Yup. This issue has been noted by the team and testers.
This is most likely a bug in the mipmapping and/or lighting. Objects that are close are lit with a pixel shader, those far away are lit with a vertex shader. With the recent graphical additions to the game, these two systems are a little out sync.
It's being worked on and testers are actively chasing it.
To me it seems more intuitive (and would look better) for the inhibitors to animate down... since they spin down jump drives. This is probably not accurate to Star Trek, though. :P
To me it seems more intuitive (and would look better) for the inhibitors to animate down... since they spin down jump drives. This is probably not accurate to Star Trek, though. :p
Alright.... in the latest dev you will find all the new textural goodies we've been discussing here. I'll include a changelog in the spoiler below for those of you that are curious.
For the rest, PICTURES!
What do we get?
- Emissive maps are now completed.
Blocks with screens or lights will now appear to glow in the dark without illuminating the surrounding area.
- Specular values are now completed.
This will control the amount of light reflected from the block. Eg; Grass is not as shiny as carved rock or basic hull.
- Material values are now completed.
This will show how rough the surface of the blocks materials are. Carved rocks and basic hull will have a smooth surface, allowing a concentrated light reflection. Advanced hull and grass are rough, diffusing the lights reflection more.
- Normal maps have been amended for better results and new normals given to overhauled blocks.
- HULLS.... Ha.. seems like every update i'm having to tweak or redo hulls for some reason. Hulls are now using materials and specular to show their surface texture. Basic hull is smooth and shiny. Standard hull is a little rougher and less shiny. Advanced is not shiny, and very rough (although the normal mapping for that roughness has been removed for the sake of blurry details for now).
Hulls should now look fine with normal maps on from a middle distance. (From super far away, any issue would be mipmapping still, keep me informed if this is still happening.)
- A FULL overhaul of any texture using a "screen". All CPU units, Effect computers, Deco computers, Deco Charts and Deco Screen have been retextured as showcased previously in the thread.
- All CPU units and other computers have new case textures. Side panels / back panels etc.
- Jump inhibitor CPU has been finished.
- Bombs, Scanner Modules, Storage, Factories, have been given new screens to fit the new theme + small clean ups. All new permission block.
A clean up on lots of blocks has taken place. I've started to reduce some of the noise on textures to get better results when players are using texture compression (which i imagine 99% of them are).
- Docking blocks have been cleaned up. Points of contact should be smoother, cleaner than before.
- Warp blocks have been cleaned up.
- Scaffolding has been cleaned up and the odd white outline around it's transparent sections fixed.
- Blast door has been cleaned up.
- Scanner module has been cleaned up.
- Storage has been cleaned and reworked.
Hazard stripes are seen on a number of blocks... all of them were a varying shade of yellow / orange.
This has now been unified so a orange hazard stripe will be the same across all textures where applicable. Much more cohesive.
(Storage has had the yellow hazards removed and blue placed in instead.)
I've "fixed" the warp modules so that the jump inhibitors will cascade in the opposite direction to jump modules.
Light sources on some blocks have been removed. Power tank, and all logic no longer emit lights. The emissive textures do a better job at this without over saturating colours or looking out of place.
"KUPU PLS I have a laptop / older computer, i can't run 256 textures with all these fancy things?!"
The pixel pack has just recieved all of those changes as well.
I strongly recommend using the pixel pack (with compression turned OFF, even on low end machines.) it looks pretty cool with the updates and from a middling distance, looks almost identical to the 256 textures. Give it a try
Alright.... in the latest dev you will find all the new textural goodies we've been discussing here. I'll include a changelog in the spoiler below for those of you that are curious.
For the rest, PICTURES!
What do we get?
- Emissive maps are now completed.
Blocks with screens or lights will now appear to glow in the dark without illuminating the surrounding area.
- Specular values are now completed.
This will control the amount of light reflected from the block. Eg; Grass is not as shiny as carved rock or basic hull.
- Material values are now completed.
