Terrain Improvement (dev branch)

[NordKindchen 12]

Didnt your teacher teach you that there are no stupid questions?;)

This is how I use modfolders - worked fine since Arma 2

...Armaroot/@modfolder/addons/addon.pbo

In the starting parameters: -mod=@modfolder

Greetings;)

Ps: Jeah I didnt think I would have such big problems getting it running, too=/

[Dwarden 1125]

btw. NordKitchen my comment before was about technologies / approach used in various procedural planetary engines etc. (Outerra, I-novae alike)

anyway I think you need some good demonstration (video or screens) of your approach as the first post is hard to read (I understand it but some may not)

[seamusgod 1]

both Outerra and Proland (and many other planetary / huge scale engines) got nice technologies ... sooner or later some of them will see it's way into gaming world

don't a lot of modern games use brushes to achieve similar end visual results? i don't think you'll need to wait till outerra. those engines are mainly attractive due to their ability for procedural terrain streaming, it doesn't do anything that isn't already possible in most retail games in terms of terrain noise textures.

[old_painless 182]

Found yet another thread that discusses repacking of pbo's. Seems like some solutions are given: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?127395-repacking-PBO-files-with-EliteNess

[NordKindchen 12]

Yay update!

I managed to be able to show how the system looks ingame! This can be considered as absolutely representive!

Keep in mind, that this example is made with my taste. Other people may prefer some calmer pictures. All that would however be possible with the explained system.

Here is the example in small

Here is the example in big.

Best regards!

[dmarkwick 261]

Nice. I wouldn't mind giving it a go & seeing if I like it in practise.

[maddogx 13]

Wow, that looks pretty amazing. :eek:

[gliptal 25]

This is great, I really hope this will get implemented in the full game in some way or another!

Yay!

[Bee8190 10]

Looking great, although, in my eyes, black seems to dominate bit too much . Is there any reason why this would be added to the full game? I've heard of sweetFX before but never bothered me enough to check it out.

Nice job

[NordKindchen 12]

Looking great, although, in my eyes, black seems to dominate bit too much . Is there any reason why this would be added to the full game? I've heard of sweetFX before but never bothered me enough to check it out.

Nice job

Its not SweetFX that we talk about. Its a new system for ground textures.

Atm theres only one small texture that gets tiled over the whole island. My suggested system would allow for more variations and the above post is only to show the possibilities you get with it.

To make it clear: At the moment theres only one texture that gets layed over gras, sand, beach and urban environments.

There are allready two addons that change this texture to get better results - still they are limited to ONE TEXTURE THAT GETS TILED OVER the whole island (size=1024x1024).

There are parts where these textures really shine - but in the end its impossible to find a texture that gets the optimum out of every environment.

Think about Altis with its roughly 400km^2. How shall one texture fit everywhere?

If you want an easy to understand and complete explaination about the theme - read the mainpost. I kept it as understanding as humanly possible.

Greetings!

Ps: Oh and dont forget to vote!

[Bee8190 10]

Thanks for the explanation. Vote added.

[old_painless 182]

If possible, please post a closeup image from the ground as well to convey the infantryman perspective. Think it will look awesome

[NordKindchen 12]

If possible, please post a closeup image from the ground as well to convey the infantryman perspective. Think it will look awesome

Request noted=)

Going to work on that soon!

Greetz!

Oh and thanks for your help! I am remembering your name!;)

[old_painless 182]

No problem. I came very close to trying unpacking and repacking a pbo to see if I could make it work. Stuff like that really annoys me :) Glad you sorted it out

---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 PM ----------

Especially from the big sized picture it looks so much better than the default terrain, which is quickly becoming unbearable.

I hope that it can be made into a mod if BI don't fix this, once they are done fixing fish swimming north :p

[NordKindchen 12]

Haha^^

Jeah - spring is coming - the fish are swimming north again^^

I really hope that too! I dont know how modable the engine is, but I sadly seriously doubt that such a system can be implemented by a modder=(

But I would love to be proven wrong!

Greetings!

[-=seany=- 5]

Nice work, the example pic looks pretty impressive.

[Kerc Kasha 102]

I think it will do the examples more justice if no post processing was done to them as right now the image has clearly been altered in some way and doesn't actually show how it would seem in game.

Sweet FX/The in game colour correction etc count as post processing in this instance

[NordKindchen 12]

I have to disagree.

Even though Sweet FX is used for the images, the comparison is representative. I used the same effects on both.

I will consider adding a version without SweetFx. But since its at least 45min workload for sth I consider unnecessary, I am not really fond of doing this. Especially since in my eyes the examples are completely representative.

Greetings

[lightspeed_aust 681]

What I'm seeing does not look dissimilar to what I already see from Bad Bensons mod. I was expecting to see significant difference between BBs and your concept.

[dnk 13]

These pictures look good. Some constructive feeback (which may already be in place, it's hard to tell from 1 smallish photo) for the various "logics":

• The dark green/thick low vegetation needs more contrast. It should be very high. This is because generally in these biomes there is a mixture of lower, grassy vegetation and many larger, "plump" growing trees as the system builds up into a forested canopy. As such, from a distance, there would be lots of shadows and high contrast from that. These are, in effect, low forests.
  

Example:

LINK

• Shrubland (intermediate between thick non-forest vet, the above, and strict grassland) should have patchiness with a both fairly low-contrast background that has regular inclusions of more high-contrast elements. A great example picture that has both grassy patches and shrubby patches: LINK, LINK (this would be more of a mix of grass and shrub)
  
• Grassland should be fairly monotonous, with a silky texture. From a distance, grass patches contrast with other patches by NOT contrasting internally. From a distance, they blend well, so a gently, blending texture would be nice. Examples: LINK, LINK, LINK
  
• Low grass (brown usually) and some dirt should be relatively untextured. You NEED to have parts with NO added texture, because some things just look smooth from a distance, plus it adds more diversity to the overall image. Plus, it's hard to hide in low grass so the need for camo is not important. Example: LINK
  
• Dirt (washouts, gorges, tracks) should have a wispy look. This is due to erosion usually creating "winding" ditches through exposed mud.
  

Additionally, if it's possible to add color and not just contrast, that could add more visual information to these areas, though the tiling would become more apparent. Balancing with only very subtle coloring might have a good effect.

[old_painless 182]

What I'm seeing does not look dissimilar to what I already see from Bad Bensons mod. I was expecting to see significant difference between BBs and your concept.

I *think* that NordKindchens suggestion here is to facilitate "Bad Benson quality" all over the island - BBs work only applies to certain areas. The actual quality would probably depend on how many hours the graphics artist puts in.

[Kuskov 1]

NordKindchen I'm really surprised that your idea hasn't generated more interest and support from the Arma community, it's an excellent idea that deserves far more attention.

[NordKindchen 12]

To make it clear again:

Of course Bad Bensons textures look good at most places!

The main part of my system is created to avoid things like this.

On the other hand - I find the difference significant even on the example I did before. But then again - thats a question of perception. Maybe you arent that much affected by details;)

Anyways - heres a comparison of BadBensons textures and my system.

"BadBenson vs NK -Gif" this is an animated GIF - wait for it to be loaded so you hopefully get what I want to say;) its rather big

Bad Benson_text

NK_text

NK_without_text

Now I seriously have to go backto work again..............

Best regards!

[old_painless 182]

NK, just a heads up - those links are not working

[kremator 1065]

Links are fine and working well!