GenEarth.utx

[DieHard SCWS]

First official release and update for the GenEarth Package.



All rocks have been updated with Beta High resolution rockfaces.


The ground textures have been updated with better and high resolution grass, they look cool, but i still am not satisfied with the repeating paterns in it




Apart from that its a big update for that package, and so far all testers are happy with it. The problem with the grass is simple, i need to wait till its summer overhere till i can make some better photo's from grass.


The same goes for the rockfaces having birdsnests in them, i need high res photo's from bundled straw, not to mention for all the other straw Masked and non Masked textures.





Here is the link:
[url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCPackagesSingles/GenEarth.zip]GenEarth.utx[/url]

All together i think its a fair update.


And for Hyper, please have a good look at it. The grass and soil textures have all been updated and recolored. And off course lemme know what you think about the rockfaces.
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[Uncouth]

And post pics please cause I have liked the changes up to this point and would like to what this package does. 8-)

[Hyper]

Downloading @ 32 KByte/Sec...

[DieHard SCWS]

SkyTown


[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/SkyTown02.jpg[/img]



SkyTown again, now for comparising old and new.

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/SkyTown01.jpg[/img]



DmRadikus for comparising old and new.

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DmRadikus01.jpg[/img]




In the meantime, i also did upload again an even newer update on SkyCity, see the SkyCity thread for that. Meaning if you did not read this before, you have an older version
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[Hyper]

I'm just playing with GenEarth. I'm amazed by the speed of the progress here. So many excelleent rockfaces here! Maps like The Sunspire, SpireVillage and NyLeve.

I'll check more maps later, because my time is limited at the moment.

[DieHard SCWS]

I have been playing this evening, and i am very disapointed about the grass. The repeating paterns are on alot of maps rediculous visible, even on groundlevel



This is in DmCelticObservatory

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DmCelticObservatory01.jpg[/img]


Thats just sad looking

If it was on a high altitude, or higher grounds, ok. But its horrible noticable while even walking on it.


The problem is, i have only enough usable grass for 1/4 of a texture, meaning one texture already has 4 paterns in it. Regardless the quality loss, this patern has to go. I am thinking now to redo it.


And hopefully in the summer redo it all again, if i can take alot of pictures from decent grass surfaces, so i have enough grass to make a high quality non repeating texture.



Another thing Hyper, is the soil in the new textures not too crude ?
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[Hyper]

I hope you can keep the detail. Where did you get the source texture from by the way?

I haven't seen the soil texture yet, as you see, I have very little time mondays to thursdays because of my traineeship. I'm sure I'll check them all out this weekend.

[Smirftsch]

aside the pattern problem i love this grass texture. Would be nice to create such textures randomly ingame to avoid this problem *thinking*

[DieHard SCWS]

Last summer i took two photos from the grass below my appartment.


The reason i took only two photos is that there was not more to be photographed. All together its very difficult to make photos from grass, they have to be taken basically straight from above, and even on an apartment building high up its will be in an angle anyway.


Also the grass needs to be free from footsteps, dogshit  ::) , or anything else that disturbs the grass.  The grass also needs to be cut very short, but of course without having the cut off straw still lying on it. Than theres the limitation of my camera, its only 4 Megapixel, while 12 or even 16 would not be bad at all. Cause if i take the picture to high up giving me a hugh surface, than theres no detail at all.


That already was the reason why i had to merge one photo 4 times in the texture(that includes that i had to make the grass smaller), so on itself oné texture has 4 repeats in it...................


And i did try at least some 50 to 100 times to edit it all but its very difficult without wrecking the detail, but seeing the result now, i guess its bettter to loose detail than having this amount of paterns.


The soil is visible and can be seen in SkyTown, both outside and also within one of the building where its even piled up agains some 4 or 8 support beams in that building.


The soil i can do again, i took a photo from a "molshoop" , if the soil is too crude i can take tons of photo's close up of those, each time distubing the surface in a different way, i just need a good sunny day for that is all.




What kinda traineeship do you do btw ?
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[DieHard SCWS]

You posted in the meantime i was writing above.

Would be nice to create such textures randomly ingame to avoid this problem *thinking*

What exactly do you mean ?
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[Smirftsch]

some kind of random pattern generator which creates the pattern randomly to avoid that it is that easy recognizable...donno...something like this...

[BOZO]

Are you thinking of assigning a MacroTexture at runtime based on the Texture name? I haven't messed with this much but it is supposed to help with repeating textures.

