earlyaccess Quality of ground textures, poor transitions

[YoYo]

Hello, first of all, of course, thank you for the map, I'm glad that we finally have Afghanistan, at least in part. However, I would like to draw your attention to the rather poor "quality" of the ground textures, compared to other desert maps: PG, Syria, Sinai or even Nevada.

The map is very uneven in terms of texture quality. Of course, I'm talking about the current area, which is EA, but as I understand it, this part should be 100% completed? Compared to Syria, for example, we unfortunately have a much worse map in terms of background textures.

Few examples:

sometimes the map looks very good and everything is great here

unfortunately, sometimes we have transitions between the areas made probably by hand and the phototextures (?), in the form of sharp edges, unfortunately it looks terrible, sometimes it takes strange shapes that do not match the rest, it looks like... old "textures ideas" from texture autogen from Flight Simulator 2004 even with an error caused during installation

and finally, there are areas that are quite blurry, probably a phototextures but somehow I have the impression that it looks worse than on other desert maps (resolution problem?) and worse than on Kola and SA maps.

Not my screen, maybe not even the worst, but you can see it on the sticker:

Will the current map area be improved in this respect? Syria is perfect in this respect, here it is somehow strange, flying low. Maybe it will be ok for jets at 13.000 ft +, but for low altitude flights it is, let's be honest, very average by 2024 standards.

Edited July 12, 2024 by YoYo

[Brisafresca]

Thank you for bringing Afghanistan to DCS but I and many other colleagues share what YoYo points out here, we would appreciate an improvement. Thank you

[Gruman]

Well, ED calls this SW-Area feature complete according to the FAQ.

Guess "Thanks for your passion and $upport"

Edited July 12, 2024 by Gruman

[MadKreator]

I am +100%. This was a bit disappointing to see. The terrain mapping itself looks good, the handmade areas look nice but theres such a huge difference in quality between the very low quality/res photo/satellite  terrain textures and the actual high quality textures splattered about randomly. Many of those highest detail bits really stick out like a sore thumb everywhere you look . Hoping this gets addressed, especially for one of the most anticipated maps in DCS history.

Edited July 12, 2024 by MadKreator

[Gunfreak]

These kinda graphical artifacts and low textures are so in your face in VR and ruins the immersion. Same reason I don't fly that civilian sim.

[YoYo]

3 hours ago, Gruman said:

Well, ED calls this SW-Area feature complete according to the FAQ.

Dont joke even.

[LuseKofte]

19 hours ago, YoYo said:

Dont joke even.

I hope he is, Bignewy said it was early access and we had to report areas with problems. So they can be fixed. I guess he means we need to locate it for them. 
My feelings are very mixed. I am very disappointed flying among styrofoam ridges. I am impressed by the texture landing on them. 

[Hiob]

20 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Same reason I don't fly that civilian sim.

 

 

 

I sincerely hope, ED doesn’t double down on this approach!

I don‘t fly MSFS much for this exact reason. The terrain graphics sucks. (Unless from high altitude)

[Slippa]

I hope we don’t have any more of this either.

Usually I’d have grabbed the map, any map for somewhere else to fly but this didn’t feel right somehow. Maybe I’ve got too many maps already that I barely fly on and I’m spoilt for choice?

Some of the shots I’ve seen look bleedin awful. I wouldn’t call it stitching, splatting maybe but it doesn’t look good. I thought this was meant to be all singing and dancing, with maybe some updates but I must’ve got mixed up somewhere. Is it EA or meant to be finished because I keep reading both.

If it’s EA, well, ‘not for all’ etc and could improve (some). If it’s finished, it’s tosh so I won’t bother. Usually, I’d be itching to try a new map but I’m not feeling like I’m losing out looking around at screenshots. I pleasure fly a lot so it’s gotta be nice down low.

[Nightstalker]

6 hours ago, LuseKofte said:

I hope he is, Bignewy said it was early access and we had to report areas with problems. So they can be fixed. I guess he means we need to locate it for them. 
My feelings are very mixed. I am very disappointed flying among styrofoam ridges. I am impressed by the texture landing on them. 

It appears the right hand and the left hand…..

If you go to the Afghanistan map FAQ thread in the very first post.  Go down the page to just above How much will it cost, you will see the paragraph:

DCS: Southwest Afghanistan will receive some updates post release but for all intents and purposes be feature complete.  I took a screen shot in case it disappears.  It’s the only reason I pre-ordered.

