Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Diehard · Post by **Diehard** » Wed May 19, 2010 12:08 am

Hi all.

In an attempt to get rid of the so called skating player glitch, all S3TC textures have been re-processed. In the post below you will find more info on the downloads, but i also want to point out a few other things.

Theoretically the glitch should be gone permanently, but it still means:

Server Admins:
-------------------------------------

- Admins should never ever install the 2nd UT CD textures.
- Admins should never ever install the so called (reduced)NetTextures.
- Admins should never ever install any S3TC textures on the server.
- Admins should only use the 1st CD textures or have them download the safe for use textures from this page: S3TC Server Packages

Clients:
-------------------------------------

- Clients should either use the 1st CD textures or the UTRP textures.
- Clients should not use the 2nd CD S3TC textures.

So please keep pointing admins and players to above rules, and if needed refer to the mainpage from www.UnrealTexture.com where there is a direct link for serveradmins on the frontpage to get the correct server files.
.
.
.

Diehard · Post by **Diehard** » Wed May 19, 2010 12:22 am

Make note, these updates only apply to Unreal Tournament. Do not use them for Unreal !

Updates:

Because of the speed to process everything, 1 new package is included being noxxpack.utx The package does contain beta textures, and though most of them look cool, there still are some beta textures that still lack certain detail.

The same pretty much applies to city.utx That package too may contain beta textures, so be warned. But it does provide a high resolution flyby through the city

For both goes, if its really bad, than ill work on those next week and release some better candidates.

Technical updates:

As far as the technical updates concernes. At least theoretically the skating player glitch should be solved forgood. The non tiling clouds should be fixed as well.

The disapearing waterfall is NOT fixed. The waterfall is sitting in the HubbEffects package and the error is caused by the new mergertool. The package needs this tool to be functional, and cannot be produced by the old mergertool. So either stick with the normal package or use the S3TC version while you are at risk that on certain occasions the waterfall is mising. Needs to be said, the error is extreeeeeemelly rare, so from that point of view, you can safelly use the S3TC package. Fixing the error can only be done when a new and better version of the mergertool is available.

Use of downloads:

As for the downloads, if you use the Extreme End packages, still download all High End packages and overwrite those with the available Extreme End packages.

For all S3TC users goes, re-download all the files you have and replace them with the new ones.

Big thanks:

Further i want to say big thanks to Paperk and Usaar33 for the work on this, and again Protos for providing a testserver. And i sincerelly hope errors didnt slip in on my end. I tried to make sure everything was processed properly, but errors may have slipped in, i am human too

Lee_Stricklin · Post by **Lee_Stricklin** » Wed May 19, 2010 1:07 am

COOL! I'm going to download all of these and play on some servers known to have the wrong packages installed to see if players still look like they're doing the Captain Morgan pose.

Diehard · Post by **Diehard** » Wed May 19, 2010 1:16 am

Oh yeah, if you know servers that are known to have the glitch, please go there and report what happens there now. Its something i asked on several forums. The server i tested it with, had CTF-Face running and had the glitch if you entered with S3TC. After making test files the glitch was gone, so in that case the problem is solved.

However, they guy (Protos)also told me he already WAS running the proper textures, but still had the glitch. So the more the marry, if you know servers that have the problem, please go test.
.
.
.

gopostal · Post by **gopostal** » Wed May 19, 2010 3:39 am

This is going to sound like such a niggling complaint, but could you post with less space between your lines DieHard? You often make very large posts and the added lines are just unnecessary scrolling after three or four of your posts.

Man, I must be the only person in UT that dislikes this project. In effect you are forcing servers to change so you can do what you want with your textures. Yes, they are well done. Yes, they are cool but you should find a way to do this that doesn't mess with a default server setup. I still see frozen players and it's just so dividing. In fact I just saw this two nights ago on the AlienClan server. I wish there were a way to do this that wasn't so dividing and problematic.

Lee_Stricklin · Post by **Lee_Stricklin** » Wed May 19, 2010 4:50 am

Just tested on |uK|'s Siege server, no issues.

