49 replies to this topic

[Tina Benoit]

Hey MechWarriors!

In our next Dev Vlog we will be interviewing Jonty and Lauren, both PGI's 'Mech Texture Artists!

For #15 we decided to discuss questions asked by the community!
So if you have any information you'd like to know about 'Mech textures, please post them on this thread!!

[Iqfish]

1024x1024 textures are so 2012.

- When can we expect higher resolution Mech textures? It was mentioned that your artists have 4k versions of all mech textures laying around. The idea of release them was dismissed due to a possibly larger client size. However a solution could be an alternative high-res client like in WarThunder.

Lordred has a great thread about it. It shows the flaws of the currently in-game textures.
http://mwomercs.com/...esponse-within/

Making higher resolution textures available could drastically improve MWOs looks. People with a littler beefier systems like me would be happy!


- Is there a possibility to fix the cringeworthy spelling mistakes in the Steiner faction camos?
I made a thread about these issues.
http://mwomercs.com/...ridiculousness/

- How do the new "Overlay" textures work? Russ talked about this in the most recent townhall discussion, will be camo system be reworked for those?

- When will be abled to see the first iteration of the decal system?
Russ said, a year ago, that the system was pretty much done.

Russ Bullock, on 21 September 2014 - 05:25 PM, said:

Decal System:

The engineering of the decal system is essentially done at this point albeit completely untested. What this means is the engineer that coded it has the whole system working on his computer in programmer console command mode. So it means we still need to get a UI engineer to put the interface into the game itself. As you know UI resources can become very challenging to get a hold of. Currently those resources are working full time on CW screens.

So at this point I can't put a delivery date on the feature, and whether or not we will see it with CW phase 2 is still very much in doubt but at least it is something that is very much in sight.

Edited by Iqfish, 15 September 2015 - 01:31 PM.

[Lauren Bamlett]

Tina Benoit, on 15 September 2015 - 01:15 PM, said:

In our next Dev Vlog we will be interviewing Jonty and Lauren, both PGI's 'Mech Texture Artists!

Nah it'll be fun, lay on the questions!

[Juodas Varnas]

When is the Urbanmech getting the rest of the basic camos?
Will the (S) variant get them too?

I want my Pirate Trashcan, damn it!

[Gyrok]

1.) When are unit decals/insignia/logos coming?

2.) Any new camo schemes upcoming?

3.) When can we have some purchasable skins like the loyalty mechs (a la the AS7/KGC/CN9), or different external components, like the Loyalty Atlas Head?

4.) When will invasion prime variant clan mechs finally be able to change the tertiary color to something besides dark battleship gray?

Edited by Gyrok, 15 September 2015 - 01:47 PM.

[SpiralFace]

Can we bug Dennis to let you guys tone down the specular inputs in your shaders?

The original mechs had a "worn in" feel to them that made them feel like warmachines. Later releases for the past few years have all gone with this gloss finish on everything that looks very "meahhh..." all around. Makes it look like every mech got painted for a car show room instead of a battlefield.

Looking at the paint work on this Chieftain as an example of an ideal direction for the mech paint.

I also back the entire "high res client" so we can get those mechs looking as pretty they can be.

Edited by SpiralFace, 15 September 2015 - 02:00 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

Iqfish, on 15 September 2015 - 01:19 PM, said:

1024x1024 textures are so 2012.

Was actually gonna ask about 4k (or, at least, 2k) texture packs. Glad you beat me to it!

[Adamasartus]

Could we get some more details on the decal system? I'd like to know about decal placement and pricing.

Also it goes without saying that major factions House Davion and Clan Wolf will have decals available. But what about smaller factions. Like the St Ives Compact and smaller clans like Diamond Shark.

Would you also be open to decal suggestions?

[HollowBassman]

Is it possible to have different textures(shiny and smooth vs faded, old and dented) that we could select or buy like we currently do colors and camo? I like the weathered look that most of my old IS mechs have. Sparky and some of the newer mechs don't seem to look as old or used and I would prefer a consistent look across all my mechs.

Some examples of possible textures that could be sold: shiny new(current clan), lightly weathered(newer IS), moderately weathered,(older IS), heavily weathered(deeper chips, scratches), bullet riddled(misery, resistance), kaiju survivor(claw and bite marks)

[Lordred]

Basically re-hashing on Iqfish.

- Texture Normalization: Right now the Mech texture files haphazard jump around all over the place. The few mechs which feature a .RGB/.SPC/.DIF texture pack of 2k/2k/2k are hands down the nicest looking mechs in the game. When can we expect all of the mechs to be Normalized to 2k? It is something I have been championing for a while. http://mwomercs.com/...esponse-within/


- Way way back when Karl Berg was on board he teased us by saying the Art team had 4k+ resolution files laying around for the texture work, would it be possible to create an option high resolution package for the high end user base?

- Not a question, but my thanks go to Jonty Roodnick, I was informed you were responsible for the Mauler making it in with a full array of 2k texture files. You sir are a saint.

Edited by Lordred, 15 September 2015 - 02:30 PM.

[Cattleman]

HollowBassman, on 15 September 2015 - 02:26 PM, said:

Is it possible to have different textures(shiny and smooth vs faded, old and dented) that we could select or buy like we currently do colors and camo? I like the weathered look that most of my old IS mechs have. Sparky and some of the newer mechs don't seem to look as old or used and I would prefer a consistent look across all my mechs.

