Our ReVolt Pub

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 02:17**

Some of you have already read the topic title, and are probably thinking to yourself, "Has Dave gone crazy? Isn't the 10 MB you're given enough to cram in whatever you need for your car or track?" Well, you'd be right about the first part, and you'd be thinking incorrectly.

Why, do you ask? Well, ever since Re-Volt 1.2 gave us the power to use higher texture resolutions, we... in case you couldn't figure out... have been able to use higher resolution bitmaps for our Re-Volt needs than just 256x256. Problem with that is, the bigger they get, the more memory and space they take up.

It really hasn't been an issue until now, because some trackmakers (Strava and hi-ban come to mind here) are only now starting to take advantage of that 1.2 feature to it's fullest. They're using huge textures for some of their tracks. And I mean HUGE. Like, 2048x2048 big, IIRC. And bitmaps aren't very compression-friendly, and a single 2048x2048 .bmp is 12 MB on it's own. That's pretty big.

Now, I know most trackmakers don't use textures that big (yet), but let's pretend for a second that those of us who do use them do them properly (what with the .bmo's and .bmq's and all).

So, let's use our pretty 512x512 texture, and have it as our .bmo. Size: 769 KB.
And then add in the standard 256x256 texture. Size: 192 KB.
And last, but not least, let's pretend people actually use .bmq's anymore and throw one into the mix. Size: 49 KB.

For a grand total of almost 1 MB. Sound like much? Not really. But with 10 bitmaps in a track? Then it adds up reeeeaaaally quick.

And the need to cut things down to size has forced some trackmakers (again, Strava and hi-ban come to mind) to put a smaller version of their huge textures into the .zip's they submit to RVZT and then leave a comment like, "Hey! Look! A bigger texture update for this track at (link)". Language/intelligence barriers might cause some players to just not bother to look for updates in the comments, which they might benefit from or want. And then there are cases (not so much now, but maybe in the future) where someone would just say "screw it" and not send their track to RVZT at all over this.

Wouldn't it be so much easier for everyone if we just increased the limit? Then we'd potentially get more tracks and ones with prettier textures as well.

I hope you guys understand what i'm trying to get at, and hopefully the powers that be at RVZT see this too and I can get their (as well as everyone else's) thoughts on this, because it could be quite helpful...

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 04:49**

Excellent Post Dave.
According to today's standards of quality this is starting to be really necessary, and will benefit everyone.

Thumbs up for this to be achieved.

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 10:19**

Yes.

Mythic

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 12:59**

Sounds like a good idea to me, that is unless this limit is there for a reason (ie. so there is space for more tracks). The alternative could be requesting *.png support in Re-Volt 1.2 which takes slightly less space. A combination of the two would probably give the best results.

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 16:13**

urnemanden @ Jul 23 2012, 08:29 AM wrote: Sounds like a good idea to me, that is unless this limit is there for a reason (ie. so there is space for more tracks). The alternative could be requesting *.png support in Re-Volt 1.2 which takes slightly less space. A combination of the two would probably give the best results.

Since Huki and Jig are working ever so hard on the next 1.2 patch [/sarcasm] I will have to agree with Dave to increase the file size limit.

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 17:30**

I made 52 colours for a certain car, those alone are 10MB. Let alone the actual car itself.

Posted: **23 Jul 2012, 19:25**

I'm going to jump the gun, and tell you an honest thing that Zack would tell you too.

Wait for RVZ.

Posted: **27 Jul 2012, 23:59**

I wonder if Zach or arto have seen this yet

Posted: **28 Jul 2012, 00:19**

Zach hasn't been around at all in the last few months. He made an appearance or two in ReVolt-Chat recently then disappeared again...

Posted: **28 Jul 2012, 02:24**

Really, the best solution would be to add .png support. That way we would also have an alpha channel that we could use for "true" transparency.

And I believe the compression would also be enough for at least 512x512 textured levels that have more than 6 different image files.

Too bad we can do nothing about it (except

)..

Posted: **28 Jul 2012, 03:21**

Kenny @ Jul 27 2012, 05:54 PM wrote: Really, the best solution would be to add .png support.

Or TGA, so noobs will be forced to use photoshop programs since MS Paint doesn't supports the format.

