Texture replacements

[sultim-t]

Overview

RayTracedGL1 accepts an unmodified texture from a game, and tries to replace it by searching for a corresponding file.

• If not devmode:
  • search for KTX2 file in the rt/mat/ folder
  • if not found, use original data
• If devmode:
  • search for TGA / PNG / JPG file in the rt/mat_dev/ folder
  • if not found, search for KTX2 file in the rt/mat/ folder
  • if not found again, use original data

About devmode

• In devmode, a developer menu is being run in a separate window

• Files in the rt/ folder are checked, and, if one was modified, RayTracedGL1 tries to hot-reload it

  • Note: but it doesn't hot-reload a texture, if its corresponding file didn't exist during its upload from a game :(

• To enable devmode:

  1. Create a text file named RayTracedGL1.json in the Half-Life folder
     

  2. Put this text inside:

     {
         "version": 0,
         "developerMode": true,
         "vulkanValidation": false,
         "dlssValidation": false,
         "fpsMonitor": false
     }
     

  3. Launching rt/xash3d.exe should open an additional window named RTGL1 Dev

• To disable devmode:

  1. Either delete RayTracedGL1.json, or set "developerMode": false
  2. Launch a game

Modifying textures in devmode

In Xash3D, there are multiple places in the code where a texture upload may happen. Usually, world textures have a name like: #maps/sign50.mip; animated models: #models\barney\BX_Chrome1.mdl; etc.

1. But it's easier just to export all textures via devmode: in Textures tab, click Export original textures

2. A folder rt/mat_src will be populated by all currently uploaded textures in TGA format. It may take some time

3. For example, we would like to modify this sand texture:

4. Create rt/mat_dev folder and copy the file into it. The file must preserve the file hierarchy it previously had in rt/mat_src, e.g. the target file for "rt/mat_src/#maps/out_snd2.mip.tga" is "rt/mat_dev/#maps/out_snd2.mip.tga"

5. Modify the texture:

6. On map restart we should see this (given that devmode is enabled):

Modified textures in non-devmode

When devmode is disabled, only KTX2 textures can be used, as they are parsed in a fast manner and can be copied directly to a video memory wihout preprocessing. But this also means that textures need to be converted from TGA / PNG / etc to KTX2 before launching a game.

A small script rt/CreateKTX2.py converts TGA and PNG files from rt/mat_dev/ folder to KTX2 files in rt/mat/ folder. It also creates a CreateKTX2Cache.txt file to track what files have changed to prevent re-exporting the same data.

To use the script:

• install Python3
• install GPUOpen Compressonator
  • this is a tool that converts to KTX2
• a path to its compressonatorcli.exe must be added to PATH environment variable
  • so a compressonatorcli.exe can be found and called from any directory (as the script just calls that .exe)

After that, launching CreateKTX2.py should convert textures to KTX2, and we would be able to see the changed textures even with disabled devmode.

PBR info

Textures can have additional images that define properties for physically-based rendering:

• metallic, roughness (_orm suffix)
• emission (_e suffix)
• normal map (_n suffix)

For example, we would like "#models/v_crowbar/crowbar.mdl" to be more metallic:

• enable devmode (just for faster iterations and hot-reloading)

• create a metallic-roughness texture

  • Red channel -- unused
  • Green channel -- roughness
  • Blue channel -- metallic
  • more info in the GLTF2 standard: [1] [2]

• save to a file called "mat_dev/#models/v_crowbar/crowbar.mdl_orm.tga"

  • notice the _orm suffix
    

• if a file didn't exist when original texture was uploaded, force this texture to be uploaded by a game, which happens for most textures on connecting to a map:

  • just quick-save, type disconnect in the console and load the save
  • this needs to be done as RayTracedGL1 doesn't check unknown files for hot-reload
  • this "re-uploading" technique should be done only once and only for new files, because after that RayTracedGL1 already knows about the files

• now PBR properties should be visible in the game

Same process can be applied to:

• Emissive
  • with _e suffix
  • RGB represents emissive color [reference]
• Normal maps
  • with _n suffix
  • normal direction offset from a geometry normal [reference]
    • Red - offset along tangent
      • 0..255 remapped to -1..1
    • Green - offset along bitangent
      • 0..255 remapped to -1..1
    • Blue ignored

Note: same process for converting to KTX2 needs to be done

Note: to check which PBR textures are active, look Textures tab of the devmode window
* A - albedo
* P - metallic / roughness
* N - normal map
* E - emissive
* each number is an internal texture ID

Texture properties

There is some limited amount of texture properties that can be applied to a texture by its path.

For example:

• we have found that "mat_src/#models/glassgibs/chome_glass.mdl.tga" should be glass
• so we need to set some properties to a texture with name "#models/glassgibs/chome_glass.mdl"
  • notice that .tga (and mat/src/) were removed, so we have the original texture name
    • be careful with extensions!
  • original texture names can be also found in Primitives / Textures tabs of devmode window (use middle mouse click to copy name, or right click -> Copy texture name)

• add an entry to array in rt/data/textures.json:

  • {"textureName":"#models/glassgibs/chome_glass.mdl","isGlass":true}

• save JSON

  • if in devmode, it should be hot-reloaded, and the result should be observed in the running game
  • otherwise, a map change or game restart is required

Warning: JSON parser has some bugs related to spaces inside arrays, specifically, there must not be any spaces around colons :
Note: Check the devmode's Log tab for parsing errors, after saving JSON files

A list of texture properties:

• textureName
• forceIgnore
• forceIgnoreIfRasterized
• forceAlphaTest
• forceTranslucent
• forceOpaque
• forceGenerateNormals
• forceExactNormals
• isMirror
• isWater
• isWaterIfTranslucent
• isGlass
• isGlassIfTranslucent
• isAcid
• isGlassIfSmooth
  • glass if roughness is small
• isMirrorIfSmooth
  • mirror if roughness is small
• isThinMedia
• metallicDefault -- default metallicity
• roughnessDefault
• emissiveMult
• lightIntensity
  • a float that defines intensity of a light source that should be attached to a polygon with the given texture
• lightColor
  • attached light's color in 0..255, e.g. [255, 0, 0] defines a red color
• lightEvenOnDynamic
  • if false (default), lights will be attached to textured polygons only on geometry export
  • if true, lights will be attached to any geometry (both exportable and non-exportable); use with care: might increase amount of noise significantly

[magpie-o]

@sultim-t We will very appreciate if you will answer to many people on SYS_CRASH problem

[sultim-t]

Again, I'm out of ideas for that sys_crash. Someone who has the problem needs to debug it, as I am not sure if I can reproduce it on my machine :(

[magpie-o]

Understood. Thank you very much for your reply!

[Muxinio]

the error occurs if you have EVGA or MSI AFTERBOUNER open. I don't know if it could also be something else, I closed it and it didn't happen again.

[cinder-block-garry]

Again, I'm out of ideas for that sys_crash. Someone who has the problem needs to debug it, as I am not sure if I can reproduce it on my machine :(

r u still alive

[BryanAM7]

How can i adapt the og crowbar from 1998? i just copied the v_crowbar.mdl from "\Half-Life\valve" to "Half-Life\rt\valve\models" and the crowbar looks fantastic but the reflexions update slow like at 1 fps or less so should i extract and modify the original textures or just add pbr propeties to them.

[RiceWitch]

how do you get devmode?!??!

[cinder-block-garry]

i think hes dead

[cinder-block-garry]

rip @sultim-t