BZII High Resolution texture mod RELEASED

[MrTwosheds]

In an xsi I believe it's the second value down (set to 0; here) To set its level.
SI_Material {
0.7;0.7;0.7;1;;
0; <
0.5;0.5;0.5;;
0;0;0;;
2;
0;0;0;;
I worked all this out once...but seem to have forgotten exactly what does what.
0.7;0.7;0.7;1;; sets the ambient color to light grey and 1 for no transparency
I think 0.5;0.5;0.5;; is the color of the specular
one of the other 0;0;0;; will be emissive glow color
and 2; is something I forgot.
Best to play around with an xsi and meshbuilder to figure out what does what.

[Red Devil]

*predicts coxxon and MTS will become fast friends*

[Doomer_Junge]

Nice mod! Looks better than with stretched textures. But in my eyes are the ISDF units (scavs, constructors, tugs etc.) and the crosshairs quite too dark.

PS: I play without EMDM Bumpmaps.

[coxxon]

In an xsi I believe it's the second value down (set to 0; here) ... play around with an xsi and meshbuilder to figure out what does what.

Well I'm still not quite sure what the posted settings do, but your posting prompted me to try again what I had tried before, and at the time didn't notice if it worked.
I opened the ivtank xsi and copied the similar section of text as above from a part of it that used specualar highlights (the main body), and then replaced my sections of an xsi file with it, hopped into BZII, and waddayaknow, it worked. I HAVE SPECULAR HIGHLIGHTS. WOOT.
Thanks for your post!

[coxxon]

*predicts coxxon and MTS will become fast friends*

lol, it's a bit too early for a bromance, but his posting did help me get specular highlights back on my models.

[coxxon]

Nice mod! Looks better than with stretched textures. But in my eyes are the ISDF units (scavs, constructors, tugs etc.) and the crosshairs quite too dark.
PS: I play without EMDM Bumpmaps.

Color matching for this mod was incredibly difficult. The ISDF uses 3 shades of orange, 3 shades of yellow, and the Scion seem to have about 5 different shades of the blue metal. The ISDF tug/scav/cons yellow is surprisingly dark, at least in the .pic files I was working with. In my early versions I did have a brighter yellow, on them, but I was afraid it was too bright. Also at the last minute I switched from a darker to a brighter orange for the ISDF. As for the reticles, I went back and forth on them. I tend to think of them as not too dark, but not at all faded like the originals. This can make the new ones a bit more noticeable on screen.
You might could kick up the brightness by a notch or two in the options maybe, that might make things look a bit better?

I traditionally have not played with the bumps either, and as noted before, my method of making mine was a little quick and sloppy. But, I've done some new, recent work with bumpmaps in the game, so future stuff should look a bit better, and hopefully make the bumps more worth using.

[MrTwosheds]

Basically each frame item in the xsi has its own SI_Material section and it is the settings for the material properties. There are 4 color settings. One is the color in sunlight, one the color in shade, one the color of the specular highlight and one for emissive color. These obviously interact with the lighting on a map. If you muck about with them can end up with horrible psychedelic looking items that get illuminated green by sunlight, have purple shadows, dark blue specular highlights and luminous pink bits. The 1 on the end of the Ambient color setting controls that mesh's transparency.
It's useful to be able to turn specular off on items such as tracks, which would not really be shiny.
Emissive is also useful, though its better to use glowskins on things that can use them. But it is better to use the emissive setting than the __e tag used by some items in bz2.
In addition to that there is another possible xsi section called SI_vertexcolors that allows you to assign colors/transparency to each vertex in a mesh.

[Sunrust]

Wow! This work sounds both crazy and amazing. I'd love to give this a try sometime soon May I ask which textures in-game have not been updated, if any?

I haven't tried it yet because of a problem I think is also tied to the QF2 mod (didn't you also make that coxxon?) Specifically that the textures in QF2, and these ones I assume, require a monitor of 1080p or bigger to look correct. I lack a monitor of that resolution (the best I have is 900p) and I'd rather not pay for a new monitor. Is there a way to run the game at a higher resolution, or emulate it at a higher resolution so that it will look correct? (I believe there's some sort of downscaling/superscaling method, though I do not know how it works specifically)

[Ded10c]

Wow! This work sounds both crazy and amazing. I'd love to give this a try sometime soon May I ask which textures in-game have not been updated, if any?

