Grass textures included with L3DT

[Aaron]

Hi All,

Does anyone use the 'grass1a.jpg', 'grass1b.jpg', etc., textures in their own climates? The only difference between the various grass1x textures was that their colours were re-balanced, but seeing as that can now be done in L3DT's climate editor I have no further need for separate texture files. Hence I was thinking of removing them from the installation package to save some clutter.

Any objections?

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Hypnotron]

Well, I've been using them for splatting textures... they are afterall used in the alphamaps xml file. What else would you do in this case?

[Aaron]

Hi Hypnotron,

Oops, sorry I wasn't clear about this. I intend to replace the 8-or-so different shades of grass1.jpg with maybe 3 (normal, lush, dry), and then re-balance the textures as required for each land type at run-time when the terrain texture is being generated.

What this means for you is that instead of there being as whole bunch of nondescript 'grass1a', 'grass1b', 'grass1c' (etc) entries in the alpha layer list, there will be only three, and they will have more sensible names ('grass1', 'grass1-dry' and 'grass1-lush').

This is in fact how it works in beta3 already, but I've (temporarily) retained the old textures in the installation package just in case someone's climates relied upon them.

Cheers,
Aaron.

[Hypnotron]

ahh, ok. The process from my point of view would be unaffected. Sounds fine to me then.

[hunterkiller]

I'd be ok with changing the color swaps. I never understood why there are several textures whose only difference is coloring. I'd rather see more variety though rather than consolidation because I use splatting, not single-image, so taking away some the rocks will hurt. Anyway I have my own assets, but as I work on the engine with not content people yet, I've just been using default climates.

[Aaron]

Hi HK,

I never understood why there are several textures whose only difference is coloring.

The main reason is convenience. If I want to make a new climate with some sort of lush grass, I find it easier to use a pre-mixed 'lush grass' texture than to start with a generic 'grass' texture and then work out the right combination of {r,g,b} modifiers to make it the right shade of green. Also, it's slightly faster if you use a texture as-is, compared to modifying the colour during texture-map generation.

I'd rather see more variety though rather than consolidation because I use splatting, not single-image, so taking away some the rocks will hurt.

Fear not; I'm not planning on removing any further textures or land types from the default climates. Depending on the availability of suitable textures, I may actually add some more.

Cheers,
Aaron.