AF cloud textures

[Echo300]

Does anyone know where the textures for the clouds are stored in AF? I'm most interested in the overcast clouds. Thanks.

[Polak]

Echo,
Some time ago you have asked where the overcast clouds file are located in AF. To my very limited knowledge I know only about Fog tiles, but I assume that they are just the one you are asking.
They are located in
\terrdata\misctex folder.

They are small piclets with extension *.apl 32x32 and the header is 1032. The header is interesting but at the moment I have no idea what exactly it contains. Here is compilation of all important informations abut this subject in one picture.



My interest in this subject is how it works and if it can be substituted by any other format with higher resolution.

But now I have a question: how do you implement Tealti's Weather and puffy clouds in ODS?

[Snake Man]

They are located in
Battlefield Operations\terrdata\misctex folder.

I know this is really nitpicking, but you don't need to include the battlefield directory in there.

[Echo300]

Aha! Thank you. I'll look into this some more. (I have no idea how I missed those .apl's... I know I looked in the misctex folder ) Not sure I know what you mean by Twaelti's weather and clouds?

[Polak]

Sorry for typos. I meant TWaelti. http://tomch.com/wp/?page_id=25

[Echo300]

Just selecting an ODS .cam in WeatherAF doesn't work? Maybe it has something to do with ODS being 128...?

[Polak]

In the thread ODS Bug List I see last post by Gusser with picture of ODS with clouds. I do not have them in ODS. I have them though in Balcans and Korea theaters. How can I make them for ODS?

About Fogtiles , if there is any interest I can share my preliminary findings later. They are rather crudely made and small pictures, however, they are practical as far the purpose and they produce the foggy overcast in the F4AF. Any refinement perhaps will not make drastic improvement so perhaps it is better we concentrate on something else.

Wonder how this overcast is handled in other F4 versions?

[Echo300]

In the thread ODS Bug List I see last post by Gusser with picture of ODS with clouds. I do not have them in ODS. I have them though in Balcans and Korea theaters. How can I make them for ODS?

I don't know. Once I have ODS installed again, I'll see if I don't have cumulus clouds either.

About Fogtiles , if there is any interest I can share my preliminary findings later.

Please do.

They are rather crudely made and small pictures, however, they are practical as far the purpose and they produce the foggy overcast in the F4AF. Any refinement perhaps will not make drastic improvement

I agree, but they look so bad at the edges... so rectangular. Real stratus clouds don't look like that.

so perhaps it is better we concentrate on something else.

It would probably be best, but this should get done sometime.

Wonder how this overcast is handled in other F4 versions?

I wonder too...? I don't have any other versions installed or I would take a look.

[Polak]

I agree, but they look so bad at the edges... so rectangular. Real stratus clouds don't look like that.

This is good enough reason for me the share what information and findings I have gathered so far in hope that something else can be noticed/discovered and our common knowledge in this small subject matter further advanced.

First let me show here all pictures of FogTilesB (there are those I suppose inside the cloud) but then I really do not know. I can see that they have been kind of hand scribbled on top of original background best distinguished on pic fogtilb#15. The once above 1-14 have that wiggly contraption in many areas of the texture and in varied intensity. Picture below 16-19 have just few white spots. I assume that black here is fully transparent in the game and grey2white - white clouds in game.

Have u seen those in the game? If not then perhaps they have been abandoned and left in the files just for us splitting hair about nothing.



Later I add about FogTileT and *.apl file structure.

[Polak]

To exhaust perhaps my knowledge about those two cloud files I bring now this new picture with FogTileT and suspected , but still not fully known and understood format of *.apl file.

On this pic you see (on the right) 2 fogtileb #1 and #19 files and the file opened in hex editor. Each tile is 128x128 pixels which the size is found in the 2nd 4 bytes of the file.

On the left example of single fogfilet.apl file then the whole series of all 19 T tiles where you see that they are clearly a transitions with the masks just like the tiles of the terrain. The reason for the blocky appearance in the game is the fact that the each tile is just 64 x64 and the size is also noted in the file in the same place as B counterpart.

Perhaps making those texture bigger while editing the files may produce acceptance of the higher resolution which in turn could result in better visual quality of the tiles.

