Better Trees for Caucasus V6

[Boosterdog]

Hello Taz. Thaks for this great mod. One thing ive noticed when flying low is that one certain type of tree seems to be affected by what I assume is either a higher detail render or shadow more than the others. Its the type you show in the original post to demonstate the high and low textures (the one that mainly occupies the more open areas of the map).The tree appears to "bloom" when you are perhaps no more than a few hunderd meters away.

 

Im guessing its just the way it is but I thought Id ask if there is anything you do with it or something I could do. Thanks

[Taz1004]

Hello Taz. Thaks for this great mod. One thing ive noticed when flying low is that one certain type of tree seems to be affected by what I assume is either a higher detail render or shadow more than the others. Its the type you show in the original post to demonstate the high and low textures (the one that mainly occupies the more open areas of the map).The tree appears to "bloom" when you are perhaps no more than a few hunderd meters away.

 

Im guessing its just the way it is but I thought Id ask if there is anything you do with it or something I could do. Thanks

 

That happens to all the trees but more noticeable on American Beech because it's usually in the foreground or standing by itself. Also it's LOD distance is set closer than other trees. You can see this by sliding the tree distance slider in settings during flight. You'll see it change before other tree types (also the Maple LOD is too close too). And I'm pretty sure I can't change this individual LOD distance unless I have access to the model.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Taz1004

[Boosterdog]

That happens to all the trees but more noticeable on American Beech because it's usually in the foreground or standing by itself. Also it's LOD distance is set closer than other trees. You can see this by sliding the tree distance slider in settings during flight. You'll see it change before other tree types (also the Maple LOD is too close too). And I'm pretty sure I can't change this individual LOD distance unless I have access to the model.

 

Thanks for the reply Taz. Your tree mod really adds to the Caucs. Thank you.

[Vanguard]

That happens to all the trees but more noticeable on American Beech because it's usually in the foreground or standing by itself. Also it's LOD distance is set closer than other trees. You can see this by sliding the tree distance slider in settings during flight. You'll see it change before other tree types (also the Maple LOD is too close too). And I'm pretty sure I can't change this individual LOD distance unless I have access to the model.

 

In a triple wide monitor setup its extremely distracting. There is a bow line if you will about 300m in front of the jet where all the shadows are changing form low to high LOD. Out of the front window most of it is masked by the cockpit, but in triple wide, the left and right screens are full terrain and you can see lower, it's like a tidal wave moving with the jet, feels like I'm riding the cusp o f a nuclear shock wave as the entire terrain is changing below me. Major immersion killer.

 

Anyone have any tweaks, settings, mods that can assist with this?

[Taz1004]

Yea, increase visibility range to Extreme. Then increase distancFactor of Extreme in graphics.lua. I believe Mustang recommends 3.0. Hope you have powerful system.

[Zaku]

Have you considered using the same textures for evergreens across spring-autumn? The quality of the textures are great, but it's weird seeing spruces and firs turning orange with the other trees in autumn.

 

I ported summer fir and spruce textures over to autumn to show what they would look like:

 

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Zaku

[Taz1004]

Have you considered using the same textures for evergreens across spring-autumn? The quality of the textures are great, but it's weird seeing spruces and firs turning orange with the other trees in autumn.

 

I ported summer fir and spruce textures over to autumn to show what they would look like:

 

 

Thank you for the suggestion and yes it has been suggested. And it depends on what type of fall look you're going after. And using dark green fir may look acceptable in some lighting conditions but in general, they seem to create spotty look from a distance. In the image below, only fir was changed between the two images but it also makes mountain maple look brighter and flatter.

 

I said it in previous response but overall balance with limited tree types was what I was going after rather than accuracy of individual species. Also, fir and evergreens do change colors throughout season too. And I did try to keep them greener than other trees.

 

 

Also consider that adding greener hue may work better on CGTC because it has greener grass in the fall. And the look is personal preference so I'll leave it up to individual to tweak. But I feel I have to adjust the stock mod to default color setting.

 

I suggest Spring or Light Summer fir if you're going to swap.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Taz1004

[Fri13]

Was there the ED own script or something, that allowed users to adjust the amount of trees in the forest? I would like to fly with a lot less trees in the mountains for visuals.

[mwlue]

WOW, love it!!

 

 

 

Thanks for the great mod.

[Vanguard]

Yea, increase visibility range to Extreme. Then increase distancFactor of Extreme in graphics.lua. I believe Mustang recommends 3.0. Hope you have powerful system.

 

Thanks mate, I'll give it a go. That's probably why I noticed it more now, I think I lowered both of those settings one notch when I got the Syria map. Have i9-9900K and 2080 Super. I get 60FPS in the air, but as low as 15 on the tarmac and I was doing helo ops.

Edited September 4, 2020 by Vanguard

[Boosterdog]

Yea, increase visibility range to Extreme. Then increase distancFactor of Extreme in graphics.lua. I believe Mustang recommends 3.0. Hope you have powerful system.

