black and this still happens. I apply the channels in Photoshop CS3 Extended and used to in Photoshop CS (Version 8) and got the same result. I have been unable to figure out why this happens.

Any help on the situtation would be appreicated otherwise I will have to refuse to apply lightmaps to any ships I make that would also include Yesteryears as I would rather good quality textures over bad quality grainy textures with lightmaps.

 

[Syf]

Have you looked at the same model ingame? Stormviewer don't use the full capabilty of the A2 engine. I have noticed a difference between the 2.

 

[Majestic]

I'll give it a check before I go to tech today.

 

[Syf]

I seen the same thing in stormview just now with the YY version of the textures. (with alpha channels). Then, just to check, I made a quick export and placed all the files into the A2 folder and spun up the game. Here's the results.

As you can see, the A2 game does a better job with the textures (and yes, that's an alpha channel on it...).

 

[Majestic]

It's still happening, I just did as you suggested.

Spoiler: Grainy Textures Ingame

 

[Syf]

I'd like to take a look at that. I did it just fine with what I have...

What are your A2 graphics settings?

I have mine set on 1024x768x32, with all the other options on. I know that ???x???x16 can be very grainy. The textures are 32 bit when you have an alpha channel, 24bit without.

 

[Majestic]

Mine is set to 1024x768x32 with all the options on a graphic detail to half. It must be photoshop ,the model export or something with the materials itself causing the problems.

I will look further into this after I get home this afternoon.

 

[Syf]

Well, if you get stumped, I'll be glad to help.

 

[SquireJames]

Well I've discovered if you maximise the SOD viewer the textures look awful, so when loaded, don't resize the window at all.

The only other thing I can think of is the alpha setting on the texture. For example.

· alphathreshold - Use for objects using alpha channel 'cut outs'. Alpha channels will have hard edged 'threshold' but objects will be drawn quickly.
· alpha - Uses entire alpha channel. Object will require sorting, so will have performance implications.

If your using alphathreshold, it might look poorer compared to default.

I've never noticed any graininess in my textures once i've lightmapped them, so as I said, its probably down to the viewer being resized. Resizing the A2 SOD viewer also makes the entire model seem blurry, atleast on my PC.

 

[Atlantis]

Ahh yeah, after reading/seeing this I know what you mean now, it happens to me too in Storm3d. Never noticed it ingame though.

It might not be a milkshape issue then, as i use 3DSMax... I will experiment tonight.

 

[Syf]

It has to be in the textures. I have similar textures and they look fine in A2.

 

[Starfox1701]

Maby it my monitor and stuff but all the pic Majestic put up look fine to me. I just can't see it.

 

[Majestic]

I am still looking into it, but it's not because of Storm3D I have known for years about the resizing issue of that program. It happens ingame too so when I get some time I am going to try and play around with the model but I don't like my chances as previous lightmapped models have the same grainy effect one of a few reasons I never really bothered with them in the past.

 

[Sweldon]

hmmm got minor questioin..

Did you merge the layers in the photo shop texture into one layer?

 

[Majestic]

No, I use the photoshop file as a template for all three races textures.

 

[Sweldon]

No, I use the photo shop file as a template for all three races textures.

ok maybe I could simplify this question with a question did you layer your textures?
If you image /texture is made up of multiple layers it sometimes can cause graininess if they are not merged into one layer.

 

[Majestic]

I have 5 psp files, each has multiple layers and I have to targa directly from it.

 

[Sweldon]

I have 5 psp files, each has multiple layers and I have to targa directly from it.

may I get a copy of the targa file to check it out real quick?

 

[Majestic]

I have uploaded one of them for you.

 

[Sweldon]

I sent an email to you at hotmail. I hope this fairs better than what you had..
I despectacled it and reduce it rgb save set,but it still have alot of noise to it ,,
very nice texture though.