But all that not before the other part of the file header (1032bytes total) is understood and known what its purpose is.
For now I see that it has curious configuration of bytes where every 4th byte is ending with the same byte: 07, 1B,3C , 78, BD, F2 and FF.

Out of curiosity I'll try to pin point what that might be. It may not be so obvious and may take some time.

[Echo300]

Great. Thanks.

[Sherlock]

But also keep in mind that the exe may only coded to handle 64x64 pixel images and larger images may not work (but no way to find out without trying it!). Good luck!

[Polak]

Right,
there might be some hard coded limitations as far as the size of the texture is concerned here.
If I've known that meaning of the data in the header we would perhaps be in better shape to make this assessment.
But to try , first of all I would like to see the clouds in the ODS mod.
So far, we seem not to know how to integrate the voluminous 3D clouds into the theater.
Still hoping for someone on this forum who know to tell how .

[Sherlock]

Right,
there might be some hard coded limitations as far as the size of the texture is concerned here.
If I've known that meaning of the data in the header we would perhaps be in better shape to make this assessment.
But to try , first of all I would like to see the clouds in the ODS mod.
So far, we seem not to know how to integrate the voluminous 3D clouds into the theater.
Still hoping for someone on this forum who know to tell how .

The one guy who was reporting clouds in his .CAM file was unique as far as I know. I had never experienced clouds in ODS either up until he sent me his .CAM file and I saw it with my own two eyes. I believe it was several days into the campaign though before they appeared in sim. You may want to keep that mind in that they are not there when the campaign first starts on Day 1. Unfortunately, I don't remember the particulars about it but I still might have that .CAM file that he sent me. Let me check my email and I'll get back to you.

[Polak]

Yes I saw that exchange of yours with TWaelti. His final reply as I see:

Currently, WeatherAF only supports 64x64 theatres. If F4AF's weather engine supports larger theatres, I'll get it running without much additional effort (code is +/- prepared).

So its bummer. Obviously ODS being 4x larger would not have it then. But then your latest comment about one fellow having the clouds, but only later in the campaign.

I wonder if that "later" was the 1st quadrant of ODS.

What I mean is that maybe weather IS but only in 1st 64x64 world. If you get there you WILL have a clouds and weather.

[Sherlock]

Yes I saw that exchange of yours with TWaelti. His final reply as I see:

Currently, WeatherAF only supports 64x64 theatres. If F4AF's weather engine supports larger theatres, I'll get it running without much additional effort (code is +/- prepared).

So its bummer. Obviously ODS being 4x larger would not have it then. But then your latest comment about one fellow having the clouds, but only later in the campaign.

I wonder if that "later" was the 1st quadrant of ODS.

What I mean is that maybe weather IS but only in 1st 64x64 world. If you get there you WILL have a clouds and weather.

No. I asked him that question specifically also because I was thinking the same as you. He said he experienced weather (clouds) all over in all four quadrants. PM me your email and I will forward the cam files to you to try out and see for yourself. I found them in my email.

[Polak]

Thank you Sherlock for the file. I have loaded and flown.
Indeed we have the weather, however file loaded into T. Waelti Weather program displayed strange anomaly. Still most importantly it works in the ODS . Pic for proof.



PS. I think TW replied thinking about BMS 3D clouds. Hopefully we would be able to dig in there too.

And perhaps not.... Few minutes later I have flown in clouds. I think there are still some problems with putting them into the ODS , but its a very good place to start. Thank you Sherlock.

[Polak]

Small update: I increased resolution of the FogtilesT to 256x256 (original 64x64).

Program did not crash, but did not display new clouds either. But this is I hope good sign that it did not crash and it is only matter of proper editing of the file to get larger clouds.

Question to all who remember procedure of changing ground tiles from 256 to 512 . Any special edit was required?

[Sherlock]

Small update: I increased resolution of the FogtilesT to 256x256 (original 64x64).

Program did not crash, but did not display new clouds either. But this is I hope good sign that it did not crash and it is only matter of proper editing of the file to get larger clouds.

Question to all who remember procedure of changing ground tiles from 256 to 512 . Any special edit was required?

I don't think so, but SM can say for sure Ithink.

[Snake Man]

procedure of changing ground tiles from 256 to 512 . Any special edit was required?

What edits? just change the resolution and that's it(?)