Some examples of possible textures that could be sold: shiny new(current clan), lightly weathered(newer IS), moderately weathered,(older IS), heavily weathered(deeper chips, scratches), bullet riddled(misery, resistance), kaiju survivor(claw and bite marks)

Tangentially related, is there some artistic rhyme or reason as to to why you've given certain mechs different textures?

The Catapult, for example, has weathered spots over-top of whatever color you put on. Only something like Camo Grey hides it.

The Hunchback is shiny for some reason, yet casts any color you put on it a little darker than it would be on the Shadowhawk, which is more matte. Should these two mechs, in stock green, not be the same color?

Edited by Cattleman, 15 September 2015 - 03:13 PM.

[Tarogato]

Ooooh, I have a couple things I've been meaning to ask for a long time!

1.

A long time ago, in beta, we had damage textures on mechs that looks like this:

Spoiler

Later on in development, those textures were replaced with these:

Spoiler

While I do enjoy the new textures to an extent, a lot of people seem to agree that the old ones looked better. Would it be possible at this point to go back to the old textures or even come to a compromise? Perhaps use the old texture when damage is being applied to armour, and paint the new "ugly" textures for when damage is being applied to internal structure?

Another concern - when mechs get shot up, it quickly messes up the paint work. Would it be possible to make damage textures partially transparent so that the original paint work can still show through?

2.

At a distance, almost all mech textures become a rather indistinguishable "black". This is kinda disappointing - even if you paint your mech the brightest white, on a snow map at a distance it looks like this:

Spoiler

Could this be improved?

Some old concept art for reference:

Spoiler

Edited by Tarogato, 15 September 2015 - 03:20 PM.

[aniviron]

I noticed a number of patches back that the material used for smoke particles was updated to show up as white hot on thermals instead of being dark- most noticeable in how UAVs now show up bright white, and the smoke plumes in the center of Caustic block vision now.

Is there any chance of getting a global pass on thermal vision materials? There are a lot of maps where there could be a lot more done with thermal imaging, and on some maps especially it looks odd, i.e. Frozen City shows up brighter as though it were hotter than some 'normal' temperature maps.

[Kamikaze Viking]

great questions in here.

Mostly I wanna know about unit decals as a few others have mentioned. Other than that i cant think of anything specific to textures that hasn't already been said.

Anticipating some interesting answers

[Colin Thrase]

Hi Tina,

I'm assuming that the upcoming mech textures will be more taxing for our video cards. How much of a difference in image quality and rendering speed does a particular graphics card make? The game's download page indicates the minimum graphics card is a GTX 285 or HD 5830, but with as many changes have been made in the game since inception (more detailed maps, mechs, and special effects), should those be updated?

Also - do you have a GPU recommendation for players with 3 screens? Are we better off with a single really nice card (Geforce 980ti for example), or two cards that aren't quite as high-end (two Geforce 960 cards are cheaper than a single 980ti, and between them you have the same total RAM)?

Looking forward to the interviews - it's always great to hear from the various teams.

[process]

As others have said:

1. Can we please normalize all mech camo to 2k? I've passed on many camo patterns and even chassis due to their sub-par appearance.

2. Is there a way to decouple the shiny underlay featured on certain hero mechs and Clan Wolf and Jade Falcon faction camos? As above, the inability to color certain mechs without a persistent undertone it pretty off-putting.

Edited by process, 15 September 2015 - 04:24 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

Would it be possible to redo the damage textures to better reflect what damage the mach has actually taken? Right now it just turns into this strand grey pock marked texture.

It would he nice if there were 3 different damage textures for each weapon type and a 4th for when the internals are exposed.

[Livewyr]

Question 1: The fun question.
Would it be possible to make a camo pattern (skin) where the mech looks more old fashioned?
(for lack of a better word)

Like making it look like you might have driven it in World war 1 or 2... bolts/rivets, hydraulics/myomer, maybe some rust?

Question 2: The obvious question for clans.
Wave three gave us invasion variants where we could change the camo and all 3 colors. Is there any plan to do that retroactively to the (I) variants from waves 1 and 2?

Question 3:
How do you put the graphic (camo) to the machine (mech)? Do you apply it like a painted skin to a full model from the engineers, or do you color each individual panel/component on the mech?

Is it like a suit, or is it individual to component?

[Kiiyor]

I have 2 questions!

Q1: Would it be possible to get texture overlays? i.e. another channel over the top of existing texture and camo specs.

Stuff like:

• Shiny
  
• Gloss
  
• Matte
  
• Battle Scarred (kind of like the Misery)
  
• Pearlescent
  
• Two tone
  
• Patterns! (like carbon fiber, that Hex grid from the Nova reward mech)
  
• Metallic etc

I'd pay! I would! I'D PAY LOTS.


And finally:

Q2: Will it be possible to see a return of the most excellent old damage textures from closed beta? I understand they require a lot more work for the texture artists, but by golly they were rad.

Thanks.


Edit: I should read other people's comments first!

Edited by Kiiyor, 15 September 2015 - 06:10 PM.

[jay35]

Top two texture-related questions:

When/will we see texture quality upgrades for the old mechs and old textures?

and

Will we eventually be able to preview how our paintjobs will look in the actual lighting scenarios presented by the various maps?

Thanks!