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Author
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Topic: HiRes terrain textures
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Diego Lozano
Pilot
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posted 10-12- 04:07 PM
   
Someone asked if this could be done. Well, it can but it takes a machine from NASA to save all the damn layers. Its like opening 4 Supertextures all at once...bogg down city! Anyway, here is a peek at what I have so far. You WWI guys dont get too exited just yet. There are too many modern roads on this map to look realistic but, that can be fixed   IP: Logged |
Blacksheep
Pilot
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posted 10-12- 06:29 PM
WOW! looks great Diego, nice job so far. Please keep us updated on this terrain as you progress.  ------------------
 -Blacksheep
http://geocities.com/jays3299/toshindo.html IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 10-12- 09:04 PM
I don't see the good part? I find that looks worse then the original terrains? IP: Logged |
Diego Lozano
Pilot
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posted 10-12- 10:00 PM
Maybe you can see the good part from this height. The previous image was just to show the amount of detail way down low.  IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 10-12- 11:10 PM
Ah that does look alot better.
A little blurry but much better. Thats the problem though, I hate terrains that only look good up high, then you go down low and they usually never look good. SDOEs stock terrains don't look so bad down low though, thats what I like about them. IMO, terrains based off real pics will never look all that great. IP: Logged |
Jerry
Pilot
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posted 10-12- 11:29 PM
I think you're right Spanky. SDOE may not look photo realistic at high altitude but it does a better job than any of them for looking good at all altitudes.IMO it's more important that everything on the screen (planes, terrain, objects) have the same look and texture. For example, I find it distracting when movies try to blend obvious animation with real film. Or in a sim when an obviosly computer generated or hand painted object is mixed with a photo realistic background, or vice versa with a poorly done matte. Just my opinion though. IP: Logged |
li'l bastard
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 03:10 AM
hey Diego, I really think it's freaking good that hi altitude shot, look how great the horizon fades w/ the ground! Well, everybody knows that photorealistic textures don't look always very good, but I guess Diego is goin in the right direction, trying to find the better compromise... the actual ground skins look like a cartoonia ones...li'l b
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***WHEN THINGS GET HOT RIDE ONE OF THESE***
 IP: Logged |
SteveTheDrummer
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 08:13 AM
Hey Diego
That last one make me want to move to the countryside right away.
Stuned by your skills man!
BTW Bavaria is my all time
Favourite-dogfight-playground
Cheers IP: Logged |
Aui
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 08:52 AM
Those are just amazing!!! I want! =)The only reason IMO the first pic looks strange is because it lacks 3D details. Just imagine if it had fences along those roads, some groups of trees, houses and telegraph poles. But until we have HWT&L this is excellent! I agree with what Jerry says though that it all has to be carefully mixed especially as our brain is much more picky when things starts to look more natural, but in my opinion it seems to work great above with the EIII. >IMO, terrains based off real pics will never look all that great.
IMO I'm not quite sure about that. Hitherto(?) I tend to agree but with higher resolutions like above I really think it's the best way to go. So... Nice work! - really would like to see some progress in this area!!! IP: Logged |
Gustavo
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 12:34 PM
Excellent Diego. Perhaps you could play the focus a little with the filter to focus of Photo Shop. Alone a humble opinion friend, your you are the expert in terrains.
Congratulations.
_____________________________________Excelente Diego. Tal vez se podría jugar un poco el enfoque con el filtro para enfocar de Photo Shop. Solo una humilde opinión amigo, tu eres el experto en terrenos.
Felicitaciones. ------------------
 I./JG 27
Alle Messerschmitt bf109 IP: Logged |
Sv
JAG
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posted 10-13- 01:18 PM
I think at least a little photo-real can add a ton to SDOE, especially if it is blended in a bit so you don't get too much contast close to the ground. Of course the higher resolution helps allot!Diego, any problems with your video memory as you fly over it? Here is a low-rez one I made a while ago to experiment... but I though the resolution was a bit too low - neat to see the hi-rez pics Diego!
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-Sv
Wings with Wires IP: Logged |
Sv
JAG
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posted 10-13- 01:20 PM
If buildings and trees could cast shadows on the surrounding terrain texture it would make them all of a sudden appear to fit in a real way into the terrain. Trying to line up ground objects with the terrain textures is painful though....IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 01:43 PM
Thats the other problem with photos, you see a nice forest when your flying up high, but you get low and its just a flat image of a forest downlow. You could set down in it if you wanted. That never seems right either.