 

On the Caucs even the standard setting of just 1.2 for Extreme really improves matters. Im not sure if Mustang was going with 3.0 just for Syria which seems somewhat more reserved in what it will reveal at each stage than the Caucs is.

 

3.0 will bring an average PC to its knees over a big city unless you forsake ground shadows and a few other nice things.

[Motomouse]

Thanks for the alternative trees. I dont like the look of the default trees on the caucasus map at all.

[theGozr]

FPS?

[theGozr]

I tried .. Super smooth and look so much better .. Thanks

[TOMCATZ]

Dear TAZ004,

 

 

I combined your trees dark version with Mustangs Terrain mod. Now Caucasus looks so much better. Your art work looks very good to me without any impacts on my frame rate. So overall this should be the standard of DCS Caucasus!!!

 

 

Thank you so much for your work! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

 

 

Cheers

Tom

[Brainfreeze]

Hi Taz,

new to DCS and OvGME so my question might be basic...

How do I install your mod wit OvGME?

I have all mods in sved game directory rather than DCS' game directory and OvGME tells me your zip file is not a valid Mod-Archive ...

 

Also...how do I select dark or light or medium once installed?

[Taz1004]

Hi Taz,

new to DCS and OvGME so my question might be basic...

How do I install your mod wit OvGME?

I have all mods in sved game directory rather than DCS' game directory and OvGME tells me your zip file is not a valid Mod-Archive ...

 

Also...how do I select dark or light or medium once installed?

 

This mod has to be installed into main DCS install path. Not Saved Games.

So in OvGME at the top right, there's Edit and New. Click New. And use following setting.

 

Configuration title: Whatever you want to name it. "DCS Main Mods" for example.

Configuration root folder: Point it to main DCS install path.

Configuration mods folder: Make a folder anywhere you like for DCS main mods only. Point to that folder here. And put my mod zip file in that folder.

 

And you simply have to switch between your Saved Games modset and DCS Main Mods modset using the drop down arrow at the top.

Switching between the two modset does not uninstall the other. It's just way to manage multiple mod install path.

 

 

And you can't install all 3 version at once. You have to choose one of the 3 to install.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Taz1004

[Brainfreeze]

Thks Taz,

 

attached screenshots of what I did.

 

guess need to import the mod / enable it in OvGME but although your zip file is in the right directory it does not appear in the list within OvGME...

 

Guess i am still doing something wrong :(

[Taz1004]

You're not doing it right for Saved Games either. I mean... that'll work but that's not how OvGME is designed to be used.

 

Basically you leave DCS Main install and Saved Games folder alone. And somewhere OUTSIDE, you create folder for your mods. For example

 

C:\OvGME\ModsMain\

C:\OvGME\ModsSavedGames\

 

And you put mods intended for Saved Games in the second one and mods intended for main path in the first one.

 

And in OvGME configuration, you enter those paths in Configuration mods folder. Not Mods folder inside DCS install and Saved Games.

 

 

Actually, you need to extract the zip file for my mod. I confused this with my Smoke mod. This actually is why it wasn't working. You can ignore above if you want but I recommend it.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Taz1004

[Brainfreeze]

got it now. visible after extracting indeed. Thks for the 'tutorial'. reorganised my mods now :-)

[Holton181]

got it now. visible after extracting indeed. Thks for the 'tutorial'. reorganised my mods now :-)

 

The reason why the zip file wasn't recognized is due to wrong folder structure inside it. For it to work with zip, the first folder has to have exactly the same name as the zip itself (without the zip extension). Then inside of that folder the entire MOD is placed.

 

As a side note, you can place two txt files alongside the first folder (not inside it), named VERSION.txt and README.txt.

In VERSION you can add a version number in these formats: "x", "x.y" or "x.y.z" without quotes, x, y and z being one or several digits. It will be seen to the right of the MODs listed in OvGME.

In README you can add whatever information you like that describes the MOD, and it will be seen at the bottom of OvGME when highlighted.

[MAXsenna]

You don't need a zip file either. The correct folder structure works just as well, and can be easier to maintain whenever a mod is updated. You loose versioning though.

I've have transferred to another mod manager. Open Mod Manager. Can be a little more cumbersome/"intimidating" to setup at first, as "wording" used is a little strange, but it has some very nice features.

Cheers!

 

Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Tapatalk

[BIGNEWY]

Hi all,

 

Todays patch planned for the 4th will have some terrain fixes and tweaks. It is very likely to break mods like this one, removing user mods before patching is a good idea.

 

Just wanted to give you a heads up.

 

thank you

[zildac]

Thanks BN

[Alighierian]

Hi all,

 

Todays patch planned for the 4th will have some terrain fixes and tweaks. It is very likely to break mods like this one, removing user mods before patching is a good idea.

 

Just wanted to give you a heads up.

 

thank you

 

Thanks for the heads-up, it's nice to know in advance something like this has to be updated as well this time.