PMC Tactical forums

Well after some ideas, and some great experimental work by Snakeman, we've discovered something else we can wring out of the F4 terrain system, with no exe changes!

Let me just recap how the terrain system works, as far as tiles go.

6 levels of terrain, but we'll ignore the last 3 here.
Level 0 is the highest resolution terrain, and is the closest to your viewpoint. It is tiled with the tiles starting with H in the texture.zip file. These are all 128x128 bitmaps.

Level 1 is the next closest, and uses the M tiles. These are all 64x64 bitmaps.

Level 2, further away uses the L tiles, and these are 32x32.

However, for the L2 level, one terrain tile has one L tile stretched over it. So at L2 level, you see for each terrain tile it has 32x32 pixels.

On L1, one terrain tile has 1/4 of the M bitmap stretched over it, so each terrain tile has 32x32 pixels on it.

On L0, one terrain tile has 1/16 of the H bitmap stretched over it, so again 32x32 pixels per terrain square.

Now the good bit, we found you can use higher resolution bitmaps, and becuase of the way the textures are stretched nothing needs to change.
[image missing]

Here we have one 512x512 tile in the middle of the regular 128x128 L0 tiles. Basically means we have 4 times the resolution available.

Also - we can mix and match, if required only using 512x512 for the most detailed terrain (cities maybe).

We can also use 32x32 for L2, 128x128 for L1, and 256x256 for L0 meaning a doubling of resolution for each terrain scheme!

I think this opens up a whole new set of options for the tile and terrain makers.

My thanks to snakeman for doing the grunt work on this

Julian.

OMG! thanx you GODS!!

BTW, Julian you cool guy in that phantom pit!

PS: your phantom experience clarify my doubt about FM in Jane's USAF. though being treated as an arcade game, i think its F-4 FM is quite realistic.

hehe - thats me! My secret is out

Good news for tilers though.

Julian.

Dewds!!!!

Like WOAH!!!!!

I can see the FIRST tiles i will work on at 512x512 will be airfields.... But im sooo going to need a hardware upgrade soon!!!

Codec: gonna write a Util so we can tile the 512x512 terrain??

Zaggy - no need - you just swap the bitmaps in the texture.zip. Just keep the same names, no changes to terrain or anything else required.

Julian.

No shit Julian??? cool... i assume the same palette contraints and etc???

Yes same palette and stuff constraints, must more pixels to play with.
If FPS becomes an issue, you can even distribute two texture.zip's and swap between them.

Lots of mix & match options here.

Julian.

Excellent news

Now what was the main problem trying to implement a helo/tank/first person shooter in the F4 world again?

Later


Chris

Damn, do I have to remake all my tiles again?

At least...

Future tile makers won't have to go through the hell that I went through.

T-Bone

Uhoh I'm drunk as hell - but this sounds just wonderful! Thanks for this...I fear I really have to create a Switzerland theatre now
"Tom2 was here 5+x1beer"

Washout yeah... A flyable AH-64 would be cool... I saw a cockpit to one somewhere... Unfortunately we cant fly rotary wings yet can we??? even though the code is there, its not fully working is it???

This is great news guys! X-c-lent. Would the 512 files pose a problem for some graphics cards (i.e. voodoo)? Just asking, cause it might be time to upgrade!

Hi TBone

Good thing with this is that you can do the 512x512 at your leisure and just replace those that are ready - you don't have to do them all at the same time

Should allow a more relaxed development schedule.

Later


Chris

Codec,
Thanks for the tile explanation. High res. cockpits, skins, and terrain, F4/F5 will never die

I just ran test on high res tiles. I made the resolutions like this

H tiles 512x512
M tiles 256x256
L tiles 128x128
T tiles 16x16

Campaign FPS results in Afghanistan was 60-75 cockpit and 200 outside view.

So FPS is not an issue... but was there some memory shortage, if they are at least I did not see one with my 18 tile beast setup.

So far so good...

PMC TFW
Snake Man

http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/512tiles.php

Thats something. Also the original screenshot was moved.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Widmak

nice screenshots.

shimmering effect could be a problem, and really hurt. guess tile-making need some deep thoughts, and skills.

my 2c, shimmering could be due to tiny hi-res pixels(spots) arranged in hi-contrast pattern. if color shades are tuned more homogenous, not go into blocky end, we may got a nice ballance.

Also, the ridge tiles may need more sharp contrast to show the shadow/valley, to compensate the relatively low resolution of terrain elevation. screenshots shown makes it quite plain.

Hi Guys

This may already be answered but I just thought - is there any problems with using the various Tinstall.exe's. I have a feeling the fartiles creation maybe a problem?

Later

Chris

Just thinking - if artists who are creating direct replacements for the existing Korea tile set and want their work included in SP3+ they can mail them to me and I'll keep them on my server.

I will make sure they are tested and get included in the installers (or later updates).

BTW - I have converted the basic sea tile by stitching 16 128x128 tiles. This has had the advantage of reducing the size of the waves to something a little more realistic (the default ones are way too large). I'll be doing the coast tiles tonight so that there are no seams when approaching land. Oh yes the sense of speed over water should go up by a factor of 4 by my calculations.

Later


Chris

PS. email chriscarter@cmcarter.demon.co.uk

Nightcity lighting
is lot nicer too in Hires
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/F4Iceland ... 0lll56.jpg



Widmak

Hi everybody,
Check out the new feature from mapquest.com...

They now have an aerial photo of the address you're looking for. I know that there might be some issues regarding using these pictures, but the manufactorers site is http://www.globexplorer.com , maybe there is a chance to contact these guys to help with some nice textures.

JJ [admin edit: link removed, messed up the topic]

Sorry,
don't know how to get the picture there, but check it out at http://www.mapquest.com

JJ

Interesting! Based on the construction in my neighborhood, I'd say that the pic for my house was prolly 2-3 years old.

Very neat, though!