This will show how rough the surface of the blocks materials are. Carved rocks and basic hull will have a smooth surface, allowing a concentrated light reflection. Advanced hull and grass are rough, diffusing the lights reflection more.
- Normal maps have been amended for better results and new normals given to overhauled blocks.
- HULLS.... Ha.. seems like every update i'm having to tweak or redo hulls for some reason. Hulls are now using materials and specular to show their surface texture. Basic hull is smooth and shiny. Standard hull is a little rougher and less shiny. Advanced is not shiny, and very rough (although the normal mapping for that roughness has been removed for the sake of blurry details for now).
Hulls should now look fine with normal maps on from a middle distance. (From super far away, any issue would be mipmapping still, keep me informed if this is still happening.)
- A FULL overhaul of any texture using a "screen". All CPU units, Effect computers, Deco computers, Deco Charts and Deco Screen have been retextured as showcased previously in the thread.
- All CPU units and other computers have new case textures. Side panels / back panels etc.
- Jump inhibitor CPU has been finished.
- Bombs, Scanner Modules, Storage, Factories, have been given new screens to fit the new theme + small clean ups. All new permission block.
A clean up on lots of blocks has taken place. I've started to reduce some of the noise on textures to get better results when players are using texture compression (which i imagine 99% of them are).
- Docking blocks have been cleaned up. Points of contact should be smoother, cleaner than before.
- Warp blocks have been cleaned up.
- Scaffolding has been cleaned up and the odd white outline around it's transparent sections fixed.
- Blast door has been cleaned up.
- Scanner module has been cleaned up.
- Storage has been cleaned and reworked.
Hazard stripes are seen on a number of blocks... all of them were a varying shade of yellow / orange.
This has now been unified so a orange hazard stripe will be the same across all textures where applicable. Much more cohesive.
(Storage has had the yellow hazards removed and blue placed in instead.)
I've "fixed" the warp modules so that the jump inhibitors will cascade in the opposite direction to jump modules.
Light sources on some blocks have been removed. Power tank, and all logic no longer emit lights. The emissive textures do a better job at this without over saturating colours or looking out of place.
"KUPU PLS I have a laptop / older computer, i can't run 256 textures with all these fancy things?!"
The pixel pack has just recieved all of those changes as well.
I strongly recommend using the pixel pack (with compression turned OFF, even on low end machines.) it looks pretty cool with the updates and from a middling distance, looks almost identical to the 256 textures. Give it a try
Kupu, one thing I noticed while working on DirtySpace Redux pack is that alot of slots for textures had been dropped, which wasn't a big deal for the Default pack, but it was a big deal for the DirtySpace pack, as alot of textures took advantage of some of these things. My main question is, why does Starmade use a texture sheet, when it'd be better, for the sake of texture pack creators, to use individual texture files for each block, the way Minecraft does?
Yea. We implemented a new system where each single face of a block can be assigned multiple times for any texture regardless of there position on the texture atlas. It cut down on unneeded textures by nearly 40% meaning we save occupied VRAM in the future.
which wasn't a big deal for the Default pack, but it was a big deal for the DirtySpace pack, as alot of textures took advantage of some of these things.
It was a necessary requirement for a more efficient / performant game. If you wanted to make a server specific (or single player) config that uses additional textures / face assignments, then you can use the custom texture config. Check out plusnine thread for some more info on that.
why does Starmade use a texture sheet, when it'd be better, for the sake of texture pack creators, to use individual texture files for each block, the way Minecraft does?
I have, and will always provide all the support i can for texture pack creators here in our community. However our pipeline needs to be efficient first and foremost to the developers here at Schine.
Beyond convenience, it is quite possible that it reduces the number of draw calls dramatically. But the texture atlas format was here in SM before i was, so i couldn't give a concrete answer without digging around.
I just have to say, once again, you are doing an amazing job with the textures. I've been refitting some ships and I am just in awe as how far this texture pack has come since it's humble beginnings.
Oh I just noticed something. Are crystals going to get their own emissions map? It may not seem like they need it as they generate their own light but if they are partially obstructed they don't actually generate light so they will appear darker than they should.
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