Road textures

[SelfLoadingRifle]

I was in the Ukraine and the Crimea two years ago.

The graphic artists who are working on CMBS should take note that the roads in The Ukraine are NOT good and the textures should reflect this.

For that authentic Ukrainian look, the main road textures should show crude looking but effective repairs where potholes caused by winter conditions have been fixed.

Most minor road textures should be heavily potholed and should look as if they haven't been re-surfaced since about 1941. In certain cases that is probably not an exaggeration!

I realise that this will not affect gameplay in the slightest.

SLR

[verulam]

Sounds like Hertfordshire roads in the UK!!

[Combatintman]

I don't think CM Herts is a flyer as the next Battlefront project though although by all accounts Hemel Hempstead could do with levelling based on its UK's Ugliest Town rating of 2013.

[Fuser]

If you use textures which reflect potholed, repaired roads, the texture tiling repetition would be so obvious and awful...Since there is a single texture for straight roads CM artists (IMHO) decided to use a very flat, perfect surface which hides those repetitions.

[Trooper117]

Sounds like Hertfordshire roads in the UK!!

Spits coffee on screen!

[Kieme(ITA)]

Fuser is right.

I have been modding roads of all kind for CMSF and CMRT, and I can tell you that it's impossible to add specific details such as holes etc. because the repetition/cloning will be horrible and unbearable when looking at a certain distance. Not to mention the difficulties to match the sides of each tile so that they snap correctly with all the odd shapes/turns.

I managed to make some higher quality textures for roads with masks and layers so that they look rugged and damaged without single specific details, I'll try something like that for CMBS. What could be useful is to have some pictures of real ukraininan flat signals (Painted on roads).

Either way don't expect anything different than the previous CM releases in terms of road textures, they are basic and in low res, and it's a very hard job to make them, especially considering the developers have to model all 2d textures in game.

[Kieme(ITA)]

Some examples of ukrainian roads:

Highway, if BFC keeps the usual highway systems with Tiles here is what it could look like or to be modded as:

Not much different than a highway we have in western eu.

This secondary road sure looks much more rugged:

This could be done without causing too much clone effect.

This:

Sure would be nice, but it's not feasible in game without a horrible clone effect.

[c3k]

^^^

Just use a regular road but add shellholes?

[verulam]

Some examples of ukrainian roads:

Highway, if BFC keeps the usual highway systems with Tiles here is what it could look like or to be modded as:

Not much different than a highway we have in western eu.

This secondary road sure looks much more rugged:

This could be done without causing too much clone effect.

This:

Sure would be nice, but it's not feasible in game without a horrible clone effect.

That's Hemel for sure:)

[Michael Emrys]

Ye gods! And I thought the streets in my neighborhood were lousy!

Michael

[George MC]

Bottom road looks like an average road in the Highlands - or the A9, minus speed cameras!

[Lets_All_Fight]

Bottom road looks like an average road in the Highlands - or the A9, minus speed cameras!

I'd like to see anyone getting up enough speed on that road for the cameras to be a issue!

The bottom two both look like every road in the west end here in Glasgow.

[MikeyD]

I'm prevented from posting screenshots but CMBS has been given a nice modern paved highway - modeled on Google Earth street view picts of Ukrainan highway, decent lined paved roads based on the same with crosswalks, and an old chewed-up paved farm road with frayed edges and potholes at the intersections.

[Kieme(ITA)]

Thanks for sharing MikeyD,

seems we will have the usual then, 2 paved roads, 1 highway, 1 dirt road (seen on screenshots). Maybe the usual gravel road.

Highway was a mess to create in old cm titles, I wonder if the system will be the same with 12+ Tiles or different.

[MikeyD]

The old CMSF how-to-build-highways PDF tutorial up on Repository is still applicable. The art has changed but the road shoulders are still the road shoulders and the centerline is still the centerline. The puzzle pieces still fit together in the same way.

[Mord]

It's too bad BFC won't allow us to number the roads and wall sections to mod in variety (like with Unis and weapons sound fx). Right now we get stuck with one piece only so it has to be a generic as possible. Maybe even go so far as to load modded pieces sequentially which would reassure that duplicates didn't touch. That'd open up some options graphically.

Speaking of which, that's pretty much the only thing stopping us from having unique paint schemes on more than one vehicle of the same kind.

Mord.

[MikeyD]

There is the new specialty [tag] system. If you want a particular looking piece of road (or house or tank or grass) for a particular scenario you can specify that it accept the tag [mordsyelowbrickroad] just for that one scenario. There's one demonstration piece of tagged art embedded in CMFI, if you specify the tag [rubble] in the editor the heavy rock tile will change to blasted brick for placement in cities as rubble.

