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Old 19-02-15, 18:45   #101
Peixoto
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Here's is a little tutorial on how to change textures:

i've started the game in devmode and here's is Lara in front of a very pixelated pinup drown in Bartoli's plane



i've selected that texture and it's ready to be dumped: you can make the image on the left corner of the screen as big as you want changing a value in the ini file

after dumping that texture, it's in my dumps folder, and will remain there untouched



i will however copy that texture to the replacements folder:



now i will change that texture in the replacements folder to this (you can see
the original in the left an the new texture in the right)



when i restart the game, that's what i will have:

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Old 19-02-15, 18:52   #102
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Now suppose that i've dumped the textures that make the title screen:

i'll end up with 5 textures



then i download a fine image from the internet but i will have cut it in 5 pieces with the right proportions to have my new title screen, that's what the splitter program is for: with it i can take this image:



and turn it into this:

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Old 19-02-15, 18:54   #103
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so if my level textures are in different positions, how do I keep Lara's model and textures the same and change the levels textures to HD ones?
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Old 19-02-15, 18:55   #104
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so if my level textures are in different positions, how do I keep Lara's model and textures the same and change the levels textures to HD ones?
You have to create replacements with matching positions
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Old 19-02-15, 18:57   #105
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Will that be difficult, as you can see in my screen, the textures are in completely different places.
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Old 19-02-15, 20:19   #106
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Will that be difficult, as you can see in my screen, the textures are in completely different places.
That or don't change lara's model... keep the original model and simply replace it's textures
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Old 21-02-15, 19:18   #107
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Hi there, I have a few questions/requests regarding this tool.
1- Does anyone else have problem with working with more than 9 textures in a single level? I had this problem in Opera House, everytime I reached "dump10" the game would do this bug that happens when it seems that textures are not working properly (very randomly some of your new textures will appear and other won't and after something like 5 min of gameplay and/or reloading a level more than once crashes the game). I haven't tested this bug in other levels per se, as I'm currently focusing on modding 40 fathoms, which has only 11 tex so the ones I really need to mod are like 8. But when I did try to mod all first 4 levels at once (extracting ALL the textures from the levels) on one of my first tries with this, the same error happened. Random textures here and there and then BAM! crash.

2- How do I manage multiple mods? I've read the help.exe back and forth but I can't get it to work. I have been doing this:
1-dump and replace all textures
2-after that, compile all textures. Then take the dump_dds file and place it in the replacements folder. After that copy everything inside this folder and paste it in a new folder under the Mods one with no spaces in the name. Select the mod using "help".

After all that, nothing happens, or the textures that are supposed to be replaced turn white, if I remove the modded textures from the replacements folder.

Also, from what I read of the help exe it seems that the tool will read each dump individually, based on the name but not the level. So from what I understood is, if you have 2 seperate mods (in the Mods folder), for 2 different levels but both have files named the same* it will only load the texture in the subfolder with the last alphabetical letter, ignoring the previous texture. Is that it? Because if so, couldn't intead of naming the textures just "dumpX" the extractor name the textures after the level it originated from? e.g TGWdump.dds WMDdump.dds (the great wall and wreck of the maria doria).
That way, not only if per se someone were to mod loads of different levels together one would know exactly just what texture they are working with, without having to open various textures at the same time to know which is which.


*This would happen if someone was modding all levels one by one (which happens to be my case)

I am saying this because this is a god sent tool, and I am really loving updating the old textures with this, but it the only down side is that it needs some optimazing and bug elimination.

best regards
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Old 22-02-15, 06:09   #108
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1 - Have you downloaded the latest version? There was a bug when loading new textures that was fixed. I just tested replacing all the textures in the opera house, loading and reloading several saves there and playing a little bit and it all works. Also, have you tried increasing the number of samples? If none of that helps, try to upload these 10 textures in a level so i can check it out... (NOTE: your description sounds like a bug i kept having before i find a memory leak in the texture replacement code so you might be running out of video memory.. if you run in devmode, you will see a "out of video memory message" in the console)

2 - have you kept the ._dds file in the dumps folder?

The patch only does distinctions based on the texture name, but you can rename the textures whatever you want as long as the dumps and it's corresponding replacement have the same name... you can have a texture named maria_doria1.dds or lara_home_sky.dds. Note that the compiler stores the original name of the texture so if you rename a texture you have to compile everything again but compilation should be very fast... is it?
If you keep several ._dds files in different folders however, only the one last in alphabetical order will be loaded.

Some of these rules might seem a little arbitrary, but it's makes sense in terms of the code i need to implement the features... as i am modifying a complex program whose source code i don't have, it's better to keep the code as simple as possible

Indeed it needs optimization and bug chasing... as people start to use it and report bugs, i will do it as fast as my free time allows me to

Last edited by Peixoto; 22-02-15 at 09:07.
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Old 22-02-15, 07:18   #109
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Yup, downloaded the latest version. I only did that yesterday, so maybe tomorrow I'll check and see if the 10 textures are loading then.

As for the ._dds file in the dumps forder... I dunno, I'll check it out and get back to you. I think so at least. I remember doing a lot of trial and error with this, so I'll have to see.

Where exactly do I find that out of video memory message? wouldn't doubt it as my laptop is kinda crappy.

Also, no I didn't even touch the samples numbers, as I did not know what those are/do. They are at the default "4" (if I'm not mistaken). How and why do I use them?

And hmmm, didn't know about that texture renaming thing. I had tried that once but it didn't work, but I'm sure there was a ._dds file in folder so that1s why. And this might sound like a stupid question but, if I DO rename the textures in both folders, do I have to compile the textures straight away or do I just do it after the modded tex are 100% finished?


Sorry for pestering you with all of this, I don't mean to nuisance
PS: I'll be sure to report any bugs I might find in this thread, since I don't know a thing or two about programming or anything like that, bug testing and report is a small way I can contribute, so I'm happy so help, even if it is not very much


EDIT:
Seems like the 10 tex limit bug is gone, yay! And also, renaming does work, just like you said.

Last edited by VictorXD; 22-02-15 at 22:32.
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Old 23-02-15, 00:38   #110
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Quote:
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EDIT:[/B] Seems like the 10 tex limit bug is gone, yay! And also, renaming does work, just like you said.
Glad to hear it
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