Chaos CTF4?

The Warlock · Post by **The Warlock** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:41 pm

Hey, has anyone else here been playing CTF4? (http://ctf4.apartment167.com/) I was just playing it, and it's awesome. I've been dreaming of this kind of game mode ever since I wondered what those green and gold skins were for in U1. Anyway, is there any chance at all that ChaosUT could make some kind of addon to this so that it uses the ChaosCTF flag system (where you need to carry your own flag back to base)?

TKATK · Post by **TKATK** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 12:32 am

there is a option "carry the flag" in CTF4 iirc,and tying it in would be pritty bad,becouse [insertgametype]4 are huge becouse of the teamskins and new maps needed for them

if 4 was merged with chaos then by the time i finished dling it a new release would be ready

The Warlock · Post by **The Warlock** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 12:45 am

TKATK wrote:there is a option "carry the flag" in CTF4 iirc,and tying it in would be pritty bad,becouse [insertgametype]4 are huge becouse of the teamskins and new maps needed for them

if 4 was merged with chaos then by the time i finished dling it a new release would be ready

Crap, I didn't see that before. Cool.

Hmm... well, it would be nice if there were green/gold skins for the Chaos models, at least. That wouldn't take too much more space or work.

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 1:44 am

The Warlock wrote:That wouldn't take too much more space or work.

Actually the textures for the playermodels take up quite a lot of space, because we have to have most of them in DXTC5 due to the alpha maps.

And for the additional work - well, that depends on how good/original the skins would look afterwards...

The Warlock · Post by **The Warlock** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:46 am

neolith wrote:
The Warlock wrote:That wouldn't take too much more space or work.
Actually the textures for the playermodels take up quite a lot of space, because we have to have most of them in DXTC5 due to the alpha maps.

And for the additional work - well, that depends on how good/original the skins would look afterwards...

I have to admit that the only skinning work I've ever done was for Vice City, which is on an entirely weaker engine, but what are the downsides to using DXT3 (which, if memory serves, uses alphas just fine)? Does the Unreal engine not support it? Is the quality noticably lower? I'm not terribly familiar with this stuff.

(And of course original skins take work. I was more meaning some simple recolor, not a massive endevor of new details and whatnot).

jb · Post by jb » Sun Dec 19, 2004 6:01 am

Thanks for the feedback...you never know....

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:35 am

The Warlock wrote:I have to admit that the only skinning work I've ever done was for Vice City, which is on an entirely weaker engine, but what are the downsides to using DXT3 (which, if memory serves, uses alphas just fine)? Does the Unreal engine not support it? Is the quality noticably lower? I'm not terribly familiar with this stuff.

UT supports full RGB, RGBA, DXT1, DXT3 and DXT5.

The problem is that when you use DXT3, your alhpa channel has to be stencil (only black and white, not full 256 steps of grey). While this does work well with things like hair for example it is a problem when you need to create slightly shiny surfaces (for that you need a very dark grey in the alpha channel to blend out the cubemap).

So for each texture you'll have to decide if it's necessary to have a proper alpha or not. Unfortunately the playermodels often require it to look decent.

RGB - full range of colors, no alpha, lossless, uses a lot of memory
RGBA - full range of colors & alpha, lossless, bigger by one third than RGB
DXT5 - slightly reduced range of colors, artifacts in the alpha channel, a lot smaller than RGB
DXT3 - slightly reduced range of colors, stencil alpha, smaller than DXT5
DXT1 - artifacts in the rgb channels, no alpha, even smaller than DXT3

The Warlock · Post by **The Warlock** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:33 pm

Ah, okay, I understand.

Melaneus · Post by **Melaneus** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:29 am

DXT3 has 16 levels of alpha.

GB · Post by GB » Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:38 pm

there was already i saw a teamskin pack full of green and gold skins for the default ut2004 characters, but it is big, it was about 35mb. Then again, playing UT1 style four team DM would be cool or maybe 4 team DDOM...

*i cant they removed 4 team support from ut2003 anyway...it seemed so obvious just to include it like in UT1 cos its so cool. Anyway, its not like its total oldskool anymore..halo2 has about 8 diffeent teamskinskins..but then again, only 2 mp characters..*

TKATK · Post by **TKATK** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:06 pm

Halo2 doesnt have teamskins becouse there aint all that many teams,so they count as normal skins

you can play 4team CTF,DM,TDM,BR right now,check the [insertgametype]4 projects which have already been released

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:04 pm

Melaneus wrote:DXT3 has 16 levels of alpha.

Oops, my bad - Mel is right!