How to edit Pilots texture?

[morgwin]

Hi,

I was wondering where the textures for the pilots are stored, I wanted to try and improve the texture.


Thanks.

[General BlackDragon]

in the pak files.

www.bzscrap.org

browse the tools there.

[morgwin]

Thanks but i used the PakExplorer and couldn't find the exact pilot textures.

[GSH]

In data.pak, look for objects\ISDF\people\*.pic, and objects\FURY\people\*.pic. That's an old SoftImage file format, which not many programs read these days. Find a plugin for your preferred program to read it.

Also, never modify your .pak files. That's a good way to get bad assets with others. Treat the .pak files as read-only references. Instead, place your changed files under the addon folder.

You will need the DXTGen program to convert from .pic (or a more modern format like .tga, .png, or .tiff) to the .dxtbz2 format used by BZ2 1.3.6+. Put your changed .dxtbz2 under addon, as above.

-- GSH

[morgwin]

Very helpful, thanks.

[General BlackDragon]

The xnview found on bzscrap can open/convert most texture file formats.

[morgwin]

I've had great success so far, How would be people prefer the ISDF pilots?, Black uniform or keep it the same colors?

[MrTwosheds]

Same look and color but at 1024x1024 please....

[morgwin]

My first try was at 512x512, So ill see what i can do .

Edit

Not the best, but its still a wip.

1024x1024

[General BlackDragon]

nice booty

[Zero Angel]

Looks great, you can really notice the smoothness of the texture being retained while the edges are sharpened nicely. That's typically a far better result than any kind of linear scaling can do. How did you upscale them?

The best upscaling algorithm i've found so far is XBRz , but i've heard there are some non-freeware programs that use proprietary upscaling algorithms that are also effective.

[Ded10c]

dude4.jpg in the art assets may be of use. As a texture test it only shows the front of the model, but parts of it could be transplanted in.

[morgwin]

Thanks for the feedback, I used Bicubic Smoother (in photoshop) then used the sharper tool and blur tool to carefully remove the pixelated areas.


New Face Test

[Zero Angel]

Thanks for the feedback, I used Bicubic Smoother (in photoshop) then used the sharper tool and blur tool to carefully remove the pixelated areas.


New Face Test

I see. I haven't tried it on BZ2 textures, but you should consider applying 'surface blur' to the image after cleaning up the corners. It's an effect that blurs anything that doesnt meet a certain contrast threshold. (so avoids blurring edges, typically).

Otherwise, consider trying this software with an 'xBRZ' preset and see if it gives you a desired result.
http://hqmame.sourceforge.net/ScalerTest.zip

[MrTwosheds]

Adding a very light touch of noise, rgb and/or hsv re-adds pixel variation at the new resolution.
I also found flamingpears lacquer, fliter forge metals and texturizer are useful for creating "surface" detail in some types of textures.