Another tools update as promised. I’ve now added support for the new 7.2 VTF format to the VTF shell extensions and tweaked a few other bits and pieces.
The memory issue with the thumbnail viewer still perplexes me although it’s much better in this version. I think its something to do with heap memory and that fact that its not released until the application quits, but as explorer never does because its a system process, it never gets released. Either way you’ll see memory usage drop when you close a folder in thumbnail view.
The new 7.2 format add’s support for 3D volumetric textures although at present, none exist to test with, therefore support is “experiemental”. I’ve also added support for 16-bit HDR textures.
I’ve changed the way the installer works with this release so it should unistall properly, however before upgrading to v1.0.2 please unistall your previous version and reboot before installing.
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Haven’t posted anything for a while so heres a quick update…
I just turned 30 so am now officially an “old fart” in many ways. My birthday was thankfully quiet and I spent the week after in England with my family. Thanks to the wonder of re-circulated cabin air I ended up with what felt like ebola the week back and spent most of it in bed feeling miserable and coughing up various body parts.
Probably the most annoying thing was that after a year of waiting for Day of Defeat: Source my trip to England coincided with the release, so I didn’t get to see it until 2 weeks after everyone else! :o(
Having had a chance to play DoD:S now I can say for the whole I like it and am fairly impressed although there are some things I don’t like. I think theirs some gameplay issues that need to be resolved and there some technical things that make me think, “Why on earth did they do it like that?” but thats just the SDK geek in me. Certainly its non the old DoD and theres a certain amount of adjustment and re-learning needed but I’m looking forward to whats to come in future updates.
So apart from playing DoD:S I’ve been trying to get some other things done too. Unfortunately I’ve got into my old habit of putting my fingers in too many pies and now I’m swamped with a mass of small stuff that I never seem to get through.
Currently I’m updating my VTF tools for the new 7.2 VTF spec which now includes provision for 3D volumetric textures. I’ve updated most of my apps to recognise the format and also handle HDR texture properly. I’m also working on getting HDR natively into 3DS Max via the VTF plug-in and trying to code support for animated texture too.
One nice thing is that the release of DoD:S has seen a flood of new people in the DoD MSA forum. Theres some old hands that have returned and a lot of new talent but at present it just seems to be re-skins and normal maps. A lot of people seem a bit put-off doing any new models as theres about 5 times as much work to do if you include LOD modelling and setting up physics but its really not that hard. I’m slowing trying to encourage people to get their feet wet and give-it-a go but not many takers so far… :o/
With a view to the above, I’m going to try and put together a few tutorials and introduction to some of the basics of working with Source just to help people get started. There a lot of confusion about VMT/VTF compared to how textures used to work in Goldsrc and concepts like LOD and MIP mapping are making a few eyes glaze over.
Well that’s all for now… over and out :o)
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