John P. on 8/12/2005 at 18:45

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"Old news" by now, but I have held back on announcing it so far on purpose, because from experience, there's always that last tweak or bug fix you discover and want to get in a couple of days after the release. This was true this time as well.

So - what's this about?

Well - it's pretty much me tooting my own horn. ;)

I have made a major update to my Cumulative Deus Ex: Invisible War Texture Pack.

Both many of the textures and the installer itself have been updated and improved upon. In addition, the pack has now grown to contain a total of 283 character and environment textures, in addition to 50 new, high resolution Loading screens, and the 8 high res animated wall monitor .bik files you know from the previous version.

As for the installer/uninstaller, the big news is that the uninstaller now "knows" exactly what features you are uninstalling, and so it doesn't have to open the texture overriding program 'ibd_patcher.exe' for every uninstall option like the previous version of the pack did. It will now be executed only once during uninstall (just like install), no matter how many or how few options you choose to uninstall.
This means that a full uninstall of this version of the pack will take about two minutes, as opposed to the previous version, which took close to half an hour to uninstall(!).

In addition to this, all install choices are now unchecked by default, which means that you can literally install only one texture if you wish - or as many as you like (I would of course recommend installing all available options to get the full effect of the pack though).

I have (http://www.john-p.com/textures/DX-IW/Comparisons.html) updated the Comparison page at my site, where you can see a few of the original textures side by side with their counterparts from my texture pack. That page only shows a few of the textures though, and it's better to see them in-game. The page will take a while to load, as it's a huge 2MB .jpg image. You may have to scroll sideways a lot to see it all, depending on your monitor size/resolution.

I also have a page that (http://www.john-p.com/textures/DX-IW/What_You_Get.html) shows you what all the character texture choices look like. This is also a rather big .jpg at 1.6MB.

None of the new Loading screens or the animated wall monitors or most of the environment textures are shown on these pages though. You'll have to try the pack to see.

As before, I have done my best to make an uninstaller that will bring your game install 100% back to the way it was before you installed the pack.


The very first page of the installer will ask you to choose the language of your DX:IW install. If you have one of the European versions of the game, it's very important that you choose your language. "US (english)" is default, so if you have the american version, you can click 'Next' right away.

Please read the Readme within the installer, as it contains important information.



I'm also hosting the Community texture pack, and a micro texture pack by the community member BlumenKohl. These three packs make up what are - to my knowledge - all the fan made texture packs made for this game.

OK - it's there if you want it. Hope you'll enjoy it. :)

(http://www.john-p.com/textures/DX-IW/index.shtml) [LINK TO MY DX:IW DOWNLOADS PAGE]

John P. on 9/12/2005 at 23:15

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I will probably update the Thief: DS installer as well. Or rather; I'll probably make a new installer which will hold all the Thief: DS textures, just like I once did when I put all my DX:IW textures into the one Cumulative installer.

But these things take time. Lots of time. So we'll see. I have some other fish to fry as well.

John P. on 10/12/2005 at 22:31

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It wasn't so much a conscient choice, as it was me thinking that the 'weird' color in the original texture came from texture compression etc. So I guess I should be somewhat embarrassed by that.

But - for instance, the original 'eyes_blue.dds' texture, is more a pale gray/greenish than blue, so I must have thought something similar had happened to the eyes of the 'labrats' (they are called that in the resource files).

Another reason I haven't thought that way, is that in early gameplay videos from before the game was released, Alex D had biomodified eyes, and those eyes looked almost exactly like I have made my biomodified eye texture look, and also my biomodified Alex D face versions.

So I figured that since the characters didn't have those glowing eyes when the game was released, that they had gone back to giving them normal eyes.

So when I made a new eye texture, I made them blue, which I actually thought was what Ion Storm had intended them to have. Now that you mention it though, I can agree that the original eye texture for those characters is indeed purple. However, it doesn't really look biomodified, compared to those early videos.

Also have another look through the intro movie of the game. Billie Adams clearly have quite glowing eyes at the end there. Impossible for me to make animated eyes though, capable of alternating from almost normal, to strongly glowing.

So I chose to make a normal, blue eye texture for those who would want that, and a biomodified/augmented eye texture (or face texture when it comes to Alex D) for those users who'd like that.

PJammaGod on 17/12/2005 at 09:03

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I found it almost agonising to play IW when I intially bought up. But upon (accidentally) stumbling across your texture update, things improved rapidly!!! A++ grade work John, keep it up.

Lewis, off to try out the new funkified textures

John P. on 21/12/2005 at 23:25

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Are you sure you're seeing the original Loading screens? Except for the cityscape one, the others I have made are taken from the same locations in the game as the originals, so the only difference should be the resolution and details.

If you are 100% sure it's the original Loading screens still...
...I guess then perhaps they have put language specific folders into the Loading screen folder as well, for the various localised versions of the game.... Gah!

OK.... -If that is the case, would you help me out a little then?

Could you in that case go to Deus Ex - Invisible War\Content\DX2\Bitmaps and have a look in there?

Is there an english folder there with files in it? There are no folders in there in the US version of the game, you see.

If that's not the case, I think perhaps the files themselves have been renamed for the UK version of the game, and if that's the case, I can't win... :(

Is the backup folder inside 'Bitmaps' empty? The 'backup' folder is one my installer creates, and puts all the originals into, in order to restore them when you uninstall. If the Loading screen files have other names in the UK version, then the 'backup' folder is most likely empty, and there will be approximately 100 files in the root of Bitmaps.

If there are 50 files in the 'backup' folder, and 50 files in the root of Bitmaps, then it sounds like you should be seeing my versions in-game.