I guess is just personal opinion. IP: Logged |
Sv
JAG
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posted 10-13- 04:32 PM
Imagine if the forest areas were raised... and image that if you fly into them you sink into them as if they were water... but you also hear all kinds of tree-snapping noices and your plane rips apart!The cool thing about raised forest areas is that down low (where things can get ugly) - it looks much better... the forest edge frames the scene, more like a car race game! I think this could be wonderful... IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 06:33 PM
Yeah if they were raised it would be cool. IL-2 and ww2online are 2 ways of doing forest that I like. IP: Logged |
Diego Lozano
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 07:13 PM
Hmmmm...a mixed crowd for sure. Myself, I like whatever looks/feels right. These images dont even compare to what feeling you get when in actual flight.I chose this satelite terrain only because I can actually test/see the difference a HiRes texture would make. So far the 512 res tiles are compressed at an average of 190kb each. That number could definately go lower...way lower, without much of a visual difference. I dont get the blocky clouds anymore and my rig is a PIII 500, V5 and 256 ram. I get "regular" frame rates without any stutter. It seems that the terrains only start to get choppy when you get near a massed group of textures and models. Of course, if I ever figure out how to add IL2 style trees to the entire map that would be very cool indeed but, I'd rather work toward emulating their 1 foot off the ground texture detail. Now that my friends is a work of art! The trees are eh...so-so. Imagine hauling one of Harman's tanks across some terrain that didnt look like your driving over a never ending sea of green and brown smudges but instead detailed roads and grass.
That is what I'm working towards here bros
Sv,
The tree bed idea is great. I've seen it in a chopper sim I believe. Although not 100% convincing visually, I "felt" that I should not get too close as I hovered into a clearing. Thats the whole idea isnt it? I'd like to see our talented modellers workin' on those forests again.
IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 08:33 PM
Gunship (yep the one everyone hated) had amazing terrain and trees. Totally realistic, great lighting and towns too. and it still ran great on my banshee and p2 333. IP: Logged |
Diego Lozano
Pilot
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posted 10-13- 08:40 PM
No Spanky, not Gunship. Although those trees were spectacular for nap of the earth flying. It was set in Cuba I think. I remember taking off near a harbor and attacking a small town with Che posters all over it. I think Razorworks put it out.IP: Logged |
MkB
Cadet
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posted 10-16- 06:00 PM
Enemy Engaged:Apache Havoc , by per chance?I think trees or even just blocky forest would add alot to SDOE. Actualy having some 3d element to the trees and forests. IMHO those Hi-res textures look amazing Diego IP: Logged |
Maury Markowitz
Pilot
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posted 10-17- 02:52 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Diego Lozano:
Maybe you can see the good part from this height
Wow, that looks like B-17. Maury
IP: Logged |
Maury Markowitz
Pilot
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posted 10-17- 03:00 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Sv:
Imagine if the forest areas were raised...
