texture4

[M123]

Note: this part is not necessary for Machines 1.5 - it uses Texture4 folders correctly

Machines includes some high(er) quality textures in the install folder, but for some reason they aren't displayed in-game (at least on some computers).

You can get high-quality textures for most units, effects and buildings to work properly without much effort - just copy the contents of the Machines\models\texture4\ directory into Machines\models\texture2\.
To see an example of one of the biggest improvements in resolution, compare these two images:

(This texture is used on the Red team Civilian Research Academy)

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Recently I had a look through the Machines\models\planet\ folder and found that certain maps have higher-quality terrain textures, as well as some copies of unit and building textures which are higher resolution than those in the general texture4 folder.

I went through the various folders, found the best available version of each texture¹ and copied them into the appropriate folders (for individual maps and for units/effects/buildings) so they would be displayed correctly in-game.
I then removed the duplicate, unused texture4 folders.

I have uploaded the resulting models folder here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/mi5n3jnmv503pw4/models_texture4.zip (17MB download, 32.7MB once extracted)
(if this is useful enough maybe it could be re-hosted on wiredforwar.org ?)

¹ I left most moon and sun textures alone for now - there are some differences in naming, positioning, etc. which could lead to issues if they are swapped around.

To use this pack:

1. Re-name your existing models folder (e.g. C:\Games\Machines\models) to models_bak

2. Download the above linked models_texture4.zip and extract its contents into your Machines install directory (e.g. C:\Games\Machines\).
   Make sure the new models folder is located directly in the Machines folder instead of a sub-folder like Machines\models_texture4\ .

3. Play Machines :-)

   ?!. If something goes wrong (crashes, graphics glitches, poor performance, etc.), delete the new models folder and re-name the models_bak folder back to models.

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Some in-game comparisons:
(I am using dgVoodoo for 32-bit display colour and forced bilinear texture filtering)

Red Dozer Constructor default
Red Dozer Constructor texture4
(the texture for the constructor upper arms and track sides is used on many units and had a very nice 256x256 version hiding away in a map texture folder, mixed with segments of a different texture. I merged the matching parts into the regular unit texture. This is the only "modified" texture in the pack.)

Blue Pod default
Blue Pod texture4
(64x64 → 128x128)

Tutorial floor default
Tutorial floor texture4
(the texture2 version of this terrain texture was already at the maximum 256x256 resolution, but was only in 8-bit colour - containing only 231 unique colors. The texture4 version is in 24-bit colour and contains 36449 unique colors.)

This pack might be useful as a base for modders to make custom skins or further enhance Machines' existing textures.

[JRL101]

so did you remake these textures? did you make normal/displacement maps with them?

[M123]

@JRL101 Those are just the textures distributed with the original game, re-arranged within the folder structure so that the game actually reads the high-quality versions and displays them in-game.

They could be used as a base if someone wanted to try improving them further for use in the original game (up to the maximum 256x256 resolution and 24-bit colour) or to make textures for OpenMachines.

[JRL101]

@M123 Im currently trying to relate the textures to the models. Is there anything i should be recognizing?

[M123]

Finally found the (or at least, a) reason why the texture4 textures weren't being used on some systems:

The Voodoo 3 fix (vidcard.cap file) intended to allow owners of 16MB Voodoo 3 video cards to play the game at resolutions higher than 640x480 seems to allocate 16MB of video memory to Machines, divided into 12MB for display and 4MB for textures:

MEMORY_AVAILABLE_FOR_TEXTURES        4194304
MEMORY_AVAILABLE_FOR_DISPLAY        12582912

If you edit vidcard.cap (using Notepad) and increase both values (double the originals seems to be enough) the game will load textures from the texture4 folder without needing to move any files around.
You can also simply delete or rename the vidcard.cap file.

EDIT: apparently the vidcard.cap file being present also fixes the options menu freezing on some systems

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I'm not sure if vidcard.cap is included in a fresh (and patched) install of Machines from CD, but it is included in the zipped install directory from WiredForWar.org.

EDIT2: vidcard.cap is also added by the XP patch - which explains why many players have it.

[kovi]

@M123 You learned about it only in 2016? ROFL

[X-Lord]

@M123 @JRL101
Back in 2011 I enlarged (using some quality-assuring algorithms) all the texture4 files. This includes all the machines, buildings and weapons. The effect is pretty cool if you ask me. You can see for yourself:

Just download the zip and extract it to your Machines/models/texture4 and texture2 folders.
texture4.zip

[M123]

@X-Lord Nice :-)

Around the time I posted this thread I experimented with using the waifu2x-Caffe upscaler on Machines textures - results were pretty good for most textures, but they would benefit from some manual work to clean up dithering/banding (8-bit artifacts from original textures), missed edges and colourkey alpha textures (I think gun barrels, etc. use magenta as full transparency, blending the edges may cause pink outlines).

[Warharvest_]

@X-Lord You did a great job and I'm very pleased with the far better look of almost everything. Sadly it appears that the vent texture isn't working quite right, I noticed it on the side of a military factory. I believe that there should be a fan beneath it but instead there is just a pink circle. I was wondering if you could fix this for me as I'm not sure how to go about doing so.

[X-Lord]

@Warharvest_ Oh sorry there. I've uploaded a non latest version of my models. Yes I have a fix for that one and some other problems like reaper's auto cannon pink background. The fix is simple - smaller resolution of selected models :)

Please use the models attached texture4_current.zip.

[GeneralCamel]

Okay nice its working but on my gaming pc very laggy

[X-Lord]

@GeneralCamel lags may be caused by your graphic card drivers etc. Please search the forums. I also recommend the latest community patch http://wiredforwar.org/topic/167/announcing-community-patch-1-5-godsend.