Support NeoGAF

[MaLDo]

Hey, great work Maldo! Are you making this re-texture mod for practice and portfolio work?

I wonder how you get higher resolution versions of pretty much the exact same textures Crytek used in some of those picures?
I guess Crytek's art team likes to visit CGTextures.com just as much as any other studio.

Man, I love that site.

----------------

I hear your always looking for some honest critique, and I see a few places you could improve.

It seems that you sometimes leave the specular or lighting/shadow from your photosource in the diffuse for some of your retextures.
like this one for example:



It's higher res, but that's not all there is to texturing, as you know from your material adjustments.

I am curious as to how you go about remaking some of the normal maps, especially for some of your man-hole covers and tiling stone textures.
A few of them can look kinda blobby like the photosource was just put through CrazyBump/nDo/etc with very few adjustments.
Have you tried using zbrush/mudbox and sculpting over a height map (generated out of Crazybump/nDo/etc as a starting point)?
You can really give your normals a lot more depth and fix some issues that come with photo-generated normals.

Some of your tiling textures are very noticeably repeating.
Some detail normals textures are unnecessarily uniformly too strong and could be toned down a bit and varied.
The plaster detail textures all over the warehouse map (probably a lot of others as well, that's the only one I got to play) for example make a lot of the indoor sections look bad.
You can avoid this by minimizing the contrast in your brightness channel in HSB mode.
The human eye is far more sensitive to changes in brightness/intensity of light than it is to Hue and saturation.
Color can be a more interesting area to put detail, and let your normals and lighting do the rest of the work.

Also, I am in the process of downloading the mod right now and I haven't seen any of this on your blog, so I don't know, do you ever work with Gloss/SpecularExponent maps?

EDIT: I just played it, I notice a lot of specular maps are missing.
The oil stains that are placed on asphalt for example look like they are now only in diffuse which looks really wonky.

Again, your doing awesome work Maldo, these are just some things I noticed as I was looking over your work.

Hi, thank you for your comments. I try to answer some of them now. Maybe you can talk a bit more about the rest because I don't understand some things XD

First of all, if you have downloaded MaLDoHD, that must be version 3.0, and a lot of stuff there are the first textures I created in my life. So, a lot of bad textures. I'm learning while developing and the future 4.0 is way better.


About creating bump maps I'm learned a lot. I don't like too much automatic tools, I prefer to combine details and a final touch by hand. Don't look to some horrible bumps in 3.0. But you can criticize what you see can be improved in the last shots. For example, here you can see a manhole bump map

http://maldotex.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/new-manhole-ingame.html

there are the diffuse, bump and displacement and not the specular but you can note the specular looking at screenshots ingame. There is a bright touch in the metal.

And a decal combination here.

I've make bump modifications because I need to show that broken concrete borders are inclined so I first created a hires displacement map and then created a few bumps to combine with by hand details.

I have not done any course or tutorial on textures and bumps, so I do not know more than the basics learned by trial and error (each color in the bump map represents the angle at which light incides)

with this manhole ingame the result is almost identical to the sensations of seeing in reality. I was a long time taking pictures and looking like responding to light in the street.

About the ivy diffuse, it's not the final version of the texture but I prefer some real light touch in some diffuse (not all) depending of what use they have into the game. I will put screenshots of how original and new look ingame.

About speculars, I try to add speculars when necessary, please put an example.

And about patterns sensations, I'm learning a lot too, but always with by hand modifications, I've tried some photoshop filters and don't like the result. Can you explain a bit how to "minimizing the contrast in your brightness channel in HSB mode". I use photoshop but only know very very basic about it (normal pencil, stamp, bright/contrast, saturation and copy paste all are I use usually) XD

 

[MaLDo]

It's higher res, but that's not all there is to texturing, as you know from your material adjustments.

Blurry editor screenshots using wip diffuse and wip bump but you can imagine what I'm talking about.
The model for a few of ivy props is a plane. More important, the original material has high specular value and not specular texture, so it seems metal surface very often. That's because I leave some brights and add some shadows into the diffuse apart from produced by bump map. Original diffuse has some kind of highpass level filter so is more uniform in long distance but is too boring in mid/close.

Original material+texture for ivy (other textures are from mod)

Mod version (work in progress)

 

[Computron]

Hi, thank you for your comments. I try to answer some of them now. Maybe you can talk a bit more about the rest because I don't understand some things XD

Just wondering, but English is not your primary language, yes?

