New tiles for ODS

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-11 04:23:35

So here we go....
In first trial I have loaded arable tiles and coast. I am not to worry about desert, they are rather bland and indistinguishable.
Though arable is totally different matter and it immediately shows its ugly face of repetition. But all in all it is rather not bad for the start and there is a potential... and challenge. Bear in mind that to save on time I have used original arable palette. So when new palette is added then textures would be better. Certain seamless problem seen on the shots I know how to correct , but how to make arable generic with ONE tile definitely I do not.

http://i364.photobucket.com/albums/oo83 ... 4test3.jpg

The other problem I have noticed that the tiles show late even that I have included all H, M and L tiles in the texture zip. I do not produce yet shot from the distance , but they do not have those new textures and they pop up. I guess more problems there will be than just that.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-11 04:30:37

I add quickly: do not worry about that artificial and not quite realistic , or finished line of shallow water on each tile . Live and learn and this is correctable and it should be . Because IMHO water and sea waves look not bad. The repetition on shore tiles could be "killed" by removing all easy to spot marks like that unfortunate peninsulas and small islands. They must go. Please feel free to critique on any other deficiency spoted.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-11 14:19:58

Yes definitely those tiles look good.

BTW you surely have noticed me editing your posts with images. There is no written rule (actually any rules) in PMC Tactical forums, but its usually nice to hotlink (visible) only small sized images like 100kb or so, if we start to do 300-500kb images, then suddenly a topic weights several megabytes which is not nice to load. Also I know how difficult it is to maintain image quality when going small sizes, but photoshops save to web is quite nice on that. Basic rule of thumb is that if you post a 5 images all about 100kb or so and then one is 150kb, I wont kill you for it, but if all images posted are like 300kb, then they are too large.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-12 00:39:58

Yes, that is perfectly OK with links instead pictures.
At some near point I would like to test sea textures. It is part of all coastal tiles which is pretty few . Finding that something is not right with this tile would force to make changes in all of coastal tiles , which I would like to avoid. However, sea tile requires an edit of new palette. Lucky I have already all tiles in LCOST7A (that is where the sea texture resides, right?) made, so perhaps I would see the coastal tiles there in truer colors.

Can someone please tell me the procedure how to change the palette ? Are there perhaps any tools to do any of that ?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-12 08:49:43

How to change the palette? Or to create whole new fartiles?

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-12 11:27:54

I guess I need to study the Tutorial and those scripts.But they are little enigmatic at first specially for me newcomer.

When we have made new tiles to add, then use tbin2txt.pl to produce the text file from default korean texture.bin like:
./tbin2txt.pl texture.bin >korea.txt
in the end of korea.txt, add your own textures like:
SET 4
HDYNE100.pcx 0 0
HDYNE101.pcx 0 0
HDYNE102.pcx 0 0
HDYNE103.pcx 0 0
HDYNE104.pcx 0 0
HDYNE105.pcx 0 0
HDYNE106.pcx 0 0
HDYNE107.pcx 0 0
HDYNE108.pcx 0 0
ENDSET
Now were ready to create the mytextures.bin, use the perl txt2bin.pl with command line:
./txt2bin.pl korea.txt >mytextures.bin

To create M, L and T tiles we suggest you run the runtiles batch file we created. Inside the zip is readme.txt (cannot find ) which should guide your tile creation process. After you have made M, L and T tiles from the original H tiles, just add your new .pcx tiles to texture.zip, copy new texture.bin (mytextures.bin) to the texture dir and fire up Tinstall.exe, SPTinstal.exe or FFTinstall to rebuild terrain with new textures as it creates new fartiles.raw file. (tbin2txt.pl and txt2bin.pl scripts in here).

It is my initial understanding and guess that tbin2txt.pl script will create korea.txt ( what is texture.bin here? )
Then after I create korea.txt (script makes it like "open") I can amend that if I have new tiles to be aded and then by script command: "./txt2bin.pl korea.txt >mytextures.bin" I should make my own mytexture.bin.

