Posts from Various mods by zahar0z Auto-translated

I slowly put together an Ancient Golem in Substance over a couple of hours. The idea was that if you place an Ancient Golem and an Ancient Titan side by side, it should feel like they are "from the same gang." That's why he is green-brown where possible.



This is how the whole thing looks in Substance. But since Substance is a modern program, it's tailored specifically for modern engines, and upon export, it produces a set of maps—meaning base color, normal map, specular, AO, etc., depending on the settings.
Out of all this, Heroes 5 only consumes "base color" and, with some stretching, specular, which in 5 is called gloss.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find an export setting for "everything in one texture" in Substance, although it's not ruled out that one exists. Anyway, I'll look into this topic. If not, then only the idiotic method remains—meaning simply screenshooting the texture from the program's viewport.

Hmm, it looks beautiful, but you still understand that in the game, it won't look the same as in Substance; it's a pity.

Maybe ask dredknight if he can implement this function? Although when I asked him about bump mapping, I didn't get a specific answer...

regarding the normal map, by the way. There's a simple way to use it in Heroes 5. You can make the normal map colorless and simply overlay it on the diffuse texture in Photoshop. With a layer transparency of 50-60, it looks quite good. It adds volume and shadows to the texture.
Of course, it's not exactly "the right" way, but it's still better than nothing. Since we already have the maps.

Added after 45 seconds
And it seems that there is indeed a way to export a single texture from Substance. Now I just need to find out how to do it.

Remembered this topic; the same applies, and this scheme might work for creatures from Heroes of Might and Magic VII, but not for ordinary creatures. The textures are only 512x512, and the dxt compression makes it look poor.
https://libertycity.ru/developing/articles/3027-uluchshenie-tekstur-s-pomoshhju-kart.html

probably, these texture issues are specific to the game engine itself, and I don't even think having the source code would allow us to fix them, although who knows.

funny. it's the same thing I just told you.
it's just that someone formatted it as a normal topic.

Added 5 minutes later
yeah. I was talking about the creatures from Heroes of Might and Magic VII.

it's likely that these texture issues are specific to the game engine, and I doubt even having the original source code would allow us to fix them, although who knows.

It's not certain that the engine is to blame; psatkha mentioned somewhere that the graphics were downgraded in terms of capabilities so that the game would run even on the "calculators" of that time. If you compare the graphics in the alpha and the final version, the difference is only that the map became 3D and the shadows became worse.

In short, it seems that exporting a single, already rendered texture from Substance is possible. But not in my version. I need to download a newer version, and for now, I'll just take screenshots.

And here's what the developers lacked the brains to do – at least restore all the graphical capabilities that were cut by version 3.0, or at least fix what remained. That's a real disappointment...

It's not necessarily the engine's fault; psatkha mentioned somewhere that the graphics were downgraded in terms of capabilities so that the game would run even on the "calculators" of that time. If you compare the graphics in the alpha and the final version, the difference is only that the map became three-dimensional and the shadows became worse.

Maybe, and parameters like bump in materials might have remained from the initial builds?

There's a lot of interesting stuff with the graphics in general. For example, you can find many more graphics settings in the console commands than there are among the default ones, but I don't think there's anything applicable to the material parameters.

maybe, and the parameters like bump in the materials might have remained from the initial builds?

In the alpha, there's a different data system instead of xdb files; it has 1 gdb - game data base, so no one knows.

But what the developers lacked was the foresight to restore all the graphical features that were cut, at least by version 3.0, or even to fix what remained. That's... disappointing.

They didn't care anymore... because there were rumors that they wouldn't continue working together in the future... so they didn't bother... they just finished the contract and that was it!

What the developers lacked the brains to do, even by version 3.0, was to restore all the graphical capabilities they cut or at least fix what remained... that's a bit much.

It's always easy to criticize from the outside, acting like an expert. Neither you nor I know the internal situation.
I urge you not to look down on and judge the specific work done by others, work that you have never done. Not because "you should achieve something first," but because many complaints and criticisms might disappear on their own if you understood what and how things are done.

I'm saying this only because I myself made a similar mistake in the past. I sharply criticized things I didn't understand, and when I started delving into the details, I realized that it was very foolish criticism. Hence, my advice: don't pretend to be an expert, don't criticize work you don't understand (this is not an insult, it's a fact. Neither you nor I have been graphics programmers or project leads), think comprehensively, not in a fragmented way.


And most importantly, the developers of the 5th installment primarily made a game. It's never possible to do everything at once, and it's obvious that something had to be sacrificed, in this case, the implementation of some graphical technologies. Would it have been better if the game had, for example, less content but more graphical technologies? Perhaps, from your subjective point of view. But that's a matter of taste. From someone else's point of view, a game without Teletubbies is automatically bad. Do you see what I mean? I highly doubt that the audience as a whole would have favorably received less content/more graphical technologies.

Whether you like the 5th installment or not (it's strange if you don't, considering you hang out on this forum), this game, made by "brainless" developers in your opinion, turned out to be objectively not bad. You can cite many examples of why the 5th installment is at least not bad, but perhaps the main thing is that people are still playing it.


Again, I'm not saying this to offend you. You seem like a pretty smart person and can do a lot. I just want to tell you that, based on my experience, you won't get far in life with the attitude that "everyone else is... and I'm the only one who's right."

They didn't care anymore... because there were rumors that they wouldn't continue to cooperate in the future... so they didn't bother... they just finished the contract and that was it!

I heard different rumors. That Ubisoft actually wanted to continue the collaboration, considering the game was successful, and they were quite unhappy that Nival refused.

I heard different rumors. That Ubisoft actually wanted to continue the collaboration, considering the game was successful, and they were quite unhappy that Nival refused.

I think psatkha was talking about Nival.