Which shader do the UK Pro signals use for the big character

[chrisell]

Does anyone know which .fx shader the UKPro signals use for the large digit display - the theatre display?
I'm trying to figure it out because their signals show that character nice and bright and quite sharp for a long way in the distance. I'm trying to replicate that but my characters are dimming and becoming grey to invisible within 50m or so. I'm using the regular Tex shader - unlit - at the moment. I've tried messing around with the MIP bias and self-illumination but I can't find the magic combination to make these things super-visible in the distance. This pic shows the problem - my "8" on the left, is dim and barely readable while the UK PRo "0" on the right is quite bright. (I'm using the same size textures)

theatreshader.jpg (44.81 KiB) Viewed 828 times

[shanyiqua]

I don't know, but for the signal lights, the signal lights the technique to make them visible from high distance was to make custom mipmap for the light texture, instead of using automatic mipmap generation.

[chrisell]

I don't know, but for the signal lights, the signal lights the technique to make them visible from high distance was to make custom mipmap for the light texture, instead of using automatic mipmap generation.

Yeah I'm figuring that out just now by looking at the files decomposed into DDS. Now the question is simple : how to I convert a DDS back into an ACE texture? Or what tool allows me to hand-create the MIP levels and successfully export back to ACE?

[shanyiqua]

Any tool is good for creating a custom mipmap. Mipmaps are just specially drawn sub pictures in a single image file.
For example if you want to make a glow texture that is 64x64 and you want to make custom mips for it, then you need a 127x64 or 64x127 image, then make the textures in it by this layout: (you can do this horizontally like this, but also vertically) The biggest square will be drawn at small distance, and the smaller ones will be drawn as you move further. As you can see the closest mip have small, fainter glow, other have bigger, and shinier which is looks good in game. It's important to alpha mask out the unused blocks of the image. (download that file and open it with a program that handles alpha, and you will see it). After that, just convert the image with RWAceTool, but select option "Use Existing" at mipmap section instead of "generate".

Here is a writing about this http://forum.mxsimulator.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14668 maybe with that "mipster" plugin for gimp it would be more easier.

[chrisell]

Thanks - didn't realise that's what the 'use existing' function did
Works like a charm.