Ice Textures... again...

[Feralidragon]

I know I already brought this up once a long time ago, but now my question is more specific:

- My next version of Nali Weapons will have lots of new effects at a very low cost relative to the current pack, so my question is:
If I use, let's say, about 7 or 8 Ice Textures for effects (max value), with a resolution of 128x128 each, will the game slow down that much? Or is it safe like WetTextures and textures of that kind?

I ask this because at the time I asked something similar here, I got the answer that Ice Textures take too much time to be processed since they are in real time, but then some months after that I read a full web page only regarding this kind of textures (full explanation, about FireTextures, WetTextures, etc, and even Ice Textures), and nowhere there was said that Ice Textures were slow relative to a Fire Texture or Wet Texture, actually it said that these kind of dynamic textures are very damn fast to process (all of them, including ice ones), and they would just become slow if I used too many of them, and that page was already very old, so at that time the processing was way lower than what it is today.
The problem I was told about Ice Textures is that they are processed in real time, but as far as I am concerned they are only processed in real time if you choose so, otherwise they can be processed by frame (but I prefer real time, since it's more accurate), and also Wet and Fire textures are generated in real time by an alghorithm, so honestly, I am not seeing a big difference between Ice and Wet processing for example.

Well, for instance, in the current pack I used tons of these effects and no slowdowns were noticed (Fire and Wet textures, not Ice ones), and some of the new effects in the new pack would have to be really Ice Textures (due to the "glass" processing and panning), but I have this big doubt I need to sort out before I implement some of these effects.

[Feralidragon]

No one knows?
It seems I have to test it out by myself later...

[Feralidragon]

Done with testing.

Unlike some rumours pointed out, Ice Textures DO NOT SLOW DOWN anyhow relative to other dynamic textures such as: Fire, Wet, etc...

I tried 7 different 128x128 ice textures (with the effect I want in the end), and let me say they made absolutelly no difference at all in the game, and I believe I could add more without any problems, plus you can do really good effects using ice textures when used correctly, pretty much like some from UT2004 for example.

So consider the "UT myth: Ice Textures are performance hogs" BUSTED (even I avoided them for that unfounded reason).

Of course, use them in the same amount only you would use other dynamic textures such as Fire and Wet ones, since it makes no sense at all spamming ice textures just because they are as fast.

[Rakiayn]

maybe a dumb question . butr what are ice textures. never heard of em

[Creavion]

maybe a dumb question . butr what are ice textures. never heard of em

[Feralidragon]

Basically they are textures that "self-pan" in any direction given a certain speed (by realtime or framerate), and they need 2 textures: a source texture (like in a wet texture) and a glass texture that will distort the source one (or simple modulate it depending on what kind of texture you aplly, or you can also set a texture that doesn't distort the source one at all and that way you can have a pure panning texture to use mostly on meshes for example).

Unlike the other dynamic textures (Fire, Wet, etc), you can't mix a fire one or a wet one with an ice one (for instance you can mix a fire texture with a wet texture, for an example check the UDamage translucent effect texture, since it's a mix from 2 different kinds of textures).

When correctly used and set, it can give really good visual effects at very low cost.