A new way to make historic airfields... - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: A new way to make historic airfields... (/showthread.php?tid=56667)

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A new way to make historic airfields... - delvpier - 26.09.2008

This excellent topic has given me some ideas :
http://allaircraftsimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8272

I allways wondered what are the rules to apply textures in game. This morning, I was interested by a texture I didn't give attention before : _Tex/land/summer/greed.tga



This is already known that we can use our self-made textures, some use it as a pattern for airfield creation.

When you load a map in FMB with only greed.tga and you put one other texture, for example banffc1.tga, you see that the texture fit perfectly one square surrounded by red line... and after test, fit perfectly 4 squares (red line) if you use -2 as indice

For information, one square is 1600m x 1600m

So my first idea was to use this feature to create airfields... I made 4 variations of banffc1
and painted 4 squares of color 20-21-22-23 ...but with bad results because I painted without knowing the correspondance wit greed.tga... I resolved by loading the map and painting inside limits of square with a color (any other than airfield) as a marker... and so I had on my resulting map_t squares of 7x7 pixels (for indice 0)... 15x15 pixels (for indice -2) ...after painting these squares with airfields colors... the result :


squares of 15x15


So now we known how to have 4 differents airfields and and how to place them exactly by using greed.tga... more if we use other slots than airfields one's

BUT WE CAN DO BETTER !!!

If we create a texture of 1024x1024 with 4 airfields like this...



Results of tests are like this :

squares of 7x7 for both test below




and




As you can see on these pictures, there are some rules it seems there are odd and even numbered columns and lines... The left side of your texture will allways be in odd numbered column and the right side in a pair one's... same rules for upper and lower parts of the texture...

With this, we are able to load 16 airfields (runways) and place them exactly

So now we have choice between 4 airfields of 3200x3200m or 16 airfields of 1600x1600m

I made banffc1 variations for demo purpose but of course we can make a texture with 4 airfields taken directly from reference maps and repainted
And no more needs for bluring heights for airfields... no mor plates :wink:
And this is also valid for cities...

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- Thrud - 26.09.2008

problem with your idea:

when i built the solomon islands airfields i kind of used this method. i scaled the airfiled surveys down to in game size and put the appropriate airfield runway plate over the survey texture.
Later, i removed the survey texture to reveal the plates i had built over it and changed the ground texture to the one that fit.







your method would not allow for the correct geographic placement and orientation of an airstrip (if that's the goal).
Also the you would still have to use the runway plates. the plates make the ground smooth for take off and landing.
Clear plates can be used to preserve the texture underneath. i used this method on the Barakoma airstrip because the field was basicly a large beach. i used the in game beach texture and put clear plate over it for the smooth surface.

i can see the method mabye working for citys but not for historicaly accurate airstrips.

just an opinion





.

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- tsb47 - 26.09.2008

I think that historically correct placement and orientation is possible using Delvpier's method. However, it is difficult and only one airfield could be placed per texture.

Re: location - this would be achieved by transforming the underlying texture so that when placed in the correct location in map_t it would be in the correct place (i.e. not tiling itself within the texture)

Re: orientation - before transforming the underlying texture for location purposes, you would simply rotate the texture to the appropriate orientation.

Re: plates - as you note, the smooth areas needed for takeoff, landing and taxiing could be made using the transparent airfield plates in map FMB.

Placing a temporary airfield texture and using that as a template on which to put the airfield plates is certainly easier. Perhaps a combination method, using both the airfield texture and airfield plates, is the best solution (in terms of quality)?

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- canonuk - 27.09.2008

tsb47 Wrote:I think that historically correct placement and orientation is possible using Delvpier's method. However, it is difficult and only one airfield could be placed per texture.

Which makes it kind of pointless for that purpose. Only one airfield per texture actually defeats what Delvpier is trying to achieve.

Plus, sacrificing lots of texture slots for individual airfields isn't really possible, unless your map has hardly any variation in it.

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- lowfighter - 27.09.2008

It is an interesting idea and I think it can be quite useful...
Btw with this method, Delvpier propose using ONLY one texture for acheving either 4 or 16 (with the .../mytext.tga, -2) airfields. About exact positioning I think as T it's not possible. However exact orientation, that's possible, you just draw the airfields with the right "historical" orientation on the "master mytext.tga" texture. A problem using the 1024 texture is that it spans 1600 meter so if you paint 4 airfields on it they will be roughly 800 meter or less so those are rather small arifelds. On the other hand if you use the texture with ", -2" the texture will be stretched over 3200 meters (so that now you have the option with 4 airfields each 1600 m or 16 airfields each 800 meter)but it will be also lower resolution so airfields will look not so good i think.. Btw, one idea might be to try and see if the game accepts also 2048 x 2048 pixel textures. If it's so my last objection can be removed...
I think Clockwatcher sketched a similar idea some long time ago, not many noticed it...

