[mod] X3 - RESURRECTION MOD (New graphic mod)

[x3-AmModer]

Oh, Can you enhance the very dusty sectors logically? I mean you shouldn't be able to see any stars (except the systems core star) or even the planets, nor much of any station in those sectors. Is that possible?
This always bugs me when I fly through them. You can perfectly see the planet, but your view is completely filled with dust.

Yes, you have true, this is illogical , but sorry, this is an intervention in text files and sector editing and it isn' t the role of this mod....

But the role of this mod is enhace the textures, you can see the dust without pixelization, for example....

Have a nice day!

[x3-AmModer]

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Very soon after the release of the patch 3.1. you wanted to improve something else, something to do. So...

PATCH 3.2. FOR X3 - RESURRECTION WAS RELEASED



You can download it on my web:

_________________________________________________________



X3 - RESURRECTION



_________________________________________________________


- All from previous version 3.1. was added.


And what's new?

- Blinking of the cladding of all ships and stations is greatly reduced.
- Adds specific collor variations of icons for special objects on the map.
- Adds solar panels more dark for more realistic look.
- Less intense of planet lights for more realistic look.


And new HUD Support for cockpit mods in version 2 was added too...



Nice day to all, and ENJOY!!!!


X3-AmModer

[BananaMaster]

This is nice, thank you very much!

However I think I'll go through the files and search for the asteroid textures. Then grab the originals and blow them up using something like Waifu2x. (Deep convolutional neural networks (waifu2x), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... algorithms)
I don't like the new textures for them. The old ones had a nice metal-shine to them and the new ones look dirty and unnatural.
...
oh you just changed contrast and color. I thought they were new textures. The bumbmaps are missing which I guess is the reason that there are no craters on them anymore? But if they are not overwritten, just missing, why are not the old ones used? Anyway I try to remove the new asteroid textures...

BTW, why is there a texture of a small oriental carpet in the mod? xD

EDIT: Removing them was easy with X Editor 2. I think it looks better this way.
I am currently trying to blow the texture up to 2048px. It looks good with waifu2x, but I can only use online website integrations, and the one I used was configured for manga/anime. The other one I could find is currently overloaded.
Edit: Turns out there's a CPU version of Waifu2x.

[x3-AmModer]

This is nice, thank you very much!

However I think I'll go through the files and search for the asteroid textures. Then grab the originals and blow them up using something like Waifu2x. (Deep convolutional neural networks (waifu2x), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... algorithms)
I don't like the new textures for them. The old ones had a nice metal-shine to them and the new ones look dirty and unnatural.
...
oh you just changed contrast and color. I thought they were new textures. The bumbmaps are missing which I guess is the reason that there are no craters on them anymore? But if they are not overwritten, just missing, why are not the old ones used? Anyway I try to remove the new asteroid textures...

BTW, why is there a texture of a small oriental carpet in the mod? xD

EDIT: Removing them was easy with X Editor 2. I think it looks better this way.
I am currently trying to blow the texture up to 2048px. It looks good with waifu2x, but I can only use online website integrations, and the one I used was configured for manga/anime. The other one I could find is currently overloaded.
Edit: Turns out there's a CPU version of Waifu2x.

The cat and dat pairs work by considering current files in the cat and dat pair with the highest-numbered. This means I don't have to copy files that I don't want to change again.
The asteroids has craters, I don't know what you mean, could you make some pics of this issue?
You can give them more resolution but with minimal effect in game. This was tested for a month. You get a very little better quality, but you will never see it, only if you will stay very close at the asteroid. The loading of the sectors will be slower, ussage of the RAM bigger. But if you want change something, you can, of course, therefore exist programs like X Editor 2. If you will need help with something, let's write me on my e-mail.

Have a nice day...

[BananaMaster]

OK I finished it. And you are right. I can see no difference when I am a distance away.

Here is a example as to how good the new textures look like after 2x scale. This was a original 256px texture from the asteroids (I think the smallest ones) that is now 512px. The left one has been scaled up using nearest neighbor technique, giving a better result than methods like Lanczos. The right one is scaled up using waifu2x, which results is an amazing quality. It's magic!

Incredible!

