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| Red Faction : [RED] Editing : what is a .vbm file? |
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| jan_the_mean |
  Posted 1st Aug 2007 1:06am |
L4Y Member
Post 75 / 153
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Me again...
could anybody tell me what a .vbm file is?
And how I can create it?
The "lava" texture doesn't work very well together with particle emitters (particles are invisible in front of the lava texture), so I was wondering if there was a possibility to create a new lava texture, that works as the normal standart "water" does.
All these textures are .vbm files - but stupid as I am, I got no clou about it... |
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| Ninja~ |
Posted 1st Aug 2007 7:06am |
L4Y Member
Post 537 / 644
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| Quoting jan_the_mean | Me again...
could anybody tell me what a .vbm file is?
And how I can create it?
The "lava" texture doesn't work very well together with particle emitters (particles are invisible in front of the lava texture), so I was wondering if there was a possibility to create a new lava texture, that works as the normal standart "water" does.
All these textures are .vbm files - but stupid as I am, I got no clou about it... |
Ok, Firstly.. to have particle emitters showing in front of the lava.. Set your far clip plane distance to 0.. (your map CTF-Defender has the particles on the lava dude)
2ndly.. It's quite difficult, but you can create your own new .vbm textures.. You can use 1 frame, or as many as you want.. I've had a good little play around with this and it's really cool but like i said.. It's pretty hard to make really nice liquids and stuff.
3rdly.. You can use a brush with the texture applied (rather than liquid room).. and the particle emitters will show.. |
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Modified Aug 1st, 07:17am by Ninja~ |
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| jan_the_mean |
Posted 1st Aug 2007 12:44pm |
L4Y Member
Post 77 / 153
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| Quoting molodiets | | i thought a mapper of your experience and talent would know it even though you're not famous for your custom textures. |
Hehe, you know that is exactly what I want to change: Becoming famous for my custom textures! 
At the moment I am working on a map and started to create own textures in a way that is and looks breathtaking - you´ll see 'em soon...
In the last six (!)  years I was thinking that I should just use the original textures but make a map look better than the original ones.
I changed my mind!
| Quoting ninja | | (your map CTF-Defender has the particles on the lava dude) |
 yeah I know... I was hoping you would answer on this one. I have to admitt that the particle emitters worked just accidently in the Defender-Map  I'll try the farclip thing now 
Thx for your helps!
greetz from THE MEAN |
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| goober |
Posted 1st Aug 2007 3:48pm |  |
L4Y Member
Post 5388 / 265
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Also, keep in mind that you won't be able to preview/UV unwrap your .vbm textures unless you add them to one of your maps#.vpp files AND your user_mapstextures folder. |
For anyone reading this in 2019 or later: The RF community is alive on the Community Discord
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 1st Aug 2007 4:50pm | |
L4Y Resident
Post 1736 / 5258
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VBMs are pretty good for keeping filesizes lower than with TGAs, too.
For example you have a TGA texture 512x512 which is 770KB.
"pureley Zipped" or added to a VPP and then zipped it will be 403KB.
The exact same texture, but in VBM format will have of 512KB (TGA had 770KB ) and when zipped, or packed in vpp and zipped only 160KBs small (TGA had 403KB ).
Now this is something that nobody knows, and nobody wants to know. But it is a serious way to heavly decrease the size of your maps when you have custom textures in it.
Do a quality test and compare both textures, you will not see anything different. (by using the 565 ARGB format)
It sometimes happens that your vbm is bigger than a TGA, that can happen when it has got an alpha channel. BUT when zipped it will yet again be much smaller than a zipped TGA, and this is what counts. (The zipped file is what the user has to download, the size of the unpacked vpp doesn't matter much for him..)
There are maps like this Micro Desktop map with 100MBs of textures...this is plain stupid and you could save up to 50%
But there are reasons not to use vbm. First, it is a little uncomfortable, and second RED won't recognize them unless you do what Goober said above. (and it also works in mods)
VBMs can also include mip maps for characters, so you don't need multiple TGA files in one vpp. This also saves even a few more KB.
I forgot if VBMs have a greater or smaller impact on performance, I think they save frames per seconds..got to test that again. (of course animated VBM dont save fps  ) |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
Modified Aug 1st, 06:10pm by RED-FROG |
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| Molodiets |
Posted 1st Aug 2007 5:03pm |
L4Y Member
Post 1429 / 2687
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| Quoting REDFROG | VBMs are pretty good for keeping filesizes lower than with TGAs, too.
For example you have a TGA texture 512x512 which is 770KB.
"pureley Zipped" or added to a VPP and then zipped it will be 403KB.
The exact same texture, but in VBM format will have of 512KB (TGA had 770KB ) and when zipped, or packed in vpp and zipped only 160KBs small (TGA had 403KB ).
Now this is something that nobody knows, and nobody wants to know. But it is a serious way to heavly decrease the size of your maps when you have custom textures in it.
Do a quality test and compare both textures, you will not see anything different. (by using the 565 ARGB format)
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Indeed i didn't know you could compress textures, VBM or even VPP and have them work anyway (they do work compressed, don't they?)
Thank |
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| RED-FROG |
Posted 1st Aug 2007 5:59pm | |
L4Y Resident
Post 1737 / 5258
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I think converting TGAs to VBM is not a compression. It is bringing the texture to a format that Red Faction might be able to handle better than TGA and optimizing its colors and can also be animated.
Sure, VBMs are smaller, but I wouldn't call it compressing.
| Quote | | MakeVBM is a tool used to create VBM files for use in Red Faction PC. VBMs are animated or single-frame 2D bitmaps, in a proprietary Volition format. |
Compress VPPs? Well I was talking about zipping them. This is what you usually do when you want to release a map, you put all the files in a Zip file. Of course that zip file has to be unpacked first, RF cant read zip files. I was mentioning the Zip files because this is the point where VBMs score a lot over TGAs. |
| ¤ MARS WARS 3! - Red Faction revamped on the unreal engine. Superiority ¤ |
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