Mollymutt said:
Wow!! That was so easy! What a difference. Now that that's fixed, I have a couple more questions. first, why are there so many blank files? Second, there are a bunch of textures that come in two sizes, why? Do I really need to edit both sizes? And last, some textures have a matching file that is just the outline of the original, is it important to edit this one too? I'm trying to get as good as I can, so have patience with the newbee questions.
Yes, from the sounds of your questions, it looks like you're going through the png_by_rgb_a folder. So, here are some answers:
Regarding blank images,
They could be partially transparent effects (like, for instance, dust or flame), which are done by having a blank (solid white) rgb map, and then providing the details in the alpha map (because, it's very likely that it would be tinted a certain colour by the graphics engine, like brown or red). Alpha maps have the same basic filename as the rgb maps, but they end in "_a" instead of "_rgb" and are always greyscale images (though they need to be saved as 24-bit to be read by the plugin). Anyway, a solid white image could be any number of things. Be more specific, maybe?
If you get two of the same texture in different file sizes, it's possible that whatever game you're looking at is using LOD (level-of-detail) to allow for farther draw distances. LOD basically just means when the camera gets a certain distance away from the geometry, the texture is switched with another, smaller image and most of the time you can't tell the difference (not at 320x240, anyway) The reason for this is of course, the smaller texture uses less RAM and so, the graphics engine can probably keep the framerate high and still draw these far-off scenes instead of 'fog.' If I'm right and LOD is at work here, you might as well shrink the larger texture to use as the smaller one. LOD is more commonly seen with geometry rather than textures; you might recall in Super Mario 64 that when the camera gets far enough away from Mario, his head turns into a box? I may be wrong about whether or not LOD is responsible for those textures. More details.
I guess the outline thing has already been explained, but that's the alpha or opacity map. Areas in black on the alpha map are not displayed at all, while white areas (the colour 255, 255, 255) are shown at 100% opacity on the corresponding rgb texture. If a texture had no accompanying alpha map, the most likely explanation is the entire image is shown at 100% opacity (the same effect as an alpha map with solid white).
You'll need to redo both the alpha map as well as the rgb map. If you don't include the appropriate alpha map in the hires_textures folder, the plugin will assume you want it read as no transparency (which, I'm not mistaken, is not what you want). If you don't want to go to the trouble of making two different maps for a single image, try editing the files in the "rgb_all" folder, which is the same thing, but the two seperate maps are combined into a single 32-bit image.
Rurounin said:
I remember that. The developers killed it before it got too far, though.