Diehard · Post by **Diehard** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:29 pm

Just tested on |uK|'s Siege server, no issues.

Do you have a server IP and portnumber for that one, and maps that are know to have the problem?

This is going to sound like such a niggling complaint, but could you post with less space between your lines DieHard? You often make very large posts and the added lines are just unnecessary scrolling after three or four of your posts.

No, the purpose is to have people read what i write, and indeed my posts are often very long, and i am very aware of that. And to prevent people are people facing one huge bulk of text i deliberately split it up in smaller much more readable sections. And after all its ment to be read, and not so you can scroll it easelly.

Man, I must be the only person in UT that dislikes this project. In effect you are forcing servers to change so you can do what you want with your textures. Yes, they are well done. Yes, they are cool but you should find a way to do this that doesn't mess with a default server setup. I still see frozen players and it's just so dividing. In fact I just saw this two nights ago on the AlienClan server. I wish there were a way to do this that wasn't so dividing and problematic.

And that is still something i dont get. First the error is caused by Epic and not by me, and everybody that wants to play with the S3TC textures simply suffers from Epics decision in this. Secondary, the question towards admins is simple, just switch out the textures for the 1st CD textures. And frankly i dont see the problem there...

Instead of simply switching out the textures, theres this whole discussion. And i just dont get that, i mean it doesnt matter what textures are on the servers. Both types of textures do the same, they make the server run, they dont affect netspeed, tickrate, mods, maps, playability, doesnt put any extra drain on the CPU. The server wont chrash more often or less, it doesnt do anything at all, nothing, zero, nada, totally nothing, noting, nothing, nothing. Or in other words, i could say to admins, you know, it doesnt change anything, it does do nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

And i never played UT, i am an Unreal player, and my clan always had servers and they were always packed with people. And yeah, often we got remarks from players that they wanted to see this or that changed. And yeah, if it would improove gameplay for people on the servers, we made damn sure everything is working properly. And if that same glitch would have happened on the Unreal servers we had, we would have switched out the textures inmediatelly, with no hasle.

And why, you ask, well simple, they dont affect netspeed, tickrate, mods, maps, playability, doesnt put any extra drain on the CPU. The server wont chrash more often or less, it doesnt do anything at all, nothing, zero, nada, totally nothing, noting, nothing, nothing. Or in other words, i could say to the admins on our server, you know, it doesnt change anything, it does do nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

But it makes it possible for people using S3TC textures to play on the servers around, thats all there is to it. And the only other thing is, it takes an additional 180 Mb off of the hardrive. But with nowadays drives i can hardly imagine that that causes any problems.

And at this moment over 48000 gigabyte of S3TC textures have been downloaded. Thats over 48 Petabytes(or 48000000 Mb)(and thats exluding all the mirror sites), thats alot of players and alot of textures. So people must like them. And this release is hopefully a solution, and lets hope its a final solution to the problem.

And at this moment we know at least one of the mayor causes:

Effectively though, the problem is that there are 3 sets of textures out there:

1) Default ones that came with the game
2) Ones for the dedicated servers (I believe no actual texture info is present here -- just name stubs)
3) S3TC textures

#3 is conformed (name table aligned) to #1. #2 also is conformed to #1. However, both #3 and #2 have new names -- and they are not conformed to each other. Consequently, the name tables are not aligned when playing on a server with texture pack #2 and you don't receive correct animation names.

The s3fix effectively modified the S3TC textures to align their name tables/generation info to match #2. How it did this I don't remember exactly. I believe I just manually ran conform against #2 and then looked at the modifications. The patch then stored these modifications and ran them on the s3tc textures.

And the release i made hopefully changes it forgood and makes sure everybody can join any server, normal players and S3TC players alike. All the packages are conform the nettextures, so hopefully this solves the problems, but it still means, having the nettextures on the servers is a bad thing(or any S3TC textures for that matter). And any admin simply should listen to the people that play there, and since it wont change a thing, than you might as well load the server with normal textures, just to make sure....
.
.
.