Perhaps the question I have at this juncture: do I need to make all this if I am NOT adding any new tiles with new names, but just repainting the existing set? However, new tiles are having new pcxses with new colors and palettes. Those palettes bother me how I let the F4 know that they are new.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-12 12:51:03

It is my initial understanding and guess that tbin2txt.pl script will create korea.txt ( what is texture.bin here? )

What is texture.bin here? ... its the... texture.bin (?)

Then after I create korea.txt (script makes it like "open")

Well makes it open, hehe not really. Try this command in your dosbox:

Code: Select all

dir >polak.txt

Then open polak.txt and see what you find?

I can amend that if I have new tiles to be aded and then by script command: "./txt2bin.pl korea.txt >mytextures.bin" I should make my own mytexture.bin.

Correct.

But I think the basic question here is that if you only edit existing tiles, you don't need to touch texture.bin at all, if you ADD new tiles or tile-sets, then you need to edit the text format texture.bin and convert it back to texture.bin again.

Also notice that if you add tile-sets between tile-sets and create new texture.bin, then all tiling in the theater.L2 will be broken for the tile offset's that come after your just added tile-set(s)... so if you must add tiles, be absolutely sure that you add them at the END OF THE existing tile-set's list.

If I'm not explaining this clearly, feel free to ask me specific questions and examples and I'm happy to help you.

Oh btw, if and when we need to add more tiles into ODS, I'm going to do it so you don't have to worry about it. All you need to worry, is to create same palette tiles in batches of 1 to 16.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-12 23:44:14

Thank you for reply and offer to take on the task of adding tiles. I am trying to assimilate all information , but at this time please be patient with me. I just try to make some more tiles and then perhaps I would like to make a test. I will not yet add any new tiles, but just concentrate on replacing what we have in ODS. It is still quite extensive amount of work by any standards and degree of enthusiasm. To be frank I need to ask this one more time. What is the simplest and least involved procedure to test new tiles? Nothing added , just replacement ,but with new colors and therefore with new palette in each of existing group of 16. Is it just replacing the pcxs with new pictures with new palette and nothing to edit anywhere else in any of the files?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-13 09:42:57

Polak wrote:Is it just replacing the pcxs with new pictures with new palette and nothing to edit anywhere else in any of the files?

Yes, simple as that.

In fact you don't even need to worry about the M, L and T tiles, just replace H ones and fly. You only see the new tiles close to your aircraft, in far distance you see the old tiles/palette. I did just that with the new nevada tile testing.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-13 21:49:08

Thank you for clearing this for me. That is good news as testing is important part of this repaint process. Many times what is looking good on tile looks not so in the F4 world. And here where many other transitions gets pieces of the generic tiles they better be satisfactory, or there is going to be a lot of redoing in the wait.

One more thing SM, do you know any batch converter or should I use PS action?

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-14 05:42:21

I am slowly rolling...

Here is the sample of desert tiles and the coast. There is a potential no doubt, but there are many pitfalls in F4 graphic engine as well.

First repetition, which is downright ugly and with photo realistic textures so evident. But with new added tiles to each type of coast ( at least IMHO 3 or even 4) we could get really very good look and effect.

Then there is sea which from close up looks decent, but from far requires some of works. Can't figure what happened to this sea tile to have so bad colors. Some mistake in palette. Any idea?

http://i364.photobucket.com/albums/oo83 ... ample2.jpg

I was using Palettemaker program to make the best optimized palette out of 16 pictures. I have removed 4 last colors (for night lighting) which turned to be magenta, cyan, white and blue ( assigned automatically by the PM program). This is good for easy recognition, but I think that need to change them as they need to be painted in into the picture in places where the lights at night will be present. Right? Cyan color would be pretty obvious for a day, magenta even more.

Using Batch Converters is little dangerous. I used Xview free batch converter, but it messed up Z-Soft PCX format @ resampling. Falcon4 crashed because of that. Making resampling in PS "by hand" was long and tedious, but cured the problem.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-14 11:12:52

Polak wrote:do you know any batch converter or should I use PS action?

