NTTR MAP WRONG WEIRD TEXTURE COLOR TINT

[GumidekCZ]

The map textures are out of anything I see from quality photos (taken from ground/form air). Compare the picture yourselves:

Its not a big deal, not a bug, but because of that I feel like something not correct every time I fly a mission on this map. I my say, that I love this map, some more detailed elevation resolution would be very nice, but as long as you not flying low, it doesn't really matter.

It seems to me, that someone who took care of NTTR textures has color shifted display tuned for COLD setting.

 

Picture form DCS and Google picture from exact same spot (similar day time):

Edited DCS screenshot compare:

This is another compare of 60% screenshot with the original one, and small terrain photo in middle.

Edited July 31, 2021 by GumidekCZ

[Bob1943]

A 53 year old picture I took as we were entering the Nellis traffic pattern in 1968.  I think the color tones are still pretty accurate, i.e., photo color has not faded much with time.

[Bob1943]

Here is another one from the same time frame, heading towards one of the gunnery ranges.  A little blurry, but the color tones seem pretty accurate.

 

[G.J.S]

19 minutes ago, Bob1943 said:

Here is another one from the same time frame, heading towards one of the gunnery ranges.  A little blurry, but the color tones seem pretty accurate.

 

Early ‘E’s! Beautiful shots Sir.

I had the pleasure of F-4 for 3 years, before converting to another type due to F-4 retiring (RAF), but by god - what a ride! 

[Bob1943]

I was flying the F-111 at Nellis during this time.  Made friends with some of the F-4 instructors in the Fighter Weapons School and talked my way into a couple back seat rides with the instructors.

Here is an echelon formation turn onto Initial Approach at Nellis.  This was late afternoon, so the color cast may be a little biased towards the yellow/orange spectrum.

 

I also re-created that first photo in DCS using an F-16 instead of the F-4.  This gives a little color comparison of the real world vs DCS.

 

[GumidekCZ]

11 hours ago, Bob1943 said:

A 53 year old picture I took as we were entering the Nellis traffic pattern in 1968.  I think the color tones are still pretty accurate, i.e., photo color has not faded much with time.

Soryy Bob1943, we try to post here only quality photos (digital) not the historic ones and color shifted. Yours are pretty, but are useless for our comparism. On the other hand, I think that even these old pictures shows that the terrain shlould not be so much color saturated. Your last picture with DCS F-16 is nice proof of my point here.

[G.J.S]

2 minutes ago, GumidekCZ said:

Soryy Bob1943, we try to post here only quality photos (digital) not the historic ones and color shifted. Yours are pretty, but are useless for our comparism. On the other hand, I think that even these old pictures shows that the terrain shlould not be so much color saturated. Your last picture with DCS F-16 is nice proof of my point here.

Research the quote starting “never look a gifthorse . . . . “

 

[GumidekCZ]

Why the map is looking much more colored and without any trees from above than it should be? It would be lovely to have more greyish rocks and sands and much more greenish mountains.

 

Another comparism. What is the strange DCS yellow/red sand??? What happened to the mountains? It look like someone cut all the bushes and trees and painted rocks to PINK

 

Nice vid showing local nature wildlife from Mount Irish with nice colours:

 

Edited July 30, 2021 by GumidekCZ

[Eihort]

This thread may be of interest to you, and as someone who was born and raised in vegas and has done a lot of flying in the area at various times of day IRL, yes, the DCS coloring is very much off. I also posted in this other thread.

Some of Bob1943's pics have held up well and some haven't. The one with 229 dead center is a little faded, but the one them going into the break with 211 center has held up pretty well.

 

Overall I find most of the textures in the Nevada map, indeed, are way too bright and not actually brown enough.
 

 

[GumidekCZ]

On 8/31/2021 at 2:26 AM, Eihort said:

This thread may be of interest to you, and as someone who was born and raised in vegas and has done a lot of flying in the area at various times of day IRL, yes, the DCS coloring is very much off. I also posted in this other thread.

Some of Bob1943's pics have held up well and some haven't. The one with 229 dead center is a little faded, but the one them going into the break with 211 center has held up pretty well.

 

Overall I find most of the textures in the Nevada map, indeed, are way too bright and not actually brown enough.
 

 

I have to agree with you, 2017 version color tint is much more realistic.

