City Textures rework

[Frosty]

Nothing missing there: it's the signal square and the letter code for the airfield, eg. see here https://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Signal Square.htm

 

[rince33]

Thank you for clearing that up, I was wondering why Clive did not notice what I thought was an obvious glitch. Thanks for the informative link.

 

[sixstrings5859]

So excited about this wonderful work ! Thank you so much ! Looks fantastic ! The Battle of Britain will never be the same with all this outstanding work. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into this ! We are so thankful for people like you that do so much for us. Regards,scott

 

[rince33]

I noticed that a lot of buildings were missing at RAF Eastchurch in the Bob install. On examining the airfield facility file I found 4 items missing from the building folder, "ACC_hut_Eastchurch", "ACC_Hangar_Eastchurch", "ACC_Hangar_Eastchurch_s" and "woodhause".

The first three I found in my 'ETO' install which leaves just one "woodhause" Building placement unaccounted for.

 

[Pat Pattle]

I noticed that a lot of buildings were missing at RAF Eastchurch in the Bob install. On examining the airfield facility file I found 4 items missing from the building folder, "ACC_hut_Eastchurch", "ACC_Hangar_Eastchurch", "ACC_Hangar_Eastchurch_s" and "woodhause".

The first three I found in my 'ETO' install which leaves just one "woodhause" Building placement unaccounted for.

I'll check my source files!

 

[rince33]

Thanks Clive.

Still pottering around on the Isle of Sheppey here is :

SHEERNESS

LOOKING AT THESE PICS I REALIZED THAT I ALMOST FORGOT TO ADD THE PIER

 

[gecko]

Well! That's cool!

 

[gecko]

A suggestion regarding the artificial water. If you extend the water plain out into the real water, the portion that overlaps can have that portion of the texture faded out with the alpha channel and provide some blending.

 

[Pat Pattle]

Superb!!

The first three I found in my 'ETO' install which leaves just one "woodhause" Building placement unaccounted for.

Ignore that one Glen, I must have been testing something judging by the facility co-ords.
The BoB intstall is also missing "ACC_Bomb_dump_Detling".

 

[rince33]

A suggestion regarding the artificial water. If you extend the water plain out into the real water, the portion that overlaps can have that portion of the texture faded out with the alpha channel and provide some blending.

A good idea, but unfortunately this method causes ship model rendering issues as a side effect.

 

[rince33]

I took some time out from Cfs3 modding to fly some vintage clod. This is the last steam patched vanilla version. I created a mod that replaced some textures a few years back. Field textures were extracted from one of the early team fusion updates and I edited tree textures to make them slightly darker.

I love the frosted glass effect while flying through clouds though I had to disable engine temperature effects in realism settings to prevent engine spluttering during cloud immersion, probably the reason why the frosted glass effect was removed in subsequent team fusion mods.

Yesterday out of curiosity I replaced the vanilla cloud textures with some of the new Cfs3 cloud textures. I like the result though it requires some further editing.

I also created templates to be used to edit pilot skill settings in notepad to disable sniper gunners in bombers and fighter bombers and reduce the ai acrobatic maneuvers. I used these to edit some of my favourite missions.

I fly Clod Blitz as well, but I do enjoy the brighter feel, in terrain and lighting of the vanilla version

ORIGINAL FIELDS AND TREES

MODDED VERSION

 

[gecko]

A good idea, but unfortunately this method causes ship model rendering issues as a side effect.

Which texture format did you use for the water? I think a 32 format might avoid this. DXT3 and DXT5 sometime have interesting issues.

 

[rince33]

I used DXT5 and the water texture is part of the main texture. I tried just using DXT 1 as well. What 32 format do you recommend?

 

[gecko]

Without it in front of me, I can't recall for sure the exact name. It's uncompressed 32 bit with alpha. IIRC paint dot net had it as A8R8G8B8.

 

[rince33]

Thanks Daniel, will look into it.

 

[rince33]

I revisited Gravesend after Sheerness to complete placement work there. I repurposed one of my original city modules as a large suburban module, a role for which it is more suited.

I replaced the garden textures and added 2d placeholder buildings. All of my modules have this feature for when the 3d building models pop out of existence at a distance.

Large buildings like large warehouses, cathedrals and hangars seem to be permanent, but the rest pop out. Before adding the 2d buildings I would be left with a green/gray smudge when the 3d buildings popped out.

Next stop: Rochester

 

[gecko]

I love it!

There is also a feature in the terrain mos files where different textures can be used at different distances. I've seen the WOFF scenery use this well with forests, where the distant terrain texture is intended to show the forest canopy top at ranges beyond where the individual trees are rendered. As you approach, and the trees become visible, the ground texture transitions to something representing the forest floor.

I'm not sure if this feature is possible for facility ground textures, but I think it might be.

 

[rince33]

There is also a feature in the terrain mos files where different textures can be used at different distances. I've seen the WOFF scenery use this well with forests, where the distant terrain texture is intended to show the forest canopy top at ranges beyond where the individual trees are rendered. As you approach, and the trees become visible, the ground texture transitions to something representing the forest floor.

Interesting... thanks for the info Daniel.

 

[Pat Pattle]

More superb stuff Glen!!
I daresay that the 'popping' could be mitigated with some more LoDs in the models but I've noticed too that some buildings pop and some don't, even among the stock models. It may just be size related.

 

[rince33]

Some of the buildings in the pics had lods but they popped out the same time as the rest. I find that lods cause stuttering when too many buildings change lods at the same time.

It is definitely size related when it comes to non auto gen buildings, probably to avoid having disappearing hangars popping in on approach to the field. Bob2 wov has this issue and it is an immersion killer for sure.
Work begins on Rochester.