Distant terrain display and ground mini textures question

[Zveroboy1]

So I am sort of working on this ground texture pack for CMBS because whenever I look at vids or pics of Ukraine, I keep noticing how the soil is often much darker and sometimes almost black, the famous chernozem or black earth Ukrainian soil that is so fertile. And neither the default textures or the mods I am using reflect this in a satisfactory way for me and wanted to try to come up with something a bit more life like.

Anyway my question is about the mini ground textures and specifically their sizes.

The default ground minis shipped with the game are 64 X 64 pixels.

@Kieme in his texture pack has higher resolution textures, 2048 instead of the default 1024, but uses smaller sized ground minis: 16 or 8 pixels except for grass tiles which are 64 pixels.

@SeinfeldRules seems to be using a mix of various sizes for minis:

mini ground grass: 64 X 64

mini ground grass 1: 16 X 16

mini ground grass 2: 8 X 8

I am guessing this is so there is a smoother transition but I am a bit stumped as to what to use because first it doesn't seem to make a huge difference which size you're using (but maybe I haven't tested this thoroughly enough) and second I am wondering if the game engine even uses multiple mini for a single tile. Any help would be appreciated.

edit: a cheeky ping for @MikeyD and @benpark because they might know something about this.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Zveroboy1

[benpark]

I did try upping these a long while ago, as the distant view is the thing that is the most lacking in the graphics for me. Same result, which was odd as you noted. This does seem where a mod could provide some improvement, but the expected changes don't do it. Somehow. This is one of the weird ones.

The engine must be loading them in based upon the file-name. If it passes that check, then the file gets loaded. It doesn't trigger a crash or graphic oddity in the configurations you listed, which is also odd. There is something else at play.

I think you are good using the default, or slightly higher PPI if it loads. I think I do the big texture, then just re-scale down from that with a resampler that doesn't sharpen or blur too much.

[Zveroboy1]

Okay thanks this was useful.

I need to recheck and test SeinfeldRules' trick again to see if it makes a difference or not. I am curious and wonder how he came up with that trick, maybe he knows something we don't.

I can try 128 pixels minis but I somehow doubt it will work, surely someone else would have figured by now if it did.

 

[rocketman]

Just for info, I did a mod for plowed snow fields and noted that the "minis" are 512*32 pixels in size which surprised me. Maybe because of the pattern. Also noted that there is a wide variety of "mini" sizes for different textures and couldn't figure this out. A solution to get improved distant view is high on my wish list. Alas, maybe we have to wait for CM3 for that to happen.

[Zveroboy1]

11 hours ago, rocketman said:

Also noted that there is a wide variety of "mini" sizes for different textures and couldn't figure this out.

Okay yeah actually I was wrong earlier when I claimed that Battlefront default minis are 64 X 64 pixels. I don't know why I said that; the sizes are all over the place, you're right. It ranges from 2 to 128 pixels. And some terrain tiles, not all, do also have several minis for them. But if there is a logic, I can't see it at all.

[37mm]

This image might help explain what happens if you use larger bitmaps for the mini's...

... the tiles on the left are using a 512x512 bitmap of this square pattern.

As you can see the game loads the entire bitmap & tries to spread it entirely over a large area.

The tiles on the right are using a typical 64x64 bitmap of the same pattern & here, once the pattern is finished with, the game just loads another one & keeps going until the area has been covered.

The reason why @Kieme(ITA) & @SeinfeldRules sometimes go for smaller bitmaps is probably because getting the colour right is the most important aspect of distant terrain.

Creating a large repeating pattern is often detrimental for smooth distant views. Here for example is the transition from HD terrain to a full HD mini bitmap...

Here's how it should look (with 64x64 bitmaps)...

Oh & here's how it looks if you shrink the mini's to 8x8...

 

[Zveroboy1]

@37mm Thanks, I am glad you found the post, I was hoping you were going to chime in eventually and I should definitely have pinged you alongside the other experts in order to get your input with all the work you have done with mod packs and all. I am still trying to wrap my head around the way the whole thing works.  I get the gist of it but I'd be lying if I pretended I 100% fully understand how it works lol. But this was exactly the sort of info I was looking for.

By the way, you mind having a look at the mod in a week or so? There are still a couple of things I am not entirely happy with so it is not ready yet but I could do with a set of fresh eyes, not so much about the mini side of it but just to get your opinion on the overall look.

[37mm]

Fresh sets of eyes are always a good thing & getting an "overall look" right is kinda my thing these days so send away...besides it seems inevitable I will be compiling a 2023 CMBS "All in One" update at some point.

I would also ping @Falaise & @Lucky_Strike as they're far better terrain experts than me.

Indeed @Lucky_Strike recently discovered why the longstanding general opinion by many that CMFI was the prettiest looking CM game wasn't just an objective opinion but an actual fact as CMFI has (by FAR) the most advanced grass rendering of any CM game.

Plus both he & @RockinHarry are apparently working on mud mods.

I suspect a lot of the confusion with minimaps is due to engine changes... originally CMSF, CMA & (I believe) early versions of CMBN used multiple mini bitmaps & they were often only 8x8's. As further games were released the mini bitmap sizes seemed to increase over & the multiple mini bitmaps disappeared.

[Zveroboy1]

Cool, I'll probably have something ready soon. I am not even changing all the textures really. There won't be grass; I tried but couldn't come up with anything better than what is already available and there are some other tiles that are perfectly fine for what I have in mind so there is no point in trying to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah you could be onto something here, that would explain the presence of these extra minis. However I have unpacked cmbs' terrain brz and there are several minis for the same tile in there but perhaps it is just a remnant of a previous title and not even used by the engine who knows.