F-86 texture aliasing

Hello.

First, I want to say that the texture quality on this bird, both internal and external, is absolutely amazing. Really clean and detailed work! But there's a one particular thing I don't like and it is how much aliasing is present in some elements, especially gauges. I also suspect this might be a problem for other modules as well, but I don't own them all.

As I checked, the problem is that you guys might use mipmaps, but only the first level. However, during my tests, when I zoomed out to comfortable level, mipmap level 2 and sometimes 3 is actually used (resolution is 1920x1080). And when those levels are not there, obviously, ugly aliasing happens.

I have attached two screens, one with default textures and one with mipmaps quickly* redone by me (all levels, cubic filter, sharpen soft, total texture size increase about 6%), I think it's clear which one is what.

Oh and similar thing happens with bort number, but problem there is that the diffuse is black numbers on white background while the texture is "driven" by alpha channel only. Last three numbers then appears to be thinner than the first two ones from distance. Fixed by all black diffuse ;)

*needs some tuning :P

I agree that the gauges are hard to read at 1920x1080. I have found myself having to lean in with track ir to read them. Any way to keep the textures at a higher level all the time?

I also modified the textures and I used DTX5 for best results although is a bit heavy size.

DTX1 and 3 use 4 bit per pixel losing some details in colors and 1 bit transparency destroy some textures that have very fine gradient transparency alpha channel.

Here are my comparative pics:

before

after

First, I want to say that the texture quality on this bird, both internal and external, is absolutely amazing. Really clean and detailed work! But there's a one particular thing I don't like and it is how much aliasing is present in some elements, especially gauges. I also suspect this might be a problem for other modules as well, but I don't own them all.

 

As I checked, the problem is that you guys might use mipmaps, but only the first level. However, during my tests, when I zoomed out to comfortable level, mipmap level 2 and sometimes 3 is actually used (resolution is 1920x1080). And when those levels are not there, obviously, ugly aliasing happens.

Hello guys,

Me too my DCS is 1920x1080 and I have the same difficulty like you for read the gauges.

I found your rendering really better and here my question: Do you have modified your screenshots or the textures files from the cockpit of the F-86 ?

If it's the case and if it's possible can you share your textures because with or without my glasses it's very hard to read some data and this aliasing is not really beautiful...

PS: Zaelu,

I really love your rendering and do you obtain this result in the real cockpit or with one screenshot ?

Thanks in advance, Skull.

This is the result after modifying the textures.

This is the result after modifying the textures.

Could you explain how to modify the textures? Is it just converting the current cockpit textures to DXT5?

Could you explain how to modify the textures? Is it just converting the current cockpit textures to DXT5?

Textures are already in DXT5. It's all written in my first post, they aren't using enough mipmap levels. Solution is to grab the textures and resave them with higher amount of mip levels and proper filtering/sharpening.

-link redacted, textures aren't compatible anymore-

All MIP levels, highest compression quality, cubic filter, sharpen soft. Could use some more experimenting probably. Whole F-86F-35-CPT-TEXTURES folder belongs in \DCS World\Mods\aircrafts\F-86\Cockpit\Resources\Model\Textures.