[Kelso]

Thanks, I'll try that.

[smurfbizkit]

Keep us updated! If that doesn't work I know of a few other things that might work as well.

[Godwin]

off topic but... you're hosted on AWD? they're still alive??

[Kelso]

Matt Kment, who originally did all the tech stuff for me, gave the webspace over to me to do what I wanted with it. There wasn't really much going on there anyway.

I was going to wait to say this, but I am bringing AWD back online with a new layout and new content as soon as I get some more stuff done on Paradise Lost. (or unless someone adds 5 hours to the day) What I'd like to do is setup a large database of download mirrors for mods for various games. Anyone who wants a mod mirrored can let me know and it will go up on the AWD website upon completion. I'd also like to compile a list of links to tutorials, again for various games and topics, so we can all have them in one place for easier browsing. I also plan to have free mod hosting for people who want to put up a website but don't want do deal with bandwidth and webspace restrictions and ads crapping up their web layouts.

If anyone is interested in this idea please let me know. But understand that this will be a month or more off because I am concentrating 100% of my free time on getting a working version of Paradise Lost done.

[killakanz]

I feel a little more should be written on this.
It is caused by mip-mapping. Although you can't manually edit mip-maps in tga files, the game will do it for you. With DDS files you can edit the mip maps yourself to give it a much smoother, fluent appearance in-game.
The term 'mip' comes from the Latin phrase "Multum In Parvo", meaning lots of things in a small place. In this case it refers to how much detail you can cram into different resolutions.
Mip mapping features multiple images of a single texture map at different resolutions to represent surface textures at varying distances from the viewer's perspective, the largest resolution being displayed up close and progressivly smaller as the perspective recedes further back. This saves system resources on objects far away from the camera for use on closer objects. Each scale difference is defined as a mip map level.
Basically, as you go down each level your texture should be scaled down and very very slightly blurred. If done well the transition between each level should be seamless in-game.
Hope that helps :P

[Eradicator]

^ What he said

[Flyby]

To add:
Before the new DDS plugin was out, you had very little control about the sampling of the mip maps. the smaller bitmaps used a fixed algorithm, which caused considerable blurring. As a result there was a big difference between the close-up, which uses the high res. bitmap, and the all the following mip maps, which were blurry.
You can still see that in the terrain, for example, when you zoom in or pull back, you'll see a "line" moving on the terrain. Above it is very blurry; in front it clearly has much more detail...

As indicated by Smurf, with the new plugin you can define new types of filtering/resampling so that the distant mip-maps are no longer blurry , but very sharp, just as the main mipmap...