Hello,
For the next release (3.0, I think), I want to reduce the size of the
installers by making parts of the base package optional. Some are easy, like AI
Traffic and ATC chatter - the first time you enable that feature, we'll
download (well, terra-sync, really) the relevant files. If you don't use the
feature, you don't download the files ever.
One large piece (480MB of the base package / fgdata at current counting) is the
Textures and Textures.high directories. Originally I believe Textures.high was
a partial subset of Textures, at higher resolutions, but that's no longer the
case (nor has it been for a long time, I think)
What I'd like is:
- a baseline texture set that is of adequate, but not high quality
(e.g. max 1024x1024 size for landcover, or something else agreed to be good
enough) to be included by default in the installers
(this would also be friendly to people on older hardware with limited
VRAM)
- high res (and even, ultra-high res) sets, plus a DDS set for those
who want it, which can be downloaded + updated later via terra-sync.
(of course we can have discussions about if the default set should be
really low quality or quite high - but the point is to have levels we can
switch between centrally )
However, my impression is the current switching is done at the effects /
material level (especially between DDS and PNG). I.e C++/Nasal code is not
involved in any such switching. (Which will need to be changed, assuming it can
be)
I'm not clear where the texture file names are being referenced from, and how
the paths are being searched. E.g, do the shared Models reference these
textures, or do they include their own (my impression is the latter, but maybe
it's a mix?). If it's not the models, is it 'just' effects/shaders and scenery
materials? Do aircraft reference them? And if so, is it via an arbitrary
mixture of Textures, Texture.high and DDS paths?
I am assuming we would fallback to the Textures/ dir, so I hope the only fixing
of aircraft / scene models required would be replacing any references to
Textures.high or DDS files.
Any hints on how the mechanism is currently working, and how it could work in
the future would be interesting. This is a 'look at in the next few months'
task, not something I'm planning to tackle next week, so there is no rush.
Indeed, if it turns out to be more complex than I realise, it might even be too
big to tackle for 3.0, but the first step is to understand how it does work,
and how it could work :)
Regards,
James
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