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New parking and taxi area textures


DragonRR

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The stock parking areas, imho are pretty dire (low resolution) and I've been constantly checking here to see if Francous would be releasing his replacements for the english Blackshark. Unfortunately he hasn't so far and I got impatient :) so I thought I'd have a go myself!

 

This work is now done. New Concrete DOWNLOAD link, see further down this post, old concrete link see this thread: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=37246

 

If it's small font it's old information!

 

NOTE:

ESSENTIAL!!

FIX FOR TEXTURES NOT SHOWING IN SOME CAMPAIGN MISSIONS / SEASONAL PROBLEMS:

Only applies to the MODMAN versions.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=619433&postcount=112

 

I believe the problem is caused by ED calling different cdds files for spring and winter missions.

I'm still working on them but here's a screenshot to give you an idea of what I'm aiming for. The foreground is the new finished concrete for the main parking areas. The grey "flags" in the background on the taxi-ways are a previous attempt which I'll be replacing with the newer texture.

 

I did do some research looking at photos on the net of Russian airbases before choosing a style. Many are much like the the work done by Necroscope but I wasn't too keen on the tar joints on his (not that I think mine are perfect either!) and I don't THINK Necroscope's work works properly with the English Black Shark install in any case. My version is based on some photos I found and in particular the one I've attached here.

 

I am considering (using my limited skills) adding some tyre marks and possibly make the paint bay marking more visible and less worn (they are more or less the original markings by ED).

 

I haven't decided whether to do work on the runways as well.. not sure I have the time and the stock textures are generally better (and less visible because you are usually moving) than the parking area!

EDIT:

 

Runways, taxi roads and parking areas all redone.

 

Released!

 

Cover_2.jpg

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=610874&postcount=15

 

 

Available only from Checksix (http://www.checksix-fr.com/) Thanks Phoenix!

 

http://www.checksix-fr.com/downloads/DCS/BlackShark/Mods/New%20Runway%20Textures%20V1.4.rar

 

 

New! improved!.. well actually.. OLD! and different!

 

Coverv14.jpg

 

Available here: (limited time)

 

Sorry guys. Spotted some issues with v1.0.

 

V1.4

MODMAN VERSION:

http://www.xeos.co.uk/Dragon_OLD_Runway_V1.4_FINAL_MODMAN.rar

 

NON MODMAN VERSION

Note this uses the exploit I found along with my programmer friend where you can use DDS textures if you rename them to BMP. ED MIGHT remove this "feature".

http://www.xeos.co.uk/Dragon_OLD_Runway_V1.4_FINAL.rar

 

Changes:

V1.4 FINAL

Many changes, mainly new realistic line markings in the parking areas. Reduced tiling to minimum in the parking areas. Reduce whiteness of line markings.

 

V1.3

ALTERNATE Version for those of you who would prefer the start of the runway without tyre markings, realistically they should be further down the runway in the landing zone which isn't doable with the current runway layout.

Fixed a cut issue I had missed on the runway start lines.

Minor tweaks to the parking area.

 

V1.2

Massively reduced the file size and texture overhead (probably)

Added MODMAN support

 

This post explains in more detail:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=614473&postcount=60

 

 

V1.1

Improved connection seam between runway start (WPP-KRAY) and main runway (WPP)

Changed border of runway to gravel (with a little moss) to allow for other seasons (forgot seasons! DOH!).

Added gravel border to start of runway.

A few other minor changes to WPP_KRAY and WPP textures.

Note: Cover picture doesn't reflect changes.

 

Screenshot shows parking area in V1.4 (FINAL)

 

ScreenShot_158.jpg

 

Note: Attached thumbnails

 

Left is real KA52 on a hardstanding which I used for my base "look", Right was an early screenshot

az_ka-52_1_n.jpg.795eaed3a6d345c680bd63812911ac63.jpg

Parking.thumb.jpg.89a314a5e0ced10f5de9a098ed6263f1.jpg


Edited by DragonRR
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I wouldn't post, but I think it has potential, so...Two things:

1) The lines where the taxiway meets the parking ramp should line up. Most large-scale concrete pour jobs of this type are completed by using small forms set up in a grid and poured one at a time, removing the old form-work and moving it to a new location as needed, therefore all lines would meet up (or at least 99% of the except for a few mistakes).

2) The place where the painted lines cross the joints should not completely erase the joints. You should still be able to see them. They would simply be a darker shade of white, or visibly indented. Sometimes you don't even paint the joint because it is too deep or narrow to be bothered with it.

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I wouldn't post, but I think it has potential, so...Two things:

1) The lines where the taxiway meets the parking ramp should line up. Most large-scale concrete pour jobs of this type are completed by using small forms set up in a grid and poured one at a time, removing the old form-work and moving it to a new location as needed, therefore all lines would meet up (or at least 99% of the except for a few mistakes).

2) The place where the painted lines cross the joints should not completely erase the joints. You should still be able to see them. They would simply be a darker shade of white, or visibly indented. Sometimes you don't even paint the joint because it is too deep or narrow to be bothered with it.

