T3FM's size. - by 242
242 on 21/10/2005 at 00:25
Guys, does someone work on the reducing of FM's size?
I think it's the biggest problem of T3FMs now (at least for me :p ). The size keeps many potential players on dial-up away, also I think thiefmissions won't be able to host them if they will stay to be like 40-100Mb for an average map. Something needs to be done with that the sooner the better, until there isn't too much released FMs yet.
SubJeff on 21/10/2005 at 01:09
But what can be done? We either make smaller maps or reduce the complexity of the maps. Niether is an appealing idea.
With multiple Mb/sec broadband connections becoming popular now I think that rather than us cutting our maps down people are going to have to get net speeds that suit their hobbies. It's unfortunate but hey, I had to get a new gfx card for T3 - that's life.
Hopefully some computer magazines will put them on the cover DVDs though.
Shadowspawn on 21/10/2005 at 01:18
I haven't stopped working on the IBT compressor / compiler. I'm just up to my eyeballs in work related stuff.
As it turns out, I'm just finishing (tomorrow) a huge project at work, there's some minor debug and testing to get through, but most of the heavy lifting is done.
That leaves me some spare cycles to go back and look into fixing this problem. I was sure I would have had a fix by the end of Komag's contest, but, well, that's the working world for you.
We'll probably be able to reduce IBT file size by 60 to 80%, so hang in there. By the time there's more than 30 T3 FMs, we should have it knocked.
Hatching-a-plan on 21/10/2005 at 01:39
As always shadowspawn pulls through for us. Im sure by the time my map is ready to be released you'll have that thing up and running. In the meantime, your right, ppl just need to get the fuck with the program and stop running dial up. In most cases the cost for broadband is quiet cheap and easily affordable. What we really need to see is so bit torrent hosting of FM's that would be cool.
New Horizon on 21/10/2005 at 01:42
I'm also working on a self installing version of the editor with many tweaks and new systems.
I'm hoping that the final result will be much smaller than the editor we saw released earlier this year but also easier to use as far as the traditional Thief style systems being setup already. Hopefully this can be used as a base for playing FM's and only custom materials will need to be shipped with the missions.
242 on 21/10/2005 at 09:48
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
But what can be done? We either make smaller maps or reduce the complexity of the maps.
No, no. Maps should be larger :) I meant the stripping unnecessary data of the FMs, as in each of the FM archives is more than 50% of unnecessary data TDS installation already includes.
Good to know Shadowspawn didn't abandon the task.
Ziemanskye on 21/10/2005 at 10:11
Only in any useful way TDS doesn't for the most part include that data, because it's all boiled into metafiles and the ibts. The maps can't read each other's ibt files to get the textures and stuff, but the fact each ibt seems to include Garret, and all his animations.
And all the meshes, skins and animations of the NPCs used in the missions. And all the staticmeshes (though they probably do have to stay in there because of the reskins and messed about physics properties in the FMs) for the mission.
What was wrong with the utx and usx formats? :nono:
242 on 21/10/2005 at 13:39
Anyway, Shadowspawn said "We'll probably be able to reduce IBT file size by 60 to 80%". By compiling IBTs and including only necessary data in them I presume.
potterr on 21/10/2005 at 16:44
This is good, question is (and I think the answer to this was said in another post), are we going to need a custom texture pack that can be used user side (i.e. for an ibt recompiler or a required standard texture pack the T3 looks at user end)? If this could be done then it would be possible to reduce the IBTs down even further with a 1 time texture pack download.
OrbWeaver on 21/10/2005 at 17:42
Quote Posted by potterr
This is good, question is (and I think the answer to this was said in another post), are we going to need a custom texture pack that can be used user side (i.e. for an ibt recompiler or a required standard texture pack the T3 looks at user end)? If this could be done then it would be possible to reduce the IBTs down even further with a 1 time texture pack download.
I think the idea is to strip from the mission IBTs all those resources which are already contained in the kernel IBTs shipped with the game, such as standard meshes and the Garrett model.
Although it would be technically possible to have a "standard" custom texture pack, it is not really useful unless there is a very large set of shared custom textures used by numerous FMs.
