Tile Textures - Limits

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 12:23 pm

There's been a number of posts made on the subject of using your own tile textures by various people and there would appear to be some kind of limit to how many unique TerrTex textures can be loaded in one large tile (blue line delimited). Does anyone feel confident to make a definitive statement on this? Is it 9 unique tiles? More or Less?

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 1:08 pm

It is definitely more than 9 since I have 12 on some of my tiles. But can't give you the definite upper limit.

Timcourt1 · Post by **Timcourt1** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 4:20 pm

I have 25 on one of the SVR tiles so it must be more than that too!

wacampbell · Post by **wacampbell** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 5:24 pm

You can have up to 64 images loaded onto the TerrTex pallet. Use the Q-Key select the extra images from the pallet. On my route, I frequently use all 64 images and I have never had any problems. In fact, your route can have more than 64 TerrTex images since when you move more than about 4 km away from an image, its spot in the pallet becomes open and available for a new image.

Wayne
Building the L&PS

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 6:57 am

The Q key was the bit I was missing - I could only get 9 - in an attempt to make route building more automated I have been looking at the possibility of grabbing getmapping.com overhead 500m images and making them into tile textures. My assumption is that each little tile is around 125m square - I'm using 256x256 pixel compressed tile textures.

Here's a little 8/9 tile test I tried last night.

<IMG width="640" height="480" SRC="http://album.atomic-systems.com/showPic ... 36/Romiley Curve.jpg">

The location is the 'Romiley Curve' which linked the now-gone Stockport-Woodley CLC line to the Reddish-Romiley-Marple line at Bredbury.

duckweed · Post by **duckweed** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 7:19 am

Great stuff, looking forward to seeing how you get on, please keep posting the piccies.

Regards,

~Terry~

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 9:15 am

How do these textures look close up? I toyed with this idea months ago but on close inspection I thought the images were too poor resolution for my taste. I suspect only military-quality spy photos will be sharp enough.

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 11:59 am

You're right Martin - I'm only using 256x256 textures and its blocky (the plain green terrain.ace is a 512x512 image) but what it does give me is a perfect placement diagram for laying track, roads and scenery objects.

The intent is try and automate this in VB so that I can request some coords - VB goes to the getmapping site, drags the images out (got this bit going already), scales/chops them to match the 125m squares, makeace's them and then sticks them in the route in the right place.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 1:12 pm

Aha! Penny's dropped - your using them as a sort of pictorial marker file. Neat idea. If you can come up wth a bundled utility to do the job I would be VERY interested in having use of it.

Timcourt1 · Post by **Timcourt1** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 1:50 pm

you can count me in the Queue for that one too!

I did try the overhead images too but like Martin says - Military crisp clear pics would be best (or if you know someone with an aeroplane/helicopter)

I have started making my own grond textures from photo's sonce I foi=ound this a worthwhile excersise with the addition of the pencil tool.

Tim

longbow · Post by **longbow** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 1:52 pm

Interesting idea. Could one use OS 25in/mile maps instead?

JohnKendrick · Post by **JohnKendrick** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 10:20 pm

I think one problem of using the aerial images is that they are on a different map projection to MSTS. However, if allowed for, they may prove useful to texture distant hills (though I'm not sure how copyright would stand on that) but for close up viewpoints the resolution is too low (as is the Flight Sim Scenery based on those maps). They could be useful for placing scenery - more detailed than placing markers.

Yes, and we've paid for those shots to be taken out of taxes (or was it the lottery) but technically we can't use them due to copyright unless I'm mistaken!

John

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 7:10 am

JohnKendrick wrote:I think one problem of using the aerial images is that they are on a different map projection to MSTS. However, if allowed for, they may prove useful to texture distant hills (though I'm not sure how copyright would stand on that) but for close up viewpoints the resolution is too low (as is the Flight Sim Scenery based on those maps). They could be useful for placing scenery - more detailed than placing markers.

Yes, and we've paid for those shots to be taken out of taxes (or was it the lottery) but technically we can't use them due to copyright unless I'm mistaken!

John

Yes they are on a different projection but if you don't care about OS grid accuracy then its OK - a square maps to a square maps to a square!

JohnKendrick · Post by **JohnKendrick** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 6:15 pm

Yes, I guess that's true!!

To do a whole tile (a blue square in RE) wouldn't you need 256 texture files (16x16), unless you're limiting it to areas close to the track?

I thought RE only accepted 64 per tile (but haven't check that).

You'll have to ask them to repeat the project to provide a set of Snow textures!

John

longbow · Post by **longbow** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 1:31 am

Presumably you would only need to lay your texture maps along the line of the route - you would not need to cover every tile.