Make your armor look more detailed , easy to install

[Savok]

I know you guys have done an exceptional job on this and I was wondering if you will also be releasing the Velious armor texture upgrades as well as the classic? I have always preferred that look. The armor I mean are the one from here: http://wiki.project1999.com/Players:Fashion

[paulgiamatti]

Yep, all Velious armor textures have been upscaled by at least 100% using waifu2x. The overall difference is awesome - everything looks clearer and more detailed, and colors are more vibrant.

A bunch of the textures provided in the OP are completely remade by hand by Nysus, Xevin, and Joyelle, and while those only account for a select few sets of textures, they are by far the best looking. The rest of the textures were only upscaled by Chebby (and maybe Nysus too?) using software like Perfect Resize, which definitely does a decent job of upscaling but waifu2x's denoise algos are superior.

The completely redone by hand textures are as follows:

• All robes
• Dark elf male character
• Dark elf male plate
• Human male character
• Human male leather
• Human male chain
• Human male plate
• Human male monk
• 5 human male faces
• Human female (currently don't have these, I've heard Xevin might have them though probably incomplete)
• Wood elf male leather
• 1 halfling face
• Chain-wearing froglok

So as you can see, the completely remade stuff is pretty piecemeal and inconsistent, but since I like them too much to replace them with upscaled textures I'm putting together a "Maximum Hi-Definition" package that includes those along with the new waifu2x upscaled textures, new classic elemental textures, new classic blade textures, etc. On the other hand, if you want aesthetic consistency across everything then there will be a couple different packages that Cucumbers is putting together which will primarily be upscaled stuff - none of the handmade stuff listed above, or fancy stuff like new elemental textures, and it will be more based around the original classic textures.

However, in my opinion the handmade textures blend in seamlessly with the upscaled textures so there isn't noticeable inconsistency when using them. Some people might not like the aspect of one single halfling face being higher definition than all the others, or five of the human faces, or only the chain frogloks, etc. But I mean, so much of the texturing in EverQuest - especially after they released the hi-res Trilogy pack - is already so inconsistent that it doesn't stand out or anything. To me it just improves the overall experience.

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It should be said though - and this is now partly the reason why we're working to release updated texture packages: if you install any of the new textures in this thread's OP, your client will crash while zoning more often regardless of how good your computer is (explanation below). So if this is something you care about, I'd actually recommend not using any of them, and if you've already installed them I'd recommend reverting back to the original high-resolution Trilogy textures.

That said, all textures such as those in the OP are going to be made available in a way that will not make the client crash. The reason this happens is because the Titanium client is a 32-bit application, and can therefore only use a maximum of 2 GB of your system's memory (actually only about 1.75 GB to be more precise). The way it stores data in memory is also really inefficient, which ends up leading to memory bloat issues when you zone between data-intensive zones - as soon as it gets anywhere near 2 GB of data stored in memory, it throws an exception and crashes to the desktop. So it doesn't matter if your machine has 2 GB or 16 GB of onboard RAM, or whether you have a SATA or SSD hard drive, the Titanium client will crash all the same once it hits that threshold.

And keep in mind that it's not just writing zone textures into memory but also NPC and character and armor and weapon and held item textures as well - everything that's visible, basically. So if you install the updated West Freeport textures you are going to crash when zoning into and out of West Freeport much more often.

We're solving this issue in the upcoming packages by doing tons of compression. To give you an idea of the difference this makes, the global_chr.s3d provided in the OP is about 167 MB, while the global_chr.s3d in the upcoming package which contains all of the same textures plus tons of newer and higher quality textures is only 13 MB.

So yeah, I don't mean to knock the work that Chebby and Nysus et al have done because it's exceptionally good, it just needs to be compressed down to a size that the client can handle.

Will they have wrinkles when I unpack them? I am ok with crashing if I don't have to iron...



^^

[LordRayken]

So is there a big pack of stuff we can download already? I haven't seen a unified download link.

[Turp]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

We're solving this issue in the upcoming packages by doing tons of compression. To give you an idea of the difference this makes, the global_chr.s3d provided in the OP is about 167 MB, while the global_chr.s3d in the upcoming package which contains all of the same textures plus tons of newer and higher quality textures is only 13 MB.

Back after some RL stuff invaded. Great to see this is about done / final stretch.
(at least it looks like it?)
+ Nice job reducing and yet maintaining the same quality!

