Satellite texture + mask

AGS/CAT Afghanistan terrain

Moderators: Lone Wolf, Snake Man

Post Reply
Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Satellite texture + mask

Post by Snake Man » 2009-08-22 01:18:49

Today I started to work on the satellite texture + mask.

As I wrote in the PMC finishing ArmA projects, read TODO here topic, I'm going to release one more CAT Afghanistan version for ArmA, after which we move to ArmA 2.

I chose the satellite texture resolution of 12800 x 12800 which is pretty big. My computer has 2gb of ram and photoshop is swapping like 5gb when I'm loading/editing/saving the 3 layered PSB file for the satellite.

As this is a port and I don't have any better resource images, I'm just using the existing OFP CAT Afghanistan textures as bases. These are 512 res tiles, one of them is the default OFP Resistance sand texture, but few others look quite nice in fact (made out of real photos etc). I'm planning on using them at the same areas as they were used in original version.

Currently I'm learning as I go when making the satellite stuff, but so far it seems that it will take some time to tweak the image to nice outcome, especially if my computer/photoshop is keeps giving me trouble when editing.

Of course I don't have unlimited time to tweak it so I must learn as much as I can and just use what I have at that point, but I'm hoping with the PS layers and stuff I can make somewhat decent terrain areas for the whole map, but can't make any promises before I really try it the first time.

Today was mostly spent in photoshop learning the ropes for 12800 res image editing and preparing the source images etc. But at the early morning hours I got the first test version ingame and it looked ok, except there is some scaling problem because it now looks like one small stone is like 1m x 1m in size heh. I need to figure out which part of the source image & satellite editing went wrong.

But I guess its a good thing that we actually have CAT Afghanistan now ingame with the high res (doesn't look that way though) 12800 x 12800 satellite image and its working. Its much easier to continue from here.

If anyone has any tips how to tweak win xp sp3 + photoshop cs3 performance in 2gb ram conditions, feel free to share as those would definitely help me.

Perhaps tomorrow I could throw in screenshots, if there is something decent to show (I'm just so damn lazy to get those shots all the way up to the http link heh).
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Re: Satellite texture + mask

Post by Snake Man » 2009-08-29 23:34:41

Still no screenshots available.

I had to resize the huge image down because the learning process caused many loads/edits/saves which was long process. Right now the image I'm testing is just 1024x1024 so its very quick to work with, this is only for testing purposes and the final image will be the huge 12800x12800 resolution one.

I have now all the OFP textures included, the terrain overall starts to look quite nice. The ground clutter textures are also in place made out of these original textures, yet there is still some strange color difference on them, like the basic sand texture is perhaps even bit pinkish color, but the ground clutter texture is like sandy light brown as the original texture... I don't understand why. It is very noticeable and I really hope I can get it fixed for final release.

The ground clutter relating to objects (small rocks, bushes, grass etc) is completely undone at this point. I'm first going to setup the mask + texture and then figure out the cluttering on top of that.

The overall look right now is bit off in my view, for example the ground textures don't really fit to the house objects, they look very unnatural, sort of like one person did the house and another totally differently artistic person did the ground texture, if you know what I mean... They don't "fit together" nicely, hmm difficult to explain.

Progress is being done and I see now that the technical aspect is pretty much covered (except clutter config) and next on the line is to implement all this knowledge into the final huge resolution image which will take some time to edit together (its so damn big).

Anyways, just an quick update.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Re: Satellite texture + mask

Post by Snake Man » 2009-09-02 05:01:30

I have just finished the CAT Afghanistan satellite texture + mask editing!

Texture was in fact ready for couple of days now, but the mask was under way as I tried and tried some more "automated" ways to create the image in photoshop, all failed... so I had to paint the LSD effect image by freehand. Damn that sucked.

I'll be posting screenshots later today.

Its just so enjoyable to get this new satellite business done :)
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Re: Satellite texture + mask

Post by Snake Man » 2009-09-02 06:57:04

Here are the images, resolution is 12800 x 12800 (for this topic resized down to 600x600).

Satellite TEXTURE:
Image

Satellite MASK:
Image

The texturing comes from OFP. I loaded the original AGS CAT Afghanistan into WrpTool and displayed textures, then zoomed completely out and screenshotted it. Next I added this image as reference to my photoshop PSB file and freehand painted the satellite texture from this image. Then I freehand painted the satellite MASK from the satellite texture. Damn what a workload.

For the textures itself I used the OFP textures found in the AGS CAT Afghanistan (I believe some of them are AGS work). I did not use them "as is" but I modified them to be tileable and saved it to 2048x2048 texture from which it was easy to paste or clone brush into the satellite texture.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

Post Reply

Return to “AGS/CAT Afghanistan (ArmA)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests