Terrain types upgrade 2007

Afghanistan theater

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ranger822
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Airbase Tiles

Post by ranger822 » 2007-09-27 20:38:37

Does anybody lay claim to the airbase tiles artwork? What I mean is it shouldn't be too difficult to crop out the tile background and just the airbase specific area and transport to new background tiles - - maybe a good opportunity to make some new ones?

ranger822
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Terrain Tiles

Post by ranger822 » 2007-10-02 22:04:02

SM - did this thread lose some steam? :roll:

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Post by Snake Man » 2007-10-02 23:55:22

I'll be honest; 1) I'm even still confused of how many/what etc terrain types to use. 2) I'm too busy with ArmA/lazy to just say "fuck it" and take it upon my own judgement to take terrain types from the suggested above no matter if they suit or not.

So there :)

Hmm dunno maybe it would be just 10min editing work to take that image and fix it as 512x512 256 color bmp, but hmm. If its going to be me, it has going to be later, just way too busy with ArmA now (today for example).
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ccc
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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by ccc » 2009-09-11 16:19:52

three test screenshots.. the result is horrible.
i just take two basic tiles from my last Nevada tile test, rename and put them in Afghanstan texture folder.
Image
Image
Image

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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by ccc » 2009-09-13 13:36:35

mix Nevada flat land tile and moutain tiles.. moutain tile on 30% transparency layer. it reduces the contrast and sharpness of texture pattern.. thus looks slightly better.
the pic shows 30% and 50% layer of moutain tiles.. the 50% one looks too sharp.
Image

ccc
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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by ccc » 2009-09-13 15:44:21

Alright here's the test tile zip.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/z0tncmwno ... 20test.zip

basic flat land tile from Snake man/Nevada sand tile.
basic moutain tiles from Pheonix711/Aegean moutain tiles. i use 30% transpaency layer overlying basic sand tile.

the tiles in zip are for H-tile, you've to scaled them down to 128 or 64 for M-tile, then 32x32 for L-tile. Then convet them into dds format with DDS conveter. overwrite old files with new ones.

imho.. well.. it do look slightly better, closer to the flying in GE. actually i enjoy a lot over NE side of Kabul hills.. :mrgreen:

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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by ccc » 2009-09-14 16:13:36

road-moutain and river-moutain tiles done. feel better over NE Kabul..with limited upgraded tiles, the terrain looks ok..and brings back the memory in DID F-22ATF. The legendary sim uses limited terrain tiles, but look cool over middle east.

the rivers, i tune down river color to make it look dry, and less prominent in moutaineous area.
the roads, i just use Nevada road tiles- straight, and wider road. it should be smaller and torturous.. i did not tweak it.
Image
Image
Image
Image

here're the zips..

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mkkmnmumn ... 20tile.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/lrg0to03z ... 20tile.zip

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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by Polak » 2009-09-15 10:41:34

Experimentation is good and sooner or later will bring some satisfying results. Not that yours are not that already. Those muted 30% tiles are sure better, however everything (all efforts) is to help & recompensate for the lack of variety in generic tiles. Obviously having one generic tile in the tileset - thats bound to look like a lizzard skin from the distance. So the natural and intuitive remedy is to wash out the details. It has good and bad sides.

Transitions of one wash out and "foggy" nature to another one looks pretty decent in the terrain but sometimes lacks natural look. I remember your first set of photos where the rather bland desert cut into some mountain range which when seen from the distance looked stunningly real.

My preference is to keep more pronounced tile and add some even minute elements to that making them different from each other. The second part of ongoing experiment is to use real life transitions between two types of natures. Here is small example. There are 3 transitions here but only one is natural . Can you guess which one is?

Image

BTW each of generic terrains here also does not look good when repeated over the large areas of the Falcon 4 terrain. Please something must be done to introduce more variety to that part of the terrain, or there will be very difficult to make much of the progress to upgrade the terrains . :(

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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by ccc » 2009-09-15 11:22:35

thanx your comments.

your observation is totally right..but i have no choice. The terrain will not be re-tiled with autotiling tool/CATE in near future, so you can't introduce random tiling( with variant tiles) over a large are of same terrain type. All i can do is compromise.
The second part of ongoing experiment is to use real life transitions between two types of natures. Here is small example. There are 3 transitions here but only one is natural . Can you guess which one is?
the left hand one? say, it seems you want to use [16 tiles] for a standard transition?
Please something must be done to introduce more variety to that part of the terrain, or there will be very difficult to make much of the progress to upgrade the terrains .
Random-tiling functon of CATE..

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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by ccc » 2009-09-15 11:32:06

PS:
To be honest, what i did for tiles is to " upgrade the terrain looking with minimal work ". the tweak is exclusively for Afghanstan land.
For border area around CIS, Pakistan and Inida, there're green land/farm/forrest..current tile set missing these tiles, so all land is desert/dry land type.

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Re: Terrain types upgrade 2007

Post by Polak » 2009-09-15 11:52:52

Random-tiling functon of CATE..
Introduction of any improvement to F4 terrain making process would be really welcome. I know that all takes time and effort and even with current state and sophistication of PMC terrains lots can be done to improve on graphic side without even going into total revamping if existing tools. With coming winter there will be hopefully more time to do so. I applaud your effort ccc and glad to be part of this and other discussions on the PMC forum.

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