Manx_CM Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Stunning new set of Summer, Fall and Winter Sky Textures from Tiger!. A "Mod Maker of the Year" Poll was posted on the forum last week - is there really any doubt who should win it!?. ------------------ Manx - COMBAT MISSIONS Resources for Big Time Softwares "COMBAT MISSION" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clubfoot Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Fantastic! Keep on rollin' Tiger. ------------------ Clubfoot. melton1911@aol.com Do it in the desert at www.dfdr.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Thanks Manx, my favorite is night-time clear in the summer. Very spooky. I'm still checking these for errors/problems though they should be ok, if anyone sees something that needs fixin drop me an e-mail. The current CM program forces the sky textures into 8-bit textures (16-bit?) (probably to save on graphics-processing). This is unfortunate as here's what they look like in hi-res 24-bit: Lets hope increased sky textures are made optional in CM2 -Tiger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viceroy Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Tiger, totally breathtaking ..... amazing stuff. Do they put a great strain on the computer/framerates? Are they already available? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lcm1947 Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Damn, they are beauiful. Yeah, Tiger's the man! If only he would quit his job so he could devote all his time to making mods. Oh, well I guess one needs money. Let me go do some downloading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Viceroy, these are the bmps in that I sent to Manx. The CMBO program forces the sky textures into 8-bit textures, regardless of how you make them. So there shouldn't be any problems running them though I did increase the resolution to 144 ppi from 72. What does 8-bit textures mean? Lower resolution/color definition of the texture, i.e. it looks a bit smudged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Originally posted by Tiger: Viceroy, these are the bmps in that I sent to Manx. The CMBO program forces the sky textures into 8-bit textures, regardless of how you make them. So there shouldn't be any problems running them though I did increase the resolution to 144 ppi from 72. What does 8-bit textures mean? Lower resolution/color definition of the texture, i.e. it looks a bit smudged. In the world of Computer graphics 8 bit means a graphic or image can only display 256 colours it as to do with values associated with Red Green and Blue. This means that Tiger's beautiful range of FULL colour images he produced in Bryce 4 (3D) have to be dithered. That range of full colour must be "squished" into only 256 allowable colours in the colour pallet for that image as all sky images in CM must be ONLY 8 bit so we cannot get the FULL tonal range of photorealistic colour which is REALLY required for a nice sunset or sunrise. Oh well. 16 bit clour means an image can display up to 16 thousand colours. 24 bit graphics can display millions of colours (how many millions I can' t recall but just think of it as photorealistic quality) if there is an 8 bit graphic limitiation in a game that will mean that all users of almost any computer system that can handle colour will be able to see all 256 colour. It is usually the lowest common dominator for colour. But 16 bit graphics (at thousands of colours) are very close to photorealism and are not the memory hog that 24 bit graphics could be. -tom w [This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 03-25-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcobbler Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Tiger, these look fantastic! One question: while messing with Kump's skies yesterday I found that even after overlaying bmp's 1400-1414 the sky still showed the old colors. Further checking, I see that bmp's 1430-1444 are also 'sky' bmp's. Only when I recopied 1403(clear night) to 1433(clear night) did the actual look change. I'm running 800x600, maybe that's one of the reasons? Haven't seen this mentioned before... Shoeman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoePrivate Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Originally posted by mrcobbler: Tiger, these look fantastic! One question: while messing with Kump's skies yesterday I found that even after overlaying bmp's 1400-1414 the sky still showed the old colors. Further checking, I see that bmp's 1430-1444 are also 'sky' bmp's. Only when I recopied 1403(clear night) to 1433(clear night) did the actual look change. I'm running 800x600, maybe that's one of the reasons? Haven't seen this mentioned before... Shoeman Yes I noticed also that bmps 1430-1444 weren't modded in the download, is it necessary to for these to be changed as well? When I installed Tiger's sky mod the result was quite blotchy, not seamless like the original, I have a TNT2 Ultra. I wonder if it is because of those bmps 1430-1444, any suggestions? Thanks. Edit: I realize now that bmps 1430-1444 are lower quality, but I am still wondering why Tiger's sky bmps look so 'blocky', are there any settings I can adjust with my graphics card to make the skies look as seamless as the original? Thanks. [This message has been edited by JoePrivate (edited 03-25-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Heinz 25th PzReg Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Take a look at this: Rommels forces advancing under the desert sun. Heinz ------------------ "To subdue your enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War Visit my AAR site: home.online.no/~andhess/cm/ And my Panzer Elite site: 25th-pzrgt.de Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 The blockiness is attributed