 

1) Agreed however I *think* this is a problem with the way in which the textures are placed. The texture for the taxi roads is not used in the same way as the parking areas, it is placed at a smaller size.. more accurately .. the parking areas are 112% taller (long length of the tiles) 104% wider (width of the tiles). I tried making a fake texture using these dimensions and it nearly works however you then get issues with thin tiles where the textures meet. (In other words - I think this is ED's fault)

2) I've been looking at this. I haven't done anything so far simply because I'm not 100% on the marking placement atm and don't want to start all over again! I have some issues with the curved section on the line markings having jaggies and I'm looking at this as well.

 

Thanks for your constructive comments :)


Edited by DragonRR
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As mentioned I'm currently going for a new look so the concrete looks pretty new, the white lining looks fairly new and there is only a small amount of grime from traffic going down the taxi lanes. All white lines now stop and start at the tar joints. As mentioned, I personally, can't make all the joints line up. It may be possible to do this but would require relining and resizing the way in which the textures are used and laid down.

1107431259_Parking_newconc_nearfinal.thumb.jpg.60dba20ddb4ea747071b6b84deff866c.jpg


Edited by DragonRR
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Well I'm pretty much done, just need to find somewhere to locate the mod really. Runways are now done too.

 

Any comments (ideally constructive) are welcome although I think I may well go back to actually playing BS for awhile now. :D

 

Oh I should add that I have two tilesets. The first is a new look, the second is essentially the same but coloured to more closely match the stock texture colours. The pictures attached should explain.

871082983_NewV1.4.thumb.jpg.9e7819ebc18f77535ad5ac5bf278d945.jpg

727238180_OlderV1.4.thumb.jpg.1b9fdf43349fd2296ca6059cbe9c7c44.jpg

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here some constructive coments :)

 

First of all - it's better to try to create the surface looks like real not LO-like.

- stubs looks ideally flat, like colored glass. Try to add some roughness.

- joints are perfectly straight and too wide(if this is the jounts without tar into it), and you forgot the transportation hollows.

IMHO - you should decide - create the texture according reference photo from first post or create real one.

 

BTW - How you create the concrete itself? It looks very good.

Photo or some photoshop technique? Could you share it?

Всех убью, один останусь!

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To address the previous posts.

 

At the outset I decided to go for a newer look knowing that this wouldn't appeal to everyone. As I said in an earlier post I did look at some photos of Russian airbases and noted that MOST looked patinated, scratched, old but some shots showed new runways and standing areas. I also was aware of Necroscope's work and the possibility of Francous releasing his square tiled look. So I took a different approach.

 

The joints are two pixels wide.. Yes I could go 1 pixel but I think they're narrow enough. :smartass:

 

The problem (as you seem to have come across Necroscope) is that you either go rough on the joints and end up with a pixelated look close up (which I deliberately avoided) or you end up with a glassy look where there is no real depression (again close up) Personally I don't think either approach is perfect. I didn't forget the transportation hollows as such. I have gone for concrete poured bays insitu. Some of the photos I looked at suggested that this happens.. but I'm no expert on Russian Military base slab laying techniques.

 

The concrete is comprised of two texture layers the top one being slightly transparent to show the one below through a little. I used textures I found after a rather extensive search on my system! I didn't actually paint them myself! I carefully colour matched each tile to avoid patterning issues (which I think I achieved to a reasonable degree).

 

I actually tried your textures initially Necroscope. IMHO they are great from height but unfortunately for me, too pixelated on my large monitor when I'm running through the take off procedure. That said they are a great job and mine are an alternative to yours, not direct competition :)


Edited by DragonRR
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@ Necroscope: The joints should be perfectly straight. Remember that most contruction jobs of this type are completed using metal forms that don't easily bend (and if they do bend, a quick swipe with a sledge hammer does the trick nicely :)). And the joints are the correct width. I've done several construction jobs of this type over the years and this looks right to me. As for the color of the concrete, I agree. It's a really good representation of the color of new concrete. If he were going for a more weathered look I would say that the concrete needs to be darker with water spots in places from sinkage and imperfections in levelness, and the individual blocks should have expansion cracks from normal heating/cooling over time running through them. I would also say that he should have some of those cracks (though certainly not all) be covered with tar from periodic repairs. I would also have him add a few weeds in the cracks near the edge of the parking ramp. But since he's going for "new-ish" I think it looks spot on.

 

@ DragonRR: Taking the paint out of the joints is a 100% improvement. It looks very nice indeed. Too bad about the taxiway and ramp joints not lining up, but oh well. Can't have everything. :)

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Cover_2.jpg

 

 

I've uploaded the textures to Lockonfiles who have a backlog of files to approve so here's a link I can make available on a temporary basis:

 

There's a readme included in the file. Note that the file is 50mb. There should be little or no FPS hit.

 

Available only from Checksix! (http://www.checksix-fr.com/)

 

http://www.checksix-fr.com/downloads/DCS/BlackShark/Mods/New%20Runway%20Textures%20V1.4.rar

 

 

I'm considering doing a weathered version.. does anyone know if it is possible to get bumpmapping into the current DCS engine for ground textures?

