Texturing Maps With Satellite Photos

[Kin Hil 0]

I saw a while back an island that was made using a satellite photo. It was a beautifully detailed ground texture, as opposed to the simple/fake looking ground typically used on OFP maps. Buildings, trees, etc were all added wherever they appeared on the photo. A very nice finished product, which is why I'm wondering... why not on all island? Satellite photos are readily available on sources like google earth from all over the world, including heavy conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Victor_S. 0]

I would think the reason would be that you would need to use to many textures and the island would lag. Currently islands are textured with a certain set of textures over the whole island, but with satalite photos you would need to have a diffrent texture for each square.

[Abs_01 0]

Also, I believe that there is a limit to how many different textures you can use on an island at a time. I don't remember the number off the top of my head though.

Abs

[Zorbtek 0]

Pretty much what victor said.

But if you could set the computer to only use the textures you have built and set in, that would be great.

And world editors would lose their jobs.

[Kin Hil 0]

I see what you mean. But I did see an island that was textured in this way. It was stunning. I don't know how big it was, or if it lagged. All I know was that the ground was photo realistic and it was incredible to see.

Is it possible to combine the standard texturing method with the satellite texturing method so to solve, to some degree, the lag issue?

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I think it could be done.

Normally you have specific textures for sand, mud, gras and rocks. Every textures needs to fit to the next one so ppl tend to use only 1 texture for gras and cover a huge area with it. If you put details from a satellite gfx into a single gras texture you end up with a noticable pattern of gras plains, which looks unnatural esp when u look down from a hill. One thing that might help would be to use satellite gfx on a larger area so that ppl in Opf wouldn't see the pattern.

You could copy & paste a huge satellite gfx into several textures that fit together at the edges - a 4 x 4 or 6 x 6 set might do the trick.

As i see it you'd need to place those sets by hand in the world editor rather than just filling areas with 1 texture. So applyling sets might be very time consuming.

[.kju 3241]

it shouldnt be about lag at all.

(lag is network related delay anyway - low fps is what the guys are talking about. yet the resolution of texutres is related to low fps)

its only about the texture limit (~550).

[j w 0]

Wasn't Malden 2048x2048 made by satellite photos?

Though, a whoppin' 350MB for that island is...

[.kju 3241]

satellite photo means that (almost) each texture is unique and by this you have a carpet of individual textures.

traditional ofp island texturing is ~5to10 main textures and transitions between them.

[berghoff 11]

Wasn't Malden 2048x2048 made by satellite photos?

Though, a whoppin' 350MB for that island is...

No that are just big ass textures. 1 2048x2048 is quite large. :P

[NeMeSiS 11]

The biggest problem is that when there are objects on the sattelite foto (buildings, forests, road, etc) they are still flat in OFP, so that will look very strange...

[mr burns 131]

I saw a while back an island that was made using a satellite photo.

Me too

The video shows the SFP for swedish military, dunno who made that island though.

Download video

[Kin Hil 0]

"Me too

The video shows the SFP for swedish military, dunno who made that island though."

Thanks, that is the one.

"The biggest problem is that when there are objects on the sattelite foto (buildings, forests, road, etc) they are still flat in OFP, so that will look very strange..."

That's true. You can solve this by replacing such spots with other textures though. For example, in the forest the ground texture would be an aerial view of the trees, very wierd. All you have to do is replace it with... lets say standard BIS forest floor textures, or custom made for that matter.

"I think it could be done."

So do I. In fact, it has been done. It should be used more often in map making. Satellite ground textures are leaps and bounds more realistic than the cartoony ground textures always used.

[jagy. 0]

some towns from TP3 addon for VBS1 are made with satellite photos i think.

[Kin Hil 0]

VBS1 made an entire Iraqi city with a satellite photo.

BTW, what is TP3?

[Mr_Tea 0]

TP3 is Terrain Pack 3 for VBS1.

[GOON 0]

WHich city might that be?

As you mentioned above...VBS1 modelled which Iraqi city?

[Kin Hil 0]

http://www.virtualbattlefieldsystems.com/screenshots/ngb/ngbSS1.jpg

I like the way that looks. All it needs is some finishing work (remove aerial view of objects on ground, complete buildings, etc) and it would be an excellent map.

Satellite texturing is far superior to the standard texturing method, map makers would make me go if they implemented it.

[jagy. 0]

thats what i think.

its finished, released.

[Bobby - CSLA team 0]

Above mentioned picture is not Terrain Pack 3. This is map made by Coalescent. This is closer to low detail Flight Simulator terrain than VBS.

Terrain Pack 3 maps do not use aerial or satelite photography as a textures due to performance reasons - huge number of textures, transition textures...

Detailed terrains as As Samawah map use satelite photo as reference for texture making, choosing right color palette and mainly for placing of roads, buildings and other objets. Satelite photos (depending on quality) allows to place object 5-10 m accuracy.

Using satelite photos as a texture is not possible with current engine except very very very small maps.

[-HUNTER- 1]

Couldnt you like open up a very large file in photoshop, make a grid that will be same as ofp grid. And then lay the sattelite photos over it. Then save each tile indiv. And open indiv..

It certainly is allot of work, but maybee it can be done with some kind of home made program?

[Kin Hil 0]

Watch the swedish military vid posted near the beginning of this thread. It can be done, and it looks excellent. Now to find out how it was done.

[Serclaes 0]

Couldnt you like open up a very large file in photoshop, make a grid that will be same as ofp grid. And then lay the sattelite photos over it. Then save each tile indiv. And open indiv..

It certainly is allot of work, but maybee it can be done with some kind of home made program?

You mean a sort of a megatexture?

This is indeed a way. Quake Wars is going to feature that kind of thing, it will be used to define the terrain grip too, for example. The problem is that the Quake Wars maps are really small compared to Flashpoints islands, such a megatexture for flashpoint would take aaaaages to load.

[MidShip 0]

Surface textures from visible satellite imagery seem to be less useful. High realistic results should be obtained from thematic mapper material, postprocessed to ofp and wrp specs.

[Edge 2]

Regarding the direct use of satellite images, it is possible (and pretty easy) to cut it into square pieces and manually add each square on its proper place - you can do that in Photoshop and Visitor. No transition textures would be used.

Due to above-mentioned limits, only very small amount of terrain could be done this way.

EDIT: By "thematic mapper" do you mean multi-channel imagery like Landsat TM? I think it has too poor resolution for a "realistic" results, if you'd like to do more than just fly over the landscape.