About creating bump maps I'm learned a lot. I don't like too much automatic tools, I prefer to combine details and a final touch by hand. Don't look to some horrible bumps in 3.0. But you can criticize what you see can be improved in the last shots. For example, here you can see a manhole bump map
[/url]

there are the diffuse, bump and displacement and not the specular but you can note the specular looking at screenshots ingame. There is a bright touch in the metal.

A large amount of the bump maps I have seen when I played the mod yesterday look like they are a composite of photogenrated normals.
That's fine and it will look ok most of the time, but for some more defined objects/surfaces it is preferable to actually model/scult/or hand draw a height map to generate the base normals off of, and then add custom detail normals on top.
Hourences is a long time pro and he has a great breakdown of this process if you want to take a look.
He uses nDo2 which costs money (Well worth the price) but you can use a number of free alternatives including the old nDo or even a modeling/sculpting package.

About speculars, I try to add speculars when necessary, please put an example.

Specular is crucial for achieving good material definition and getting things like metals to look proper.
you should try to remove as much specular-lighting and any shadows from your diffuse texture and leave it to just controlling color and albedo.
(I would also suggest you read some of the Crytek presentations on the subject of leveling your textures as well so that they withstand compress and light better, the histogram on some of your textures are all over the place.)

About speculars, I try to add speculars when necessary, please put an example.

And about patterns sensations, I'm learning a lot too, but always with by hand modifications, I've tried some photoshop filters and don't like the result. Can you explain a bit how to "minimizing the contrast in your brightness channel in HSB mode". I use photoshop but only know very very basic about it (normal pencil, stamp, bright/contrast, saturation and copy paste all are I use usually) XD

Photoshop can represent your image in multiple channels, such as RGB (Red Green Blue), HSB (Hue Saturation and Brightness) as well as well as some other color spaces.

If you try and decrease the variations (contrast) in the brightness channel with HSB, visual repetition can be noticeably decreased, especially in tiling textures.

Blurry editor screenshots using wip diffuse and wip bump but you can imagine what I'm talking about.
The model for a few of ivy props is a plane. More important, the original material has high specular value and not specular texture, so it seems metal surface very often. That's because I leave some brights and add some shadows into the diffuse apart from produced by bump map. Original diffuse has some kind of highpass level filter so is more uniform in long distance but is too boring in mid/close.

Foliage is an interesting case, I suggest you look over the vegetation shader documentation in the Cry SDK for more info, but you should try to separate the diffuse from the specular and put each in their own texture slot. It will look much nicer if you have a good normal map to go along with it, and the best way to do that is to actually model branches and leaves and bake a normals map off of that.

 

[Ciastek3214]

Just wondering, but English is not your primary language, yes?

I think the HUD in his Crysis 2 screenshots pretty much proves it isn't.

 

[Computron]

I think the HUD in his Crysis 2 screenshots pretty much proves it isn't.

Oh lol, I didn't even notice that.
I didn't look at the HUD past the Developer Stat Text in the corner which is in English.

So Spanish eh?

 

[scitek]

Oh lol, I didn't even notice that.
I didn't look at the HUD past the Developer Stat Text in the corner which is in English.

So Spanish eh?

I think he's from Spain, actually. Interesting reading your feedback, even if I don't understand half of what you're saying lol

EDIT: I was just thinking, since there's somewhat of a language barrier here, Computron, maybe it would help if you took some screens of specific things you're addressing and couple them with pics of how they might look when improved. It would help myself and others follow along with what you're talking about at the very least.

 

[MaLDo]

Just wondering, but English is not your primary language, yes?



A large amount of the bump maps I have seen when I played the mod yesterday look like they are a composite of photogenrated normals.
That's fine and it will look ok most of the time, but for some more defined objects/surfaces it is preferable to actually model/scult/or hand draw a height map to generate the base normals off of, and then add custom detail normals on top.
Hourences is a long time pro and he has a great breakdown of this process if you want to take a look.
He uses nDo2 which costs money (Well worth the price) but you can use a number of free alternatives including the old nDo or even a modeling/sculpting package.



Specular is crucial for achieving good material definition and getting things like metals to look proper.
you should try to remove as much specular-lighting and any shadows from your diffuse texture and leave it to just controlling color and albedo.
(I would also suggest you read some of the Crytek presentations on the subject of leveling your textures as well so that they withstand compress and light better, the histogram on some of your textures are all over the place.)



