General Question feathering the edges of a hires tile

[stevcast]

When I was working on my Hellsgate addon, everything about textures etc. was all hit and miss. I basically learned as I went along, trying one thing after another until I achieved the desired effect or results. I have gone over all the tutorials I can find, but I can't find an answer to a problem I am having. I am trying to develop a new base with higher resolution tiles and textures. The problem...when I tried to "feather" the edges of the hi res tiles, they won't feather. If they are accepting the feather command, it is so minimal that it is non-existent. I tried adding an alpha file to the texture, and tried to blend the tile in that way, and it was better, but no where near the smooth transition that I am looking for. Is there a cut off point in terms of file size and/or resolution. Tile size is 1024 X 1024, but there is alot of texturing envolved. After conversionn to .dds file, the file size is 1mb.
As I mentioned, I'm learning as I go along, so any and all information will be put to good use! Thanks everyone.

stevcast

 

[csanders]

Does the .dds texture show a hard edge? It's probably in the DXT1 format.

Save it as a DXT5 format.

If you can't do that, try "Paint.NET" as a good free program for editing tiles. When you save the file as a .dds file, it will give an option window for you to change it to DXT5.

 

[stevcast]

Does the .dds texture show a hard edge? It's probably in the DXT1 format.

Save it as a DXT5 format.

If you can't do that, try "Paint.NET" as a good free program for editing tiles. When you save the file as a .dds file, it will give an option window for you to change it to DXT5.

I saved it in DXT5 form before converting to .dds. I've tried feathering the edges in DXT5 format, in .dds format, .png format, .bmp format, the only "mat" I haven't tried is floormat, but I am tempted. If anyone has any insight as to why this is happening, please advise.

stevcast

 

[csanders]

Not sure if I'm following.

DXT5 is a type of format that .dds files can be in. It's an internal format of .dds files.

Not sure of other programs, but when you save in Paint.NET, it will ask which format you want to save as, when you save it to a .dds file.

 

[Notebook]

Is the feathering effect you are after similar to the first image link in #15?

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=18580&highlight=surface+tiles

Its a while ago since I did any surface tiles, but I used the DXtBMP program
http://www.btinternet.com/~mnwright/programs/dxtbmp.htm

It lets you manipulate the Alpha channel directly in your default paint prog. Also imorts and exports in various formats, well worth having.
I've had varying succes with this, and can't claim to be an expert. A lot of trial and error, for me anyway.

If I have any more input, I'll come back.

EDIT: this link might help
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=17348&highlight=westcott+rpe

That link is more about matching a mesh to surrounding surface tiles, but hope it helps!

This is how it looks at the moment:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/WestcottP2_Orbiter_1.jpg

N.

 

[stevcast]

Not sure if I'm following.

DXT5 is a type of format that .dds files can be in. It's an internal format of .dds files.

Not sure of other programs, but when you save in Paint.NET, it will ask which format you want to save as, when you save it to a .dds file.

I guess what I was trying to do is emphasize the fact that I've tried every
possible solution I can think of to acheive an adequate feathering effect without having any success. After using paint.net feathering tool, I end up with a very small feathered edge (barely noticable), which does not blend well with the planet's surface. When I was working on the Hellsgate surface tile, the feathering effect was sufficient enough to give the illusion that the coral island dropped off in to the deeper ocean waters.
When I put the current tiles in to the config. folder of orbiter, regardless of how much feathering I attempt, the end results is still a square edge not blended in to the planet's surface. The only thing that is different is that the tiles I am working on now are much more detailed.
I am going to keep at. Maybe I will have to re-think my approach to what I want to accomplish with this addon. If anyone else has any ideas or comments please post and I'll keep checking back

 

[C3PO]

Can you post a dds file we can have a look at?

 

[stevcast]

Can you post a dds file we can have a look at?

Sure!! Here is the start of my tile. There are more layers I need to add, but at the present time, if I can't get it to look right, there is no need in continuing with it. Let me know if you come up with anything...Thanks!!

stevcast

 

[C3PO]

That file is a DDS DXT3 so it can't contain alpha channel. You need to use DDS DXT5 to get a 32 bit alpha channel.

How are you creating these DDS files? What program do you use?

 

[stevcast]

That file is a DDS DXT3 so it can't contain alpha channel. You need to use DDS DXT5 to get a 32 bit alpha channel.

How are you creating these DDS files? What program do you use?

I used DXTBmp, and I did save it as a DXT5. I'm going to do it over again, maybe I hit thre wrong button, but I was certain I saved it as DXT5. Did you try to feather it, and did it work? I'll try again and get back to you.

stevcast

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 PM ----------

That file is a DDS DXT3 so it can't contain alpha channel. You need to use DDS DXT5 to get a 32 bit alpha channel.

How are you creating these DDS files? What program do you use?

I just now reconverted the file in to DXT5 and then converted in to .dds. Same results...unable to feather the edges....:facepalm:

 

[C3PO]

I just now reconverted the file in to DXT5 and then converted in to .dds. Same results...unable to feather the edges....:facepalm:

When you save as DDS DXT5 you don't have to convert it again. DTXBmp saves it in the correct format.

 

[orb]

That file is a DDS DXT3 so it can't contain alpha channel. You need to use DDS DXT5 to get a 32 bit alpha channel.

You are wrong. DXT3 compression supports 4-bit alpha channel (16 levels) (and DXT1 supports 1-bit alpha - either fully transparent, or fully opaque). I've successfully used DXT3 as surface tiles with alpha, but not for feathering the edges between the tile and global texture, but only for areas which were semitransparent but had sharp edges and the same level of transparency. You are of course right that the feathering requires DXT5, which supports the full 8-bit alpha (256 levels - standard for a 32-bit image).

The attached images (both PNG and DDS) are fully opaque.

 

[martins]

When I put the current tiles in to the config. folder of orbiter, regardless of how much feathering I attempt, the end results is still a square edge not blended in to the planet's surface. The only thing that is different is that the tiles I am working on now are much more detailed.

I am assuming that by "feathering" you mean a linear transition in the alpha channel from fully transparent (0) to fully opaque (255). If this works for low-resolution textures, but fails for high resolution, then this is probably because the feathering algorithm operates in terms of image pixels, which means that the transition width is much smaller for the high-resolution texture. If you scale up the width of your ramp filter by the same factor by which you increased the texture size, you should get similar results. How wide is the ramp you are currently using?

Note that instead of using a smooth variation in the alpha channel, you could also use dithering with fully transparent pixels to get a transition effect. For high-resolution textures, dithering should give quite reasonable results, and you could use DXT1 with 1-bit alpha channel for that, which would require only half the texture size.

 

[stevcast]

I am assuming that by "feathering" you mean a linear transition in the alpha channel from fully transparent (0) to fully opaque (255). If this works for low-resolution textures, but fails for high resolution, then this is probably because the feathering algorithm operates in terms of image pixels, which means that the transition width is much smaller for the high-resolution texture. If you scale up the width of your ramp filter by the same factor by which you increased the texture size, you should get similar results. How wide is the ramp you are currently using?

Note that instead of using a smooth variation in the alpha channel, you could also use dithering with fully transparent pixels to get a transition effect. For high-resolution textures, dithering should give quite reasonable results, and you could use DXT1 with 1-bit alpha channel for that, which would require only half the texture size.

I appreciate everyboby's help on this, as I am basically very new to computer graphics, texturing, etc. I am not familiar with the reference to a ramp and dithering, but you state that DXT1 with a 1-bit alpha channel might work well. I am going to try that approach and see what the results will be. Thank you very much for your input! I'm really not one to give up very easily.:tiphat:

stevcast