Light Textures

Hi,

short: I`m unhappy with the light textures of the splatmaps. Alone, they look great. But in all theaters we have sharp borders of all splatmaps caused by the system of mapbuilding.

funny guy names

So, in the night you can see these sharp borders while flying over the terrain and the look is quite un-natural, I think. So I started a small test and downgraded all light textures of the splatmaps.

In the result, the lights are more natural now without these sharp borders. Nice side effect: little more performance.

I like the new effects of the latest ED patch. So, in that case, I think the light textures of the splatmaps ... I would say ... seems to be outdated. It`s just an idea....

Cheers

Tom

Could you link the downgraded light textures please?

Hi,

yes- sure! :thumbup:

Just copy the file into:

DCS-World_OpenBeta\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\terrains\PersianGulf\vfstextures

http://www.mediafire.com/file/02rg97t85ln9uyx/HardSplatTextures.zip/file

Make a Saefty copy first! Enjoy

Cheers

Tom

Nice one! I'll try it out myself later. And yes, I agree. Sometimes you can really see the lighting edge of the city or village and it looks unnatural. I'm guessing that the textures are WIP, though.

:thumbup:

I'm guessing that the textures are WIP, though.

Yes, as stated in ED's newsletter:

"Improved Environment Lighting

We have worked hard to increase the range and visibility of lights to enhance the night flying experience. We know that it is far from perfect and will continue to improve the look and feel at night."

Hi,

thanks for testing. I think, it is perfect. But just without these light textures for the splatmaps. I tryed the same for the Caucasus map - I personally like it. But as I mentioned: It`s just an idea to ED.

Cheers

Tom

What is a "splatmap"?

would be cool for ED to look into this suggestion, looks great to me.

The Ground textures in DCS having different layers. Basically, you can say you have a Kind of "tilling". The whole map is covered by a satellite map for long range views. For Shorter distances you have the "tiles". The tiles are: water, cities, mountains and noise (the whole rest). The City tiles are named into "splatmap".

Every splatmap have layers like: color, Roof (trees and Roofs of Buildings), specular, bump and lightmap.

The lightmap is the Shining of street lights and other Sources cause by an alpha-map.

But if you have hard borders on the Ground the Shining will end abruptly.

Hope I was able to explain .

Cheers

Tom

Hi, thanks for testing. I think, it is perfect. But just without these light textures for the splatmaps. I tryed the same for the Caucasus map - I personally like it. But as I mentioned: It`s just an idea to ED.

I used them and they improved the look significantly, in my opinion. The default was weird to look at, if you actually paid attention to it. Very obvious with targeting pods as well, since you often zoom in. I also noticed a performance improvement as well, but I didn't measure it, I just tried with the same mission and it ran smoother.

I'd love to have it for Caucasus as well, since you already took the time to do it. Would you mind uploading this as well? Also, consider uploading it as a mod in User Files on the DCS website, I'm sure a lot of people would like to have this.

Bonjour and thanks for testing.

Yes Sir- here it is for caucasus:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ywap0do4zge4cea/HardSplatSelfillum.zip/file

Please make saefty copy first.

Copy that zip into:

DCS-World_OpenBeta\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\terrains\Caucasus\vfstextures

Thats it. Setting must be "high" for terrain textures.

Cheers

Tom

Bonjour and thanks for testing.

 

 

 

Yes Sir- here it is for caucasus:

 

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ywap0do4zge4cea/HardSplatSelfillum.zip/file

 

 

Please make saefty copy first.

 

Copy that zip into:

 

 

DCS-World_OpenBeta\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\terrains\Caucasus\vfstextures

 

 

Thats it. Setting must be "high" for terrain textures.

 

 

 

Cheers

Tom

Vielen Dank!