TGA or BMP better for texturing?

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TGA or BMP better for texturing? #113931 02/26/07 08:33 02/26/07 08:33
Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 9 P Paragon OP Newbie
Paragon OP Newbie P Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 9	I don't know the property differences between a .tga image and a .bmp image. Is one more ad- vantageous for texturing level geometry in WED, or does it not matter which format I use at all? Thanks in advance for being patient for my novice remarks =D. Cheers, Leo

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: Paragon] #113932 02/26/07 14:06 02/26/07 14:06
Joined: Mar 2006 Posts: 2,503 SC, United States xXxGuitar511 Expert
xXxGuitar511 Expert Joined: Mar 2006 Posts: 2,503 SC, United States	TGA has a smaller file size, and allows an alpha channel. xXxGuitar511 - Programmer

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: xXxGuitar511] #113933 02/26/07 16:01 02/26/07 16:01
Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 379 Flevoland, 5 meters under wate... Roel Senior Member
Roel Senior Member Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 379 Flevoland, 5 meters under wate...	I mostly use bmp/pcx for levels, tga has 24 bits colors, or even 32. in wed, bmp only has 16 bits which will mean faster rendering(I think). In wed you normally don't need 24 bit colors textures Check out the throwing game here: The throwing game

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: Roel] #113934 02/26/07 16:09 02/26/07 16:09
Joined: Aug 2000 Posts: 7,490 O Orange Brat Senior Expert
Orange Brat Senior Expert O Joined: Aug 2000 Posts: 7,490	I always use 24-bit TGA to eliminate color banding artifacts associated with 16-bit. I don't know if DDS would be a better solution for video memory purposes, though. My User Contributions master list - my initial post links are down but scroll down page to find list to active links

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: Orange Brat] #113935 02/26/07 16:21 02/26/07 16:21
Joined: Jul 2001 Posts: 6,904 H HeelX Senior Expert
HeelX Senior Expert H Joined: Jul 2001 Posts: 6,904	Quote: I always use 24-bit TGA to eliminate color banding artifacts associated with 16-bit. I don't know if DDS would be a better solution for video memory purposes, though. Yes it would. The disadvantage would be that you could have visible artifacts due to its native directX compression, but the outstanding advantage is that the filesize is minmalistic against bmpa,tga and pcx on the HD AND the video memory (TGA and PCX, though run-length encoded, are extracted to the memory like bmaps, so there is no memory saving aspect in here for them). If you use for your models only tgas and you replace them with DDS you can cut down the loading time with a ratio up to 1:5... and when your textures are DDS as well it will decreased as well. Its worth it and its industry standard.

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: HeelX] #113936 02/26/07 21:00 02/26/07 21:00
Joined: Apr 2004 Posts: 44 S Stelynn Newbie
Stelynn Newbie S Joined: Apr 2004 Posts: 44	when using DDS files they do not appear in the skin editor. Is there something you have to do to allow med to display the dds files. They appear in the 3d window of MED but not in the skln editor.

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: Paragon] #113937 02/26/07 21:16 02/26/07 21:16
Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 9 P Paragon OP Newbie
Paragon OP Newbie P Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 9	In order to use the alpha channels on TGA textures, do the transparent areas have to be pure black? (0,0,0 RGB) The alpha channels of some textures are still fully visible after importing. Examples include Valve's Source textures...

Re: TGA or BMP better for texturing? [Re: Paragon] #113938 02/26/07 22:46 02/26/07 22:46
Joined: Jun 2005 Posts: 4,875 broozar Expert
broozar Expert Joined: Jun 2005 Posts: 4,875	the darker the area, the more transparent the image will become. you could write a shader that inverts it, but that's the default. homepage \| shameless advertising \| Linux supporter

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