Sun Aug 21, 2005 1:46 am by Argh
This is a side project that I simply haven't taken the time to complete, I'm afraid. I kind've plan to have "new and improved" Nomad stuff in the next version of the Toolkit Mod, now that I've figured out how ALEs work (although this knowledge has not been entirely satisfactory thus far- I can't clone existing ALEs yet, nor code new ones).
Soooo... here's what I can tell you:
1. "Nomad textures" are basically a single DXT3 file that contains an alpha channel, which is DcDtOcEcEtTwo (talk about complicated), which in turn has a special cubemap that it uses instead of the standard white dot. This cubemap is also DDS DXT3, but it doesn't have an alpha channel, if I'm recalling correctly.
2. Basically, the Freelancer game engine fakes specularity by displaying a white dot onto the surface normals of geometry that's facing a lightsource. What Nomad textures do is to shine a semi-random (and nicely tiling) texture onto the surface instead. That's ALL IT DOES. It appears, to the viewer, that something fancier is going on, but really all we're looking at is something very much like the specular highlights on normal ships... but, instead of a white dot with a gray alpha, we're looking at a colored map. There's nothing all that fancy about it, and altering it's a piece of cake.
Making a new one is going to be a bit trickier. I haven't yet figured out how to make new TXMs, which is the stumbling block- this is on my long list of "things to figure out when I just have enough free time"- which should be soon, since I'm almost done with the code going into the next version of the Toolkit. My theory is that TXMs and MATs are exactly the same, structurally- it's just the UTF parameters, such as animation instructions, that make them different- I just haven't gotten to test that theory yet, is all. If this proves correct, we'll be able to make things like animated textures on ships... which would be very cool, obviously...