For the nevada tile tests the first time I used IrFanview, I have no clue if it messes up anything in the tiles when batch converting to pcx, at least the tiles looked OK.

Can't figure what happened to this sea tile to have so bad colors. Some mistake in palette. Any idea?

Hmm maybe its because you don't have the palette and/or M, L and T tiles correctly?

I have removed 4 last colors (for night lighting) which turned to be magenta, cyan, white and blue ( assigned automatically by the PM program). This is good for easy recognition, but I think that need to change them as they need to be painted in into the picture in places where the lights at night will be present. Right?

Yeah, the last 4 color slots show up in the night.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-14 11:47:14

About that sea tile:
in my sets XCOST00F is a full sea tile and XCOST60F (which is group of shore tiles) . I made the latter with exact palette like the rest of the group, the single XCOST00F has its own palette. Maybe there is another group of tiles with that sea tile in it?

What you say about making more shore tile groups? I could produce more sets of shore tiles in pretty "shore" order

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-14 17:09:48

I believe those two are the only full sea tiles.

Yeah more shore / coast tiles would be nice, there is a lot of fighting going on in the Saudi - Kuwait coastline, so definitely improved tiles there would have great impact.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-14 18:42:46

Barring unforeseen situations I am fully committed with my spare time to this F4 terrain project.
To make new full set of tiles does not take me THAT long. As long as I know that the directions we are taking is with some visual impact I am more than willing to make few more sets. I wonder just about frequency of use certain tiles.

Should there be few more sets of the same group of terrain available in ODS, which of them would be used the most often? Is is random and automatic, or this needs to be revised using terrain tools (CATE?).

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-14 19:53:33

Should there be few more sets of the same group of terrain available in ODS, which of them would be used the most often? Is is random and automatic, or this needs to be revised using terrain tools (CATE?).

I tried to read this few times but I just don't get the question?

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-14 20:06:13

Sorry,
my question was: if you have new tiles how the program is using them and how it distributes them over the terrain? Is it controlled or random?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-14 20:21:06

Yes, we place random generic tiles with CATE, just randomly. We can of course configure it as we please, but mostly its just randomly placed like "for desert replace tile X1 with tiles X1, X2, X3, X4, etc"

We can take altitude elevation into the config too, like for 5-25ft place X1 tile with X1,X2 and X3, then for 25-50ft replace X1 tile with X4, X5 and X6 etc... things like that. Or we can make it like replace X1 with X1,X1,X1,X1,X1,X2,X3 so the original tile is much more used but the few others are sprinkled here and there.

Basically the possible configurations with CATE are endless

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-14 21:43:53

Incredible , CATE must be very powerful tool in editing F4 terrain. It is shame that I am introducing myself so late to this all. But this is great that there are means here to break monotony of the repeatable terrain. The beauty of F4 is that it does not use the same tile in rotation and flip. Despite certain advantages rotation and flip has that 2 way and sometimes 4-way border which in most instances no matter what you do shows that quilting and kaleidoscopic pattern on the terrain.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-15 19:29:31

I am ready with 4 sets in LCOST60 group of tiles. I think to avoid repetition they should be X1, X2, X3, X4, X1 ...etc. At no time same tiles will touch each other.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-15 20:29:11

Well that's impossible with random placement, you never know when two same tiles are side by side. You can only configure the probabilities.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-15 21:11:24

Understand, whichever way I am really excited that multiple tiles are possible. It should be looking better.

Meanwhile I am trying to squash this problem of the sea tile in those foul colors. I have noticed that original ODS had HCOST00 with only 25 colors. Mine is 255-4. Any significance here?

Phoenix711 · Post by **Phoenix711** » 2008-12-22 15:03:32

It happens when some tiles are using different palettes, and are in the same set.

Can you double check the palettes for the tiles in the set, containing that ocean tile?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-22 15:34:25

Polak wrote:I have noticed that original ODS had HCOST00 with only 25 colors. Mine is 255-4. Any significance here?

