[VonBarb.]

Hi

Canon's Channel is a work of art, but his choice to use a different set of textures for France and the UK left him with only a handful of available slots to cover very large areas. As a result, wide plains are often covered by only one or two textures. These textures being photoreal textures by Compans, which have lots of contrasts and elements that stand out even at long distances, the following happens :



Repetition of elements across the map create lines that are complete immersion killers IMO.

In an attempt to fix this, I have created a new texture from one of Compan's old textures from the Beta Channel, which I've called 'buffer texture'. The texture is meant to represent generic european landscape with autotrees but very little contrast, and only one shade of green grass , made to fit in well with both the UK and French textures. I have then used it to break up the wide areas covered by the denser fields textures which create the repetitions.

UPDATE : I'm calling the Map_T done for now, and have began working on the different 'buffers' to match each texture sets. I cannot guarantee 100% of repetition lines will be removed, but I think I have managed to reduce them by a good 70/80%. Some texture sets create more obvious repetitions than others and I had to compromise to reach something that looks pretty good with all textures IMHO.

Once all the buffer textures are completed, I'll make some extra modifications to the Map_T to try and cut down the repetitions on some other textures (moutain fields, marsh etc...) that still create pretty obvious lines.

Here's what it looks like with various texture sets. Pics taken at +/- 3000m (10.000ft), at noon with hazy weather. Two pics for each texture area (UK and France) : one showing the effect at long distances, and another showing the texture from up close :

Gilb57's 'Summer' seasonal texture pack :

UK :




France :




Gilb57's 'Spring' seasonal texture pack :

UK :




France :




Gilb57's 'Autumn' seasonal texture pack :

UK :




France :




VonBarb's 'Autumn Channel' texture pack :

UK :




France :




And finally, still at an early WIP stage since it seems I'll have to make a completely different buffer texture for this one, with Martin's England textures :

UK :




So here's what I have so far. Any comments and suggestions are of course more than welcome. It's been very instructive to read the great advice of more seasonned mapmakers.

Cheers

Nico