Hook · Post by **Hook** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:42 pm

gopostal wrote:This is going to sound like such a niggling complaint, but could you post with less space between your lines DieHard? You often make very large posts and the added lines are just unnecessary scrolling after three or four of your posts.

Man, I must be the only person in UT that dislikes this project. In effect you are forcing servers to change so you can do what you want with your textures. Yes, they are well done. Yes, they are cool but you should find a way to do this that doesn't mess with a default server setup. I still see frozen players and it's just so dividing. In fact I just saw this two nights ago on the AlienClan server. I wish there were a way to do this that wasn't so dividing and problematic.

Me and you both Gopo!
I am sticking with STOCK Textures ALL the way!
If clients want to change - that is their problem, but me and my servers, we stay with the original Stock Textures!
UT can't afford a split now!
Not worth it!

Also, any New Players that we possibly pick up will be very confused and disappointed, they won't know what is wrong either.

Diehard · Post by **Diehard** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:55 pm

Me and you both!
I am sticking with STOCK Textures ALL the way!
If clients want to change - that is their problem, but me and my servers, we stay with the original Stock Textures!
UT can't afford a split now!
Not worth it!
Also, any New Players that we possibly pick up will be very confused and disappointed, they won't know what is wrong either.

I dont think you understand what has been said. I AM ASKING to do excactly that, for gods sake USE the STOCK textures, and DONT use the stupid net or the S3TC textures from the 2nd CD. That is exactly what i am asking, please use the damn stock textures that are sitting on the 1st CD. Thats all i am asking and nothing more. And it wont confuse any client on a server, because the client cant see, or feel, or hear, or smell what textures the server is running. They wont notice a darn thing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

As said, using the STOCK textures from the 1st CD wont change anyhting. It does nothing, nor for the client, nor for the server, nor for the admin. Nothing, it does change nothing, and since it doesnt change nothing there wont be any confusement. I AM ASKING to use the Stock textures............!
.
.
.

gopostal · Post by **gopostal** » Thu May 20, 2010 3:17 am

This will be the last post from me on this subject. My position is clear and I do not mean to sully Diehard's obviously incredible work with an opinion so out of step with the majority. I would like to clarify that stock textures and the free server installation that is encouraged by Epic (and used by virtually every rented server) are *NOT* the same thing.

I just don't think you understand where Hook (and I) are coming from. My encounter with the frozen player issue is EXACTLY why I so strongly dislike this project. I am by no means a naab player who doesn't know things, but I had an increasing number of players enter my servers unable to move or fire, and no real way to know why. It took several hours of research and eventually me posting to UA and BU to find out this project is why. So now I either have to alter MY server or lose the players YOU have changed. So where does this stop? It's fine to force me to upload your choice of textures to my server now, so what if you decide to up the ante? And don't give me this "OH you are going overboard" because I'm not. It's one in the same. You are holding my players hostage until I set my server up the way you dictate. This whole project is utter bullshit, it should be shelved. There is NO reason at all you cannot release these textures as a utx, spend an hour a map retexturing, and release them to play on servers with people who don't mind the download. Instead you are going to have new server admins renting gameservers with the idea UT will be easy to run, then finding so many players join, can't play, and leave so they just email the company and switch games to something less troublesome.

Two projects have pissed me completely off in UT. The first was ASH and now this. ASH because it was the first mainstream pipeline into players installs through a server and UTRP because it affects servers. Both are black marks on the UT community.

Diehard · Post by **Diehard** » Thu May 20, 2010 4:55 am

Of course you are entitled to have your own opinium in this, and if you want to run your servers otherwise is up to you. Its after all how you want it.

But for me it leaves a few questions:

I would like to clarify that stock textures and the free server installation that is encouraged by Epic (and used by virtually every rented server) are *NOT* the same thing.

Than really do clarify how its different for a client(or a server for that matter)? How does it affect a player that joins your server?

There is NO reason at all you cannot release these textures as a utx, spend an hour a map retexturing, and release them to play on servers with people who don't mind the download.

I dont follow what you mean by that sentence, could you tell me what you mean?

