p3d paa ogg, brief rundown please

[Mikero]

can some kind person give a non scripter / editor like me an idea of where these files fit into the whole?

I basically know what an ogg is but why isnt it a more familiar sound format? (never could get my ogg addin to work with winamp)

I understand that paa is picture but why not jpg? Anyone have the file details on this? It's internal structure?

could someone explain how p3d files glue this all together (Oxygen is a bit too much to absorb for what I want to know)

yes, I have scanned all the current ofpec tutes. They assume a level of knowledge I dont have, namely why I would want to inspect or create a p3d file and it's relationship to an addon.

thanx

[Dinger]

umm... dang.... that's a whole kettle of fish.

OGG is supported. WAV is also supported (And .wss, which is more or less a wave, and probably what should be used for most things).  OGG is used because it's a compressed format. Unlike .mp3, OGG's format is open, and it can be used freely in games (=no payments to third parties). In addition, it delivers better audio performance.

JPGs can be used.  But JPGs use lossy compression, while (correct me if I'm wrong someone) paas don't, and, if I'm not mistaken, paas can have alpha channels, which are rather important for games.

P3Ds have in them a description of the object, as well as what textures go where.

[Pilot]

The main reason for using ogg and paa files AFAIK is the compression of these files.  Compared to thier counterparts, they are usally quite smaller.  And as Dinger said, PAAs support alpha channels while JPGs don't.

could someone explain how p3d files glue this all together

P3D files are, as you may or may not know, object files.  The textures are assigned to faces on the models, and the sound files are defined in the config to complement the objects.

I hope that helps

-Student Pilot

EDIT:

But JPGs use lossy compression, while (correct me if I'm wrong someone) paas don't

I always thought JPGs had better quality than PAAs.

[h-]

.pac/.paa do get compressed, and quite harshly actually...

But, afaik .jpg hogs much more memory than .pac/.paa...
At least whenever an addon uses .jpg textures it lags helluva lot more...

[Mikero]

thanx all

is paa/pac an internal idea of bis's or is it an open standard like ogg?

[Ding]

i think bis made the paa and pac's, i havnt seen them anywhere else, and also Ogg is better to use than wavs because if you have a 30mb sound file you want in ofp that is in Wav format, if you convert it to ogg it will be about 3mb, and will sound better

[THobson]

Ding:  I agree - directionally.  ogg files are certainly smaller but I have never found them to sound better than wav files. The compression process seems to introduce some horrible echos, especially at high levels of compression, not bad for music but terrible for voices.  Not unlike the artifacts produced when using jpg files for pictures.

As a general rule when trying to find the provenance of a file extension such as paa my first port of call is google  'paa file extenstions' does not throw up anything to do with graphic files.  That is consistent with the comment about paa's being bis only.

Comments have been made about alpha channels on paa files - is that the same as saying you can have transparent pixels?

I have read this thread but I still am not much wiser on p3d files.  I have not had time to play with them yet - what would I use to open them?

[h-]

I concur with THobson on the ogg part...
There is no lossless audio/video compression (and most likely never will be)...
Uncompressed wav sounds always better, maybe not with OFP since it takes OFP a while to go through the wav before it plays it = wav causes lag..
But IRL..

Also, ogg is much better than mp3...
I ran some tests and with some non-hifi equipment I really couldn't hear as bad quality loss with ogg than with mp3...

I'm not a graphics guy but yes, alpha channel is used for masking areas of the pic that will be visible, partly transparent or completely transparent (shortly put)...

You can open p3d files with BIS released tool Oxygen (O2 for short) if the models are a format O2 can read (MLOD)...
For example the models in the Data3D.pbo are in ODOL format which O2 can not open.. There's a tool called ODOL Explorer (3rd party) with which you can open the ODOL format models and if you like, convert them into MLOD for O2...
The ODOLEx does screw up the models a bit but those are tiny things you won't even notice if you are not a modeller...
(sorry)I'm too lazy to find any download links.. Search through the official BI Forums (/sorry)

[THobson]

So that is what Oxygen is all about?  Don'tworry I'll find it.

Thanks