“Building Better Worlds” is a texture overhaul mod for Aliens: Colonial Marines using the TexMod program. Currently a work in progress, the mod is a visual remastering and reimagining of the game’s original textures. This is the first incarnation of this mod. I've got more textures in the works, some near completion, but I've been sitting on this for so long that I just wanted to get something out there finally. So here's the first few textures!
**UPDATE:19/12/2018**
With the imminent V6 release of TemplarGFX's excellent overhaul mod, I thought it appropriate to make an official update on my texture overhaul mod. It has always been my hope that both our mods be used in conjunction (Temp's gameplay overhaul, my mod a visual overhaul) changing both the code and art of the game the best we can to dramatically change and improve the game. However, despite the work I have done over the past two years in my spare time, unlike Temp's mod, my mod got stuck in development.
As some of you will know, having spent a great deal of time and effort creating new textures for this game, I hit a hugely disappointing and frustrating roadblock in the form of TexMod itself (the program I use to 'inject' the new textures in to the game). The combination of TexMod and ACM works great if you are only adding a few new textures to the game but when the number, and therefore the file size, exceeds a certain amount, TexMod causes ACM to crash on start up or crash as soon as the level loads. This happens every single time, rendering my mod unusable. I was/am heartbroken.
I have tried a number of different things to fix or avoid this problem, and still have some ideas left to try. Reaching out to people on here, a few things were suggested to me that I have tried. This included the use of uMod, a less old alternative to the TexMod texture injector program, and the '4GB patch' (a tool that patches x86 executables in order to let them have 4GB (instead of only 2) of virtual memory on x64 platforms). Unfortunately, I still encountered instability issues and crashes with uMod (although I still have some things to try with it) and the 4GB patch did not seem to make any difference. For those wondering about my own specs, I have 16GB of RAM and 4GB of VRAM.
Some time a go I made the decision to move from .png to .jpg image format for my exported textures in an attempt to decrease the file size of my texture packs. Then, about a week a go I was able to compress my .jpegs further (lowering the file size even more) without a noticable decrease in image quality, which I hope will further help my texture packs to work with ACM.
So, where do we go from here? The bad news is that I am still experiencing crashes with my mod. The good news, however, is that there are still things left to try and that I have just recently made a change that should help with stability and allow my mod to work. Certainly, there is still hope for my mod.
The plan going forward then: I am still working on this mod in my spare time and am committed to finishing what I started and releasing it. This mod will not cover the whole single player campaign but will instead cover the opening level 'Distress' on the Sulaco and the later level 'No hope at Hadley's' set on Acheron (LV-426). Following that, I am also interested in tweaking my texture pack for 'No hope at Hadley's' for the multiplayer map set at Hadley's Hope ('Tribute') but we'll see.
These texture packs will be released in two different ways:
The smaller chunks approach is an attempt to avoid game crashes by only having to load a smaller texture pack at one time. Do I really expect people to bother going to that trouble? No, not really. But if it turns out to be the only way of releasing what I've created in a working order then at least you'll have the option to play using my mod if you'd like to. At this point, I'll encourage anyone who downloads my mod to work with me to troubleshoot the problem and maybe together we will find a way to get the large texture packs working!
At the very least it is important to me to present the work that I have done for this mod, even if we cannot ever get it working satisfactorily, and I will be uploading many screenshots of my work and mod in action (for the sake of screenshots I can be very selective with the textures I load and so avoid crashes).
All the best,
Capt. Lamb
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*Please look at my mod post on Steam for preview images of my latest work: "Building Better Worlds" on Steam*
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“Building Better Worlds” is a texture overhaul mod for Aliens: Colonial Marines using the TexMod program. Currently a work in progress, the mod is a visual remastering and reimagining of the game’s original textures.
“Building Better Worlds” aims to improve the appearance of the game in a number of different ways: by fixing ‘broken’ textures, where possible; by increasing the resolution of textures, where appropriate; by adding higher levels of detail and realism; by creating visuals that more closely match the film.
