Posts from Hero replacer. Auto-translated

For modern systems, DXT5 can be confidently used instead of DTX3, as it is essentially an improved DXT3. However, for modern systems and large monitors (24" and larger), the best choice is definitely ARGB 8888! It's perfect for enjoying the game!

It's better to use DXT5 where needed (except for some effects and unit/hero icons); otherwise, the textures will be too large, and the game will crash because of it. Heroes 5 doesn't like large files. In NVS, I try not to make textures larger than 1024x1024 pixels, and I also make sure that their file size is similar to the original. For example, if the original weighs 1.3 MB, your file should weigh approximately the same. Use DXT5 and enable texture generation. Then, your files will be close in size to the originals.

Nothing like that... I specifically checked... if the video card has 2 GB, it reads and displays textures of 1024 pixels and larger perfectly in Heroes 5... I agree that this is not the case for most laptops... but again, on gaming, so to speak, top-end models, everything is fine, but again, the resolution is 1600 by 900 pixels, while on desktops it is 1920 by 1080 - which are supported modes for the game!

I also recommend PhotoZoom Pro; it easily and conveniently handles many tasks. I wanted to comment that I have been working on reworking the heroes for some time, paying special attention to the heads, exploring applications for converting icons into more detailed textures using AI (debates between voila AI artist and Toonme), and trying to find programs to convert these textures into 3D meshes. I have been unsuccessfully trying to get a character creator and the Headshot plugin. I am not going to add eye and mouth animations; that would be too much work and little benefit.
I am attaching an example of two styles that I am going to mix and turn into clean textures.

I never said that the game doesn't recognize or read textures with a resolution higher than 1024x1024; I was talking about how overloaded it becomes. And because of this, the game often crashes. I have a gaming laptop from 2019, an ASUS TUF Gaming FX505-DT with Win10x64, 16 GB of RAM, a 1650GTX 4GB video card, and an AMD Ryzen 3550H processor at 2.1 GHz. This is more than decent hardware. Nevertheless, I installed mods by the respected master Zahar0z. And his textures have a size of 2048x2048 and weigh over 20 MB each. This is a lot for the game. Yes, the game reads the textures, but sometimes there's a glitch where, instead of textures, his units have a checkerboard pattern. The same goes for other custom mods, where people, in pursuit of a "high-quality image," create textures with huge resolutions and huge sizes. This is not good. The well-known colleague Xuxo creates textures with acceptable resolutions and sizes, and everything works, nothing crashes, and everything looks normal. Heroes 5 is still not Heroes 6, where each texture can weigh up to 5 MB (or more), and everything works fine and doesn't crash. Heroes 5 is an old game with its own engine; you shouldn't force it; you need to work with it carefully.

As for the custom mods that I use and that caused me to constantly crash out of the game during gameplay: I set the appropriate resolutions and sizes for the textures used in the custom mods, and the crashes stopped happening.

 

You can use Large Address Aware; it theoretically solves the memory shortage problem. From my tests, everything works, with a lot of 2K textures. It's interesting to see how it performs over the long term; it needs to be tested.

 

In general, the hero textures are fine, but I would like to upscale the entire UI, as the blurry interface is very noticeable in 2022.

Yeah, sure, hoping that a game from 2006-2007 won't have blurry graphics? Great. The problem is that not everyone knows where and how to find Large Address Aware. My colleague and I were discussing it. He's definitely not a stupid guy. But even he had to put in a lot of effort to find this utility (file, whatever you want to call it).

Check everything during extended playthroughs. I will use the above as a guide for graphical modding – I won't overload the game.

 

All of this is great, colleague. It's great that such an opportunity exists. But in my opinion (subjectively), the portraits now have a Japanese anime style. I don't like it, but I hope other users will.

It's not about hoping, but about the fact that it needs to be fixed.

The very first link in Google.

 

As I understand it, these are future head textures, not hero portraits in the menu, so the cartoonish style makes sense to make the heads and their facial features more visible.
I only have one question: why did the neural network draw Dugald and Axel as women?

If I mention that I want to use them as a base texture, the icon won't change. This program is a disaster for men; everything turns out feminine, but I like the hair. I'll make a mix of both designs to apply it, of course, to 3D heads, not icons. By the way, when you were talking about texture size, say no to 2048px textures! They are created by the archdevil!