In game screenshot, original:
https://i.imgur.com/HymzKGp.png

modded:
https://i.imgur.com/Hn1XXwr.png

Note: Only the asteroid is changed. I have not sharpened any images, just scaled them up. I made the mistake and made DDS files from PNG files (though fully compressed), and so the mod is 172 MB big. xD
Quite stupid.

I think for such big things like asteroids the textures should be even bigger. I think I'll make a 4096px version, slightly sharpened, that is way better compressed. Just to waste some time.
Now I have a good workflow, thanks to GIMP and BIMP. It shouldn't take nearly as long as before.

This was my first time making mod for any game. xD

*Pictures greater than 640x480 linked. See forum rules - N8M4R3*

[x3-AmModer]

OK I finished it. And you are right. I can see no difference when I am a distance away.

Here is a example as to how good the new textures look like after 2x scale. This was a original 256px texture from the asteroids (I think the smallest ones) that is now 512px. The left one has been scaled up using nearest neighbor technique, giving a better result than methods like Lanczos. The right one is scaled up using waifu2x, which results is an amazing quality. It's magic!

...

Note: Only the asteroid is changed. I have not sharpened any images, just scaled them up. I made the mistake and made DDS files from PNG files (though fully compressed), and so the mod is 172 MB big. xD
Quite stupid.

I think for such big things like asteroids the textures should be even bigger. I think I'll make a 4096px version, slightly sharpened, that is way better compressed. Just to waste some time.
Now I have a good workflow, thanks to GIMP and BIMP. It shouldn't take nearly as long as before.

This was my first time making mod for any game. xD

Yes I did the same, but be carefull with making better resolution, the textures will be much more bigger, much more difficult to load and it takes time for loading sectors and slow down the game with something you will maybe never interest in. Believe me. This mod enhances original textures with their original sizes (95%), so it has no effect on the game smoothness.

Just if you want do something like that, you can try make your own "High resolution Mod" for example...

Have a nice day and I wish you good luck...

[BananaMaster]

I think I keep it limited to asteroids. It takes about 2 hours to blow the 15 textures up to 4x with waifu2x, because I can't use my GPU to compute. I do even have a pretty good CPU: Ryzen 5 2600.
The thing that needs it most are the ships. Things like in the screenshots. And I don't know how the do them.

Edit: I think the screenshots I uploaded have transparent parts. Weird. I'm gonna reupload them because they look stupid.
Edit: Actually it seems to take way more than 2h. More like 4h.

[x3-AmModer]

I think I keep it limited to asteroids. It takes about 2 hours to blow the 15 textures up to 4x with waifu2x, because I can't use my GPU to compute. I do even have a pretty good CPU: Ryzen 5 2600.
The thing that needs it most are the ships. Things like in the screenshots. And I don't know how the do them.

Edit: I think the screenshots I uploaded have transparent parts. Weird. I'm gonna reupload them because they look stupid.

Ok, but I have to ask you to create your own thread where you can write about your own tests with the HR textures. I myself respect other threads and do not write about my mod in them. No offense. Thank you for understanding.

[BananaMaster]

Oh, sure. No you're right. I'm sorry.

[x3-AmModer]

Oh, sure. No you're right. I'm sorry.

Nevermind, thank's. Good luck.

[Sorkvild]

Hey thanks for the update, looking great so far and thanks for making adjustments to GUI, now it's much easier to see all scoopable stuff and important poi's

[x3-AmModer]

Hey thanks for the update, looking great so far and thanks for making adjustments to GUI, now it's much easier to see all scoopable stuff and important poi's

Thank you for your thanks . I hope you'll enjoy it!

Have a good day!

[BananaMaster]

Yeah he is right. But I tend to overlook the jump gates. I think I need to get used to their new look

[x3-AmModer]

Yeah he is right. But I tend to overlook the jump gates. I think I need to get used to their new look

Overlook? Hey man, did you see previous icons for the gates?

I have the opposite problem, I see mainly only the gates.

[x3-AmModer]

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

I apologize to everyone who has already downloaded Patch 3.2. I accidentally added one texture to it from the tests of blinking. Please download this Patch again, I removed the wrong texture and both Patches (Orig, LU) was uploaded again now.

Thank you for understanding.

I apologize for my mistake again...

[Daemonjax]

I was hesitant to say anything, because I don't want to piss in anyone's cheerios, but then I thought to myself: "Hey, if I released a mod, I'd want some honest feedback." So, here goes:

The textures themselves are very good.

