Real world terrain - Detail level in game?

[mugaben 10]

Hi guys..

Right now im using a satellite photo for my satellite image in visitor/arma. This helps alot in mask creating, and where to put objects, plants and what not.

But when the masking/object part is finished, Im not really happy about having such a sharp imagery of the sattelite - showing so many details.

Lets take a look at this example: http://maps.google.dk/?ll=56.288441,8.608367&spn=0.009944,0.027874&t=h&z=16

All the shadows will create giant ugly blackspots in the terrain, even from a soldiers 1st person perspective. And when you turn off the grass it just looks horrifying wrong..

Where it gets really wierd is in an forest area like this http://maps.google.dk/?ll=56.289391,8.587956&spn=0.002486,0.006968&t=h&z=18 ..

Ive tried alot of different tools and that with mixed results. Some general effect layer or the likes would be a charm instead of deleting shadows by hand on 10240x10240.

What do you guys do to your real world satellite image to overcome this? Any tips? :)

[gammadust 12]

Take a look at this, you'll need Photoshop.

url not allowed... basically you shoud try messing with the Shadow/Highlights filter under Image > adjustments, you may get acceptable results even with hard+dark shadows.

I would recomend using 2 adjustment layers, one for the filter itself, another to recover tonal contrast.

EDIT: Your example though seems too extreme be easily automagicaly resolved.

Edited February 8, 2012 by gammadust
url not allowed

[mugaben 10]

My example resembles my work pretty accurate, alot of black shadows with no information for photoshop to work with. Thats why shadow/highlight or brightness/contrast doesnt work in this situation. Only result is alot of colored grainy bits in a grayish background where the black used to be. Thanks for the input though, ill keep messing about and see if I can pull a rabbit..

[=kct=blackmamba 44]

if u find a way to get your unwanted shadows out please reply how u did that.

thanks in advance.

[DualJoe 10]

Don't know if there's something like it in photoshop, but in gimp you could select the dark area's via treshold or color select and the like and then do something like

.

[=kct=blackmamba 44]

yeah i can allready do that in photoshop sort of,

but delete my shadows like that would take a long time having a sat image twice the size of chernarus.

[DualJoe 10]

Not as long as it will take me to hand paint the one I need for my map-project.

Two other ways I can think of is to select the black area's, and alpha-blend those areas with a slightly offset copy. And/or doing a couple of directional blurs on the selection from different angles.

[bushlurker 46]

I thought I remembered a thread all about this!!!

:D - found it!

Well - usual apologies for digging out an old thread but I think on this occasion it's worth it...

Here's an excellent Photographic image editing mini tutorial by our very own Max Power which explains a fast and effective remedy for those annoying shadows on your satellite images...

It's explained with reference to the Photoshop tools, but I'm pretty sure the Gimp has all the necessary equivalents.....

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[icebreakr 3159]

Censored website name? :)

[bushlurker 46]

Censored website name?

Oops....!

... That link led to a "tidy" version of the original Arma 1 forum post,,,

Never mind - Max has "tidied" the original post specially..... here's a link to that... info is exactly the same....

Satellite Image Editing Mini-Tutorial

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