Photoshop can represent your image in multiple channels, such as RGB (Red Green Blue), HSB (Hue Saturation and Brightness) as well as well as some other color spaces.

If you try and decrease the variations (contrast) in the brightness channel with HSB, visual repetition can be noticeably decreased, especially in tiling textures.



Foliage is an interesting case, I suggest you look over the vegetation shader documentation in the Cry SDK for more info, but you should try to separate the diffuse from the specular and put each in their own texture slot. It will look much nicer if you have a good normal map to go along with it, and the best way to do that is to actually model branches and leaves and bake a normals map off of that.

Hi, I'm spanish and my english is really bad XD







I know how specular work, but like I said, sometimes the end result into the game makes me take different paths. In the case of the ivy, the original texture has no specular map, and they have edited the original picture as if they will use specular. Also the object is completely flat so, in my opinion, the end result is very poor. Yes I could use a specular in this case, but even the texture and the material are not finished and the possibility exists, in this case the result is I think is good enough without specular. I have in mind that I am often surpassing the amount of memory on the graphics card and I cut here and there from time to time. Sometimes removing the specular from alpha channel to make it smaller in a different texture, sometimes reducing the bumpmap resolution, etc to go freeing memory. Some levels I am having 1900 megs of video memory used steadily, which I think is too much and cause slowdowns.

I also know the vegetation shader and use some materials, is very helpful sometimes because it responds differently to light in the distance. Although I believe in the version that you could try is not used by me.


So I prefer to comment on the latest screenshots because actual version don't match released version in any way.

What interests me is how can display the HSB channel in photoshop. I'll search a little on google to find access to different channels. It's very interesting because what I do now is rather heavy and manual. What I do is create selection groups with gradients and then join many tilings of the texture together. I walk away from the monitor and visually detect brightness patterns and then use gradient selections to up or down the brightness until it is visually attractive from the other end of the room where I have the computer. XD

It is also very interesting how to create a model from the picture. Like I said, right now I create a grayscale displacement map from modifying image by hand, and then do bumps composition created from the displacement map. Create models more or less automatically will make things easier to me. Although at this point in development would take me longer to learn than finish it my way, I love learning and I'll take a look at the free version of ndo when I finish 4.0 version.

I wonder what you think about the ivy comparative.

Thank you a lot.

 

[TheVampire]

MaLDo your textures are Godlike.

Thats all that needs to be said.

 

[Lettuce]

So the dream team is......

1.9 patch - DX11 and Hi-Res Texture pack
Maldo's HD Texture Pack v3
Particle FX mod
Repositioned weapons mod (which one??)

Will my i7 @ 4Ghz and ATI 6970 2GB @ 1920x1200 be up to the task??

 

[seldead]

Though im not really using a modded version of the game I'll ask this here as its sort of related to tweaking. I'm getting a strange problem with flickering lights on windows that is particularly noticeable when smoke is around. Has anyone else had this problem or know a fix?

using a 670 with latest drivers, also tested latest beta drivers to no avail. I don't think I had this problem on the 5850 I recently upgraded from and I uninstalled the old ati drivers and used driver sweeper so I'm fairly sure that's not the problem..

 

[Corky]

So the dream team is......

1.9 patch - DX11 and Hi-Res Texture pack
Maldo's HD Texture Pack v3
Particle FX mod
Repositioned weapons mod (which one??)

Will my i7 @ 4Ghz and ATI 6970 2GB @ 1920x1200 be up to the task??

You won't need that.

I'm think a 6970 should be able to hold ~30 @1920x1200 and all settings max.

 

[zbarron]

I installed maldo and blackfire and was wondering how to remove it completely and have default settings. Does anyone know?

 

[MaLDo]

I installed maldo and blackfire and was wondering how to remove it completely and have default settings. Does anyone know?

First of all, you have to consider MaLDoHD and Blackfire are two completely different things. Although someone has put together somewhere.

 

[I H8 Memes]

Nice to see you posting here Maldo. I have been using your texture packs for awhile and I appreciate all the hard work. While Cryteks art design isn't on the level of a Valve, I still usually dont use stuff like this since it destroys the aesthetic and consistency of the art direction that the original artist were going for. You've done a great job of updating the game without affecting it's art direction. Thanks.