As for multiple vehicle skins in the same scenario, BFC's been working hard to increase framerate during gameplay, not decrease it. And every little bit counts.

[Mord]

There is the new specialty [tag] system. If you want a particular looking piece of road (or house or tank or grass) for a particular scenario you can specify that it accept the tag [mordsyelowbrickroad] just for that one scenario. There's one demonstration piece of tagged art embedded in CMFI, if you specify the tag [rubble] in the editor the heavy rock tile will change to blasted brick for placement in cities as rubble.

As for multiple vehicle skins in the same scenario, BFC's been working hard to increase framerate during gameplay, not decrease it. And every little bit counts.

Don't get me wrong the tagging system is very cool, and is definitely a step in the right direction, and I can see it's potential in the future, but at the moment all it mostly does is keep us from having to swap stuff out constantly. The problem with that road idea is I'd still only have a single piece of road art being used over and over on the map except that it was tagged to only show up during a particular scenario.

As it stands we can have multiple skins for the same vehicle models, right now. All you do is number the BMPS sequentially. The problem is the game deals them out at random to the point where the turret might have one paint scheme and the hull another. What I have been hoping for, and asking about for the last three years, is how hard is it to have the game program only add hull_1 to turret_1? So, that if I had five panthers with five different paint jobs, they'd all use the BMPs that they are numbered for; hull_2 goes with turret_2 etc.

The argument about frame rates isn't really an argument because we could play right now with 56 different German vehicles, that would all have unique texture sets, plus god knows how many uniform variations + helmets vs 25 different allied vehicles, all with different textures, plus various unis and helmets, on maps covered with 40 completely different textured buildings, if we wanted. The ability to bog your comp into the ground exists as I write this.

Yeah, maybe some guys might abuse it and try to load a battalion's worth of turret numbered, serial numbered, 100 different camo-schemed tanks and half tracks, but I think most of us wouldn't. We'd be happy to be able to have 6 unique Panthers and a couple unique Jagds or what have you in one of our battles.

I am just asking, seeing that we are right there in the game already. It's just a couple steps further 1.) how hard would it be to program sequential BMP use on vehicles or roads/walls for that matter? and 2.) Why not let the user decide what's too much for their hardware to handle? If these doors could be opened we'd be able to step through and take advantage of more modding options and that's always a good thing.

I am hoping someone will finally answer me on this one. I have been bringing it up since CMBN was released.

Mord.

[Mord]

C'mon guys, I've only been asking this question for three years. Can I get some love, here? Or at least a pat on the head and a lollipop?

Shut up, Emrys...

Mord.

[Michael Emrys]

Shut up, Emrys...

Moi? I was just going to ask what flavor of lollipop you prefer, but never mind.

Michael

[umlaut]

Don't get me wrong the tagging system is very cool, and is definitely a step in the right direction, and I can see it's potential in the future, but at the moment all it mostly does is keep us from having to swap stuff out constantly. The problem with that road idea is I'd still only have a single piece of road art being used over and over on the map except that it was tagged to only show up during a particular scenario.

As it stands we can have multiple skins for the same vehicle models, right now. All you do is number the BMPS sequentially. The problem is the game deals them out at random to the point where the turret might have one paint scheme and the hull another. What I have been hoping for, and asking about for the last three years, is how hard is it to have the game program only add hull_1 to turret_1? So, that if I had five panthers with five different paint jobs, they'd all use the BMPs that they are numbered for; hull_2 goes with turret_2 etc.

The argument about frame rates isn't really an argument because we could play right now with 56 different German vehicles, that would all have unique texture sets, plus god knows how many uniform variations + helmets vs 25 different allied vehicles, all with different textures, plus various unis and helmets, on maps covered with 40 completely different textured buildings, if we wanted. The ability to bog your comp into the ground exists as I write this.

Yeah, maybe some guys might abuse it and try to load a battalion's worth of turret numbered, serial numbered, 100 different camo-schemed tanks and half tracks, but I think most of us wouldn't. We'd be happy to be able to have 6 unique Panthers and a couple unique Jagds or what have you in one of our battles.

I am just asking, seeing that we are right there in the game already. It's just a couple steps further 1.) how hard would it be to program sequential BMP use on vehicles or roads/walls for that matter? and 2.) Why not let the user decide what's too much for their hardware to handle? If these doors could be opened we'd be able to step through and take advantage of more modding options and that's always a good thing.

I am hoping someone will finally answer me on this one. I have been bringing it up since CMBN was released.

Mord.

What Mord just said.