Best Visuals for HW2

[Evolution13]

I loved the gameplay experience I had With HW2 when it first came out and want to have it again! But what mods offer the best visuals for the original game? Adding more textures, bump mapping, light effects etc.
And what mods offer the best visuals for new ways of playing the game, is it the BSG or B5 mods or another?

Thanks in advance!

[Tekanako]

If you want a mod with awesome graphics then you want AFF-NCO.

[Kapyrna]

HW2 2.0

[snake]

don't forget the B5 Mod

[-=[F@LC0]=-]

Hi - All in all all the mod's using B5 Mods Shaders have the best Grafics Present in Homeworld at the Moment.

B5 and BSG Mod have the most "realistic" Ships look.
(BSG Mod - has improved explosions effects from Warlords - looks pretty good)

But you should still not forget about the Mods with very good models. Because you may include the Shaders on your own.
You may have no "Bumpmapping" but it still improves optics.

There are also special explosions public from HW@

[Elukka]

Note that you can jam the HW2 2.0 shaders into just about any mod. Just throw them in the mod's folders. It results in pretty. (that's PDS after I threw in the shaders)

[Krnt]

I think the BSG shaders have better white balancing, because the HW2 2.0 was too overbrightened in the white colours (example: docking bays).

And do anyone knows if how to bring again the glare effect or something that, because i was watching some PDS videos and they look pretty good with that, I know how to make it work on some nVIDIA video cards but now I have an ATI and want to know how to make it work again.

[-=[F@LC0]=-]

You may take a look who has done this shaders ... they are from CnlPepper if I'm not totally wrong.
And so I would still advide to use the B5 Shaders - from their SVN. if you are looking for the most bugfixed version

[MelvinVM]

haha I found the game pretty enough without the new shaders, although the B5 ones are very nice.

[aquemnun]

I dont mean to blow my own trumpet, but IMO I think the TPOF graphics are a big improvement from the original, not nessecarily shader based but lighting and atmospheric effects make the completely stock ships (texture wise) look very high quality.

[adamstrange]

Note that you can jam the HW2 2.0 shaders into just about any mod. Just throw them in the mod's folders

Wait a minute,you mean that you just took the shaders folder from the B5 or the BSG mod and just put them into your mod's directory without any conversion and you got those results ?

[Sastrei]

Adamstrange - take a second look at the screenshots - the lighting quality is vastly improved, but like Falco said, no normal mapping.

-Stefan-

[Mikali]

Wait a minute,you mean that you just took the shaders folder from the B5 or the BSG mod and just put them into your mod's directory without any conversion and you got those results ?

This part confuses me as well.

[Siber]

Wait a minute,you mean that you just took the shaders folder from the B5 or the BSG mod and just put them into your mod's directory without any conversion and you got those results ?

Yup, it's quite easy. Just copy the shader directory over. HW@ uses the new shaders in this way. They change how the lighting model works even if you don't take advantage of the normal mapping(we don't), and make everything look a lot spiffier.

[Pouk]

And those shaders are free to use or you have to ask for permission?

[MatthCoFreak]

Haaaaa, now I know why I can't run HW@, that's because of the new shaders ! (my graphic card can't handle them D: )

[Siber]

pouk: I believe they're free for use, but I think we also asked permission anyway. I'd recommend searching the relevant threads.

Matthcofreak: Well, you never mentioned it to use as far as I remember. You can disable them quite well by downloading the non-.big version and removing the shader folder.

[Zephyx]

What is the B5 mod? Can anyone post a link please?

[MatthCoFreak]

@Siber : Don't worry, I play your ships with HWU and that's enough for me

[snake]

@Zephyx : http://www.thegamingunion.co.uk/foru...splay.php?f=93

The "Babylon5 : War Without End" mod is based on the Babylon 5 TV show. The link above is our "living" place

[dams]

What if I want to use ONLY the shaders of a mod?Do I just copy the "Shaders" folder into my homeworld2/data foler and they will load?

[Krnt]

Yes, if you have the -overrideBigfile string after the destiny of the shortcut of your Homeworld 2

[Bucic]

I'm interested in playing the stock HW2 campaign only so I need only updated models and textures for the stock units. Currently I use Update 2.0 from SVN. The shaders do make a difference however I don't see any improvements in models (mothership maybe) and especialy some textures still hurt eye (like resource collector textures).