[Hyper]

I googled a bit:

http://img67.exs.cx/img67/2951/Grass01.jpg

Source:
http://www.dayofdefeat.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42230

It's not really high res, but since your current texturesusability is also limited it might be a nice replacement.
However, they did not say that ot was or was not copyrighted though.

[Hyper]

The soil looks very nice, but maybe it's a bit too crude indeed, at least the occurance in SkyTown. For me it has not a high priority to see this fixed, but you have to decide for yourself what you want to do with it and how to fit it into your schedule.

[DieHard SCWS]

Thanks for the efford Hyper, that texture is actually pretty cool, it has both green grass and brown grass in nice mix. The grassheight is perfect too if i look at it.


To make it fit in Unreal i would have to add it at least 4 times, or 16 times depending how big i want the grass. But seeing the overall smoothness it still could be a very cool one.






For the moment however ill just keep it for safe keeping, and ill explain.


Last night i redid all the grass, and i am happy with the result, theres almost no paterns left, while i was able to keep the damage to the grass itself to a minimum. I also redid the soil that is used in those textures, i added it 4 times to the texture, which means the detail raised to 200 %, making the soil less crude.


The new grass and the soil parts as far as size do match up alot better now. As said i am happy with the result






At this moment i am also preparing the GenTerra package which is 53 textures with grass and soil apart from 6 textures having actual photos of treelines, most of them without leaves, so they are winter shots.


If its now a sunny day overhere, than i could go make the photos myself, and with a bit of luck this could be the first package that will be 100% complete and done...............


So for the moment i stick to this plan. If the outcome is not what we want in the end, the result is still what you already have seen from the other textures. And that result should be very sufficient. But since i will  have all originals, it could be updated any time in the future if theres a real need for it, though actually i doubt that.




For now you can download the GenEarth package again lol, it already contains the latest versions, and theoretically the final ones. ( to prevent confusement, theres still textures in that package that are normal textures, so the total package is not completed yet)


Here is the link:
[url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCPackagesSingles/GenEarth.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]GenEarth.utx[/glow][/url]





At this moment i am running a batchtest to see how long my system needs to calculate all the textures for GenTerra, and its alot lol, its already calculating some 6+ hours straight on.
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[Hyper]

Just dumping some links here:

http://highpoly3d.com/textures/grass/grass.htm
http://free-textures.got3d.com/natural/free-grass-textures/index.html
http://www.mayang.com/textures/ (All kinds of high res free textures)
http://www.johnsolo.net/tex/tex.php (various textures)

[DieHard SCWS]

Dont worry, i can always use textures if i am stuck myself


At this moment i am batching the GenTerra package, i have been creating all 53 textures in the past hours. At this moment Photoshop is batching the last 3 textures to DDS format, after that is done i will merge the package to an S3TC format, and than ill go upload it for download.

This means the download can be there within oné hour is what i was writing

But the batching went completelly wrong somehow, so i am gonna do it by hand again, 6 hours work in the drain..................


Regardless what, tomorrow the package will be finished.
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[DieHard SCWS]

Theres still a bunch of rockfaces that are low in resolution, those originate in the NaliCity.utx package and a few others, in time i will update those too, the same goes for the rockfaces i did now.


For those i did use one specific texture to add the moss on it, on the next update i will create individual moss for each rockface, so they still will line up, but will have each an individual apearence.
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[Smirftsch]

macrotextures...another not yet full implemented feature...gonna have a look on it when im done with the footstepsounds...maybe it can really help with the repeating patterns, thanx bozo...nice idea

[DieHard SCWS]

Update on the GenEarth.utx package


The grass and soil textures are completelly new, and much better quality than the previous versions. This package has also updates and new textures on the other soil and rockface textures. (but not the ones you want Hyper, they have to wait till another update)


All together, this package is a fair update and should offer much better quality especcialy on the grass and soil. I hope you all will like this, because its a big change, but in my opinium, for the best..........


The grass now represents much more the original Unreal grass, which is: short, dry, hard grass and good viewable from any direction you look at it, unlike the previous grass i made. This grass is likelly to be final, if theres an update, than its only to adjust coloration, not the grass itself.


Heres the link:

[url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCPackages/S3TCPackagesSingles/GenEarth.zip][glow=yellow,2,300]GenEarth.utx[/glow][/url]

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