I haven't tried it yet because of a problem I think is also tied to the QF2 mod (didn't you also make that coxxon?) Specifically that the textures in QF2, and these ones I assume, require a monitor of 1080p or bigger to look correct. I lack a monitor of that resolution (the best I have is 900p) and I'd rather not pay for a new monitor. Is there a way to run the game at a higher resolution, or emulate it at a higher resolution so that it will look correct? (I believe there's some sort of downscaling/superscaling method, though I do not know how it works specifically)

QF2 was made by bigbadbogie; Coxxon made the Uler mod, which was right at the dawn of BZ2 modding.

Unfortunately it sounds like it's not the resolution you're playing at that's the problem but the physical size of your monitor, as QF2 looks just fine in lower resolutions to me. Unfortunately that means nothing can be done

[MrTwosheds]

I haven't tried it yet because of a problem I think is also tied to the QF2 mod (didn't you also make that coxxon?) Specifically that the textures in QF2, and these ones I assume, require a monitor of 1080p or bigger to look correct. I lack a monitor of that resolution (the best I have is 900p) and I'd rather not pay for a new monitor. Is there a way to run the game at a higher resolution, or emulate it at a higher resolution so that it will look correct?

What is the problem? The size of the monitor shouldn't matter much.

[coxxon]

Basically each frame item in the xsi has ... to each vertex in a mesh.

Thanks for the info. I've been trying to make a collection of notes since I've gotten back into modeling for BZII again, and I added several of the things you posted here - for after I forget all this modding stuff, and try to get back into it again in another ten years.

I agree that specular highlights are not necessarily realistic, especially on tanks, but BZII is sci-fi, so I let it pass, but since spchi, and bumpmaps, __e "lights", and a0 textures are all a part of BZII, I want to mirror them as much as possible in my modding work for the game. Well maybe not __e, Blackdragon pointed out using a0 textures and I've gone to doing that. It certainly saves some work.

Though I also tend to focus more on the looks than the code, and hate having to edit XSI files, I'll likely just stick with my copy and paste method, but I'll keep those color settings filed away in case I want to create some sort of strange effect on a model.

[coxxon]

I haven't tried it yet because of a problem ...

Umm ... never heard of a 900p monitor, 1080p and 720p but not 900p. Still you should be able to use the textures. Their clarity should depend on your resolution, but not their basic inclusion. Not to insult your intelligence, but have you tried maxing out your monitors resolution in your display settings? It could also be a matter of the video card installed in your computer not being powerful enough ... I suppose. Though these textures were built and tested on a 6 year old computer with a 6 year old video card.
(Yes,I need to update my desktop computer - which I plan to do just as soon as windows 9 is released)

[Ded10c]

I would assume the reason he cited "900p" is because the highest resolution he can reach is 1600x900. Worth noting, Sunrust, that that limit might be imposed by your graphics card/chipset and not your monitor.

[MrTwosheds]

and hate having to edit XSI files

Yes, but, it's actually very useful to know how to, It's a hell of a lot easier to paste materials sections into a whole load of xsi
than it is to edit and re-export all your models again just to get them all looking the same.

[Sunrust]

QF2 was made by bigbadbogie; Coxxon made the Uler mod, which was right at the dawn of BZ2 modding.

Whoops, sorry for the confusion then

I would assume the reason he cited "900p" is because the highest resolution he can reach is 1600x900. Worth noting, Sunrust, that that limit might be imposed by your graphics card/chipset and not your monitor.

Actually my monitor is a HP 2011x which came with the stock computer I got in 2013 (old one died out back then, so had to replace it). My GPU however is a Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 Dual-X, which is capable of supporting resolutions above 1080p. I'm pretty sure the issue is the monitor, though if I am wrong please correct me.

As for why I asked in the first place, it's because on the QF2 ModDB page it said, "This mod is best played on high resolutions. Anything lower than 1680x1050 may cause issues. It was designed for HD resolutions - specifically 1920x1080 Full HD. For the best playing experience, I would recommend using this resolution or higher." I was concerned that this also holds true for this High Resolution texture mod. But I assume now though I won't have an issue with it?