So, two questions:
- are B5 shaders better in comparison to Update 2.0 shaders?
- where can I get updated textures and models for all the stock units?

[MatthCoFreak]

- where can I get updated textures and models for all the stock units?

You can do them yourself, because there isn't any.

[Bucic]

You can do them yourself, because there isn't any.

Interesting that there has been significant progress with shaders without any progress in far simpler, to my knowledge, process of texture modding. I'm not a guy for the job. I'm barely aware of such thing as UV mapping.

I could try creating a texture for A unit if it could be just unpacked (the original one) and opened in GIMP. But it should be done from scratch including higher resolution because Res Collectors' textures seem to be of a very low resolution.

[MatthCoFreak]

If you want the retail textures, just grab CFHodEd and extract them from the hods.

And what you call "significant progress" is still a lot of WIP very unstable, for example I just can't run the new shaders.

[Bucic]

Update 2.0 shaders caused no troubles whatsoever and they look excellent. It's a pity that the project is dead. I was eager to see the "stock content only" updates.

I was going to give a try the texturing. At least to "see what's inside", but the links are dead http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=101507

[MatthCoFreak]

Update 2.0 shaders caused no troubles whatsoever

Go say that to my Intel integrated graphic card

And the second link in the thread isn't dead, at least for me, if you have problem to DL it I can host it somewhere else.

[Bucic]

Go say that to my Intel integrated graphic card

You have no shame pulling that out!

I still can't download the user manual... Rapidshare source would be perfect. For other services it can take days before I get my turn - I'm behind a NAT.

[MatthCoFreak]

Run it without the user manual. I master CFHodEd and I never read it, and it's really outdated anyway. Just ask if you have problems, or browse a little the forum because there are a lot of answers there and there.

[Bucic]

---------------------------
CFHodEd.exe - System Error
---------------------------
The program can't start because DX8VB.DLL is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem. 
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

I think I'll pass

[MatthCoFreak]

DLing DX8VB.DLL and maybe register it should be enough to solve this problem. It's quite common on computers running DX10 as default.

[Bucic]

OK, I've chosen vgr_resourcecollector.hod. Which file in it stores the close distance texture (if there are separate for various dist.)? And, what's the most important, can I force a higher resolution texture back to the *.hod? How do I do that - import the modified/new texture into the hod or how do I assemble a new hod?

Edit:
Now my DDS plug-in for GIMP doesn't work. It was just not ment to be Besides, you need to change all of the textures (almost) except of the mothership's to make the wrong impression go away.

How about a possibly easier to resolve issue - 16-bit-like backgrounds? Can something be done to get rid of color transitions? Command line parameters make no difference regarding backgrounds.

[Strider]

Installing the homeworld mod tools "HWSE v2.02b" fixes this and then cfhoded runs in win7. I don't have a link, but google it, it's there.

Code:
---------------------------
CFHodEd.exe - System Error
---------------------------
The program can't start because DX8VB.DLL is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

[Zephyr]

I would suggest googleing "DX8VB.DLL" and download that file. Then put it in the same directory as CFhoded and see if that works

[Strider]

No I'm tellling you what works. installing that thing, installs that dx8vb.dll file correctly for CFHODED to work. Figured it out by trial and not so much error

Here's the link: http://www.moddb.com/games/homeworld...-mod-tool-pack

[michaels750]

Hi,

I've been a big fan of homeworld, always playing it on and off .

And i was just wondering if there is any newer HD Texture packs out then the ones listed for HW2??

Thanks, Moc

[Pouk]

No.
There is Homeworld Remastered greatly improving HW1 textures and ships for a HW2 mod. But nothing targeted at HW2 ships.

[michaels750]

Ah that sad to hear.

Would have loved just to have the HW2 textures updated.

There is many crazy mods out there but none to makes the game look nicer.
I really like the way the game plays now. Though i see that FX - Commander is going to be the closest thing I'll be getting.

Thanks for your help,
Moc

[Pouk]

Yeah, you won't find a Homeworld 2 themed mod with more sophisticated effects than FX - Commander.

[Destraex]

play with SVN installed. The graphics in that are unreal!!! Best I have seen in hw2. new bump maps shaders etc

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play with SVN installed. The graphics in that are unreal!!! Best I have seen in hw2. new bump maps shaders etc
http://forums.relicnews.com/showthre...ate-SVN-Public

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P.S. FX - commander is for HW1 models under HW2??? Or is it just effects that beat SVN?