(02-02-2018, 04:30 AM)Bighead Wrote: The update is ready. There are now "arb" mipmap textures included so Dolphin 5.0-6199 or newer is required. I was originally planning on just fixing any mipmap effects but got carried away and added a bunch of stuff. I got a bit lazy with the log and didn't document everything. While the changes may appear to be only half of what I put into the first game, the work felt like it was double.
Download: Mirror 1
Code:- Dump and rename some textures for Mario (SMG1 textures did not directly port over).
- Created new textures for Peach's icon (SMG1 textures did directly not port over).
- Port over Rosalina textures that I created for Super Mario Galaxy.
- Fix all the textures that are shared with SMG1 that have arbitrary mipmap effects.
- Add night sky, clouds, and other various textures for the overworld hubs.
- Add tons of upscaled clouds with arb mipmaps. Slightly improved quality, allows GPU Texture Decoding.
- Add lava textures + mipmap effects for all areas that have lava.
- Create a new water texture that works everywhere (Yoshi Star, Cosmic Cove, Wild Glide).
- Add environment textures for Twisty Trials Galaxy.
- Add stone and carpet textures to Bowser's Galaxy Generator.
- Add water environment texture for Grand Master Galaxy.
- Add "Game Over" text.
I'm not a big fan of upscales, but there are a ton of clouds in this game, and I'm terrible at making clouds. I did recreate a number of them, but a lot of them I just applied upscaling filters with some minor edits. The reason for this is so "GPU Texture Decoding" can be used without worrying about breaking mipmap effects, while also providing slightly higher quality. I basically wanted a custom texture for all textures with arb mipmaps, or at least the most important ones.
Nintendo used a few mipmap effects in the first game, but went completely ham in this one. I did notice two textures that have the same base level but different mipmaps. This creates a situation where a choice has to be made in which effect will be broken. In the final few mipmaps you can see a shift to white, gray, or black. I chose a shift to gray so they mostly look correct in all situations. I see no solution to this short of hashing mipmaps, which would create large filenames and most likely a performance hit for an incredibly niche situation.
So the last thing I want to cover is the water texture because of how much trouble it gave me. The texture is used in multiple ways, so altering it for one situation tends to break it in another. It is a grayscale texture which behaves somewhat like a mask, and every pixel contains transparency. For most areas, it is quite happy with any gray colors ranging from #000000 to #808080. Wild Glide Galaxy is the exception. Anything above #808080 is turned into white, making it very hard to create patterns and transitions. Most adjustments either looked awful or turn the water completely white.Spoiler:
So I came up with a unique solution. I made one water texture in the range I mentioned above, and made a second texture within the range of #808080 - #FFFFFF. I then imposed the white texture over the gray, meaning it's technically two textures stacked on top of each other. Most areas do not see the white texture as it's only 1% opaque, so it blends in enough that it may as well not even be there. But Wild Glide Galaxy which is highly sensitive can pick out the white texture and basically ignores the gray pixels. I have no idea if this is what Nintendo did, but it wouldn't surprise me given how much care was taken in this game's artwork. The way and the extent that they abused mipmap effects in this game is somewhat mind blowing.
While this video is of v7 of the texture and I was finally happy by v10, it's still a pretty close approximation of how it looks in-game. Everything looks the same except Wild Glide Galaxy which is wrong in the video and looks more like the screenshot I posted previously. The description of the video on YouTube explains just a bit more about this texture. Excuse the poor quality as I recorded it in a window and not full screen.Spoiler:
So that's about it, I'm done for now. Cold Steel 2 is coming out in two weeks for PC and I'll be making a texture pack for that game, so even though I wanted to do more on these games, I need a short break from the retexturing world.
Damn man, excellent work. These games finally got the extra love they needed. Two classics that will probably never look better.
Huzzah!
Can you expand more on how Nintendo went a bit wild with mip maps and stuff? I don't quite understand all that, but their visual style is amazing in this game.
Take as long a break as you need. Will be testing this out soon. Also, you might as well add these two games are a contributor to your list there. Without your polish these packs were not quite as robust as they could have been. I appreciate the work done by both people here.