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Masked texture problem

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User avatar Tarydax
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Subject: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 08 May 2014, 13:40

I'm trying to take smoke and waterfall effects from UT2004 and use them in UT/227. There are really noticeable boxes that surround the main texture, and this almost always happens when the texture has a black background.



My basic process to convert UT2004 textures is to export the file (usually as a .dds), open it using GIMP, remove the alpha channel, replace it with a black background, and change the image from RGB to indexed. Most of the time, that leads to the problem in the above screenshot, but it works once in a while.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this problem? Or are there any smoke or water textures that could be recommended instead of me getting them from UT2004?
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User avatar SteadZ
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 08 May 2014, 14:34

227 supports alpha textures, so you can import them directly as .dds into 227 Editor (I think).

Not sure what to do in the case of UT though...

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SZ
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sn260591
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 08 May 2014, 19:17

I use Paint.NET and Bright.exe, no problems:
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User avatar Tarydax
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 11 May 2014, 16:24

Sorry I didn't respond earlier, I've been pretty busy. Anyway, what settings did you use for Bright? It seems like I can only get it to work if I put in BRIGHT *.bmp -auto N -o -8 -mips -mask 0.0. Getting rid of -mask and -8 stop it from working.

Thanks for your suggestions
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User avatar ividyon
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 12 May 2014, 08:42

I do not understand why you are making the textures masked in the first place. These clearly look like sprites set to Translucent which require no masking.

Masking is setting 1 single color out of the 256 indexed colors to "invisible", allowing for textures which have sharpy defined edges between "visible" and "invisible", such as fences, grates and pieces of paper. What you're doing is making a translucent texture, which does not rely on masking, but rather fades out pixels the closer they approach RGB value 0,0,0 (black). Modulated is the same, but for RGB value 128,128,128 (grey).

It looks to me like all you need to do is slightly change the contrast and brightness of your textures when editing them in GIMP, and make sure the outside edges are literally R:0,G:0,B:0, and not one point higher than that.
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sn260591
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 12 May 2014, 11:01

Teridax wrote:Anyway, what settings did you use for Bright?

Only *.bmp, I do not use the other options. Sometimes -common for animated textures.

User avatar Tarydax
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 12 May 2014, 15:46

ividyon wrote:I do not understand why you are making the textures masked in the first place. These clearly look like sprites set to Translucent which require no masking.


I figured they had to be like the smoke effects in UnrealShare, but what you said makes more sense.

Thanks for your help, guys!
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User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 07 Jun 2014, 01:17

I also have a masked texture problem so I'll avoid opening a new thread:

It's on a far simpler level: I am trying to use cables/pipes from the XbpFX package (stuff like inoxpip5, inxgrid) but I can't make the textures appear masked. As a reminder I use UT. I used a solid sheet first and made it masked and 2 sided, then I tried with the "add special brush" -> "masked decoration" (still with a sheet), and after looking up a DavidM map I tried doing as he did with a semi-solid sheet, with masked and 2 sided checked. It still doesn't appear masked after rebuild. My cables and pipes have that ugly black background come with them.
Note: it isn't the first time I'm using masked textures on sheets in my level: I have solid sheets with Grate2 from DecayedS texture pack "masked" category. It works no problem. The problem is with those textures from XbpFX - that package doesn't come with subcategories, but the textures should appears masked as they work in DavidM's Prisoned.

Thanks in advance for the help!
Nali: Magic or Telekinesis
Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

sn260591
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 07 Jun 2014, 08:11

Sat42 wrote:I am trying to use cables/pipes from the XbpFX package (stuff like inoxpip5, inxgrid) but I can't make the textures appear masked.

Need to replace black color 1,1,1 to 0,0,0

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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 07 Jun 2014, 12:12

Thanks for the reply sn260591!

Unfortunately I'm a complete nOOb at this: so expect more silly questions:

First, I've never had to mess around with a texture before, I have GIMP but I don't know how to save a texture so that it can be imported into Unrealed 2 (moreover, I am afraid of doing something silly when importing: I read that you can "mylevel it" but you mustn't save the mylevel package, don't know how that works as it is confusing).
I'd really appreciate a step by step explanation: how do I get the texture to GIMP in the first place (knowing that the texture is actually part of a package of textures), etc.

Finally, here's the crazy thing: XbpFX comes with just 3 pipe/wire textures; 2 of them (inoxpip3 and inoxpip51) have been imported with "bMasked" (under "surface" in the texture properties browser) set to true; of course, the one I wanted, inoxPip5, has bMasked set to false!! So no wonder DavidM didn't bother with this one in particular, and that I couldn't make it appear as masked; I guess if I could somehow extract that particular texture and then re-import it (as a .utx or something) with "bMasked" set to true, then I wouldn't have to bother with replacing the black background colour from 1,1,1 to 0,0,0.
Thanks again for any help! :)
Nali: Magic or Telekinesis
Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: Masked texture problem

Post Posted: 07 Jun 2014, 21:59

Problem solved!!
Yes earlier I was lazy, but an hour ago I just went to check some articles on Google (the Legacy pages) and found out how to import/export, how to use MyLevel, the importance of mipmaps etc. I also figured out how to replace the black background colour from 1,1,1 to 0,0,0 with GIMP, changing from indexed to RGB then back. I now have that texture from the XbpFX fixed, and have successfully used it as a masked texture in my level.
So you were totally right, sn260591, I had to do the 1,1,1 to 0,0,0 change, because when I first tried to simply export and reimport the texture as a masked one, it didn't work!
Nali: Magic or Telekinesis
Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.


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