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Author Topic: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.  (Read 15268 times)

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agracier

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2010, 01:00:41 AM »

These are mapped once over a large area, not tiled repeatedly over and over.

I'm trying to understand what is meant by that ... what do you mean by 'mapping once'?
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Blumax

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #13 on: June 14, 2010, 03:16:47 AM »

I,m intrigued as well..... is this a technique that we're missing?
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Neil Lowe

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #14 on: June 14, 2010, 05:08:52 AM »

I'm trying to understand what is meant by that ... what do you mean by 'mapping once'?

Like this....




Cheers, Neil :)
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lowfighter

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2010, 05:57:17 AM »

Neil it's not clear from the pic what you mean!

Till then
 I advocate a bit for the 1024 textures:
The difference between 1024 and 512 textures:
1024 covers 1600 meter x 1600 meter in game
512 covers 800 meter x 800 meter in game
So if you use 512 the repetitive pattern will be more easily visible than for the 1024 ones, or in other words you need to be more careful about doing the 512 texture in order to avoid the tiling effect..


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StG77_HaDeS

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #16 on: August 26, 2010, 07:27:45 AM »

The performance gain is very importand and the 512x512 textures are the way to go.
If we need a standard then the native 512x512 is the way to go.
And yes map makes should be careful and aware about the "tiling effect".
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Uufflakke

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #17 on: August 26, 2010, 07:51:35 AM »

To make it even more confusing: I noticed that the Korea map by Checkyersix has all kind of textures: 512x512, 1024x1024, 8-bits, 24-bits, 32-bits, 1mb, 3mb and even 4mb. I don't know the reason of all this different files as I'm not a mapmaker but I don't have a decrease of performance on my midrange system fortunately.
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Neil Lowe

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #18 on: August 26, 2010, 08:04:20 AM »

Sorry Lowfighter I haven't seen your reply until now :(

I guess what I mean is that the large texture is not used over the whole map. It is used once over a single area and nowhere else. Also a lower res version of the tex is supplied so that at further distance the lower res tex is used by the game.

@Hades.. The large tex is necessary in this case as it is mapped over a large area (city/airfield) where as a smaller size texture is just to blurry for this type of application.

I have created the map with much attention paid to economy as I only have an old P4 based machine. These textures are reduced to 8bit and the smaller sub-texture is also supplied. As it is a little over 1Mb in size I believe this is quite acceptable :) If there is a performance hit I certainly would have noticed it and wouldn't have used it. ;)

Cheers, Neil :)
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Avala

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #19 on: November 06, 2010, 02:04:15 PM »

In my experience map textures size is not so important. If it is done properly every textures can be 1024x1024 and there would be no problem. 512x512 are overall blurry and looking not so convincing in game.

But for that, every texture must be indexed. There is no problem if you have 20 textures with size 1024x1024 if they are indexed, that's only some 20Mbs of memory space. Which really is nothing. If they are not indexed, it could go up to the fourth times that, some 80-100Mbs, and that's a bit "heavy" for the game's engine. If you see 1000 squares in game covered with those 20 textures, its still 20, not 1000, the game repeats them, it will take place for just 20 of them in the memory.

On some weaker machines game is stuttering because graphic card can't do anisotropic filtering (so, its good to disable that on lap tops), and not because of big texture sizes.


@ lowfighter

With due respect, I think that you made a mistake. One square (or one pixel) in map_t, is always covering area of 1600x1600 meters in game if there is no multiplier number at the end of textures slot in load.ini file. For example:

LowLand2 = NTL_/land/summer/NTL_Darwin_Small/NTL_Darwin_Small_burmascrub.tga

Would be 1600x1600 meters.

LowLand2 = NTL_/land/summer/NTL_Darwin_Small/NTL_Darwin_Small_burmascrub.tga,2

Would be 800x800 meters.

LowLand2 = NTL_/land/summer/NTL_Darwin_Small/NTL_Darwin_Small_burmascrub.tga,4

Would be 400x400 meters.

LowLand2 = NTL_/land/summer/NTL_Darwin_Small/NTL_Darwin_Small_burmascrub.tga,8

Would be 200x200 meters (and there is no greater number than 8 )

That means that textures covers "whole square" (in 1600x1600), only quarter of square (in 800x800) and so on. In that way you get better and sharper looking texture, but because the rest of that particular square (or pixel in map_t) is covered with that same texture in that same size (2, 4, or 8 ) tilling is more visible.

You can also add "-" sign at the end of the texture slot. In that way you would have less tilling look, but also more blurry look of the texture in game, because texture is made bigger than one square in map_t.

For example:

AirField3= NTL_/land/summer/NTL_Darwin_Small/NTL_Darwin_Small_DarwinAF.tga,-2

Means that texture is fourth times bigger (not 2 times because we are talking about square meters here) than square or pixel in map_t and in game, it is also showing only one quarter of the texture for one pixel in map_t (which would be one square in game).

In my experience it is best to make originally textures which would really cover 1600x1600 meters. In example if the texture is made from the Google Earth images, scale it down to the real earthly 1600x1600 meters and then take it. There is a liner tool in Google Earth to measure that.

Thats how I see that.


Examples:









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michel_boonstra1974

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #20 on: November 06, 2010, 02:32:42 PM »

Interesting stuff Avala. I found using 1024 textures on my Netherlands map hardly slows my 5 year old pc down (even while those textures are not indexed yet, as I am still tweaking them). But they look way better than the 512 ones for sure!

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GilB57

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #21 on: March 12, 2011, 01:52:15 AM »

I remain confused about what I'm reading here...

I was used to believe that:

1-The area covered by a single tex.tile is NOT dependant by the resolution of the picture but by the parameter at the end of of the line in the load.ini (nothing, -4, -2, 2, 4, 8)

2-1024x1024 pictures combined with the parameter 4 in the load.ini in some texture slots (city & airfield for example) gives a more detailed result than 512x512 & 256x256 pictures.

3-Alpha channel in some pictures (32bits texs) is used to control the way 2 different tiles mix together when they are next to each other (optionnal feature I suppose) .

4-Alpha channel (32b. texs) is MANDATORY is some specific texs like TREES : without transparency, the automatic trees appear like plain rectangular boxes.

Do you agree with that ?
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agracier

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #22 on: April 25, 2013, 09:48:50 AM »

We're now about 2 years on and starting to use 2048 textures now in many maps. So far, these have been 32 bit/RGB files (not indexed).

So how does this thread apply to the new upcoming texture norm?
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fatty_finn

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Re: A useful hint-reminder for map-makers.
« Reply #23 on: November 26, 2014, 09:43:20 PM »

Dear SAS MapWorx gurus,
I have a desert map I'd like to donate to SAS.
Not quite finished - but possibly never will be.  It's been fun for years - but seems I"ll be done before it is!!
However,  I first need to know if it's acceptable to you, in its current form.
eg I'm not sure about this:
"There is no problem if you have 20 textures with size 1024x1024 if they are indexed"
What does "indexed" mean?  [I'm using GIMP]
Also, how do I check if the images are 8 bit? 
[That said- this map currently causes no problems on my old, slow computer. its a desert - there are no towns!]
Finally: does SAS allow textures made from "google earth" screen grabs?
F_F


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