[Polak]

I think got little deeper into structure of that file.
It is not a bmp, or common texture, but rather interesting picture format where the underneath is darker than the top. That simulates the overcast cloud where the amount of light under the cloud is much smaller than above the layer.

So it appears that has the transparency, but is also visible from both sides yet in different colors.

Ted

[Echo300]

Interesting. How does it accomplish that? (BTW, what are you using to view the .apl's?)

[Polak]

Interesting. How does it accomplish that? (BTW, what are you using to view the .apl's?)

Indeed interesting.
Do not know yet how it is accomplished, I am still digging.
I use Axe3 hex editor.
To check what is going on I zero certain groups of values and see the result in the game. Mostly get crazy results but finally I may spot and understand the logic.

[lightning]

Here's the info on the APL file format:

An APL is a palettized image with the ability to store alpha values in the palette.


APL file format:
DWORD MAGIC = 0x030870 (magic number occupying 4 bytes, that identifies this file as an .APL file)
WORD WIDTH (width of the image in pixels; this value occupies 2 bytes )
WORD HEIGHT (height of the image in pixels; this value occupies 2 bytes)
DWORD[256] PALLETE (1024 bytes, every 4 bytes = 1 pallete entry; pallete therefore holds 256 entries numbered 0-255)
BYTE[WIDTH*HEIGHT] IMAGEDATA (each byte represents one pixel in the image; each byte's value is an index into the pallete array (0-255)

Each pallete entry is 4 bytes (DWORD), where the high byte = ALPHA, and the next 3 bytes are Red, Green, and Blue, respectively

So to read an APL file you first:
check the first 4 bytes to see that they equal 0x030870; if so, this is an APL file
then the next 2 bytes = the width, in pixels, of the image
the next 2 bytes = the height, in pixels, of the image
the next 1024 bytes represent 256 pallete entries each consisting of 4 bytes (alpha, red, gree, and blue, in that order).
The next (width * height) bytes represent the image data itself, one byte per pixel. The byte value of each pixel tells
you which pallete entry to use for rendering that pixel. Just look up the corresponding pallete entry to get the color for
that pixel as well as the alpha value. If the alpha component is set to 0x80 then this magic value means do not use ALPHA

[Polak]

Thank you lightning for sharing this detailed info about apl file. So no more mystery here.

EDIT: thanks to your information I quickly was able to pump more pixels into the figtilet texture. With some more effors this may lead to improvement in quality of overcast clouds , if anyone CARES , that is.



PS. But still this thread is very fine example what could be accomplished with free and friendly information exchange on this forum.

[87th_striker]

Thank you lightning for sharing this detailed info about apl file. So no more mystery here.

EDIT: thanks to your information I quickly was able to pump more pixels into the figtilet texture. With some more effors this may lead to improvement in quality of overcast clouds , if anyone CARES , that is.

PS. But still this thread is very fine example what could be accomplished with free and friendly information exchange on this forum.

AF is not my thing... never tried it...., but I'm still very interrested. Keep it up !

[Echo300]

Awesome! Thanks, everybody.

[Echo300]

Not sure why I didn't find this the first time I searched: http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/show ... hp?t=45398

yup you can improve them and even make the higher res
they are located in the *.apl files.
Codec made a perl script for me months ago so I could un-apl them and put en back in apl.

me initial test showed that making them higher res gave a big fps drop (relative) and I never got back to them again yet.

/widmak

fogtileb*.aps is basically a 19 tile tileset (like terraincoasttileset)
the apl consists of a gif and another gif being sorta its alpha (for tranparency IIRC)

fogtilet*.apl series same as above but used for another layer of clouds, one is high one is low clouds.

I quadrupled the res in my test but doubling its res woul probabably be less a fps hit (also tested back then on my old 1.33AMD/GF2GTS_64DDR)


the fogtileGt and b series are the same tiles in a lower res for NVG goggles view (not sure if still used..)
these are there in the gif form, to get an idea of how its is like terain tiles.

one needs a perl script to unzip the apl and another to zip it up to apl again.
don't think they have been 'released' gotta look em up.


/widmak

[Polak]

All that we know by now.

What script to "unapl" fogtilt.apl widowmaker is talking?
Icould not have the slighest idea for even a reason to "unapl" is?
Nothing is scrabled here in the file.
Just palette and picture.
Palette occupies he 1032 bytes the picture the rest.