to the forced 8-bit texture use of the 24-bit textures as aka-tom has explained. There's not much can be done except wait for CM2 and hopefully full 16-bit (at least) sky bmps. I can keep monkeying around with ones that are more blocky to try and smooth them out, but there's always going to be a big resolution hit being forced into 8-bit coloring. I have not moded the smaller sky textures as those are for lower-end machines/video cards I'm guessing. If they need doing it wouldn't be too hard but a little time consuming. I spent almost all day yesterday doing these and went through over 40 sky renders. -Tiger ps~ nice pic Heinz, maybe I should do a couple of "desert" skies [This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 03-25-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clubfoot Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 What a nice pic, Heinz. Tiger, your current sky set would work just dandy with a minor change to the bottom edge lanscape of the sky .bmp's Such a thing would be incredibly fancy! ------------------ Clubfoot. melton1911@aol.com Do it in the desert at www.dfdr.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Something like this, a desert morning (or sunset): your total desert conversion uses summer fall and spring correct, no winter, i.e. snow? [This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 03-25-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clubfoot Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Summer textures only are needed. When a mission is made, the parameters are set to June 44 to get as close as possible (which isn't very) to the correct timeframe. Beautiful work, by the way. ------------------ Clubfoot. melton1911@aol.com Do it in the desert at www.dfdr.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 The pics here look spectacular. I've downloaded the mods from CM.net and want to test them out. Will the fx be the same as here and if so can anyone tell me the combination of settings on QBs or which pre-set missions will produce these fx? I've run several QBs etc and my textures seem all the same as before? Certainly I get nothing like these pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kump Posted March 25, 2001 Share Posted March 25, 2001 Okay, though Tiger has not released that last sunset pic, I couldn't help but put it in the game and experiment with it. Looks very nice. Its got great mood. Check it out... Great work on the skylines Tiger. Really improves things tremendously. [This message has been edited by kump (edited 03-25-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TP_Bomber Posted March 26, 2001 Share Posted March 26, 2001 Viel Danke Heinz! I made that one into Desktop wallpaper. Turned out very nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 26, 2001 Share Posted March 26, 2001 Originally posted by Apache: The pics here look spectacular. I've downloaded the mods from CM.net and want to test them out. Will the fx be the same as here and if so can anyone tell me the combination of settings on QBs or which pre-set missions will produce these fx? I've run several QBs etc and my textures seem all the same as before? Certainly I get nothing like these pics. That's because you never installed them. The initial zip file contains about three separate zips. So unzip the initial file into its own folder first and then unzip the three zips that are within the initial zip. This is what you get when you blindly unzip a mod file into the BMP folder. It is ALWAYS a good idea to unzip each mod into their own folders to take a look at them before you install them. You ask what scenarios use these. ALL of them! (As long as you have the bmps installed. ------------------ For your dream car click here. For a Close Encounter click here. Hey look! I can see my house! And for all you Hamster Lovers out there, check this out! Kitty, this one's for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manx_CM Posted March 26, 2001 Author Share Posted March 26, 2001 Tiger sent the mods in three separate downloads - summer, fall and winter. I have put them into a single .zip file to make it 1). Easier to upload for me 2). Easier to d/l for you Max is right - If it isn't immediately obvious - unzipping the main Tigers_Sky_Pack.zip will only extract the three individual zips. You will need to unzip these three files to your bmp folder to see them in the game. ------------------ Manx - COMBAT MISSIONS Resources for Big Time Softwares "COMBAT MISSION" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted March 26, 2001 Share Posted March 26, 2001 I can't understand this? I downloaded the zip file, extracted the three separate zips and copied them into my bmp file. Regardless of what I do though I still get the crappy plain gray skies on overcast days and pretty much the same for rain etc. Night is just dark blue?? What I can't understand is how can the game display those (default) graphics when they have been overwritten? The game is being accessed from my HDD, not the CD. I have a 16m Voodoo 3 3000, would that have anything to do with it. I am not sure in total how many skies bmps should be in the bmps. There are quite a few, I'm tempted to delete every single sky in there and just install Tiger's. I'm not sure I'd be missing a few though. Any help much appreciated. This is getting frustrating to say the least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soddball Posted March 26, 2001 Share Posted March 26, 2001 Hey! That looks great! Any chance of a Tatooine one? You could have Banthas armed with 75mm guns roaming across the sun-baked lands outside Mos Eisley. ------------------ "Woof!Woof!" That's my other dog impression. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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