[fruitbat]

Have you tried putting that texture in another slot, that you know is producing trees with another texture?

Then you'll know whether its a problem with the treefile, or a problem with that particular load.ini slot, curious to know the answer,

fruitbat

[mandrill7]

Let me experiment a little over the next couple of days.

I'm not sure I can find a slot where there are no forests or villages adjacent. The Stalingrad map is pretty stingy about texture slots.

[VonBarb.]

+1. VPmedia's mod has brought this problem to the light. Some maps suffer from extremely poor textures placement, causing too much repetitions in the pattern or putting the same textures in places they shouldn't be (fields on top of mountains etc...)

One MOD I would really like to see done would be one that changes the textures layout on several of the most extreme cases (Normandy and NWEurope for instance )

Cheers

Nico

[mandrill7]

I think doing that would require re-writing the map_t for the map(s) in question. VP-media has done that in a very limited way for the Stalingrad map. But it would evidently be a large job and would require a dedicated effort.

The repetition factor is a real problem with up-dating the older maps. I needed to spend most of last night taking detail AWAY from the Compans tiles to avoid the checkerboard effect when flying at altitude over the map.

Hopefully, it will be possible to arrive at an altered tile which retains some interest and variety and also looks good from a high altitude.

[VonBarb.]

The only 'fix' to this problem I've been able to come up with without modfying the Map_T was to use the most saturated and 'even' textures possible. if you use textures with smaller details and no big noticeable landmarks, the checkeboard effect is greatly reduced. I'm currenly using it on the Normandy map - which is one of the worst offenders - and it looks pretty acceptable from even high altitudes.
Unfotunately, this rules out most of Compans' textures, as many of them have off-colour fields or small groups of houses standing out

Cheers

Nico

[mandrill7]

What I am finding with Compans' textures is that you can delete most of the really striking detail by a lot of manual copy-and-pasting of less obvious parts of the .tga onto the parts you want to wipe out. It's not that hard, as the game engine is very forgiving of crude work on the textures.

I have redone 2 of the tga's and they are now far less obvious while still retaining a lot of small detail. I think that most of Compans' tiles could be re-done in this way.

As I am working on Stalingrad, I am not able to use Compans intricate English and French fields.

There is also a recolouration issue with some of Compans' tiles. The game lightens tiles and makes them slightly luminescent. That's fine for grassland. But some of Compans' lighter crop field textures start to glow like flooded paddyfields under a few inches of water.

[VonBarb.]

Well, I am not a texture artist, and all my attempts at editing Compans' work ended up with the .tga's no working ingame anymore, but I'd be interested to see what you did. Could you maybe post some pictures for comparison ?
It's really frustrating not being able to use those textures on so many maps, and I'd sure be glad if your edits could help fix that problem...

Cheers

Nico

[GilB57]

As you know, after having only replaced texs on their slots on my winter maps pack, I finally decided to work on map-T file.
I don't want to do some complete maps creation, so my work keeps modest as I want my maps to be used as older stock ones, that way, older missions & campaign can be flown on them.

Not only, better texs but also more slots used. On my latest Norway map, I want the map to be more snowy as we go north. So, not a single tex slot keeps empty.

The rule to break repetitive pattern as far as it is possible, is to mix together at least 3 different texs, to use together uniform texs & contrasted ones, to put large patches and also very small (1x1 pixel) ones, and to alternate landscapes according to land topography.... and finally to use creativity instead of rules :wink:

[mandrill7]

Well, I am not a texture artist, and all my attempts at editing Compans' work ended up with the .tga's no working ingame anymore, but I'd be interested to see what you did. Could you maybe post some pictures for comparison ?
It's really frustrating not being able to use those textures on so many maps, and I'd sure be glad if your edits could help fix that problem...

Cheers

Nico

Nico, I initially had a problem re my work working in the game and it turned out that I was saving my .tga's as "compressed" in PSP which caused them to be unacceptable to the game engine. If you are using PSP, you have to make sure you go into the "options" box when you start to save as a .tga and check off "uncompressed".

I would be happy to post screenies in a couple of days. I am going to try using my stuff (and the other textures) on some other Ostfront maps in the next couple of days.

[Lejo]

I gave it a little try also with VPmedia's version of Stalingrad and used some of Compan's textures. I edited them somewhat here and there and tried them out. From low altitude it looks nice in my opinion and even from high altitude at certain areas but in other places the repetitive element is very obvious. :???:







Looks like a carpet or a wallpaper, don't you think?

[Friendly_flyer]

This is where careful use of two similar, but not identical, tiles will solve a number of problems.

[CzechTexan]

I like the above texture and I'm using it for the foothills of the Caucasus Mts. Looks great for small hills. It does get repetitive like wallpaper but I'm trying experiments mixing 2 other "grassland" textures with it. Mixing and getting the right look is the hardest part. We'll see how it turns out.