However, there's too much texture shimmering going on due to a lot of them being too high resolution. This is a common problem with graphics mods in all games -- either the texture itself is too high res, or the mipmaps are too sharp (usually the former since most people just go with the default filters). I see this a lot in mods, even popular ones.

Other people might not care about texture shimmering -- I do, and I think they're crazy. But different people have different opinions on what looks good to them, so whatever.

And this isn't like Skyrim (texture buffet), where it's easy to just find the right dds file in a mod and tweak it until it looks good -- It would be too much work for me to do that just for a few nicer textures over what IEX has, and IEX doesn't have a noticeable texture shimmering issue.

But, hey, in the end you're going to make the mod you want to make and play -- it's the only way to do it and have fun.

[BananaMaster]

AFAIK this are the original textures, just a little sharpened and with increased contrast, Daemonjax.
Do you mean with shimmering that appearance that there is no AA? Then yea I have the same issue with it. Why, btw, is it that drivers can't AA these lines? Maybe I try ReShade next. That could do like a edge-find and selective blur or something.

[BlackArchon]

...Why, btw, is it that drivers can't AA these lines? ...

You can use Supersampling, which does a fine job with such problems. However, due to a game engine decision from Egosoft, all ingame text will get blurry.

Reshade can only use blur filters (like post-processing antialiasing ones) which just "smear" the picture.

[x3-AmModer]

I was hesitant to say anything, because I don't want to piss in anyone's cheerios, but then I thought to myself: "Hey, if I released a mod, I'd want some honest feedback." So, here goes:

The textures themselves are very good.

However, there's too much texture shimmering going on due to a lot of them being too high resolution. This is a common problem with graphics mods in all games -- either the texture itself is too high res, or the mipmaps are too sharp (usually the former since most people just go with the default filters). I see this a lot in mods, even popular ones.

Other people might not care about texture shimmering -- I do, and I think they're crazy. But different people have different opinions on what looks good to them, so whatever.

And this isn't like Skyrim (texture buffet), where it's easy to just find the right dds file in a mod and tweak it until it looks good -- It would be too much work for me to do that just for a few nicer textures over what IEX has, and IEX doesn't have a noticeable texture shimmering issue.

But, hey, in the end you're going to make the mod you want to make and play -- it's the only way to do it and have fun.

Thank you for your opinion.

Indeed, the negative opinions and bug hunters shifted the development of this mod to this form. Texture blinking is one big problem and basically struggles with it from the beginning of development. It is very difficult to find a compromise between the nicely filed texture and its distant view.

For example, the last time I upgraded solar power plant panels. What you now see in the latest version of this mode is just a fraction of what I did. Imagine that the solar panels did not look like a disk, but as real panels, each separately connected to each other, as the game wanted to present. It looked amazing! But the problem was when you flew away from the solar power plant. While moving, the game tried to draw the background behind the individual panels. Result? Blinking, and big! So back and rework, in the end I allowed myself to adjust only the main texture to keep the power plants from blinking.

It is not really easy to improve the look without a negative impact. There are months of work in it and there is still a lot to improve. Unfortunately, I don't have so much time for it now. You know, family, etc...

Have a good day

[x3-AmModer]

AFAIK this are the original textures, just a little sharpened and with increased contrast, Daemonjax.
Do you mean with shimmering that appearance that there is no AA? Then yea I have the same issue with it. Why, btw, is it that drivers can't AA these lines? Maybe I try ReShade next. That could do like a edge-find and selective blur or something.

Yes, this mod (as it is written) only improves the game's textures, not change it. Yes, I did a few textures myself, but mostly it is an improvement of the original textures or their rework. This is the purpose of this mod. And as has been written many times, this mod does not change any sector settings. The resulting appearance was achieved by balancing of textures (contrast, sharpness, color, brightness, local changing, etc ...)

As a result, you do not have to start a new game with this mod and you can install and uninstall it at any time without risk. This is also the main purpose of this mode.

Large mods have their compatibility packs because their creators have some textures altered and this mod respects them. If there will be some other big mods in the future and you will not sure about compatibility, just put the pair cat and dat files of X3-Resurrection in front of the cat and dat files of the new mod. It's easy.

Thank you all for your understanding.