To All Landscape/Terrain Modders Out There in BobII land

A place where general info about BOB2 can be found
Lith1um
Airman Basic
Posts: 1
Joined: 10 Feb 2007, 16:40

Post by Lith1um »

Is this what you're looking for Vlado7?

Far tiles

http://s22.quicksharing.com/v/9376036/P ... s.rar.html

Ground textures

http://www.checksix-fr.com/bibliotheque ... chier=4924

Peli's cliffs

http://www.checksix-fr.com/bibliotheque ... chier=4328

StickMan's site (absolutely beautiful cockpit pinups, new avgas explosion, clear canopies, more)

http://www.angelfire.com/mech/stickman1/

vlado7
Senior Airman
Posts: 150
Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 09:08

Post by vlado7 »

Thank you so much, Lithium! All in one place now. :D

Damon
Airman Basic
Posts: 6
Joined: 19 May 2006, 07:02

Post by Damon »

I was thinking of doing some very high res updates (2048 x 2048) for this - I did a test using some images from google earth with good results.


My question is.... on the terrain map how to the tiles join each other..... It does not look like its a straight grid so I guess the texture is assigned to each polly...... In which case how do u ensure if a tile is only half shown that u don't get half a building - especially the city tiles

I can prob work it out but if there is anyone who knows it would be much appreciated

Thanks

JP

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PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Post by PV »

Imagine that a single terrain texture is tiled onto a plane. To map into the terrain, a landuse shape in the terrain is used as a mask for dropping in a chunk of that plane onto the terrain. Thus, you want the edges of the texture to mate with each other so you can't see where the left edge of one becomes the right edge of the next, etc. The images are all deviously constructed to work this way - try putting two city tiles side by side to see.

Yes, at the edge of the masked region, the texture is chopped. In most cases this is nat a problem, though for some city textures it does look a little flakey. There is always room for improvement.

If you are at all interested in more ambitious edits than texture replacement, you could take a peek at my terrain editing tutorial. I just posted the first new version since last summer, not more than an hour ago, but it may take a day or two to be updated. It is (and will be) available at
http://www.airwarfare.com/Sims/GMX%20BO ... ls.htm#003

EDIT: The current Terrain Editing Tutorial can now be found at http://www3.telus.net/v1ncent/bob/BoB-T ... rialV2.zip
Last edited by PV on 10 Nov 2009, 17:45, edited 2 times in total.

Bader
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Posts: 9659
Joined: 05 Nov 2004, 14:10
Location: Bletchingley, Surrey, UK.

Post by Bader »

Damon,
As PV points out, it's important that each 2048x2048 texture can be placed next to itself (in all four directions) and mate well. Do take a look at the existing textures and you should see the effect.

Other than that, then a high res update would be excellent. Video memory is abundant these days and so we could get away with it. There are some great sources for high res textures now- they just need to be fitted together.


As an aside, one thing we probably want to do is enable mip-mapping for the high res .dds textures or allow something like .pcx to stop texture shimmering. That was an issue when I did similar tests a while back. But they won't be showstoppers.



Look forward to the results.
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Rummy
BDG
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Joined: 30 Aug 2005, 07:32

Post by Rummy »

Also bear in mind that your new texture should be at a scale where it is equal to about 1.4km. This is important with the fields and towns at least for looks.

Damon
Airman Basic
Posts: 6
Joined: 19 May 2006, 07:02

Post by Damon »

Well I did a seamless city texture 2048 x 2048 sourced from Google Earth.

Took about one and half hours - but will get quicker and the city ones are the most difficult.

However still not as sharp as i had hoped but better

Here is an in game pic at 325ft alt
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/460/bob2048sr9.jpg

Thoughts......

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PV
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Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Post by PV »

The higher resolution looks nice. One of the problems with using modern aerial pics is you want to locate regions where only 65+ year old buildings are visible, which can be a problem, unless you are a local and know what you're looking at; and then you want to go through the pics and remove modern items like brightly coloured cars - in 1940, there were almost entirely only dark colours and blacks, except for the rare roadster. Also, I wonder about the paving - I suspect there weren't a lot of curbs and sidewalks in the suburbs, similar to how it was in north america, where most of that stuff was put in during the 50s and 60s.

To get an idea what things should look like, you can access The RAF WWII Aerial Reconaissance photo Archive, TARA, which is now handled by "Cities Revealed". It has many views of southern England in 1941-3 (in B&W, of course), if you can cope with their bizarre user interface. The site is here:
http://www.shockymap.com/timemachine/1942/1942.htm

Click on the "Find Image", then flail helplessly in the face of their boneheaded shockwave-flash map navigation scheme. In my tutorial, I talk very briefly about how to navigate their system. It uses "National Grid Reference" points, but I haven't found a convenient map yet to look up the numbers easily. If you are fortunate enough to stumble on a suburb image, you can get more magnification by using your mouse wheel (if you have one) than they allow with their little + button.

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PV
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Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Post by PV »

Sorry to say, it appears that "Cities Revealed" have reworked their website, and the preview search function of aerial reconnaissance images seems to have been removed. Perhaps it may resurface in another form, but for now, that very useful avenue for terrain information is closed.

Later: the UK images are now available at http://www.ukaerialphotos.com/
and continent images are found at http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/worldwide/

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