Satellite Scenery...Is it possible?

[Bananimal 0]

I've been tinkering a bit with the scenery editor for WOI but wanted to find out if importing satellite scenery into WOI/WOE/WOV is possible? I did a couple of tests with just a few tiles to see what the results would be. Much more immersive of course. Seems that the tiles are used over and over again. Is there a way to get around this? Thanks.

[+Dave 2,321]

Wrench.......can you answer my friends question because I have been wondering that too and you would know. So would Gepard..... and Deuces...

[Fubar512 1,350]

It's been done before. Brain32's GermanyCE (WoE), VietnamSEA (WoV), and soon to be released Korea terrain, are all examples of this. The default Third Wire WoI terrain is also partially constructed from satellite overheads of the region.

[ONETINSOLDIER 2]

i accidently asked this question in the KB, got yelled at,,but I figure its possible,Id like to learn how,

[+Baltika 84]

Bananimal,

 

You are correct in saying that a small number of tiles are used over and over again in TE. It is possible to use Google Earth imagery to create new tiles, essentially what Brain32 has done with his various excellent repaints, but you are still stuck with your core tileset, and transition tiles between each main tile type.

 

I think what you are asking about is true photoreal terrain, whereby the entre satellite scan imagery of, say, a whole country, is imported into the Thirdwire engine. Technically, that is possible - but you would have to make a separate tile for each 2km x 2km area and hand-tile each one into TE. That would take, probably, centuries

 

The complete tileset in Germany_CE terrain consists of 123 different tiles, and that includes a lot of duplicates of "plain" tiles for roads and rivers. For my Iceland terrain WIP, I have 9 main tile types:

 

TypeName001=A Sea

TypeName002=B Grass

TypeName003=C Volcanic

TypeName004=K Cliff

TypeName005=L Lava

TypeName006=M Snow

TypeName007=N Rock

TypeName008=O High Rock

TypeName009=P Glacier

 

I also have a number of inland water tiles (lakes to those at the back of the class )

 

TypeName011=D Thingvallavatn

TypeName012=E Oskjuvatn

TypeName013=F Thorisvatn

TypeName014=G Myvatn

TypeName015=H Hvitarvatn

TypeName016=I Hagongulon

TypeName017=J Blondulon

TypeName018=R Apavatn

 

And then I have special category, which may interest you:

 

TypeName010=Q Photoreal

 

The problem is this:

 

Each main tile type has to intersect with each of the others individually in 3 main ways, 25%, 50% and 75%.

 

Then, TE enables each tile type to intersect in a three-way junction with all of the others, so you have 50% sea with 25% grass and 25% cliff, and so on for every main tile type you create, in every combination Stephen Hawking can think of. You don't have to be a mathematician to realise that the maximum number of possible combinations gets very large, very quickly. Each one has to be hand-blended to tile seamlessly with every other possible combination. It requires a lot of good source material, good imaging programs (I use a comination of PAINT.net AND gimp, both are free and between them cover what photoshop will do) and a lot of time.

 

Now, TE allows you to specify parameters for auto tiling, so depending on your terrain you may never have to create a tile where lava flow meets glacier meets sea, or where city meets snow meets high rock - but with Iceland, pretty much everything mets everything else somewhere.

 

As to that Q catgory - TE allows you to specify that some tiles will not be randomly placed, but you can hand-tile them after your basic terrain is built. I have 4-tile scan of BIRK REYKJAVIK airport (looks great from altitude, but too blurry to make a working runway on the ground - I have a workaround solution, I think) which I can hand place on the map - voila, photoreal airport - from altitude. And provided you blend those tiles in to match the surrounding "standard" tiles.

 

Likewise, I define BIKF KEFLAVIK NAS as a runway in-game, but I have a four-tile scan of Njardhvikur, the neighbouring town, to place next to that runway as a photoreal "insert" to the terrain. Then, you add your city buildings to the .TOD file for those tiles and you are well on the way to making a realistic surrounding for your airfield.

 

Well, that's the plan, anyway. My tileset currently has 155 tiles (cf Germany_CE) and I am not even close to completing all the cominations TE needs to make the terrain tile properly.

 

I admire the elegance of Doghouse's ANW Winter thaw tileset (based on work by Deuces) which has 2 main tile types, and the three fractional combinations between them (25, 50 and 75 per cent) for a total of five tiles for the whole terrain - which is still one of the best looking terrain tilesets out there.