Doesn't make any difference.

Can you double check the palettes for the tiles in the set, containing that ocean tile?

Just use HCOST00F and there is nothing to worry about. If the tile goes bad ingame, then the PCX file is somehow improperly saved or something like that which makes F4 engine to puke on it.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-29 21:09:22

Despite silence (by my standards

) I am making some progress. Here is example of city coast. In fact I have changed it slightly already, but wanted to share with you some of the earlier version. I like how F4 rendering engine conveys 3D illusion.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2008-12-29 22:10:28

That coast looks good to me. Very nice work.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2008-12-30 01:28:46

yeah this costal city tile looks great!

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2008-12-30 23:16:02

Wow, that looks amazing dude!

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2008-12-31 00:51:10

I am glad some of you like the new tiles.

So far already quite significant amount of time went to research, and painting them. And as I have mentioned, those shown before were just initial tiles of the city which as of now have been already substituted by something what I consider little better.

Not to be accused of boasting ( well I am a little here

) I want to present to you two more clips from what have been so far accomplished. Those natures (city, sea, desert, shores) I consider done and complete and I have already moved elsewhere. But those pictures are not just selected shots - they are straight from the game. They look pretty interesting and the feel of flying is there. Despite that they are just only 1 set (and for the shores I have made already 4) they do not annoyingly repeat. Sea is also convincing, despite that it is made of ONLY 1 tile. All in all I am, to say at least, also pretty pleased.

I am presenting those shots here for others to catch the enthusiasm and join forces on this Project. There is some significant work ahead, not only on the painting but also the terrain. And do not worry... those will be the only shots to be published for a time being.

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2008-12-31 21:14:15

Absolutely breathtaking.

I wish I had 1/2 of your graphics skill. Unfortunately, I do not.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2009-01-01 12:29:32

To find correctly new substitutions to tiles I need some answers to the questions below:

a. What are tiles CITYC0, city center?
b. What road configuration is on tiles listed below?
CITY831,CITY832,CITY834,CITY838
c. Is WOOD21 (city with roads, but no woods) and CITY83 any different?
d. ARAB50 has only 1 transition to arable (ARAB504) rest city with roads, is this correct?
e. Is VEGE12 and VEGE20 any different?
f.ZCITY83 vs. CITY83, is one of them not used?
g.What acronym SWAM mean and what is this nature?

Thanks

Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-01-01 21:49:21

Polak wrote:a. What are tiles CITYC0, city center?

I believe those are the exact tiles you're trying to generate; random placement generic terrain type tiles. These happen to be city ones.

b. What road configuration is on tiles listed below?
CITY831,CITY832,CITY834,CITY838

Those are roads from: 831 north, 832 east, 834 south and 838 west.

c. Is WOOD21 (city with roads, but no woods) and CITY83 any different?

Hmm they are the same graphically, in fact hwood21* series is missing the road ending 1, 2, 4 and 8 tiles. Good catch, I'll put this on bug list as possible missing tiles.

Thanks

d. ARAB50 has only 1 transition to arable (ARAB504) rest city with roads, is this correct?

Looks that way, its strange indeed, it only has the city-road to arable land terrain type transition tile to south... no others. Very weird. Thanks again, I added this to possible bugs list.

e. Is VEGE12 and VEGE20 any different?

Appears to be the same graphically, perhaps this is placeholder issue. Maybe the original texture.bin file in text format would have some comments, as I cant remember anything specific for this tile-set. Again added to possible bugs list.

f.ZCITY83 vs. CITY83, is one of them not used?

HZCITY83* series is obvious placeholder as its just 128 res Korean tiles. Would be great if you could create these tiles matching to a look of city in that terrain type (terrain type which escapes from me now, ZCITY hum... cant remember hehe).

g.What acronym SWAM mean and what is this nature?

Absolutely no idea... it might even date back to Korea texture.bin! who knows. Maybe its the korean "swamp" tile-set, dunno(?).