But i also need to point out a few other things. The project started as an Unreal project way back in 2003, and only served Unreal. In the years following i have had thousends of mails and questions on forums around from UT players to please also release them for UT. And ill be honest, i always loved Unreal and still do, and i always hated UT and never liked the game. Each there own

So with all respect, its the UT community itself that asked me to work for them, and not vice versa.

The core reasons they asked where, and i quote:
- You are keeping Unreal alive with the S3TC textures, please do the same for UT?
- I already play with the 2nd CD S3TC textures, can you fix the masking problems, and the misalignments?
- Can you fix the skating player bug?

And it already was clear to me that lots of UT players already play with the S3TC textures, and on top of that people asked me to save UT from oblivian. I also realised,(and this also aplied to Unreal) that new games had improoved graphics and meshes and were stealing people away. And while we cant do too much about the meshes, we can do something about the graphics. And now the graphics are 32000% higher quality than any brandnew game like WOW, Gears Of War, Crysis. And people from UT can now proudly say that and proof that an old game like UT still can match brandnew games.

On top of that, theres also people posting the S3TC textures on forums worldwide telling to reinstall the game and check out the new textures and be amazed about them. People from those forums too start playing UT again because of the textures, and for no other reason.

As last, i am working with several magazines that hopefully brings Unreal and UT back on the map, and the only reason it didnt took of yet is we need a rediculous bandwidth to pull this off. I already contacted several international magazines and they are willing to spend lots of pages on the project. The reason they are willing is twofold, the project(URP/UTRP) is by far the largest of its kind. Secondary, Unreal and UT were big games backthan, and lots of readers have good memories on them, and will be interested enough to reinstall the game and dust it off.

Now you, if i would stop this, what should those magazines write, he you know what, Unreal is cool, and UT is cool, nothing changed on the game, wanna install it so you see the same as back in 1999. Or do you choose my option, that they tell their readers, you know what, those stupid old games have still awsome gameplay, and guess what, the graphics are better than any game currently around. So which of the two do you wanna see, and which option will likelly get people back in the game? I think if you tell people the game is the same as 1999, and the graphics are still 1999, no way anyone is going to reinstall the game. S3TC will, simple as that.

Also if i put it on the shelf, lets be real, how many people will start leaving the game? What do you say?, no one?, Ill be honest if i say, i dont friggen believe that. We already passed the point of no return years ago.

And in the meantime, while i dont like the game, it cost me thousends of dollars a year, and i tried to solve the requests that came from the UT community itself:
- You are keeping Unreal alive with the S3TC textures, please do the same for UT? Done

- I already play with the 2nd CD S3TC textures, can you fix the masking problems, and the misalignments? Done

- Can you fix the skating player bug? Done

(hopefully, if not, ill keep working on that)
.
.
.

brdempsey69 · Post by **brdempsey69** » Thu May 20, 2010 5:10 am

gopostal and Hook,

What Diehard is suggesting to you is that all you have to do is load the STOCK textures from CD1 onto your server and not use the net texture packages that come with the free server download ( be it Linux or Windows ) as those are the packages that cause the skating player glitch -- not Diehards packages or the CD2 textures. It's very easy to just upload the cd1 textures to your server and overwrite the net free server packages, restart your server -- DONE!! Now anyone can play on your server without the skating player glitch.

The Phobos moon in Diehards XbpFX.utx package is fantastic looking and Diehard got that package working great over the net. No skating player glitch in DOM-MetalDream any more.

Diehard, the Skybox.utx does have a tiling problem with one of the sky textures. If you can find CTF-Enemyatthegates, you'll see what I'm referring to.

gopostal · Post by **gopostal** » Thu May 20, 2010 6:21 am

@brd: Dude, we are so past that already. I know all that ad nauseum. Read my posts, I'm fully aware what needs to be done. That's the whole reason I hate the thing.

God, can you possibly be this dense? I did *not* say it wasn't a great project, nor was it worthy, nor was it a waste of time. You keep hiding behind how you are the Jesus Christ of UT, sent to save the game

Dude, you are just some guy who plays with photoshop, same as I'm just some guy who plays with uscript.