[MadKreator]

After a bit of flying in VR I can see where the mixed opinions come from on the quality of the map. On my q3 with graphics settings ( textures and shadows ) set high, the pasted high res ares don’t stand out nearly as much. Obviously due to the much lower overall resolution. Even the high detail parts that are stamped on mismatched terrain don’t jump out at you nearly as much.
Normally I play 2d on an LG ultragear 48” 4K oled screen and that is where the differences in “quality” really stands out and makes it a less than pleasant experience (imo). It makes me wonder what type of screens/ resolutions the devs use when creating maps and such. Was/ is the goal/focus to be acceptable to use on a 1080p screen or VR? In other parts of dcs, things like line quality and text of the HUD’s are very degraded, ironically,  when using 4K or even 2k, widescreens etc. But on a small 1080p monitor the lines/ text are thin and crisp, while on higher res they are very blurry thick lines unless you modify the lua files for them for each aircraft. 
Maybe thats where the divide in community opinion is on why some feel its very high quality and looks great and to others, like myself, it feels far from that. 
Of course it’s EA and I know work will continue. I fully accept the pros and cons of buying EA. But do hope  the devs will really make an effort to work out the graphical “issues” that are quite obvious in high resolutions. 

 I know Kola uses the same new terrain tech as Afghanistan and you can spot the same kind if High/low res divides, but Kola has lots if trees and things that hide a lot of the  jarring transition. Afghan being largely void of vegetation ( at least in the DCS version currently) really makes the difference in the terrain mesh and hand crafted areas look quite bad.. again personal opinion. 
I know nothing about terrain generation but hopefully there will be a way to at least blend the high detail areas and the terrain a little better so it doesn’t seem like stickers plastered all over google maps zoomed in.

High hopes for this as I am loving the geography of this map, even in this “flatter” southwest section. Looking forward to the real rugged mountainous terrain later down the road.

Edited July 14, 2024 by MadKreator

[Blackhawk163]

8 hours ago, Nightstalker said:

It appears the right hand and the left hand…..

If you go to the Afghanistan map FAQ thread in the very first post.  Go down the page to just above How much will it cost, you will see the paragraph:

DCS: Southwest Afghanistan will receive some updates post release but for all intents and purposes be feature complete.  I took a screen shot in case it disappears.  It’s the only reason I pre-ordered.

I did the same, because I wanted to make sure that I had read correctly. Also, those promo videos were sure nice! And yeah, I understand what EA means hence why I'm kinda mum on it, but Zeus be darned if you so much as point out the discrepancies from the official FAQ and then the EA disclaimer. Some posters here get a bit too worked up and white knight the company that gets called out for making dubious/conflicting claims. We get the features that we get because we voice up, and not just sit there and accept it. ED devs aren't our friends (well they aren't mine) they exist to take my money (which they've been taking from me since SU-27 first released back in the day), so I say have at it ladies and Gents. 

 

It's a game at the end of the day. Nothing more nothing less. I'm waiting for some nice CAS COIN missions/campaigns to spring up. It's shame instant mission only has a cold start sight-seeing mission.  

 

Stalker you're going to get got by your "friend" again

[WirtsLegs]

yeah it kinda feels like a medium level texture is missing, we currently down low either get a high res ground texture for cities, towns, farms etc or the super low res muddy sat image

needs a med res to stick wherever high res isn't available for when we are down low

that or some form of texture blending to get rid of the sharp lines

[Gierasimov]

Fun fact - DCS community was dissatisfied with the satellite textures of SA map. The feedback was acknowledged and listened to. Then Kola, Afghanistan and Iraq...

If the area is not hand developed, than it should use ground textures without imprints of buildings and other ground elements. If 3D object is not there then don't paint it on the ground, but I guess that is too much work. 

 

Edited October 21, 2024 by Gierasimov

[MAXsenna]

Fun fact - DCS community was dissatisfied with the satellite textures of SA map. The feedback was acknowledged and listened to. Then Kola, Afghanistan and Iraq...
If the area is not hand developed, than it should use ground textures without imprints of buildings and other ground elements. If 3D object is not there then don't paint it on the ground, but I guess that is too much work. 
 

Well, even the Caucasus is littered with missing buildings, roads etc.

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[Gierasimov]

But how can you make a main city like Kandahar and have a poor low res patches in it ?

[NineLine]

On 10/21/2024 at 6:28 AM, Gierasimov said:

But how can you make a main city like Kandahar and have a poor low res patches in it ?

Simple, the map is still in Early Access and these will change, you can read the FAQ as we explain the steps to adding new textures and what EA means for terrains.

These will all improve with time.