Tom`s texture pack
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The main Forrest dds files are actually the ones named HTREEBA6 etc etc
There many many more forest tiles in the terrain. All family HFORRxxx and many more where forest transitions to other natures. I would be careful with changing anything, because this “forest has many trees” (pun intended ). Forrest tiles already have several level of intensity, which shows.
Better practice would be author alone making changes, or else there may be too many variations of tiles floating around. -
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Hey tom i cant donwload this file i,m try and try and i cant fromthat page can i find in diferent page? thanks:(
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Hi, its funny, isn’t it, you improve one thing and it shows up another problem. Toms new textures now only highlight the problems caused by the repeating tiles worse than before. The old swamp tiles for example were a kind of amorphous browny green colour, no detail and pretty boring and not very real looking, but it merged very well with bordering tiles and the new swamp tiles have too many straight lines on them to look natural and these amplify the differences at the join…
is there someway to control which tiles are laid on which spot? If so, you could edit individual tiles for the best fit in each area. There are huge areas of the terrain where this is not an issue, it’s just specific areas. One thing I notice a lot is for example roads which have the same village or farm and bends in the road repeated up the terrain several times in a row, which just looks completely unnatural. Randomness is the key…
I just wish I knew more about how this all worked and could start tweaking myself. Flare for example shows it is indeed possible, also Fighting Falcons work on Balkans…very frustrating.
Cheers, Mark
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is there someway to control which tiles are laid on which spot?
Yes, I partially explained it in post #76. It’s a lot of work and takes a good amount of time. Although that helps, the biggest problem is making sure the artwork matches up on all four sides of each and every texture so as to appear seamless, that’s the hardest thing to do and extremely time intensive. It’s the longest process to complete for whomever is creating the textures.
This is where the problem lies with people taking a theater, like in this case, modifying it somewhat, replacing them here and there, etc, etc. Not criticizing Tom, just saying that for the most part no one wants to take the time to make sure all of the above is completed, so you end up with what you have here.
Sure, some of it looks good, but look at everything that doesn’t.
I’ve been working on 2 incarnations of Libya(two theater areas) for over a year now. I posted some pics quite some time ago. I doubt I’m even 10-15% complete on it as we speak.
Just my 2 cents.
RAM22
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Not sure what you mean by they are exactly the same??? The one’s in my install aren’t exactly the same, they’re all different!!
RAM22
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@RPG:
HTREEBA1.dds right down to HTREEBAF.dds (excluding night tiles) are all exactly the same tile in my install of Tom’s tiles?, the same texture has been used over and over again?
Sorry, I mis-understood, I thought you meant the stock tiles. I have Toms stuff but of course not installed.
Not sure why you’d want every tile to be the same???
RAM22
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One thing I notice a lot is for example roads which have the same village or farm and bends in the road repeated up the terrain several times in a row, which just looks completely unnatural. Randomness is the key…
I just wish I knew more about how this all worked and could start tweaking myself. Flare for example shows it is indeed possible, also Fighting Falcons work on Balkans…very frustrating.
What would you like to know Mark?
There is a lot to be done in order to make the terrain in Falcon look anything but …. What FLARE concept is all about was not to add randomness , but remove any graphic element from the tile which would reveal repeating pattern. In overall terms it is very clever concept, I just wish we could all see final “proof in the pudding” that it worked for all types of terrain and most kind of tiles.
What Tom has done in this last attempt of his partial Korea remake was to amplify the patterns by using very contrasting and specific graphic elements on the tile. That 90 deg road among building is one of most glaring example of that. It can be corrected by adding variations, however if the base of the tile is bright grass and the content is winding road with contrasting elements it still wont work specially when you take a look from high above.
Tile painting with pixels is one aspect of this problem and terrain painting with those tiles is quite another. They both have to go hand in hand and developing process should take more into careful consideration than somehow rushed and hasty tile repaint.
BTW: What all tile and terrain folks still require is IMHO more advanced tools. However, asking for new tools and time consuming and hard to make revisions in tools can be ONLY fair game when and if those tools ARE used and the suggestions of change come from “hands on” experience and not just wishful dreaming (even including links to YouTube flashy videos and clips ;)).
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have you seen FALL tiles of Toms in the screenshot thread??
damn forests seem so alive and so 3D, amazing but what he has done to Kunsan makes me hesitate.
do you know the tiles of Kunsan area to keep them same and change the all others??
10x…QT
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Hi Polak, well, to me, the scenery/terrain is the big thing that needs improving in Falcon. Instead of just wishing, I would be pleased to help any of you guys who are producing mods and changes etc in any way I can. I can certainly spare an evening or two a week doing some donkey work placing objects, altering stuff or whatever if it helps get things done. I know time is everyones most precious resource. I don’t have an in depth knowledge, but certainly have the skills to operate a simple tool and programme is someone can get me up and running with it. I would just like to be able to give something back, like all the other guys who do stuff for our enjoyment.
QtAlien, you can pick and choose the textures you want to swap, just view them in irfanview or similar - I for example just swapped the cities textures, as I did not like the new swamp texture effect, with the straight edges. But, you will have to experiment to see the effects of not putting them all in at once.
Cheers, Mark
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Hey Polak did you say Low rez tiles look better from up high?
Not exactly, my point was that old Falcon textures DO look sometime much better than current modifications. But the reason for that is probable they were finished as an entity with the purpose to be just secondary backdrop for action in the air, sometimes very high in the air, and without wanting them to be hirez replacement of reality, which of course they could not have been then as neither they can really be in our current attempts to hirez them now.
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The thing is, it is entirely possible to do this, I am sure you have seen this, but just look at this screeny from the Sinai2 release; here we have great looking almost photoreal tiles, no coast issues, no repeating patterns, or if they are, very well hidden. And it runs without any FPS issues at all.
This knowledge can surely be ported over to Korea and there are at least 4 or 5 guys here in this thread who would be willing to put the time in do the donkey work……
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The thing is, it is entirely possible to do this, I am sure you have seen this
Yeah Mark, I have seen theese.
They ARE 100% photoreal tiles for that entire area. This is the reason there is no repeating patterns or coast issues. We cannot have this solution to the entire theater. -
Hi Polak, I did not realize the whole theater was photoreal… Even the deserts? …I knew areas were, that explains the lack of repetition then. Still, its pretty large area, it must be probably a quarter the size of korea…I know Fighting Falcon has almost completed the Balkans in photoreal as well, and then there is Spain and Guam…maybe, this is the way forward instead of banging our heads against the hard coded limits of the terrain engine and the way it renders the landscape. It all seems tantalizingly close !
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I did not realize the whole theater was photoreal… Even the deserts? .
Sorry, no such a thing like 100% photoreal. Consequently IT-BMS was not and I believe also that Spain and Balkans by FF cannot be as well.
There are simply too many tiles for the 64SEG Falcon terrain to be able to be entirely photoreal. However, notable example and in a way exemption to this will be Guam theater, where the ratio of the land area was fractionally smaller than area of the ocean and that allowed Demer to squeeze all land photoreal tiles under 4096 upper limit for tiles. Such a solution can be for now only used for small island theaters.