I wish that somebody from ED can do something with that. And not only with color tint but also with blending real distinctive colors of rock, sand, river wash, bush covered areas into WRONG monocolored texutre as cen be seen on mountain texuture above or at PG map now:

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by GumidekCZ

[Draken35]

I flew over the Hoover dam yesterday, IRL, at about 33,000ft (according to the pilot). Today, I did the same in DCS. Set the mission date time to match with my fly. Here are the results:

null

Edited November 20, 2022 by Draken35

[GumidekCZ]

3 hours ago, Draken35 said:

I flew over the Hoover dam yesterday, IRL, at about 33,000ft (according to the pilot). Today, I did the same in DCS. Set the mission date time to match with my fly.

ED took any terrain color and changed it into yellowish-orange sand color. On top of that, ED wiped out textures of any sign of typical grass or bushes

- according to me, NTTR map is how it should look if done by professional team. From high alt, it doesnt really matter, but at medium to ground level

[Draken35]

The rest of the pictures I took: 

Cell phone camera and dirty window... DCS looks very off to me....

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Draken35

[Boss86005]

NTTR really needs a texture improvement that includes satellite textures with correct coloring, better mesh, and more ground vegetation. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Boss86005

[GumidekCZ]

VERY NICE SET OF NTTR PHOTOS:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32951/pilots-rare-trip-around-area-51-includes-pics-of-range-targets-drone-bases-ufo-legends

Dog Bone Lake from above linked gallery:

In DCS - red-brown hell:

[TOViper]

What would you think about this modification:

[GumidekCZ]

37 minutes ago, TOViper said:

What would you think about this modification:

Unfortunately purpose of this topic isn't to show our modifications to ED team, but show them how OFF the colors of NTTR map are.

Your picture is much better than is in DCS, but still posses green vegetation of grass, bush, trees.

[TOViper]

Got it.
The modification of my picture was simple, thus I consider changing the textures coming with NTTR and having this as a MOD to the installation.
Currently I have no idea of how to do this, but who knows ... maybe I find a minute or two in the next weeks.

But you are right, the texture colors ARE FAR OFF!
 

[PLUTON]

How did you achieve these colors much truer than DCS? Thanks for sharing.
Or possibly make a mod!

[TOViper]

This was just a very cheap trick by taking out the red color by about 10% and the green by about 5% and then using a "Histogram adjustment" for luminance on IN and OUT.
I don't have any clue about what I was doing in my little old picture tool of the year 1998, but somehow it worked pretty well.
In fact I didn't change any of the textures, so this is just a filter thing, no replacement was made.

[LucShep]

It's been a long time now that I also get the same feeling described here "where does the orange and red tones come from?" 

I could be wrong, and maybe even a bit ot a sacrilege saying it but, I remember being very impressed and liking the original release of Nevada a whole lot more (DCS 2.0 if memory serves me well?). The more pale colors and tones being far more realistic, IMO.

It's something I'd like to try sometime soon for a mod.  Some kind of "Nevada restoration", if the term serves here.

Edited May 12, 2023 by LucShep

[mytai01]

I just flew into Vegas. I'm literally now waiting for a flight to Portland. Most of the terrain looks light brown with some areas sand. There's a lot of variation in brown, sand, and dark brown. The DCS map looks way too yellow. Real life look grey/brown overall.

Edited June 22, 2023 by mytai01

[HILOK]

atmospheric effects from moisture and dust are typically fading colors the further an object is (the higher you fly). i think, ideally the color palette should be adjusted to match the real world at ground level.
maybe dust or fog layers must be selected (within the limits of DCS), when comparing to RL fotos from above. otherwise there could be the risk that colors will be off again from high up, especially once ED's weather engine gets improved.

[markturner1960]

Fingers crossed LucShep gets some time on his hands soon!! 

[Minsky]

6 hours ago, markturner1960 said:

Fingers crossed LucShep gets some time on his hands soon!! 

It doesn't seem that the ground textures of any map, except Caucasus, are accessible or moddable.

However, if someone feeling adventurous and have a bit of free time, they should be able to achieve the desired effect via shaders by playing with the values in these files:

DCS\Mods\terrains\Nevada\shadingOptions\Deferred.lua
DCS\Mods\terrains\Nevada\shadingOptions\Desert.lua

Here I made the terrain darker (shot at 12:00):

And here it's slightly less saturated:

Edited July 17, 2023 by Minsky