Two pixel overlap

[Phineus]

Okay, to help get things rolling, I have a doozie of a question.

Everyone knows that mtm1 has some pretty good textures in it, but too everyone knows just as much how they look like garbage in mtm2.

So my question is this: if I take the textures from mtm1 and arrange them so they can be pasted into traxx as a composite, how will the two pixel overlap effect this process? I mean, starting with an mtm1 graphic that consists of 6x6 tiles or 384x384 pixels, should I just be able to reduce it to 364x364 (hope my math is right) and paste it and now have improved appearance in the game?

<center><img src=http://mtm2.com/~bbs/mtm1-crn1.jpg></center>

Will the tiling work out properly or should I keep the original base texture for the terrain. Hmmm, come to think of it, does Traxx paste the 64x64 texture as a single or does it adapt the texture for the overlap too? Is there a difference between the way traxx would handle a single paste or a composite paste that allows for mtm2 overlap (of a 64x64 texture)?

Anyway, assuming that the original mtm1 textures line up reasonably well in the paint program, how do you see the two pixel overlap effecting the final outcome in mtm2? Just thought I'd ask before I waste too much time experimenting on ten thousand paste jobs



------------------
- Phineus

[for MIYH]

No, the MTM1 segments won't line up

How will Traxx affect the picture? When you do the multiple paste, you will notice the 6x6 yellow grid in Traxx doesn't cover the whole image. This is because the grid is 60x60 pixels, thats what you will effectively be able to "view" in MTM2, but Traxx performs an amazing magic trick and will cut out 64x64 pixel textures.

I don't know how Traxx manages a single texture paste.

If, for example, you are trying to 'squeeze' a two-texture mtm1 road segment into mtm2, you will notice the grid in Traxx doesn't cover the whole road segment, thats because the mtm1 segment was fully 128 pixels wide, but converted for mtm2, the view is only going to be 120 pixels wide. When you look at the yellow grid, try to imagine each square is going to end up with two more pixels beyond the yellow lines in its texture, that's where the other 8 pixels are, they haven't disappeared, they are just being 'overlapped'. Trying to 'center' the grids, hoping they will line up with the original textures will almost work, with only two textures, but not quite. If you are pasting a feature that is 3 or more textures wide, the affect gets worse the further out you go from where you are trying to center it.

Making your picture smaller, then pasting into Traxx, as you suggested, should let you maintain the size, but it will not maintain the alignment you are trying to keep with the original MTM1 textures. Also, you will lose information from your picture, that's why I gave up on resizing, the information I would lose would always seem to make the picture look bad, like thin road edges disappearing completely.

The two problems I think you will need to come to terms with in converting MTM1 textures to MTM2 are:

1) When you try to make your new Traxx adjusted textures line up with the corresonding straight track segments you try to load directly from MTM1, they won't line up.

2) You will need more textures to form the same features in MTM2 than it took in MTM1.

If you really want to overcome these two problems, that means converting all the MTM1 textures you want to use to MTM2, and being able to live with more textures to draw the same features.

You could try converting features from MTM1 to MTM2 one at a time (a turn, a straight, an intersection, etc.) Or, perhaps easier, you could try to make one large picture with all the turns and straights you would need, including the generic base textures. Either way, make sure you have at least one base texture around the outside of each feature in your original picture so you have some room to adjust the Traxx grid around (you still need to be careful to center road segments horizontally and vertically here so they use minimum textures but can still be reversed and mirrored).

Because that grid is 60x60, it can be tricky getting just the right top and bottom alignment you want to have, especially if you are going to need to matchup edges of your road with reversed segments and such. In the add-on textures I've made, I just use trial and error, writing down how much I adjust each time until I get it just perfect (or until i get tired of trying and finally say "@#!*, close enuff!" hehe)

I hope this helps.

[Phineus]

Okay, this is going to be harder than I thought. Initially, I planned to do a corner and a straight and leave the rest to mirror and rotate.

<center><img src=http://mtm2.com/~bbs/mtm1-st01.gif></center>

My hope was that if I reduced each one according to the Traxx paste scheme that they should line up just fine. If it worked out, I was going to maybe tackle forty-five degrees but I think I have to take a step back and not be so ambitious.

