Terrain Textures

[DaCoroner]

Quick question(s) for the mappers out there...

Is there any interest in a 512x512 terrain texture pack (see attachment)? And if so, what kind of stuff would you like to see in it?

PS- It's actually almost done, just needs runway/taxiway textures.  Oh, and all of the textures except the rocks are brand spanking new, the rocks were stolen from resistance, I like them

[Leone]

Yes...lots of interest! I am also making up a set of 512 textures for OPGulfWarCrisis...the beta should be out soon, and you can see my (and Quakergamer's) beta level textures. The final ones will be even better. Maybe we can swap some files/tips....

[DaCoroner]

Maybe we can swap some files/tips....

Sure If nothing else I'd be happy to share my masks that I use to merge the textures without those sharp square edges.

[Faculty]

Sounds good, looks good have to have a little look at them when they get released good work KIU

[DaCoroner]

Well, the pack is up to 20meg (ouch) with 127 textures.  The runway textures are finished and allow for both N-S and E-W runways (and a "+" connecting them), I'm not happy with the taxiway textures so I'll redo those tonight, finish some tarmac textures and then be done with it.  Attached is a .jpg version (cropped to get in under 50kb) of the actual runway texture used to give you an idea of the detail level.

I'd like to add more of a variety, but what's an acceptable file size for an add-on?  The advantage to a texture pack like this though is that a player should only have to download it once, I don't know... just trying to find that happy balance between variety and file-size

[Planck]

Possibly it would help if you grouped the textures together, depending on type.

Grass
Rock
Sand
Road/Runway
etc

That way people will download the ones they want, rather than 20Mb at one time.

Planck

[DaCoroner]

I think I can work that out, it's a little wired though since the overwhelming majority of the textures are merge textures, don't know if I can really call a pack "the rock pack" when it contains 3 rock textures and 42 textures to merge them with the surrounding grass (no exageration with that number BTW, 14 merge combos per texture pair, even more for 3-way merges).  More likely, each "pack" will consist of 1 new texture and merge images for it and maybe 2-3 other textures.

Now that I think about it, this sounds like a nightmare, trying to figure out which pack you need, which pack your new map uses.  Maybe I'll just suffer through the 20meg packs and stick to "theme-based" packs.  Any opinions on this? either way, I'm curious how others feel, after all there is only one of me

[DaCoroner]

Damn you Planck, now you've got me thinking

How 'bout this...

If we can all share some base textures and (optionally) the masks used for merging them, and stick to some standard "main" textures we can make sure all of our texture sets are compatible and keep file sizes under control.

For example, I can take my current pack and slim it down so it is basically just a "farmland" texture set with essentially only grass and farm fields.  If everyone likes my grass texture we can use that as a standard and anyone elses texture sets can include merges for that base grass to their custom textures, and presto, all of the textures can work together

Likewise, if Leone is making a desert set and we all like his primary sand texture we can use that as the standard sand texture and include merges for that base sand in our texture sets.

Then, if someone wants to make an airfield pack, for example, they'll know that they can use my grass and Leone's sand and their airfields will work with anyone elses texture sets.

Perhaps we could all get together even, and release one base compilation pack including a few of the most common base textures (forrest, grass, rock, sand), that should make the whole thing even easier.

I'd say use the OFP:R textures for this, since anyone looking at 512x512 textures probably has OFP:R, but after spending as much time as I have lately on textures I'm not too terribly impressed with any of them except the rocks and well, the sand is ok.  In fact, some of them look like nothing more than resized 256x256 textures grabbed off the web, they're blurry and have little detail.

And, in the end (hopefully) a mapper could release a new island and say... "this map requires texture sets x, y and z" and if I allready had those sets I'd only have to download a 300kb .pbo rather than a 10meg one that held a lot of textures taken from someone elses map  :-\

Just my $0.02  ;D Any thoughts, comments or suggestions?

[edit: wow, lots of typos ]

[DaCoroner]

My, my, my aren't I motivated today (ok, I have no life, but motivated sounded nicer).

Anyway, test versions of the grassland and farmland sets are online at:

[Edit 11/01/02: Removed test links, see post below.]

I've taken the time to include config.cpp with them so you don't have to define those textures in the config.cpp with your map unless you really want to.

I'd like to know what you think of them, how useable they are, and if you actually use all of those different merge patterns in your maps.  I did some testing with them in wrpedit and OFP and they work fine but I didn't test them out on any really large areas (biggest was 6x6 cells for a single texture).

Oh, as of 0137 Central US time the FarmTex file is uploaded and the GrassTex is on the way, if the zip file is incomplete please try again later, I lost my cable connection when I moved and I'm probably not going to stay here until this one finishes.

[Leone]

Yes you have no life...but I'm answering this post less than 24 hours later...so that should give you a clue as to whether or not I have one as well  

I haven't downloaded the packs yet, but will do shortly! Looking forward to it. I suggest we swap masks and base textures...since we are both capable of doing the whole blend thing....and we both know the time involved! So that will let us just do the ones we need for any particular island...and not have to produce the hundreds needed for a full set.

I definately like the idea of a "standalone" texture PBO. Something I noticed with say the Sebnam map, was all the objects and textures were in a different PBO. In theory then you could have any number of islands use those same objects and textures. So I think this is the way to go....but how to group them is the problem.

Grouping by type (cheers Planck, you physics god!) would be fine...except for the blends! My Iraq Beta map has only 5 base textures, and yet to make the map I needed 176 custom textures.....and a full set would have been around 900 (no...I didn't make them all up....are you insane?). The map PBO file is about 23meg!

My suggestion is to have all the base textures, all the Two Texture Blends, and all the runway/taxiways available as a couple of PBO's (or even just one). Then when you make a map all you only need to include are the Three/Four Texture Blends, rather than the whole lot. This way it isn't a huge download for anyone (big enough i guess...30-40 meg probably), it keeps the Map PBO size down as well, and there is a kind of "standard" way of doing things using these texture sets. Just remember it is the Three Texture Blends where the bulk of the possible combinations are by a LONG way.....

I also have a set of masks (Half-Half, Quarters, and Runway/Taxiways...designed to fit the basic Eden ones as well as ALL possible NS-EW combinations, plus one for the Helipad, and one for the Edenbpl texture...that's the nice looking concrete one). I have them in 256 and 512, all as Photoshop files. Send me a PM DaCoroner....and lets get file swappin'!  ;D

[DaCoroner]

First off, thank you everyone for the input and all of the PMs (my poor abused mailbox)

I've fixed the config.cpp error in the grasstex pack, fixed the errors with two of the grass->rock merge textures and uploaded new versions which meet the OFPEC submission guidelines, hopefully I can just email them a link rather than a whole file

Since you guys are more likely to use them before anyone else here's the must current versions:

http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/DAC_CoastTex.zip
http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/DAC_FarmTex.zip
http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/DAC_GrassTex.zip

my masks used to merge the textures, usefull if you need to add any specific merges for your own map that I didn't include:

http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/merge.zip

and some pictures if you're curious...

http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/DAC_CoastTex.jpg
http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/DAC_FarmTex.jpg
http://www.kspci.com/torque/ofptex/DAC_GrassTex.jpg

Please be so kind as to delete any old versions you may have on your system as the image filenames have changed (now DAC_<filename>.paa) to avoid any conflicts with other textures in the enviroment effects (.cpp definitions).

Good luck, hope these are helpful and feel free to email/PM me if you need any help using them or making custom ones for your maps.