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rupertlittlebear
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Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject: TGA vs DDS |
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Have been wondering about the game difference between TGA format sails and DDS format sails.
Pirates! supports both of them, but
By my eyes on my elderly video card
DDS sails always seem to be out of focus.
TGA sails are much crisper.
The true test of focus would be the sailing display, rather than in town, but you can get better close-ups in town.
Now I need to make some crisp examples of these to examine more closely, but my first examples from the same starting files were very distinct.
Does anybody out there with a more current system have the inclination and tools to make TGA examples of their sails and compare them to DDS versions?
Just to add to the confusion, have not been using alpha channels on the TGAs. And my video card is rather old, but the display is a NEC FE950+ |
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Rock
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Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:21 am Post subject: |
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VERY Cool info rupertlittlebear. I didn't know it supported .tga's? I've been thinking the sail gfx looked a little blurred too but that DOES make it more forgiving when making them!
I'll mess around with the .tga's a little myself. _________________ "You can't fight in here!! This is the war room!" - Dr. Strangelove
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rupertlittlebear
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Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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TGA info came from the Readme file.
Was I ever happy to find out that my elderly graphics program could export them! (Corel Draw 10)
Also found out that the edge pixels get carried through the sail. (do not use anti-aliasing) Makes for nice solid color effects. The corner pixels get spread into the corners of the sail too. You could make some nice semi-plad effects with this.
Just love the solid background sails. Makes the ship/fleet just stand out in the screen.
When I was looking for a DDS plug-in for Internet Explorer, came across a TGA plug-in as well. Makes managing the Custom directory much easier. |
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Neotom
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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rupertlittlebear wrote: | TGA info came from the Readme file.
Was I ever happy to find out that my elderly graphics program could export them! (Corel Draw 10)
Also found out that the edge pixels get carried through the sail. (do not use anti-aliasing) Makes for nice solid color effects. The corner pixels get spread into the corners of the sail too. You could make some nice semi-plad effects with this.
Just love the solid background sails. Makes the ship/fleet just stand out in the screen.
When I was looking for a DDS plug-in for Internet Explorer, came across a TGA plug-in as well. Makes managing the Custom directory much easier. |
DDS= Nice little DirectX format you need to write a program to make. Not an actual image format per se, though.
TGA=Real image format that is compatible with programs as basic as Paint.
And that edge thing can be a real nuisance, such as when working with files that only have a little on the edges (such as a circle). |
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Rock
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:13 am Post subject: |
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No doubt about the edge thing. I'm still trying to figure out the sails but thought I'd post what I've discovered messing with flags so far.
Used a very detailed pic (for a flag anyway):
TGA: Sharper? No doubt about it.
DDS: Not as sharp but yet almost more detailed.
I know these pics are hard to see but it's enough. With the somewhat "washed" appearance of the graphics in Pirates, I'm wondering if this is the way to go. I've got a couple of sails I'm playing with and I think You're right rupertlittlebear, for full size sails this might be the ticket as long as they don't stand out TOO much. _________________ "You can't fight in here!! This is the war room!" - Dr. Strangelove
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rupertlittlebear
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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Neotom wrote: | And that edge thing can be a real nuisance, such as when working with files that only have a little on the edges (such as a circle). |
I put the nice little circle in a box to hold the edge.
Last edited by rupertlittlebear on Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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rupertlittlebear
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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Rock wrote: | I've got a couple of sails I'm playing with and I think You're right rupertlittlebear, for full size sails this might be the ticket as long as they don't stand out TOO much. |
I like playing with solid color background sails.
Try a skull on a solid black TGA.
Your pirate lass on red velvit TGA.
Colored sails really stand out. |
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rupertlittlebear
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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Rock, your cat flag would make a nice (black) sail. |
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Rahly
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Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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its also good to note that TGA's do not have a transparency layer. unlike DDS. |
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James Potkukelkka
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Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2005 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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Rahly wrote: | its also good to note that TGA's do not have a transparency layer. unlike DDS. |
Wrong. You can add alpha layer on TGA images. _________________ *R* |
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rupertlittlebear
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Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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Having had time to observe the differences between TGA and DDS, here are my conclusions.
1) You can make transparant background TGA sails. Have made oodles.
2) TGA are crisper
3) DDS are somewhat out of focus.
4) as part of TGA crispness, they flicker (loudly) as they get smaller (zoom out) and while you sail with this smaller image.
5) DDS holds the image at much smaller display (zoom out), flicker can occur, but rarely and only on tiny images (max zoom out/ small sail).
6) DDS tends to bleed from the edge of the image to the edge of the sail as you begin to zoom out, when the same TGA does not.
7) if you reduce the starting image by 10%, then export into DDS, the sail almost never bleeds.
TGA and DDS can both use solid backgrounds to give colored sails. |
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bigchief
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Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 11:01 pm Post subject: |
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DDS files are generally smaller in size than TGA files. That's why most game companies are using the DDS format now. With thousands of textures in a game, and many being viewed at one time, it is much less of a drain on the system. DDS files also make use of Mip Maps so that they don't have to display the higher res textures, that won't show up at a distance anyway. Those are replaced by the lower res mip image, thus saving more memory bandwith.
In the case of replacing a few textures, it doesn't matter if you use the bigger TGA format, but if you were retexturing a bunch of stuff, you would probably want to use the DDS format, so the game would run a little smoother. |
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fenirstardust
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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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i want to add; https://beyondskyrim.org/working-with-dds-files/
as a resource for info.
And a missed detail here as to why tga seems sharper, dds interlops every 4 pixel's colors, if there is two high contrasting colors naboring pixels will be a mish mash of the two colors thus producing blurry images.
ALSO there are 3 main dds formats, DX1 is the smallest and only has on or off alpha channel. DXT5 is what you want for a translucent alpha. both take the same amount of GPU to render fyi.
rupertlittlebear explanded everything else. tga is fine to use.
if u have problems with alphas at edges of things make sure to save your tga as 32bit NOT 24bit, and or dds as DXT5.
most use powers of 2 when saving ie 32x32, 64x64.....
I use paint.net a windows image editor |
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theincrediblenick
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Posted: Tue May 01, 2018 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Paint.net is good but Gimp is more capable, though a little harder to learn |
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fenirstardust
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Posted: Tue May 01, 2018 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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i disagree, gimp is nonsensical, like all things linux related it doesn't just work out of the box nor make gui sense. I will err to say gimp would require all kinds of messing around to do dds. get pain.net and grab a plugin pack. |
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