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Having difficulty creating high resolution textures

PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 3:36 pm
by ALuomala
Hey all. I'm not sure if I am extremely thick, but I am having a devil of a time coming to grips with how to create a high resolution texture. That is to say, I want to be able to have a very high quality terrain texture for output to a game engine.

I think part of my issue is the terminology used within L3DT. Some of the terms are similar to what I am used to, but I think that there are nuances that I am missing (as a native English speaker, I can't use an unfamiliarity with English as an excuse :oops: ). I think I would prefer to see more separation on some terms, such as the term 'Texture map': if this were to be called (or perhaps if I can force myself to think of it as) Terrain Texture map, it would be less confusing, because to me a texture map is what is used on a model or as a tile (i.e individual textures used to create the much larger terrain texture).

Basically, I want to use high resolution textures (well, what I consider high resolution: 4096 x 4096) and have these reflected on my terrain, so that the ground textures are as close to realistic as possible. To be clear, I don't expect to see individual blades of grass or a rock clearly, but I think a decent point of reference would be the resolution that one gets from high resolution satellite imagery: .6m. This would be an appropriate analogy, in my case, as that is what I am striving for: the ability to create textures (i.e the terrain) that I could use as a replacement (in some circumstances) or to help augments real-world satellite imagery (most cases). I would like to be able to use these L3DT created textures to replace areas of real satellite imagery where there are graphical issues, such as building footprints/shadows, vehicles on roads or parking lots, snowcover, etc.

The parameters of the map I am using are a HF of 1024 x 1024 and I wish to end up with a texture map that is 4096 x 4096px. I understand that I can create much larger texture maps (16384 x 16384, for example, and then downscale it to 4096 x 4096), but I am having trouble implementing the values to get anything usable. Part of this is due to the fact that it takes a LONG time to experiment with these large textures. If I use these large textures (16384x16384) and try to output a 32X terrain map, we are talking many hours, and perhaps a day to see the result(s). As a comparison (and it might be comparing apples to oranges), but if I use 1024x1024px terrain textures in the VBS2 game-engine (based on Armed Assault (ArmA)), the terrain textures are created (when compiling the terrain textures) in a matter of minutes.

Perhaps I am approaching this wrong, and would be better suited to using as small of a texture tile as possible. That is, small in size, but highly detailed. This approach is used (or more correctly I guess would be to say, was used) for web pages: take a small 2x2 texture and tile it repeatedly to fill the screen. Maybe I will try creating a small (lets say 256x256, so not tiny, but not 4096x4096) and see how this works. I know that the results (from past experience) aren't awesome when using a 4X TX/HF ratio (using a 1024HF and desiring a 4096X4096px heightfield), but perhaps will have to bite the bullet and try some larger ratios (8X, 16X, 32X) and see the results. Luckily I have more than one computer at my disposal, so a trying out a few different permutations won't tie up one computer.

I think once I get to grips with the large number of parameters involved (size of texture used, TX/HF scaling, desired output, 16x/32x/etc) and how these effect the outcome, I will be better suited to using L3DT more effectively (particularly when it comes to using/creating my own custom textures). I have also come up with a way to more quickly test my experimentation with ratios/sizes: a small test map, only 100m x 100m. Not much point in trying to run the texture generation over such a large area (4096m) when 100m will do (I want to maintain a certain sense of proportion, so any smaller might not cut it, although I will try it out).

I hope I am somewhat clear in my desire: the abilty to create as high of a resolution terrain texture, with the ultimate goal of importing it into a game engine.

Thanks for any insight that you guys can provide.

Allan

Re: Having difficulty creating high resolution textures

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:52 pm
by M1013828
There is no way around waiting ages for results. But ive done plenty so i will try to impart my knowledge

My Arma2 Map is a 4k heightmap, with a 15m cell size (spacing between points on hightmap) do the math 15mX4096= 60+ kilometers wide and long!!! for this i use a 24K texture map!! 60/24=2.5m of ground per pixel of terrain texture This is a sacrifice i make for having a larger map in visitor3, as the largest map ever imported was 27k. With visitor 4 i would gladly aim for 1.25m (48k texture map) The holy grail is considered in arma2 to be 1px per M of ground.
Also note that l3dt is a pig with larger textures, unless you keep the tile size small, my 24k map is cut into 2k tiles for working on. Once a 64bit is released this year i will find it much easier to work with.

if your heightmap is 1024, what is the cell size? Say it is 5m such as the higher end small maps in Arma2 then you only have 5k map. To get a texture map with a good resolution, you will need more than 4096 texture map. which would be a texture grid of 5k/4k 1.2m per pixel. So in theory you will need to double it to 8192X8192 to get 0.6m per terrain texture pixel.
The actual custom textures you assign to "materials" that are then assigned to "climates" do not need to be a massive size, but on a smallish map, that isnt much bigger than the ingame view distance, the tiling effect can be noticeable from the air in choppers etc. Best practice is to use the largest ones you can find, and different materials can have different size textures assigned to them, just in case you find an awesome rock tex, and not a matching one for the snowline above it.

If your going to use l3dt and are deeply concerned about the time required to generate some massive textures, I would recommend maxing out an X58 platfrom PC with 24gig of ram, and the expensive hexcores. You can then run the project from a ram drive, and L3Dt is multi threading freindly for the most part. Personally i have 12gig and a quad core, but if it was my fulltime job thats what id be shooting for.

Re: Having difficulty creating high resolution textures

PostPosted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 7:22 am
by wantafanta01
M1013828 wrote:There is no way around waiting ages for results. But ive done plenty so i will try to impart my knowledge

My Arma2 Map is a 4k heightmap, with a 15m cell size (spacing between points on hightmap) do the math 15mX4096= 60+ kilometers wide and long!!! for this i use a 24K texture map!! 60/24=2.5m of ground per pixel of terrain texture This is a sacrifice i make for having a larger map in visitor3, as the largest map ever imported was 27k. With visitor 4 i would gladly aim for 1.25m (48k texture map) The holy grail is considered in arma2 to be 1px per M of ground.
Also note that l3dt is a pig with larger textures, unless you keep the tile size small, my 24k map is cut into 2k tiles for working on. Once a 64bit is released this year i will find it much easier to work with.

if your heightmap is 1024, what is the cell size? Say it is 5m such as the higher end small maps in Arma2 then you only have 5k map. To get a texture map with a good resolution, you will need more than 4096 texture map. which would be a texture grid of 5k/4k 1.2m per pixel. So in theory you will need to double it to 8192X8192 to get 0.6m per terrain texture pixel.
The actual custom textures you assign to "materials" that are then assigned to "climates" do not need to be a massive size, but on a smallish map, that isnt much bigger than the ingame view distance, the tiling effect can be noticeable from the air in choppers etc. Best practice is to use the largest ones you can find, and different materials can have different size textures assigned to them, just in case you find an awesome rock tex, and not a matching one for the snowline above it.

If your going to use l3dt and are deeply concerned about the time required to generate some massive textures, I would recommend maxing out an X58 platfrom PC with 24gig of ram, and the expensive hexcores. You can then run the project from a ram drive, and L3Dt is multi threading freindly for the most part. Personally i have 12gig and a quad core, but if it was my fulltime job thats what id be shooting for.



i know this probably wont get a response, but im curious what map did you make for arma? id love to see a good example of a map made with L3DT on the Arma engine, and i myself am waiting for my computer to finish rendering a 32k x 32k texture... i assume the 27k limit is gone now seeing as how altis textures were definitely more than 27k...