EDIT: or TGA images are heavier than BMP images?

Posted: **28 Jul 2012, 05:16**

Cat @ Jul 27 2012, 09:51 PM wrote: EDIT: or TGA images are heavier than BMP images?

They are, 256 x 256 TGAs are 256KB, BMPs are 192KB.

Zach has since given ZR access to RVZT's FTP so he can just add files to it. Wether that will take more than 10MB a file, I can't say for sure just yet...

Posted: **28 Jul 2012, 05:19**

Cat @ Jul 27 2012, 05:51 PM wrote: Or TGA, so noobs will be forced to use photoshop programs since MS Paint doesn't supports the format.

EDIT: or TGA images are heavier than BMP images?

I'll just leave this here to show that .tga's are smaller than .bmp's, but .png's are even smaller.

EDIT: Contradictive posts are contradictive.

Posted: **28 Jul 2012, 14:32**

Kenny wrote:Really, the best solution would be to add .png support. That way we would also have an alpha channel that we could use for "true" transparency.

32-bit BMP also have an alpha channel and it is already supported in Re-Volt. In that aspect there won't be any difference when switching to PNG. See also:
http://z3.invisionfree.com/Our_ReVolt_P ... topic=1619

Posted: **29 Jul 2012, 00:23**

oh, I wasn't aware of that.

still, I would rather use png than bmp.

Posted: **29 Jul 2012, 12:51**

Kenny @ Jul 28 2012, 03:53 PM wrote: still, I would rather use png than bmp.

+1.

Posted: **30 Jul 2012, 12:26**

I can't increase the limit, as it is server side limit to my knowledge. Zach might be able to, or at least request from the provider a bigger limit.

Support for PNG files would be nice. They pack much better than BMPs, but since the tracks are inside ZIPs I'm not sure if the final track.zip would be that much different in size. Has anyone done a test?

Posted: **30 Jul 2012, 20:45**

I did a quick test with nhood1.

With BMPs = 2.22MB
With PNGs + no BMQ files = 2.11MB

Not much of a difference then I guess...

Posted: **30 Jul 2012, 21:33**

Also tried with Elkhart. Which I didn't even know had an update until today...

Elkhart (track only) w/ bmp's: 14.6 MB
Elkhart (track only) w/ png's: 14.8 MB

...well, then. How about increasing that limit?

Posted: **30 Jul 2012, 22:02**

Results with Elkhart (track folder with BMP textures):

Zip (compression: Best): 14.6 MB
Rar (Solid mode, compression: Best): 12.9 MB
7-Zip (Solid mode, compression: Ultra): 8.34 MB

So I suggest ...

Posted: **31 Jul 2012, 11:25**

Well, see this for comparison of all aspects of using 7-Zip:
http://kikizas.net/en/apps.7z.html

Posted: **31 Jul 2012, 20:45**

RVZT used to accept RAR archives but has revoked that since... that should be brought back along with 7Z support.

Posted: **01 Aug 2012, 01:02**

...So I guess that means waiting until Zach releases RVZ for the public.

At the moment, distributing the HQ track and car Content in the Forums seems to be the only alternative...

Posted: **01 Aug 2012, 18:01**

Phantom @ Jul 31 2012, 08:32 PM wrote: ...So I guess that means waiting until Zach releases RVZ for the public.

At the moment, distributing the HQ track and car Content in the Forums seems to be the only alternative...

RVzone has been put on hold for a good reason (personal) and there hasn't been a progress since July'8th 2012.

I tried to remove the file size limit, the javascript (client) way worked but I keep getting a 'Internal error' because of server side.

I don't have a full idea what causing this perhaps htaccess's limits?
If anybody can access the server:
make the file .htacess inside upload directory make sure that the size is

Code: Select all

post_max_size = 20M

To accept RAR, add in 'accepting list' : application/x-rar-compressed.

Meanwhile, is there anyway to upload a 7.9MB track?

offtopic, to distinguish between rar and zip: the Magic name of Zip is "PK" while rar's is "Rar!"

Posted: **01 Aug 2012, 20:11**

KDL @ Aug 1 2012, 01:31 PM wrote:RVzone has been put on hold for a good reason (personal) and there hasn't been a progress since July'8th 2012.