 

EDIT:

 

Note:

 

When doing these textures a few issues came to light:

1. ED don't seem to have a hard and fast rule as to what "real" size the textures should be placed at so, as mentioned before, the tiles vary in size from say the Runway to the taxi roads to the parking area. I can't fix this.

2. The end runway piece doesn't line up correctly at one end of the runway (all runways) but does at the other end. I can't correct this and opted for having one end correct rather than going for an in-between.

3. ED sometimes uses parts of textures, for example on the parking area I was using for testing the white lines spill into partly used textures. I can't correct this, some parking areas look better than others.


Edited by DragonRR
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@ DragonRR

Nope, no bump in LO\BS. Only Alpha.

And one more thing- the lines usually painted over the joints.

#I carefully colour matched each tile to avoid patterning issues# - Oh man, I'v done such in my first attemp - it's nightmare. :)

Anyway - looks good. :) Don't care about my grumbling. It's _your_ mod!

 

@ Rhino4

You mostly right. I mean that usually the joints are filled with tar and don't looks perfectly straight. Cause you know - young solder mostly care about drinks-and-girls not about the looks-of-runway. :)

More to say - AFAIK - there two way to create runway\taxiway - fill the forms with concrete right in place or create runway using ready-to-use stubs. In case of stubs - they placed very close to each other, and anyway - they use tar.

Всех убью, один останусь!

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They look good.

 

Ok so some people are complaining it's too "clean", well yes but he designed them so it's his choice.

 

Remember FREE COMMUNITY mods are just that, someone in the comunity has decided to do something about something they don't like and have released it FOC to everyone in the comunity, can everyone please remember that when they post comments. If you don't like it don't use it.

 

I personaly would prefer some weathering, that's my personal opinion and it doesn't detract on what DragonRR has done. Overall I think it's vast improvement over the stock textures and although they do look "clean" I prefer the quality over others freely available. But that is just what I prefer, then again if it was vectored and in orange I would be all over it :D

Regards

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]



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@ DragonRR

I carefully colour matched each tile to avoid patterning issues# - Oh man, I'v done such in my first attemp - it's nightmare. :)

 

Well.. it wasn't too bad. I used about 12 primary tiles. I don't know if you are using photoshop, but if you are and you aren't aware:

 

There's a tool- Image->Adjustments->Match Color.

 

To use this I cut out a reference tile, put this in a new picture and used this to match the colour in my working area. The tool generally works really well. In the match colour dialogue box there's a few sliders. When the result didn't look quite right I generally used the "Fade" slider to fix it.

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Well.. it wasn't too bad. I used about 12 primary tiles. I don't know if you are using photoshop, but if you are and you aren't aware:

 

There's a tool- Image->Adjustments->Match Color.

 

To use this I cut out a reference tile, put this in a new picture and used this to match the colour in my working area. The tool generally works really well. In the match colour dialogue box there's a few sliders. When the result didn't look quite right I generally used the "Fade" slider to fix it.

 

It that time - I've tried to do my best so I've cutted every single stab for runway from different positions of photo. It was a nightmare! :)

In my last mod - I've used 10 or more generated layers to create the concrete itself.

 

Thanx for tip!

Всех убью, один останусь!

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A more weathered version, unfinished but not a million miles off. Still have traffic markings to deal with, still experimenting with "effects" near tar edges. Opinions, constructive as usual plz :)

 

EDIT:

 

Oh I should point out that these are still insitu concrete pours.. They've just been there longer and have been patched up a bit. The people laying the concrete weren't so good at lining up the joints either! ;)

 

ScreenShot_119.jpg


Edited by DragonRR
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I like this one, especially the mixed cement blocks! Looks like a real russian AFB ;)

 

LOL I was thinking the opposite, I don't prefer this one. It looks like the textures are screwed up.

 

My preference would be weathered but still uniform. Still I can appreciate the quality of the work.

Regards

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]



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I just can't win can I! :)

 

I listened to comments by others on the "new concrete" version. Although it is quite possible for people to totally screw up pouring new concrete and end up with staggered joints the texture assumed they did a great job! On top of this the concrete has only been down a short period of time and there have been no repairs or settling.

 

The concrete I'm now working on has been sat there for years, even the repairs are old. There has been a great deal of settling, entire slab runs may well have been relaid (and staggered because of that). Maintenance has kept the white lines reasonably well painted but some more recent repairs have removed the lining. Having said all this I am assuming that they original labour really didn't want to do the job! Little to no reinforcement bars between slabs and so on.

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I just can't win can I! :)

You can. Just do it the way you want it. If people don't like it, they can alter it.

Like the saying goes, you can't please all the people all the time.

Top effort mate.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

CPU - AMD Phenom II X6 1055T @ 3.6 GHz // Motherboard - ASUS M4A89GTD-PRO // GFX - ATI Radeon HD 6870 1GB // RAM - Patriot-Viper II 4GB(2x2GB) DDR3-1600 // Audio - Creative X-FI Platinum // OS - Windows 7 Home x64 Bit

CH Fighterstick // CH Pro Pedals // CH Pro Throttle // TrackIR 4 // Eyefinity 20"x3 Portrait :joystick:

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