DX:IW texture pack

23/01/04
  Many existing textures redone, lots new added. Im now happy with virtually every texture in the seattle area. Current texture count is around 325. Installer redone again by Boye, now a lot nicer to use. Anim_glowies problem fixed.

10/01/04
  More textures added (now at ~175) New installer program implemented by boye. 

07/01/04
  This is an Alpha Version of the DX2 community texture pack. We don't have a decent installer up and running yet so unfortunately all textures need to be manually overriden.... this takes between 5 and 10 minutes but hopefully we'll have this sorted out properly soon.



Installation
  Run setup program and follow on screen instructions. Please note:

  All textures live in the Content/DX2/Textures/DynamicallyLoaded folder except for the anim_glowies files which go in system/data. The DX2UI.ini should be  installed to the system folder and includes a backup of the original.

*WARNING* : If you currently have any custom textures in your dynamically loaded folder they will be overwritten by anything with the same filename. Backup your files if necessary.
  Also your current DX2UI.ini will be overwritten, if you have modified yours then back it up before installation!

  The installation technique used revolves around renaming the pathname of textures in the map files, when DX2 can't find these it looks in the backup DynamicallyLoaded folder to see if it can find a relevant texture. All the installation has done is add ___overriden to the path names in the map files, the texture pack can be easily uninstalled by removing this and it won't have made any changes to the original textures.




Features
  Excellent quality high res Alex D skins courtesy of john p.
  Other characters also with improved texture detail.
  The majority of general objects and recurring textures have now been redone.
  Many level specific textures redone, Seattle is the closest to having a full set of these.
  Improved weapons and hands textures.
  Minor HUD colour tweaks.
  Redone keypad, interfaces and animation textures 
  New version of the DX2 font, note this works best with smaller font sizes (see later section)
  Improved DX2UI.ini - Overall text colour schemes have been made less ugly, also some minor tweaks to various features such as a slightly transparent conversation window.  



IBD Patcher Instructions
  This is a great new tool written by Boye which should replace ibdoverride. Single textures can easily be ticked and unticked in the left hand list although you have to know which texture to look for. However a far easier way to select textures is to use the presets menu, basically you select a preset and either add or take it away from your currently installed textures.

For example if you wanted to just use the Alex D models then you would highlight the preset 'NO TEXTURES', hit the plus sign, wait for it to process and then highlight the preset 'Alex D' and hit the plus sign.
These presets are designated by the presets.ini file which should be found in the same directory, if you know what you are doing then feel free to make your own presets.

Note that this tool is largely for adding new textures, on opening it automatically scans your dynamically loaded folder (and a few others) for any .dds files, if it finds any it will add it to the list where it can be selected or deselected.



Performance and Problems
  Installing this texture pack WILL have cause your load times to increase by at least 10 seconds, whether you decide it is worth the annoyance is up to you. I don't see any real work around for this.

Loading times tested on the inclinator level - happened to be my current save. Computer spec was a 2400xp, ti4400, nforce 2, Western Digital 80gb 8mb cache and 512mb DDR. 

Default textures  12 sec
+ Alex D, hands and guns  15 sec
+ Font+HUD elements, minimal env 16 sec
+ Interfaces/animations, NPC's  18 sec
+ General Objects  22 sec
+ Full environment (All textures) 30 sec  

Although obviously you won't be getting the full benefit of the texture pack you can easily deselect some of these presets. I know some of you aren't happy with the load time penalties so feel free to experiment. It wouldnt be that much of an issue if it wasnt for the fact that the maps are so small! The entire FarCry sp demo map can load in the same time it takes for a couple of corridors to load in DX2... 




  Performance will also take a hit but not as much as you might think. DX2 currently uses up very little memory for textures as it is mainly xbox optimised, adding higher res textures doesnt slow things down particularly much although high res normal maps are quite draining. It's a given that there must be a performance drop but on my system I would estimate it as being only a drop of between 5% and 25%.


  At the moment we are currently using a lot of guesswork and hacks to get around the DX2 file formats, this means that we are quite inflexible in what we can achieve until we get an SDK. Future goals include adding more varied character textures, unique textures for 'rare' guns, a specular lighting fix and hopefully some new gun and character models. We will also continue to add more and more textures as and when we do them, this is an ongoing project. There is also a far off aim of adding more content and a full DX2 mod but I don't know how likely that is.


  Recommended font settings for custom font:
[FontMappings]
SmallFont10__d=DX2_Font,0.50,0.80
MediumFont16__d=DX2_Font,0.60,0.80
HudFont12__d=DX2_Font,0.50,0.80
HudFont14__d=DX2_Font,0.60,0.80
HudFont16__d=DX2_Font,0.65,0.80
HUD_HelpText__d=DX2_Font,0.50,0.80
HUD_SmallText__d=DX2_Font,0.50,0.80
HUD_CornerHelpText__d=DX2_Font,0.50,0.80
HUD_DataLink__d=DX2_Font,0.60,0.80
HUD_Inventory__d=DX2_Font,0.60,0.80
HUD_Convo__d=DX2_Font,0.60,0.80

These parameters need to be put into your default.ini file found in your DX2 system folder under the font section near the bottom (use control F and search for FontMappings). A sample default.ini is included but you'll have to rename and overwrite your normal one as I didnt want to automatically change peoples settings.
If you dislike the new font then you can quickly disable it through the DX2Font preset in IBDpatcher

DX2UI - If you dislike the altered text colour scheme then you can restore the original. Go to DX2/system folder and delete the file DX2UI.ini , then rename the file "copy of DX2UI.ini" to DX2UI.ini

Textures can now be quickly turned on and off through IBDpatcher. Check the IBDpatcher readme for details.



These textures have been put together by:
  John P - Alex D (male+female), Templar Paladin, hands. Check out http://home.online.no/~johmoe/images/JohnP_DX-IW_Textures/

  Blumen Kohl - Gun Textures

  DvRoss - Trier Tavern textures. Stars.

  Koif (me) - Everything else


Apologies if I've forgotten who did what. If your texture is included in this pack against your will then let me know.

Please let me know any feedback or ideas you might have. In particular:

What kind of performance hit you're taking
Effect on load times
Any graphical errors caused by this pack
Any textures which are particularly bad
Any textures that are particularly good
Was it worth downloading
If you have any textures you want including
If there's any particular object textures you want me to modify


If you'd like to help with this project then you may want to investigate http://66.193.119.177/index.php?showtopic=207929


You can get in contact with me at [email protected]

For my thoughts on DX2 as a game you may find this interesting http://66.193.119.177/index.php?showtopic=208067

A big thanks to my hosts, everyone who's made textures, people like celestial, kefren and jim|floong for working on tools and thanks to boye for spending countless amounts of time working out a patcher and installer.


Legal Stuff
I'm just a DX fan and a student in computer animation, I don't know much about legality but I guess any textures in this pack have some kind of joint ownership between Ion Storm and their creators. A lot of time and energy has gone into this texture pack and I would prefer it if people acknowledge this by not doing anything to cheapen what's being done. If you would like to modify these textures for your own personal use then I have no objection but if you intend to radically alter them and then redistribute or use them for anything non DX:IW based then I'd prefer it if you got in contact with me first