Making Google earth textures? - Printable Version

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Making Google earth textures? - mandrill7 - 01.01.2009

Inspired by what Compans and others have done, I have d/l-ed Google Earth and checked out some close in views of the Stalingrad area. I had in mind making some late fall, early winter landscapes with screen shots from Google earth and PSP7.

Can anyone tell me what the optimum altitude for taking screenshots is? And do you simply take a screenshot and then save it in your graphics program as a .tga?

I am assuming that the best way to make a texture is by using the "background tile" function in PSP or another graphics prog. Can someone correct me if I am mistaken?

How many pixels should the finished product be?

Thanks for any help!

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- Guest - 01.01.2009

You need GoogleMV to get large textures from google :wink:

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- Redwulf__32 - 01.01.2009

A complete tile covers a 1600x1600m (EDIT: s changed to m, meters) area. A map_t pixel is 200x200m - this means the tga file will map to an 8x8 area on the final map.

Most tgas I've seen are either 512x512 pixels or (for better fidelity) 1024x1024 pixels.

To sum it up, grab a 1600x1600m area on Google Earth (use ruler tool to get an idea of how large an area to grab) and save it as an RGB tga either 512x512 or 1024x1024 pixels.

Bumph and tree files are optional but will enhance/add to realism.

Not sure but I think you might have to adjust brightness and colour before it looks "real" in the game.

Hope this helps .......

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- mandrill7 - 01.01.2009

Thanks. I actually managed to d/l some screenshots from Google Earth and make tiles. However, I ran into a practical problem.

The fields in the Stalingrad region are far larger than those in Western Europe. As a result, it's difficult to get close in detail and an appropriate pattern. It would be an immersion killer having a tile of only 3 or 4 fields.

I'll have to think this through a little more.

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- mandrill7 - 02.01.2009

Well, I've had another crack at making some google earth textures for Russia. If I'm doing anything correctly, wrongly, usefully or uselessly, can someone please tell me. Thanks.

These are the .jpeg version of 512 pixel square .tga tiles made on PSP. the google earth shots were taken from about 1000 meters altitude.


The results are....

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- lowfighter - 03.01.2009

Mandrill, this is very useful work you started :!:
Can you post some screenshots with them in game?
Also it seems to me they are not seamless, if so you have to make them seamless..
Then it would be good to have also a couple of "bare" field textures (not cultivated), the steppe...All of them should blend well with each other such that you can use on whatever map you please :wink:

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- Redwulf__32 - 03.01.2009

Looking good Mandrill.

Concerning creating seamless textures see here http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutori ... shop/29973

Hope this helps...

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- canonuk - 03.01.2009

Also, check how the colours come out in the game. They'll look different, I assure you

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- Redwulf__32 - 03.01.2009

canonuk Wrote:Also, check how the colours come out in the game. They'll look different, I assure you

Second that. When I tried something similar, grass fields came out looking like Tiberium fields straight out of C&C

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- I/JG27_Waggel - 03.01.2009



This one whould be very good.

Reason: The form of most fields in this texture is not conspicuous. I whould darken the bright fields because if you have some light fields and you put the textures together on the map, you will get a mosaic effect. You can call this texture for example RUS_lowland1 and you can make a second texture called RUS_lowland2 where you can leave the bright fields like they are. Now you can dub this RUS_lowland2 over RUS_lowland1 in some areas. This makes the landscape individual in higher altitudes and you do not have the mosaic effect.

Graphical example:



You can see this effect very good on this screenshot:


I have a texture where all fields are in green colors and one texture where some of the fields are in yellow colors. Now I can mix them.

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- lowfighter - 03.01.2009

Nice post, this "not conspicuous" requirement is very important :!:

I/JG27_Waggel Wrote:

This one whould be very good.

Reason: The form of most fields in this texture is not conspicuous.

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- mandrill7 - 03.01.2009

No, they are seamless. I used the seamless background function in PSP7.

thanks for the feedback. I will continue to play around with sampling Google Earth and then working on the resulting tiles.

I had in mind a project wherein I would take shots of the same area at different snow states and produce "day by day weather" variations for a campaign. Not sure if this would work.

Surprisingly, Lowfighter, when I google-earthed the "Steppe", I found that there was little bare grass. The only big difference from Europe was that the cultivated fields were individually larger than they would be in France or England. But there was almost no grassland.

The photos of tanks and troops I have seen re Stalingrad suggest endless grassland. But maybe this is just a case of perspective.

the other thing which occurred to me is specifically relevant to maps of Central Russia/ Ukraine. There is almost no altitude variation across the breadth of a large area. So Kharkov and its hinterland would have an altitude variation of between 150 and 200 meters with no real distinction between the use or appearance of the land.

I wonder if it is possible to make the "mountain", midland and lowland classifications all for varying heights in the 150 to 200 meters range. This would give me 12 different terrain tiles, all of which would be similar cropland.

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- canonuk - 03.01.2009

Mandrill - I think it's also the case that landuse has changed dramatically since 1940s. What was once steppe may now be cultivated land.

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- Yardstick - 03.01.2009

canonuk Wrote:Mandrill - I think it's also the case that landuse has changed dramatically since 1940s. What was once steppe may now be cultivated land.

Agreed. Particularly around Stalingrad where they have introduced a number of massive dam / irrigation projects since WWII.

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- mandrill7 - 04.01.2009

LOL! You guys are right. When I googled Stalingrad again, I saw some huge irrigation circles on the ground north of Gumrak! What a surreal sight! It's as if someone had airlifted the southern California fruit-growing zone and dropped it onto Von Paulus' head!

I got some grassland samples from the limited uncultivated ground in the area and will try all in the game.

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