Stary's cool way of optimising texures :)

[SFP1Ace]

Actually this might have been done before by someone else, but I discovered this while browsing through Stary's new tiles for GermanyCE and IsraelME. I think everyone will agree that he's done a superb job with terrain repaints and that his textures look great at 1024x1024 resolution? But what I've notice is that instead of being 24 bit bitmap files like TK's originals, they're only 8 bit BMPs!!! That's right that means 256 colors pallette! But it still looks great and somehow I just can't spot any color banding or other issues associated with low color pallettes. And thanks to this these 1024 textures are only 1MB sized instead of being 3 MB per texture like TK's. That surely saves some bandwidth and memory! And it makes 2048x2048 textures from MF planes only 4MB sized instead of huge 12MB per texture! Now I'm in a process of 'decolorising' all hi res textures on planes etc. with Pain.NET, just when saving bmps I have to make sure that dithering option is selected to prevent color banding. I hope some newb modders or ppl with older graphic cards will find this information useful!

 

P.S. Sorry if it's old news

 

EDIT: typos

Edited July 26, 2010 by SFP1Ace

[+Stary]

I think it was Max188 or Brain32 who first started uloading 8bit bmp tiles. It's good for series 1 only, for series 2 there is DDS format, that is under tests for Mig Alley mod.

 

And I don't see much difference between 24 and 8 bit tiles (edit: waiting for Jules to jump on this part ) I think it's even better for planes skins.

 

For batch color depth reduction I recommend free IrfanView. And yes, it's good solution for people with older hardware

Edited July 26, 2010 by Stary

[SFP1Ace]

I think it was Max188 or Brain32 who first started uloading 8bit bmp tiles. It's good for series 1 only, for series 2 there is DDS format, that is under tests for Mig Alley mod.

 

And I don't see much difference between 24 and 8 bit tiles (edit: waiting for Jules to jump on this part ) I think it's even better for planes skins.

 

For batch color depth reduction I recommend free IrfanView. And yes, it's good solution for people with older hardware

 

I haven't tried IrfanView yet, but if it can do batch operations then its will speed up the conversion quite a bit, thanks :-)

[Sokol]

Hi

 

you might also try "brighter", which converts 24bit-bmp's into 8bit with absolutely no visible loss to colours. it has been around for quite a while, mainly used for Il-2 sturmovik.

 

"brighter" is available with a batch-routine, i.e. you can convert entire folders or dozens of files by some simple clicks. i have been using it for virtually any terrains and my favourite airplane-textures.

 

cheers

sokol

[+Brain32]

Hi

 

you might also try "brighter", which converts 24bit-bmp's into 8bit with absolutely no visible loss to colours. it has been around for quite a while, mainly used for Il-2 sturmovik.

 

"brighter" is available with a batch-routine, i.e. you can convert entire folders or dozens of files by some simple clicks. i have been using it for virtually any terrains and my favourite airplane-textures.

 

cheers

sokol

 

Yeah I've been using brighter since I was making skins for il2, awsome tool.

[SFP1Ace]

Hi

 

you might also try "brighter", which converts 24bit-bmp's into 8bit with absolutely no visible loss to colours. it has been around for quite a while, mainly used for Il-2 sturmovik.

 

"brighter" is available with a batch-routine, i.e. you can convert entire folders or dozens of files by some simple clicks. i have been using it for virtually any terrains and my favourite airplane-textures.

 

cheers

sokol

 

Somehow Brighter doesn't work for me. It just won't output any files... Maybe it's a Win 7 issue? Anyway Paint.NET or IrfanView will satisfy my needs just fine :)