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2009-01-02 21:30:43

Snake Man wrote:
g.What acronym SWAM mean and what is this nature?
Absolutely no idea... it might even date back to Korea texture.bin! who knows. Maybe its the korean "swamp" tile-set, dunno(?).

SM,
I believe you are correct. This is the SWAMP series of tiles from the original Korean theater.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2009-01-09 12:54:21

Breaking promise not to show any pictures, but I hope for the good reason and cause.

I hit lately the remaking ODS airbases with the following result:

They are using photoreal background which looks OK as long as there is an alignment wit the runway (which BTW is not as on shot#3). I realize that this may cause some problem for other bases where the direction of runways is not as on the examples presented. So perhaps I will blot out the runways and hope that misalignment will not be so severe.

Q#1 can the base be moved little inland as there is some problems wit the coast bases ?
Q#2 is there any list available for all ODS airbases where the model of base (texture number) is noted?
Q#3 can the fact that my shore line of the coast tiles "encroach" into the land more than in the originals - be of a problem for a vehicle movement (it is already for the 3Dobject placement on the bases ) ?
Q#4 I can make unique coast airbase tiles back into the sea - no problem here, but Q3 is about other shore tiles.

It is a lot of work I realize that well now , but hopefully with worthy results.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-01-09 13:17:31

Polak wrote:Q#1 can the base be moved little inland as there is some problems wit the coast bases ?

Yes, should be no problem to move one x,y coordinates.

Q#2 is there any list available for all ODS airbases where the model of base (texture number) is noted?

Hmm can't remember, use forum search for airbase into this ODS forum area, you should get quite many matches and maybe some of them are some help.

Q#3 can the fact that my shore line of the coast tiles "encroach" into the land more than in the originals - be of a problem for a vehicle movement (it is already for the 3Dobject placement on the bases ) ?

Hmm I don't think there is many objectives in the coast tiles, unless they are harbours. I don't see that as a problem.

Q#4 I can make unique coast airbase tiles back into the sea - no problem here, but Q3 is about other shore tiles.

Well I would say only if there is real life reference to this airbase. I believe the Khark Island (or something I really cant remember) in Iran has this kind of airbase. But its all have to be done case by case with google earth to verify that these airbases are indeed next to a water.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-01-09 13:45:04

the new base background tiles look great.

my humble 2c, since ODS or other 512 theaters have many airbases.. you may make generic base tiles for most popular bases first. Unless we are ready to work on brand new airbase models, generic tiles should be enough.

for airbases near coast, some popular bases may need dedicated tiles.. just like Wonson airbase tile in default korea theater.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2009-01-10 00:04:53

Those bases shown are the bases from Cyprus. Larnaca,Acrotiri, But in the reality Cyprus bases have not desert background. In fact no desert is present on Cyprus. The other base is Al Arish, and that is fine.

My point is: I can still change the background of the bases, but I would prefer that the ground (read nature) around the bases were true to life. That is the factor of the main terrain file and it is related to request for review of it. This is the reason for my post. In addition to showing of the progress.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-01-10 01:22:55

My point is: I can still change the background of the bases, but I would prefer that the ground (read nature) around the bases were true to life.

yeah, we knew it.. the terrain need fine-tuning.. some area is green, not totally sand brown.

in this case, maybe a re-tiling by CATE, or manual tiling on some areas of interest.

Polak · Post by **Polak** » 2009-02-14 02:15:04

In my ODS tile project I am at the point that to properly evaluate the tiles I have done so far I really need generic (homogeneous) tiles increased to maximum possible(16?) for each of the nature (sea including) .
I have made already numerous revisions and versions to the tiles I made originally and at this point, for the sake of saving on time, I would rather try to steer clear of unnecessary experimentation. If that is not possible, kindly please let me know.

On my end the progress is, I think, quite satisfactory and normally I would rather try to proceed without bothering for CATE changes, but having only one ARABLE generic tile I am little stuck and unable to make proper decision how to proceed further.

In my estimate I have made approximately 60-65% of the entire job.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-02-14 09:14:24

cool.. can't wait your new screenshots!