 

[MaLDo]

Nice to see you posting here Maldo. I have been using your texture packs for awhile and I appreciate all the hard work. While Cryteks art design isn't on the level of a Valve, I still usually dont use stuff like this since it destroys the aesthetic and consistency of the art direction that the original artist were going for. You've done a great job of updating the game without affecting it's art direction. Thanks.

Thank you meme hater.


A few screenshots from blog last entry. Blurry because are from editor with high compression.

http://maldotex.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/999.html

 

[∀ Narayan]

Any AI mods yet?

 

[XOMTOR]

Whole lotta really great pics

Holy mother of God those look good Maldo; any idea how much Vram version 4 will require?

 

[scitek]

oO

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Nice, really like this one, so much going on in the lighting. I noticed that you added a shadow underneath the lamp. Though, is the shadow normally that dark?

 

[jett]

More screenshots from incoming mod (easy way to make thumbs?)

Looks good in some places, weird in others. Good job though, really.

 

[legacyzero]

Since I just built my new rig, and finally got DX11, I'm SOOOOO downloading the DX11 and HD packs.

 

[therealminime]

Since I just built my new rig, and finally got DX11, I'm SOOOOO downloading the DX11 and HD packs.

You can safely skip the HD pack and just get Maldo's.

 

[legacyzero]

You can safely skip the HD pack and just get Maldo's.

So it's safe to say that everybody here prefers Maldo's pack over the OG pack?

 

[Decado]

Was someone ever able to mod in blood/gore (skin/model damage) into Crysis 1/2? I like the things I shoot to look like they've been shot.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

So it's safe to say that everybody here prefers Maldo's pack over the OG pack?

I don't think maldo is replacing every single texture. There may be a couple that he left as vanilla/or HD pack.

 

[legacyzero]

I don't think maldo is replacing every single texture. There may be a couple that he left as vanilla/or HD pack.

So should I install the HD pack, and then install Maldo's pack on top of it?

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

So should I install the HD pack, and then install Maldo's pack on top of it?

I did that for his previous version, but now it seems like he has done so much more, that frankly, I am not even sure if his mod already contains the HD pack to begin with. But yes, you can do that to be sure.

 

[therealminime]

So should I install the HD pack, and then install Maldo's pack on top of it?

Yeah if you want to be absolutely sure that there aren't going to be any low resolution textures, that works just fine. I'm not sure how necessary the HD pack will be with the newest version of Maldo's mod when it launches.

 

[Necronomikon]

Thank you meme hater.


A few screenshots from blog last entry. Blurry because are from editor with high compression.

http://maldotex.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/999.html

Damn MaLDo... those screenshots are B E A UTIFUL!!

Specially what you've done with textures on pic 09 - 10, 15 - 16 with the earth textures... outstanding!

Just watching those textures makes me want to play through the game again!

Superb and professional job right there! KUDOS!

 

[comrade]

So the dream team is......

1.9 patch - DX11 and Hi-Res Texture pack
Maldo's HD Texture Pack v3
Particle FX mod
Repositioned weapons mod (which one??)

Will my i7 @ 4Ghz and ATI 6970 2GB @ 1920x1200 be up to the task??

Where can I find the Repositioned weapons mod?

 

[MaLDo]

http://maldotex.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/walking-final-stretch.html

 

[Prophet Steve]

Oh yes, it's nice to read more about the development and it looks really good.

Can't wait to start Crysis 2 when you have released the new version!

 

[MaLDo]

MaLDoHD 4.0 BETA is out

http://maldotex.blogspot.com/2012/10/maldohd-40-beta.html

I will post some screenshots later.

 

[Corky]

MaLDoHD 4.0 BETA is out

http://maldotex.blogspot.com/2012/10/maldohd-40-beta.html

I will post some screenshots later.

awesome !

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

MaLDoHD 4.0 BETA is out

http://maldotex.blogspot.com/2012/10/maldohd-40-beta.html

I will post some screenshots later.

YES! I was just about to go looking to see if it was updated as well.

By the way, your Mediafire account appears to be suspended?

 

[miked808]

Gonna give the new PC and Monitor a workout with this.

 

[scitek]

Haha, I shit you not I just downloaded this 20 minutes before you posted it here Maldo. I just took a few shots for the screenshot thread.

 

[Corky]

Btw Maldo, will this work with qualitymod 1.9 ?

 

[leadbelly]

I bought Crysis 2 in the last Steam sale. I'll check out Maldo's HD pack when I get around to playing the game.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Feels good man.

