2013-04-10, 01:27 AM
You may notice that your texture there isn't smooth. It's made out of pixels. So that's where the jaggies come from.
Atlasing is intrinsically problematic. Its really only done in the modern sense so that larger textures can be loaded into memory so that more things can be drawn in a single pass without changing the configuration.
You need at least an entire pixel separation. Many of SOM's models suffer from putting UVs smack in the middle of two pixels, or on the edge, or not a full pixel distance between them.
But if you want a game to appear to be solid. You have to use mipmapping. By the time the texture is converted into a mipmap the single pixels separation disappears, since the four pixels nearby are merged into a single pixel, and so on, until the final mipmap texture is a 1x1 texture.
As you can imagine if you don't want that tan colour in your final model. By the time the texture is like a 16x16 mipmap or smaller, the model will become mostly tan as seen from the distance. Or a blending of that grey and that tan.
PS: Speaking of x2mdl. I know HwitVlf was upset that the models didn't always appear right in SOM_MAP. No one ever thanked me, so I don't know if anyone noticed that a feature was added for this a year or so ago. I know Verdite is aware of it. I just assumed he would pass on the news. But I am saying it here just in case not. Also there is an option for making transparent MDL files. But its all or nothing. If these aren't in the --help screen that's my mistake.
PPS: I have no clue how games build large atlases and keep the entire texture from being displayed as a 1x1 mipmap (where all of the textures would get merged into one) you'd think every texture would need a gutter around it at least as wide as the smallest allowed mipmap.
Atlasing is intrinsically problematic. Its really only done in the modern sense so that larger textures can be loaded into memory so that more things can be drawn in a single pass without changing the configuration.
You need at least an entire pixel separation. Many of SOM's models suffer from putting UVs smack in the middle of two pixels, or on the edge, or not a full pixel distance between them.
But if you want a game to appear to be solid. You have to use mipmapping. By the time the texture is converted into a mipmap the single pixels separation disappears, since the four pixels nearby are merged into a single pixel, and so on, until the final mipmap texture is a 1x1 texture.
As you can imagine if you don't want that tan colour in your final model. By the time the texture is like a 16x16 mipmap or smaller, the model will become mostly tan as seen from the distance. Or a blending of that grey and that tan.
PS: Speaking of x2mdl. I know HwitVlf was upset that the models didn't always appear right in SOM_MAP. No one ever thanked me, so I don't know if anyone noticed that a feature was added for this a year or so ago. I know Verdite is aware of it. I just assumed he would pass on the news. But I am saying it here just in case not. Also there is an option for making transparent MDL files. But its all or nothing. If these aren't in the --help screen that's my mistake.
PPS: I have no clue how games build large atlases and keep the entire texture from being displayed as a 1x1 mipmap (where all of the textures would get merged into one) you'd think every texture would need a gutter around it at least as wide as the smallest allowed mipmap.