Knowing nothing whatsoever about 3D, would bump mapping do this? Could we put bump maps into the terrain patches and have that work? Would it look good? quote:
Originally posted by Diego Lozano:
Well, it can but it takes a machine from NASA to save all the damn layers
Can someone give me the 30 second intro to terrain? I understand the mapping on the planes pretty well now, but all this "tiles" and "layers" on terrain confuses me. I've been working backward in B-17's terrain (although my CD has disappeared, making this rather hard). As far as I'm concerned, B-17 is EXACTLY what I want as far as the amount of detail and size of the map is concerned. In flight over the North Sea you can see Denmark for instance. As far as I can tell however, it's nothing more than a bunch of grids with some LODs for each one (yes, it has problems down low). Is the SDoE system any different? Maury IP: Logged |
Sv
JAG
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posted 10-17- 03:16 PM
Bump mapping can add shaow effects for trees, and even road curbs, etc. - but best viewed from altitude since they are only shading effects, not real 3d mesh.If you want to see the sides of trees and forest lines down low, you need the forest to be in a raised messa-type of mesh. IP: Logged |
Diego Lozano
Pilot
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posted 10-17- 10:39 PM
Maury,
The 30 sec. intro...thats a good one! I can tell you that SDOE uses a 5120x5120 main texture that is cut up into 400 tiles. Each tile is 2 sq miles. For HiRes terrain "simply" create a main texture that is 10240x10240 pixels. That is roughly about 300mg per layer and when you paint, you can have many layers. When you feel its done, name it whateverSuper.tif and run Dicer(a program that cuts the main Supertif into 400 tiles and names them all correctly). Pop it into your terrain texture folder and start up SDOE. Enjoy until you find something that needs more work on it. Repeat procedure until your satisfied Thats all you get for 30 seconds...but if you really want to know exactly how to create terrains, I think I might have a few tutorials around here. IP: Logged |
Nat
JAG
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posted 10-18- 12:20 AM
Layers: A Photoshop function, not a function of SDOE. Basicaly instead of having a single image, an image is built up of multiple layers, each has a part of the whole image, you can apply effects to different layers and when you are happy that the work is complete you "Flatten Image" into a single layer and save as a TifRaising the physical model in forrest areas to give it height: Pretty easy to do as far as the whole pain in the ass job goes LOL, but this WILL greatly raise poly count. A substitute could be the IL2 way, which I still find damn ugly but does give some feeling of depth, in that forrests like in the pics above would be a model using 2 or 3 layers each a little higher than the next, and mapped with a forrest alpha texture, this would also raise poly count obviously, but not as much, but I'm not sure how those alpha textures will affect SDOE game play. IP: Logged |
Pierre Radiateur
Cadet
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posted 10-18- 04:08 AM
Poly counts on terrains are a pain in the neck! When I looked at doing some terrain stuff, most of the terrains seem to have around 10,000 polygons. If you want to add, say, houses, you could maybe have 1000 houses on a perfectly flat terrain. Like, say, ocean, but made solid. Put 1000 houses into 40 square miles... and you don't get a town..... If you make a terrain pretty flat and featureless, you have more scope for tree effects, but you could never build something like Bavaria and model wooded slopes... Also, if anyone out there has tried it ( apart from Nat ) building a terrain is DAMN HARD!!!! You build up 400 tiles, line them up... you got enough parts and polys for 4 or 5 planes. Now .... hands up whose scratch built 4 or 5 planes..... and then you got the texture..... So... the trees aren't hard....it's just getting everything to work together... and not look like those horrible trees I remember from Mig Alley ...... IP: Logged |
BurkeyMK2
Pilot
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posted 10-18- 06:56 AM
Yep, that game mentioned is Apache Havoc, still one of the most convincing terrains I have seen. Not photorealistic in any way but lots of detail, with raised forests, sunken valleys, hedges and telephone poles with wires.....personally I think this approach works much better than photorealistic tiles, but each to their own....IP: Logged |
Maury Markowitz
Pilot
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posted 10-18- 07:29 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Sv:
Bump mapping can add shaow effects for trees, and even road curbs, etc. - but best viewed from altitude since they are only shading effects, not real 3d mesh.
Ahhh, bummer. quote:
Originally posted by Diego Lozano:
I can tell you that SDOE uses a 5120x5120 main texture that is cut up into 400 tiles. Each tile is 2 sq miles.
Ok, with you. quote:
Repeat procedure until your satisfied
Simple enough. So what do you think B-17 is doing then? The tile sizes are about the same (maybe 1x1 miles, but 2x2 seems close) and it appears that the loading I'm seeing is nothing more than LOD switchin. Do they just leave it to the card to do the loading/switchout? I do notice that it's not strictly LOD based because the switchin doesn't happen until you look that way - you can be right over something but it won't load until you look. It seems to me that if we increased the terrain size to 100x100 (good visual range) we could load in chuncks of 50 miles at a time. Tag everything with a tile number and dump them when they fall outside the current 100x100 square. Does that sound right? Like I said, I can't find my B-17 CD any more, so there's not too much poking about I can do. quote:
Originally posted by Nat:
Layers: A Photoshop function, not a function of SDOE. Basicaly instead of having a single image, an image is built up of multiple layers, each has a part of the whole image
Ahhh, THOSE layers... quote:
Originally posted by BurkeyMK2:
Yep, that game mentioned is Apache Havoc
Wasn't that voxel based? If so there's no easy way to combine it with other "normal" 3D stuff like the planes. It would require a re-write of the terrain engine at least. Maury IP: Logged |
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