 

[MaLDo]

YES! I was just about to go looking to see if it was updated as well.

By the way, your Mediafire account appears to be suspended?

Yes, account suspended. I can't understand the reasons. A generic email from mediafire and that's all.

 

[Corky]

Yes, account suspended. I can't understand the reasons. A generic email from mediafire and that's all.

Hey maldo, d3doverrider doesn't seem to work with maldo 4.0 , am I missing something?

 

[MaLDo]

Hey maldo, d3doverrider doesn't seem to work with maldo 4.0 , am I missing something?

I don't know. Maybe is something about SMAA injector.

anyway, you can activate in-engine triplebuffer doing Alt+TAB twice.

 

[dark10x]

Those textures are amazing. How much of an impact does this have on performance?

 

[Corky]

I don't know. Maybe is something about SMAA injector.

anyway, you can activate in-engine triplebuffer doing Alt+TAB twice.

You're most likely right, I remember not having triplebuffering when I used an injector in BF3.
Sadly doing alt+tab twice doesn't seem to work with downsampling.

Playing on a 1920x1080 monitor downsampling from 3200x1800, alt+tabing twice does give me triplebuffering but then I can only see 1/4 of the screen, alt+entering for fullscreen removes triplebuffering again

oh well...

 

[scitek]

You're most likely right, I remember not having triplebuffering when I used an injector in BF3.
Sadly doing alt+tab twice doesn't seem to work with downsampling.

Playing on a 1920x1080 monitor downsampling from 3200x1800, alt+tabing twice does give me triplebuffering but then I can only see 1/4 of the screen, alt+entering for fullscreen removes triplebuffering again

oh well...

It works for me with downsampling. Hmm.

 

[Corky]

It works for me with downsampling. Hmm.

Well shucks... time to get to the bottom of this then :

drivers : 306.23 WHQL
driversettings : default global, default crysis 2
ingame settings : everything set to extreme, 3200x1800 resolution, v-sync off
maldo config settings :

edit :

and here's my problem with the alt+tab x 2 trick together with downsampling :

edit 2 : now the game crashes on startup when I use d3doverrider...

 

[MaLDo]

Well shucks... time to get to the bottom of this then :

drivers : 306.23 WHQL
driversettings : default global, default crysis 2
ingame settings : everything set to extreme, 3200x1800 resolution, v-sync off
maldo config settings :

edit :

and here's my problem with the alt+tab x 2 trick together with downsampling :



edit 2 : now the game crashes on startup when I use d3doverrider...

I'm not sure, but maybe you're out of memory for triplebuffer at that resolution. Videocard needs memory to allocate the thrid buffer, and that needed size depends of resolution. If game is using a lot of memory for textures, maybe there is no memory for extra buffer.

I can activate triplebuffer for 2880x1800. Can you try doing downsampling from a lower res? like 1800p, so you can know if is downsampling the problem or if it's the resolution.

 

[Corky]

Can you try doing downsampling from a lower res? like 1800p, so you can know if is downsampling the problem or if it's the resolution.

I just tried, downsampling doesn't work regardless of resolution, if I use anything above 1920x1080 the image won't scale like the photo I took of my screen. And the higher resolution I use the less of the screen I'll see. I've tested other games and checked the nvidia control panel for the scaling override options and everything is as it should be.

Overall everything works flawlessly, framerate is a 99.99% solid 30 fps, both 3200x1600 and 2560x1440 work without a hitch, everything except triplebuffering.

edit : did some more testing, triplebuffering only works on AA settings 1,2 and 3, it does not for ( for me atleast ) using 4 and 5.

 

[MaLDo]

I just tried, downsampling doesn't work regardless of resolution, if I use anything above 1920x1080 the image won't scale like the photo I took of my screen. And the higher resolution I use the less of the screen I'll see. I've tested other games and checked the nvidia control panel for the scaling override options and everything is as it should be.

Overall everything works flawlessly, framerate is a 99.99% solid 30 fps, both 3200x1600 and 2560x1440 work without a hitch, everything except triplebuffering.

edit : did some more testing, triplebuffering only works on AA settings 1,2 and 3, it does not for ( for me atleast ) using 4 and 5.

Are you using some kind of OSD injected, like MSI Afterburner.... maybe it's a compatibility issue with injector SMAA. Levels 4 and 5 of AA use SMAA injector.