On the Lag / DC issue? - I had heard of some people having a problem with the zone packs in OP but I ran the character textures part for a long time across multiple PC and laptops and I never had a issue.
Was there more to the story that I am missing or was this just a TT zone only problem?
If so I am pretty sure the zoning into TT lag thing was a different issue? because I heard of people having that problem years ago (at least for TT zone) and they didn't have the HD graphics.


The HD work currently done is amazing! I am currently testing your new pack Paulgiamatti and all the little things add up~
Unless You are really close to a complete release... I would like to push for a beta release , people need this !

Making the game more detailed really gives it new life. I really hope You guys decide to release what is currently done though. Just as a teaser/tester pack . What is currently done in HD is really badass ~ and even if it is not fully complete. The latest release has so much done that It would be great to showoff your guys work. + allowing more people to test and post feedback if they ran into any problems.
Although We have tested and ran this so much I don't think You guys are going to run into anything major , if anything even at all.
*Even if they have to use the 7 zip to unzip it. That would be easy to explain.


http://imgur.com/3EECB4S
The detail in the book (link above) is badass - Anyone able to decipher it yet? I heard it says something ... Might try to get the EQ Mystery video guy on the case [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Soon everyone gets to enjoy this ?! They have done a bunch of work and really remastered this game to nearly full HD. Very professional job done.
Loving it! Thanks~

[Turp]

Originally Posted by LordRayken [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So is there a big pack of stuff we can download already? I haven't seen a unified download link.

Currently there is only the original char / armor / robe texture done. It is the one here
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0B23oc...xport=download
but this should change soon I would hold off if You haven't tried it yet.

They will release the new stuff soon and everything will be all packed together and have a few different options available. so if You can wait (Sorry not sure exactly how long but with all the work Cucumbers and PaulG have done the past month it has to be close to done) their new release will include all the shields/weapons/epics and stuff.

If they don't release it in the same way the one i linked above was done , the only extra step is download like 7 zip or similar zip program and just unzip the files then cut and paste them into EQ folder and overwrite. Pretty easy to do still.
I am pushing for (at least) a tester release and they can refine it and do a real release once everything is packed up right. It is overwhelmingly done as is , and would be great to let people try.

[LordRayken]

Okay, just been waiting for a few months so I wasn't sure what was available.

[paulgiamatti]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So if you install the updated West Freeport textures you are going to crash when zoning into and out of West Freeport much more often.

Just want to make a small correction here and point out that the new West Freeport zone textures are fine - these won't cause the memory-related crashing issue I mentioned above, despite being a fairly large S3D.

[mickmoranis]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It should be said though - and this is now partly the reason why we're working to release updated texture packages: if you install any of the new textures in this thread's OP, your client will crash while zoning more often regardless of how good your computer is (explanation below). So if this is something you care about, I'd actually recommend not using any of them, and if you've already installed them I'd recommend reverting back to the original high-resolution Trilogy textures.

That said, all textures such as those in the OP are going to be made available in a way that will not make the client crash. The reason this happens is because the Titanium client is a 32-bit application, and can therefore only use a maximum of 2 GB of your system's memory (actually only about 1.75 GB to be more precise). The way it stores data in memory is also really inefficient, which ends up leading to memory bloat issues when you zone between data-intensive zones - as soon as it gets anywhere near 2 GB of data stored in memory, it throws an exception and crashes to the desktop. So it doesn't matter if your machine has 2 GB or 16 GB of onboard RAM, or whether you have a SATA or SSD hard drive, the Titanium client will crash all the same once it hits that threshold.

And keep in mind that it's not just writing zone textures into memory but also NPC and character and armor and weapon and held item textures as well - everything that's visible, basically. So if you install the updated West Freeport textures you are going to crash when zoning into and out of West Freeport much more often.

We're solving this issue in the upcoming packages by doing tons of compression. To give you an idea of the difference this makes, the global_chr.s3d provided in the OP is about 167 MB, while the global_chr.s3d in the upcoming package which contains all of the same textures plus tons of newer and higher quality textures is only 13 MB.

So yeah, I don't mean to knock the work that Chebby and Nysus et al have done because it's exceptionally good, it just needs to be compressed down to a size that the client can handle.

lol I tried to debug why my game would crash on logout so often but I didnt even think of the textures smh

I ran ops texture pack and suffered from relentless crashes! But they sure were beautiful.