You still fail to address my core problem with this project to which I will reiterate one more time: You are forcing me to alter my server to accommodate your desires or else I lose my players. You have no rights to do that, I don't give a shit how incredible, photo-realistic, uber-fantastic your textures are, especially when there are other, available alternatives to achieve the same goal. Since saving UT is now on your shoulders, what's to stop you from deciding next week that you should "fix" one of my map textures I've made or expanding your ideas to encompass more than this? Pretty easy to do now that you already have the hook installed. "Sorry guys, I just *really* need to fix this thing, so you will need to also do this to your server. Now, you don't *have* to but it's in my installation already and if you don't my UTRP players won't be able to join your server. I'm sorry, but there's just nothing I can do about it." If you think this is bullshit, you already are doing this

Than(sic) really do clarify how its different for a client(or a server for that matter)? How does it affect a player that joins your server?

See above, and stop this silly game. If you don't want to address my question, quit wasting my time dancing around it. You know good and well how it affects players on my server. You've spent the last bit "fixing" it (yet again).

I appreciate your honesty in this exchange. Reading between the lines of your post has made things very clear to me. I see egomania standing before me, and I'm calling it right here guys: You will regret this project because when he runs out of things to "fix" it won't stop.

Post by **Feralidragon** » Thu May 20, 2010 3:38 pm

I won't be able to read all those walls of text for now since I don't have any time at the moment, but here's my input regarding this:
- I REALLY apreciate all the efforts on this project and I think it can really enhance Unreal and UT experience graphically;
- On the other hand, I really don't like this project much either, but it's a mere opinion of mine of course.

Why I don't like? For some reasons that Lee Stricklin was never able to reply to me (and he's one of the biggest fans of this project and tries to promote it a lot, and I guess he's doing the right thing):
- Do you know how many years I see Lee Stricklin saying: "there's no problems anymore...", and then similar problems occur to many people? I mean, problems always occur in any project, no matter how big or small they are, simple or complex, and it's perfectly understandable something happenning. But the problem here is always the claiming that makes this project look that it has no flaws for server in each release, but then the server owner gets to see another problem right after installing. So, for once, I guess it's time to stop promoting this as "a must" for server owners like if it was essencial, since this project was NEVER stable, and admins always get problems somehow even when they know what they are doing. Promote it, yes, but not the way it's being. (this is a message mainly for Lee). I am not saying servers shouldn't use them, "au contraire", they should but aware it can still have flaws and they are being solved, but not as something totally fixed.
- Some textures got changed and not enhanced. They are all cool and really detailed, but FACT is: some textures aren't the same anymore, even on their relative dimensions.
- When promoting something, it's HIGHLY adviced to look at the screenshots taken. All the promo screenshots I saw had extremelly modified textures and flaws. Only some of them looked really incredible and a really good work, but most of them show up flaws that servers won't want to have in their servers.

Other than that, like I said, it's a good project.

I won't say anything more for now until I have time to, and sorry if I misunderstood anything since I didn't read the posts in detail.

Still, keep up with this project, it's very complex nonetheless.

indiedb.com · Post by **Creavion** » Thu May 20, 2010 3:58 pm

- Some textures got changed and not enhanced. They are all cool and really detailed, but FACT is: some textures aren't the same anymore, even on their relative dimensions.

Thats true...one example is the rock texture in the Unreal beta map "Aztec", used as bark for a fallen tree and for "rock hanging palms". Will be kinda hard to keep the feeling, if DieHard will start on working on that texture.

And about gopostal, I guess you need to calm down. You dont have to eat the textures or anything. If you dont like them, dont use them. DieHard also said it, its more recommoned to use them for clients not really for servers.

I also dont use the textures for my ut install - but I have copied the texture packages to ut2004 since they can be also opened there. Some stuff is just over amazing, like the player ship package. I really like many of the textures. But since I map primary for UT, instead to map for it, I have not installed the packages there. But everytime if possible I try to include s3tc support for my maps texture packages if I "make" new textures.

Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Crucial updates

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures

Re: Re-release for all UT S3TC textures