[WIP] Ground texture mod

i watched the battle of britain last night. i also watched this which was fantastic.

for uk'ers only as it bbc iplayer. Its an hour and a half long, mainly about british lansdscape art, last 20 mins is about war time british propaganda landscape art, ohh and theres some spitfires lol !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...cape_Painting/

basicly between the two is all the information needed to semi accuratly re create south east england.

the colours displayed in battle of britain were just awesome. but the scale of the texture in il2 is seriusly wrong. i.e. the average size of a field basck then was probally the size of the texture tile itself. so there are too many patch fields ! i believe that the devlopers have looked at modern day field and land divisions and taken that as the scenic appeal. imo its not wrong but in correct for what im trying to achieve.

regards that last image phillip. its way to green, but only because every other non green hue as filtered with the same filter for the green. the trick is to extract each colour and configure independantly.

my latest efforts look pretty much like the originals, still only with a comparison screenshot they look better. which isnt good enough really for a mod so im not sure what to do tbh, its got me all wound up. one of the most important aspects of what i want to achieve is very much hindered by my
inabillity to darken the trees. and ive tried everything there. untill i can do that i wont be working on it much. unless i have a serious brainstorm and it all works itself out lol.

if i got the bandwidth left for images ill post some from these 2 media sources.

[philip.ed]

That video on iplayer is brilliant! I'd love to see terrain like that in CloD.
Interestingly though, my book on the BoB film explains that a lot of the footage was shot over France (because the weather in Blighty was too poor for filming) so I'd take everything there with a pinch of salt (as far as modelling England is concerned)

Ali, do you have access to the textures which the trees sit on? Maybe darkening those would improve things?

yeah phillip done that. the lighter colour trees negate any effect of darkening the land base, now with trees properly dark my textures would look a whole lot better.

my photobucket account is perilously close to having exceeded its bandwidth use. ohh dear. my pics may dissappear soon but heres the last texture change with stupid trees. you may not be able to tell the difference but its there.

[philip.ed]

That actually looks brilliant!
I think that there are still too many really dark fields (like the brown ones) which might look better if they were more golden, and similarly the really dark green fields look a bit out of place, but it definitely looks good!
Out of interest, how does it look when the colours are adjusted to look more natural (like you did before in photoshop)?

Originally Posted by philip.ed

how does it look when the colours are adjusted to look more natural (like you did before in photoshop)?

it looks dead with that styling phillip, it looks stylised, just like wop. people want the colourfull summers day pleasant green (&yellow) lands. not the browns the saturation changes make.

light isnt about whats hitting the object its more about what light the object is emitting in our game environment of course. !

lets take a rich yellow corn field. whilst viewed at ground level from a distance of say 10 metres its this colour, and bare in mind you also view everything between the corn field elements, that maybe the ground, the atmoshphere , its shadow against another element ! But...... when viewed from say 2000 metres its a different story, the mass of area of the cornfield has a further influence on the colour, brightness and contrast, in its mass it reflects more light back at the lens.

along side that rich colurfull yellow we pick 1 shade of green in abundance. at ground level we see much similar to the yellow from certain persepctive. but at height and in abundance or mass of green colour, that dark green colour does not get brighter because of various reasons. shadowing is enhanced thats an absence of light ! so its not quite as reflective of light in general thus it retains its dark quality. but with both colour examples you can throw all this theory out the window depending on the angles of light. so its a very dynamic arena, one we cant simulate in this game.

a tree or forrest has the same qualities as above but in scale everything is much bigger including the shadow generation qualites. its much darker.

each colour operates independantly in reality. in our beloved flightsim things are not and never will be so dynamic. so were left playing with this incredible balancing act thats pretty hard to manipulate with the tools we have. and basic shader use thats set with such an awkward colour base at various times of day.

any VU fans out there ?

White light, Aww white light it lighten up my eyes
White light, don't you know it fills me up with suprise
White light, Aww white heat tickle me down to my toes
White light, Aww white light I tell you now goodness knows, now work it

[Aggro]

Originally Posted by Ali Fish

This is much better, I hope this was done ingame and not photoediting etc?

that is an un edited screenshot.

[philip.ed]

Ali, do you prefer the new lighting then? How is midday?

I think the old lighting looks better for Dusk and Dawn, but midday looks better with new lighting.

actually i really do like it. actually ive not seen anything better tbh. utterly outstanding lighting effects ! but ive a confession. lol and its a bad one too.

nvidia colour settings were ticked in my Gcard nvidia settings. so i unticked them, it became apparent im not even set up properly. anyway basicly for a graphics guy like myself. im the biggest fool around here today.

it doesnt affect what you guys see but only my take on it all through what ive been viewing incorrectly.

but. the new reworked lighting has a nice colour balance, so during the day im seeing such awesome blue skies, really deep colours, this alongside the scenery makes alot of sense. everything in general is that bit brighter. the other side of the coin is dusk time and well i love the effects there even better. apart from the phospherus colour the greens go! but the colour bleed that goes on everywhere else is just brilliant.

those trees and greens for the carpet beneath the trees and some of the light greens need to become darker still,

this latest patch isnt very good for my system so i might not work to much on it further. <whispers> "its a bit of a step backwards imo"

Edit: after uninstalling the game cleaning everything out etc, re installing. WOW its better, not perfect. but better.