 

So - true photoreal terrain is probably a practical impossibility. But it doesn't stop us trying

Edited October 31, 2008 by Baltika

[+Brain32 265]

Each and every terrain in any flight sim game is using tiles in one way or another, imo SF's uses quite obosolete way that makes significant changes unbelievably hard and irritating task for one person to do. IL2 and LockOn IMO use what is currently the most reasonable way of using tiles for a terrain.

 

Yes I know about FSX and Google Earth possibility but imo that is cr@p, first the amount of textures needed to map even a small country is insane. Second there are practically no two same(weather,time of day, season, etc.) areas on entire planet, other than that there is also the resolution and quality of textures that is in question. Imagine for example starting your flight in beautifull spring enchanted Portugal, only to enter Spain 2mins later that is in late Autmn, as you enter France you have a huge chunk of terrain mapped by satellite pictures taken in 70's-80's that look like hang over went bad from anything other than 30 000m, then as you prepare to land in Germany it's snowy lol

 

Tiles can be made very nicely for SF too, but the amount of time for one single terrain is huge, especially if you are extra concerned with variety, I've figured out that the overall feel of variety is greatly influenced by number of transition tiles, you can make 200 different normal tiles but if you have only 6 basic transition tiles it will still look repetitive...

 

The other reason for repetitiveness is the 4-way seamless demand, that means that EVERY tile has to have all of it's edges exactly the same as other tiles to fit in seamlessly - stay serious and tell me that doesen't F'k up the whole thing ;)

 

Other than all of the above, we could really use more guys on terrains :)

[Bananimal 0]

Well, mainly what I'm looking at is this. The only thing that really bugs me about this sim is the terrain and the lack of speed it conveys when doing NOE flying. It just seems scaled wrong to me. 350kts looks more like 100kts when flying. In playing around with the satellite tiles from Isreal that issue is resolved. Although the resolution is quite poor by today's standards it still looks better than the default. Especially when you get about 3000 ft up in altitude. I would like to import the entire WOI map area with google earth tiles. I can get the tiles and place them one by one if necessary. I think the secret will be to figure out a way to use FS earthtiles to keep the tiles I want organized so that I don't get them mixed up in the transition. That way I can place the correct tiles next to each other for a seamless result.

 

I have downloaded many areas using FSEarthtiles for FSX. The quality is great in some areas. .5 meters per pixel. FSX on my system can keep up with drawing the tiles but barely. For WOI I believe a resolution of what, 4.5 meters per pixel is the max resolution? So in theory using satellite tiles should not place that great of a strain on the WOI engine. No more than the current high-res terrains.

 

Is manually placing tiles hard in the TE? Or, is it a grid system? I apologize for not knowing but I have no clue how to use it just yet and would rather know what I'm walking into before I get started. I can get the tiles quickly. If the theater is 1000km x1000km then that means I will be placing 500,000 tiles if they are 2x2 kilometers each. Ouch! It would be nice if newer versions of this sim would place tiles by LAT and LON coordinates similar to FSX. Then we could run a batch file to place the tiles. Seems like a lot of work to get decent scenery into this game.

 

If we could find a way to increase the size of the tiles to say, 100x100nm then that would make all the difference in being able to do large areas. Then we'd only be looking at 1000 tiles to do a complete area. FSEarthtiles has the ability to scale the area you want to grab. I could grab 100 x 100 chunks quite easily. I know some of the areas would not match color wise but I can mess with that in photoshop to at least make it better. Isreal doesn't have four seasons really so it would be the perfect place to try this out. Especially since WOI is the latest iteration of this sim.

Edited October 31, 2008 by Bananimal

[+Brain32 265]

Dude, if you tile the whole terrain tile by tile all on your own, I will build you an Empire State Building sized monument out of toothpicks ;)

[Fubar512 1,350]

The impression you have of a "lack of speed" when flying at low level is due to density, no amount of tiling will help there, without looking grossly fake. I suggest that you add a good terrain shader and possibly some trees, and you'll see a marked difference.

[FastCargo 412]

I will also tell you the 'lack of speed' you feel is due to the default FOV for the sim. In order to keep the instrument panel readable on modest machines, the FOV requires you to be 'zoomed' in significantly more than real life. Try zooming out to easily encompass the whole canopy bow and then some, plus add a terrain shader and some trees like Fubar mentioned. I think you'll find it feels significantly different.