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- delvpier - 27.09.2008

Well, unless I misunderstand, I think you are wrong

If you look at the first serie of pictures, those with number 20,21, 22, 23 and below 15x15 square...
each airfield is one single texture of 1024x1024 with indice -2 in load.ini and each fill in 4 squares

each airfield would fill 1 square if used with indice 0 and painted on 7x7 squares in map_t

so, in first case, each airfield is 3200x3200m... in second case, 1600x1600m (I hope I make no mistake... :wink: )

Things are a little bit different when using 1024x1024 textures divided in 4 quarters with one airfield in each quarter.

In this case, using this texture with indice -2, the whole texture fill in 4 squares... and each quarter fill in 1 square so 1600x1600

I tried to increase this size by using indice-4 (seems logical...) but no... surprisingly the game engine divide once more...!?

About orientation I think you're right of course, as a starting point you have to paint with correct north-south orientation and game engine will apply the texture up-down

As illustration here is a substitution of Norway Banff airfield by Philippines Clarck field, sorry for the poor quality of my painter talent... painted directly on plan downloaded from Pacific Airfields :oops:



About 2048x2048 textures... I tried of course... but no, error of buffer size memory...

About exact positioning, it's half right and half wrong... as mentioned in first post squares of 7x7 pixels fit exactly in a square surrounded by red line in greed.tga... if you try to paint a full texture on two squares you will have a distorsion or inversion... one texture in one square !

So if your localisation is on the line between two squares, you have to make choice and put your airfield on one of them... but here we are talking about errors of 1600m (if indice 0) or 3200m (if indice -2)... not so much

About other objections, you can use blank plates... this is what they did with Banff airfield... but is it necessary ? I used one airfield made this way, without any plate, starting and landing without any problem... it is the same when land on a beach, you have no needs for plates under... maybe it is mandatory for AI planes... I don't know

About sacrificing slots for textures, let's open many load.in and you know well that you'll find many empty slots... for example Woods, very often only Wood0 and Wood2 are used and the two others are free... same for Country...

I will try to post a little map as a demo for using this feature... tonight or tomorrow...

I didn't pretend to introduce a revolutionnary new idea, this feature is already used in original game...
I wanted only to share what seemed to me an interesting idea :wink:

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- fly_zo - 27.09.2008

.... and you did great , this is amazing stuff and its super to have it in one thread

This is greatly appreciated , i'm assuring you ... please don't give up

cheers
Z

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Really Good Idea - farang65 - 28.09.2008

I have a question

Instead of just one design of airfield with different textures is it possible to use a number of different airfield designs.

Just consideing the question as I'll have many and numorous airfields to put in my Aus/PNG map.

Airfields are scattered all over the map.

Would save a lot of loading up on textures.

Cheers

Kirby Chiang Mai

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Re: Really Good Idea - delvpier - 28.09.2008

farang65 Wrote:...Instead of just one design of airfield with different textures is it possible to use a number of different airfield designs.

Yes of course... I made 4 variations of banffc1.tga with different colors and different orientations only for demo purpose... in order to have quickly 4 visual and easily identifiable appearances (I'm not a good painter...)... but you can put 4 different airfields of 512x512 in a "container" texture of 1024x1024... you have to remember that using 4 in 1 technic, you'll get 4 "small" airfields of 1600x1600m and, as mentioned in first post, you'll have to be clever when creating this container... for placement...

upper-left quarter will allways fit in impair line / impair column
lower-left.................................... in pair line / impair column
upper-right................................. in impair line / pair column
lower-right.................................. in pair line / pair column
referring to greed.tga !

I'm working on Demo map... the hardest thing for me is to paint from plans... I tried some technics but I think the best way is to print the plans and to trace them onto paper to have a clean model then scan them to reimport in Gimp or Photoshop for texturing.

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- delvpier - 28.09.2008

... still learning how to get a good result starting from plans... not really easy... but probably a better painter should get better result...

Shot from altitude 8000 m


Shot from altitude 2000 m


Not so bad... :roll:

In this case, lenght of all airfield = 3200 m

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- Bee - 28.09.2008

Good thinking. Very economical.

How do they look at ground level? Is there much obvious pixelisation?

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- delvpier - 28.09.2008

Bee Wrote:How do they look at ground level? Is there much obvious pixelisation?

I used generic ingame textures for field, runway and taxiways... so same look as ingame textures at ground level...

I have to admit that objects are more precise at different levels... textures 32, 128, 256 and 512 for plates...

... but you can still add them if you want.

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