*This is the first incarnation of this mod. I've got more textures in the works, some near completion, but I've been sitting on this for so long that I just wanted to get something out there finally. So here's the first few textures!*
Version 1.0
To download my “Building Better Worlds” mod:
If you are using TemplarGFX's mod then you do not need to make the following changes. If you are not, then you will need to change your game settings in order to load higher resolution textures:
TEXTUREGROUP_World=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_WorldNormalMap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_WorldSpecular=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Character=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterNormalMap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterSpecular=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Weapon=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponNormalMap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponSpecular=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Vehicle=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleNormalMap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleSpecular=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Cinematic=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Effects=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_EffectsNotFiltered=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Skybox=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_UI=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Lightmap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Shadowmap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,NumStreamedMips=3,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Linear,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Data=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Linear,MipFilter=Linear,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_MobileFlattened=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_ProcBuilding_Face=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_ProcBuilding_LightMap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Terrain_Heightmap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
TEXTUREGROUP_Terrain_Weightmap=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
PopulationAdjustment=100
(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,NumStreamedMips=3,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
Fullscreen=True
bUseFilmGrain=False
FilmGrain=0
bEnableForegroundSelfShadowing=True
bAllowWholeSceneDominantShadows=True
bAllowLightShafts=True
TEXTUREGROUP_ColorLookupTable=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=Aniso,MipFilter=Point,MipGenSettings=TMGS_Sharpen5)
To install TexMod:
texture pack. This texture seems to change every time and doesn’t appear to be caused by anything that I’ve done on my end. If the texture that fails to load involves the motion tracker and you can’t use it in-game, then you’re going to have to exit the game and reload it. Odds are it’ll affect some other texture though.
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: I love Aliens, grew up with it like many of you did. For me this is an opportunity to create some cool stuff about a film I love and learn how to texture props and environments for the first time in the process.
Q: Does this mod work with TemplarGFX’s most excellent overhaul mod?
A: Yes, this mod will work with both the vanilla game and Templar’s mod. TexMod just injects textures ‘over’ the game’s original textures, whatever version you’re running.
Q: Do aliens mostly come out at night?
A: Mostly.
Q: Can I run it?
A: Try it! But remember that TexMod works by loading new textures in addition to the original, and stores the new textures within your system’s RAM (I think. Yes, RAM not VRAM.. Weird, I know. But I'm sure I read this somewhere). Clearly, this can cause problems for lower spec’ machines. Unfortunately, TexMod is pretty unstable, especially with larger texture packs.
Q: How far are you planning to go with this?
A: Honestly, realistically – I don’t know. I’m a very busy guy; life happens. This is a labour of love, and sometimes frustration (!), when things don’t work quite right, but for a hardcore fan of the Alien trilogy it’s pretty cool to make stuff for that world and geek out over all the little details.
Q: It’s hot as hell in here.
A: Yeah, man.. but it’s a dry heat.
This is the first incarnation of this mod. I've got more textures in the works, some near completion, but I've been sitting on this for so long that I just wanted to get something out there finally. So here's the first few textures!
Also, I'd be grateful if someone could take a screenshot of the NPC motion tracker in use so I can check how it's looking. I'm not currently on a level with an appropriate NPC and don't want to lose my save.
Like this?!?
Imgur.com
Imgur.com
Imgur.com
Imgur.com
Yeah man, that's great. Thanks for taking those screens - I hadn't actually seen my textures on the NPCs yet.
I'm wondering why the bottom of the tracker screen looks grey and not blue though? Are you playing with any ReShade presets that change the colour? The blue colour should be the same as the original texture.
Yeah, I play with ReSahde. I can make shots without, later...
Sorry, forgot to login. :-)
update to reshade 3 possible at all by chance?
It's up to you what ReShade version and presets you use. The mod is just altering texture files using the TexMod app.
Sure...
look at this! It´s made with RS3
Bonjour,
Je découvre tout juste ce mod merveilleux mais je ne sais pas comment l'installer sur mon jeux quelqu’un peu m'aider svp !!!
Je ne sais si je dois télécharger toutes les versions ou juste la V4
Help Please!!!
If you expand the description box on the files tab you will find all the install info :)
definitely hoping this continues!
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does this work with templar mod?