So I guess it is not worth asking about Artic Blast...

Any idea when Zach will be able to resume RVZ development? Is he alright BTW?

Posted: **01 Aug 2012, 21:59**

All I know that he is alright and managing

other than that I don't have an exact idea

Posted: **02 Aug 2012, 11:16**

If RVZone is on hold, I'll try getting some time to add support for 7zip to RVZT.

Forget about RAR, obviously 7zip makes better archives. Besides, RAR is a closed format, while 7zip is free and open. The less there is different formats the better for the people using RVZT, and for the people doing approving.

I don't know when I have time to do the changes, but hopefully in few weeks.

Posted: **03 Aug 2012, 00:05**

jigebren @ Aug 1 2012, 02:41 PM wrote: Any idea when Zach will be able to resume RVZ development? Is he alright BTW?

Who knows, he likes being lazy. He's been very busy in real life recently so he hasn't been around very much at all.

Posted: **10 Aug 2012, 17:47**

I took a look at the server, and a nice surprise is that I could increase the maximum file size. So now I increased it to 12M. But I still have to check the RVZT code and add support for 7z. I expect to do it today.

Over 8M uploads probably do not yet work, I think there was a limit in the code also that I have to modify.

Posted: **10 Aug 2012, 19:04**

Good to hear that Arto. This means I can make my future tracks a bit more resource-hungry.

Posted: **10 Aug 2012, 21:36**

Ok RVZT should now accept 7zip files (.7z extension) and the upload size limit is bumped to 12MB. Of course testing has not been good so report any irregularities.

As 7zip is so much better than zip I'm kind of thinking why allow any zip uploads at all actually...

Posted: **10 Aug 2012, 21:39**

I believe that will only cause problems and additional work for the admin...due to all the people who will likely submit in zip format...if you don't at least allow them.

Mythic

Posted: **10 Aug 2012, 23:26**

MythicMonkey @ Aug 10 2012, 05:09 PM wrote: I believe that will only cause problems and additional work for the admin...due to all the people who will likely submit in zip format...if you don't at least allow them.

Mythic

Not at all... the submitters would get an error message about unallowed format. It'd never come to the admins for processing.

Posted: **11 Aug 2012, 00:10**

arto @ Aug 10 2012, 09:36 PM wrote: Ok RVZT should now accept 7zip files (.7z extension) and the upload size limit is bumped to 12MB. Of course testing has not been good so report any irregularities.

As 7zip is so much better than zip I'm kind of thinking why allow any zip uploads at all actually...

Sounds good arto.. I think it's ok to disable zip support, but we probably need to add some clear info in RVZT about 7zip (below the WolfR4 info should be fine).

Posted: **11 Aug 2012, 19:09**

It's too late to revoke ZIP support. Unless loads of people volunteer to repack _all_ the 3000+ ZIPs into 7Z format. Sounds like tough work but in the long run you cannot grasp how much server space you'll save...

Posted: **11 Aug 2012, 21:16**

nero @ Aug 11 2012, 02:39 PM wrote: It's too late to revoke ZIP support. Unless loads of people volunteer to repack _all_ the 3000+ ZIPs into 7Z format. Sounds like tough work but in the long run you cannot grasp how much server space you'll save...

Scripts could do that automatically. I've done similar before.

But anyway, I did not mean to repack everything. I meant all new submissions could be only 7zip packaged.

Posted: **12 Aug 2012, 06:04**

nero @ Aug 11 2012, 01:39 PM wrote: Unless loads of people volunteer to repack _all_ the 3000+ ZIPs into 7Z format.

I can do this if it really comes to it.

Posted: **13 Aug 2012, 11:18**

I'll give my 5 cents for compatibility and allow both .7zip and .Zip formats.
This way experienced users will mostly use .7zip while newbies can submit .Zip files without problems, annoyances, critics, long long etc..

Clear info never work with newbies, not matter how big letter you use.
And as Nero said, it's way too late to drop out the classic and universally-used ZIP support.

And a huge Congratulations for the 12MB Upload Size improvement.

Our ReVolt Pub

Increasing Rvzt's File Size Limit