XML:TXMP

TXMP : Texture Map	XML modding tips See HERE to start learning about XML modding. See HERE if you are searching for information on how to handle object coordinates. See HERE for some typical modding errors and their causes.
XML TXMB << Other file types >> TxtC switch to OBD page

General notes

• The XML on this page was tested with OniSplit v0.9.61.0.
• Textures' X and Y dimensions are typically powers of two (e.g. 128, 256, 512). Oni and OniSplit will accept textures with dimensions that are not power-of-two, however there can be issues with them (see User talk:Neo/Archive5, search "power"), so it's best to avoid them.
• A texture's height and width don't need to be equal, e.g. you can use 128x256.
• The camera can look at 2049 transparent textures at once; one more, and Oni crashes.

Tag hierarchy

Standard texture	Animated texture	Reflective texture
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Oni> <Texture> <Flags>...</Flags> <Format>...</Format> <Image>...</Image> </Texture> </Oni>	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Oni> <Texture> <Flags>...</Flags> <Format>...</Format> <Speed>...</Speed> <Image>...</Image> <Image>...</Image> </Texture> </Oni>	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Oni> <Texture> <Flags>...</Flags> <Format>...</Format> <EnvMap>...</EnvMap> <Image>...</Image> </Texture> </Oni>

XML tags

XML tag	Content type	Description
<Texture>	-
<Flags>	flag	Be careful with transparent textures. None HasMipMaps DisableUWrap DisableVWrap Unknown0010 (According to SRC, it was used by Bungie's Importer to determine the Pixel Type) AnimUseLocalTime (to export an animated texture, extract the .oni file as XML) HasEnvMap (don't use directly; used via tag) AdditiveBlend (makes black texture parts transparent in-game, usually set for animated textures) AnimBackToBack AnimRandom SwapBytes (defunct; this is automatically added in v0.9.56.0 and above, so you won't see the flag in an exported) AnimIgnoreGlobalTime ShieldEffect (hardcoded usage, reserved for TXMPshield) InvisibilityEffect (hardcoded usage, reserved for TXMPinvis) DaodanEffect (hardcoded usage, reserved for TXMPDAODAN_SHIELD)
<Format>	flag	ARGB formats are used for reflective textures (Alpha Red Green Blue) ARGB8888 can be used only if you use an updated engine (which comes with the AE). (When Macs were still on the PowerPC processor, Oni's textures needed to have their color channels swapped or else they would appear color-inverted, but after the move to Intel Macs, both platforms used the same Windows-format textures.) XML flags Options for command line argument "-format:" Up to OniSplit v0.9.52.0 For higher versions Up to OniSplit v0.9.52.0 For higher versions RGB888 BGR bgr32 bgr ARGB8888 RGBA bgra32 rgba RGB555 BGR555 bgr555 ARGB5551 BGRA5551 bgra5551 ARGB4444 BGRA4444 bgra4444 DXT1 dxt1
<Speed>	integer	This tag is used if the XML file is meant to create an animated texture. In that case you would use multiple <Image> tags. Let's say Speed is set to 7 — then the animation will advance every 7th frame.
<EnvMap>	link	TXMPname (without suffix) This tag is used if the XML file is meant to create a reflective texture. File suffixes like .tga or .oni are not used in the EnvMap link.
<Image>	link	TXMPname.tga Creating a texture from a JPEG, PNG or DDS is only supported via the command line's "-create:txmp" argument.

Animated textures

A sample animated billboard.

Original animated texture.

It's tiresome to manually create an XML file with a large number of <Image> tags. Skip that work by using Simple OniSplit GUI. (Normal TXMP creation is also supported.)

Some advice:

1. When using XML to import, OniSplit can only accept TGA images.
2. AdditiveBlend should only be used on things that are supposed to glow — otherwise you might think that the object ignores its vertex shading. In the case of the billboard at the right, this was an improvement; now it's a transparent OLED billboard.
3. Long animations in high quality (512x512, RGB) produce VERY big .oni files. The source billboard GIF is 1.7MB and the resulting .oni file is 273MB. That's because TXAN doesn't support variable timing like the GIF format, so a smooth animation like this one will have a ton of duplicate frames in it. Even as a ZIP, the .oni file was still 66MB, which is unreasonably large. The billboard could possibly be broken into 3 static and 3 transitional images, and then animated "manually" via a BSL loop. The conclusion is to use animated images with lower quality settings and to avoid long periods of duplicate frames which waste space.

HERE is some information on how to create an animated texture within various graphics programs.