It is working for me
The quality is great, no sharp edges
MSI GTX 770 OC 4GB SLI

A friend of mine and I are trying to make an LCD sign, we've posted on keenswh ( link[forum.keenswh.com] ) and I hope you don't mind, but I peeked under the hood of your mod. I cannot figure out how you created your dds files, but they are obviously high quality. Can you give us any help understanding how you made these? Thank you for reading.

Hey Dr.Niggle!

No, I don't mind at all, I am happy to hear that they apparently survived some shader changes :-)

I will be back from a business trip next week and I will dig up the dds config settings that I made and describe them in detail. Essentially, I am creating the alpha-channel from scratch, not relying on the normal settings or the converter brought by Keen but creating an alpha-layer in Photoshop that stems from a colour inversion-variation of the picture. I'll hand out the details next week!

Thank you kindly for your reply!

While I eagerly await next week, I will read up and educate myself on the finer details of creating and compressing .dds and experiment with alpha layers in PS (thankfully we both seem to be using the same software).

And one more thank you, in advance, for taking the time to explain your process. Until next week!

Just a friendly *bump*

Heey, sorry for taking so long! I was knee deep into work - but I managed to dust out the old files and setup the system - I made some new screens for testing that I will upload momentarily!


STEP I
I create the raw image from scratch - this usually is a 1000x1000 Pixels file with 96 DPI. It has NO transparent background - that one is solid black.

STEP II
I open Photoshop ( I use PS5). My Photoshop has the NVIDIA Photoshop Plugins - Extension installed. I then paste the raw image and create an Alpha-Channel with the Channel calculations function. While doing this I will deviate from the presets by using the blue channels for both sources in order to create a stronger negative image in the channel - the normal Alpha-settings will not be strong enough to be well visible in the game.

STEP III
I then create an all-channel negative of the raw image (usually I use IrfanView for that task, it's small and fast) - I will copy this negative and paste it onto the alpha-channel in Photoshop I just created. I will now activate all layers and channels and save the picture as *.dds with default settings of the NVIDIA converter.

STEP IV
I add the extension _de.dds to the filename - something like Example1000P_de.dds

STEP V
I put the file into the folder
C:\...\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineersModSDK\Tools\Space texture converter\Textures converter\ Textures

STEP VI
I use the dx9to11.py converter tool from KSH and will ONLY use the Example1000P_cm.dds file for my mod. That's it!



I hope that helps! If not, come back for any questions you might have - as long as you give good feedback on the new screens ;-)

Thank you very much for explaining your process! And thank goodness we both have Adobe and the nVidia DDS plugin

Between back then and right now, I started to experiment with alpha creation/manipulation on my own and found a method using paint.net and Adobe Photoshop CC: if anyone is interested, I posted it in the keenswh link in one of my previous posts here.

BUT, your method, Sarekh, seems to handle delicate images much more smoothly, that is to say that images with a lot of white in them or a lot of vibrant color look better with the calculated alpha layer.

The poster on the left uses my method, while the lovely lady on the right uses yours:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=945004083

Thank you again, and thank you for creating new LCD screens. My most popular ship on the workshop (the Sakuya) uses them, and I'll keep using them because they look amazing.

Functionality related:

TL;DR - KEEN finally broke your mod, but you can fix it by adding 1 line of code to each lcd item in the sbc file. Link explains more.

Since the 183.3 update, keen has added a new localizationID parameter to lcd .sbc files. Without it, lcd textures have no names in the lcd textures list, and when added to selection they display only an "Online" message on the screen. All lcd mods are effected, and though a simple solution is available, KEEN has given no indication that they will implement it.

Full details: https://forum.keenswh.com/threads/lcd-modded-textures-blank.7396944/

-.-

Keeeeeeen!!!11!

Well, I was hoping for KSH to fix this (as they are perfectly able to) but alas, I will update them tonight and tomorrow. Might as well throw in some new pics I have been doing.

Thanks for the note, though, DrNiggle :-D