Now, if I'm reading you right then what you're saying is that I'll lose the outer edges of the composite, so it's best to add the extra row of base texture to guaranty the full paste. Seems to me, though, that there might be problems getting the edges and the base to line up just right. My guess would be that this logic would hold whether I increase the paste size or add the row or both.

Note: the only "real" custom textures I made before now was with the frottage and Lord Cap's pack. Each of those had the extra row of textures so I didn't really encounter this, and I did the entire arena floor in one shot so alignment was never an issue. It will be interesting to see how this new idea works out.

Oh, and btw, I am not interested in lining up with the old mtm1 textures. My aim was to recreate them so you don't need the mtm1 stuff (cuz it don't really look good in mtm2 anyway).

>>like thin road edges disappearing completely.

If my info is correct, mtm2 will not show anything less than 2 pixels in width. It could be that when reduced, you're forcing parts of the image to 1 pixel and so it wont show up.

Anyway ....

I think I'll try my curve and straight approach first. If it's close enough, then I'll live with it. If not, I'll try the one large picture approach and live with the mismatch to the base texture. btw, aligning the curves and roads is probably why TRI used the one picture approach rather than the more efficient mirror and rotate. Well, nothing's perfect but at least we should be able to get better than what we have right now. Trial and error it shall be

Thanks for the suggestions.

P.S. for those not following, we're talking about how traxx handles the conversion of a standard graphic into usable act and raw files in the mtm2 game. Check out the details here <a href=http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/Traxx/textures/custom.html>http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/Traxx/textures/custom.html</a>




------------------
- Phineus

[for MIYH]

Sounds like the right approach, you should be able to go a long way with a turn and a straight, I was hoping you were planning on doing the straight segments too when you make the turn, and not try to match MTM1 straights.

I drew on your turn a bit to try to illustrate what I mean, I hope I'm not beating a dead horse, but I find these details interesting for some reason hehe.

<center><img src=http://mtm2.com/~bbs/mtm1till.jpg></center>

The yellow grid is set at 60x60, if you use Traxx multipaste, this is basically the grid you will see, and what the textures will look like tiled in the game. You can see because of the overlap, there is quite a bit of texture left over on the right and bottom edges.

The green and purple boxes represent what part of the picture will actually be in your 64x64 individual tiles. The overlap of the green and purple boxes show you what part of the picture is actually 'shared' by adjacent tiles. (As a final detail, I'm not sure, but I think Traxx may actually be 'anchoring' the top left tile to the top left corner, so the boxes I've drawn are just notional for illustration.)

You can see in the red circles how your multipasted track will no longer be centered on the road, but when you adjust the grid in Traxx down and to the right to center the roads, the black arrows pointing to the edges indicate where you are going to lose the road edges. That's the reason I was suggesting you add more base textures around the outside, so to get the full road, on the bottom row of your picture you would end up with it being 5 tiles wide instead of 4. Granted, the two outside ones would probably only have tiny slivers of the edge of the berm on them, and might not be worth the effort if 4 wide looks good. To get good alignment with the base texture, you might want to just keep one of the duplicate base textures you will get when you multipaste into Traxx, it should tile fine, and line up with the rest of your edges.

- MIYH

[Phineus]

Nope, not beating a dead horse. That's exactly what this stuff is here for. Anyway...

If I reduce the size from 384x384 to 364x364 (though I'm reducing not cropping, that's only 10 pixels off each edge), I can get almost a perfect fit in the traxx paste box.

<center><img src=http://www.mtm2.com/~bbs/ftexture.jpg></center>

The (mis)alignment with the grid squares is less of a problem than your 60x60 would indicate, although it's still a tight fit. I'm not sure but I think your purple and green outlines are probably more accurate than the idea of an anchor on one corner.

Now in order to line up with the straights I could still merge the corner and straight pictures so that the paste job gets done all at once, then maybe use one texture for tiling and just purge the rest. I think trial and error will still rule the day.

Lastly, if my thinking is correct, the good of all this will be that I'll be able to use three or four different textures sets in one track without bloating the texture count. I'm still working on it, so we'll have to see


------------------
- Phineus

[Phineus]

Update. My first experiments on this did okay, but not great. The curves look good, but the straights don't line up. I think the problem is the percentage of reduction. The curve reduction perscentage is smaller than the straight. It still needs more work.

------------------
- Phineus