Water shaders in the dark spots of the landscape

[staslos]

I noticed my landscape I'm converting from Condor V1, has water shaders in place of dark spots (see attachment).
I was importing textures from original BMP files that have no alpha channel.
I guess, when Landscape Editor was generating dds files, it added alpha channel in place of black pixels?
What's the workaround here?
My original scenery has 11x12 tiles of 8192x8192 pixels each, so if I can avoid editing them, that would be great.

I was thinking about using WaterAlpha tool mentioned in the guide if it can create DDS without adding alpha channel if I don't provide alpha-files. But I can't fine this tool. Where can I download it? And will it help me?

Shot2.jpg

[JBr]

I believe the problem is not in the Landscape Editor itself, but in the nvdxt.exe that is called to make the dds textures. Can you please find out what version your nvdxt.exe is? If 8.3 then it can be the source of the problem.

Unfortunately WaterAlpha tool won't help you at the moment, as it relies on the same tool. You can download it from the same place you downloaded CLT, it's in the pack called "Jiri Brozek's Landscape Utilities".

[staslos]

Yes, I have nvdxt of version 8.30. I tried to find other version, but couldn't so here is the way I fixed the issue in a different way.

Once texture tiles cut into patches in Landscape Editor, I simply run dds export in command line, replacing default compression with 'dxt3' (WaterAlpha uses dtx3). Other parameters are the same as if Landscape Editor would run nvdxt.exe (I double checked via Task Manager).

No water on black pixels anymore.

Here is a command on my computer:

Code: Select all

nvDXT.exe -dxt3 -Cubic -file "D:\Condor2\Landscapes\Blairstown2\Working\Textures\t*.bmp" -outdir "D:\Condor2\Landscapes\Blairstown2\Textures"

More on different compression formats is here https://celestia.space/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4697

[JBr]

Have you tried -dxt1c parameter for the patches without water? DXT1 is used for the reason it gives smaller files. If there is no water on the patch then it is just waisting the space using DXT3. It is quite noticable difference, if you have thousands of patches.

WaterAlpha in the next version will actually use two runs of the compressor, one for patches with water (DXT3) and one for patches without alpha (DXT1).

[staslos]

Have you tried -dxt1c parameter for the patches without water? DXT1 is used for the reason it gives smaller files. If there is no water on the patch then it is just waisting the space using DXT3. It is quite noticable difference, if you have thousands of patches.

WaterAlpha in the next version will actually use two runs of the compressor, one for patches with water (DXT3) and one for patches without alpha (DXT1).

By looking at the Process Explorer, DXT1C is exactly what Landscape Editor uses to export textures to DDS and it got me water paddles on black pixels...
Speaking of size, with all parameters the same: DXT3 is 5462kb , while DXT1C is 2731kb. Yeah waste of space... In this case, I would also try older version of nvdxt.exe with DXT1C.

@JBr could you share v7.82 with us? I can't find it by just googling.

Regards,
Stan

[Capricorne]

I have also the strange issue with 8.31 or 8.30 version of nvdxt.exe and have not found the 7.82 version, But I have found a older version without number version . The tool is included in an other Utility named "DDS Converter 2" , I used this utility a long time ago, for long years under Windows XP . Don't work any more correctly, now since Windows 7, but the "nvdxt.exe" part of this Utility is a lot smaller than the actual one and seem to work for me if I put it in Landscape editor folder. Have only made some Dxt1 . Could somebody test this unknown version of nvdxt.exe ? , I have examined the file with multiple anti-virus & adware tools, seem to be clean,
DDS Converter2 can be downloaded here : http://www.nakaminow.info/CondorV2/DDS_convverter21.zip or you can find it with Google....

Patrice