 

Not that I would know anything about high speed low level flight of course....

 

FastCargo

[+JSF_Aggie 1,291]

Not that I would know anything about high speed low level flight of course....

 

Read it in a book maybe?

[Fubar512 1,350]

Not that I would know anything about high speed low level flight of course....

 

Notice that FC did not say: "Not that I would know anything about inverted high speed low level flight"

 

Read it in a book maybe?

 

Yes, the one they threw at him....

[Bananimal 0]

Yes, I've done all these things mentioned. If you accelerate x2 then the speed seems right but that messes every thing else up too. I know a lot of it has to do with lack of detail in the tiles. Even in FSX, going from the default tiles to .25m per pixel tiles enhances the illusion of flight and speed ten fold. Hopefully TK can come up with a better terrain system next go around. I still enjoy the sim though. Immensly.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

As far as I know, you can make tiles any 2x multiple of 2km. I use 4km tiles (with 4km heightmap) on the experimental Six Million Meter Map.

 

Right now, because PATCH 2008 hits terrain framerates, I'm using 8km tiles (with 4km heightmap) so I can get good frames with my minimum standard of 200km horizon distance.

 

It turns out...framerates seem to be more tuned into tile size than heighmap size. I didn't expect that.

[commander 0]

could you set a tile that is a giant photo of the region, because then there would be no need to tile and you have a photoreal terrain

[Fubar512 1,350]

could you set a tile that is a giant photo of the region, because then there would be no need to tile and you have a photoreal terrain

 

No, it's not that simple, as a large, single terrain bitmap would then be hundreds of megabytes (if not a few gigabytes) in size. It probably would not even load on any machine, and even if it managed to, it would run at a frame rate even slower than that of a Power Point presentation.

[Bananimal 0]

As far as I know, you can make tiles any 2x multiple of 2km. I use 4km tiles (with 4km heightmap) on the experimental Six Million Meter Map.

 

Right now, because PATCH 2008 hits terrain framerates, I'm using 8km tiles (with 4km heightmap) so I can get good frames with my minimum standard of 200km horizon distance.

 

It turns out...framerates seem to be more tuned into tile size than heighmap size. I didn't expect that.

 

Ok so if I understand you correctly then I can have a 64 x 64 km tile right? Even better a 128 x 128 km mile tile? That would be a good thing. For a 1000 km map I would only need what 8 or 9 tiles across by 8 or 9 tiles down. That is doable.

 

More good news. I downloaded some tiles tonight for more testing. I was able to get the scale just about right. FSEarth tiles uses nauticle miles as the standard format. I guess the data is stored on the servers using an imperial grid system. No biggie as a 2 km tile = 1.22 nm. Close enough for flying. So I setup FSEarth to a 1.21 grid and grabbed a couple of tiles. One was an International airport and the other was city tiles. The scale is just about right. Good enough I suppose. Even better, I downloaded them at a resolution of .25 meters per pixel. Super clear stuff at 500ft. Better yet the WOI engine can display hundreds of these tiles that weigh in at 256MB per 2 nm tile without any visible performance hit. I don't know how TK did it but it works. Not only that, there is no lag for the tiles to be drawn on the fly as in FSX. I swear the sim chugs along as if it were running the default tiles. Maybe this is related to the tile/performance thing Lex? What kind of performance hits were you seeing with large tiles? Just curious.

 

Now, the bad news. If I were to grab a 1000 x 1000 km area at 0.25 meters per pixel the download would be 640GB. Run for the hills. Could you host that Dave? :-P

 

Below is a table of resolutions and tile size and what those 2 km tiles would equal in download size for a 1000 km map.

 

0.25mpp = 256MB per tile = 640GB Download (Ultra Clear at 500 ft.)

0.50mpp = 68MB per tile = 170GB Download (Ultra clear at 800 ft.)

1.00mpp = 19mb per tile = 47.5GB Download (Clear at 1200 ft.)

2.00mpp = 5MB per tile = 12.5GB Download (Clear at 2000 ft.

3.00mpp = 2MB per tile = 5GB Download (Clear at 2500ft

4.00mpp = 1MB per tile = 2.5GB Download (Clear at 4000 ft.)

 

These downloads are huge. Maybe I can find an app that will run a batch conversion on the images to significantly reduce their size. I used to use an app call LviewPro years ago for this. Anyone know of a utility that can do this without compromising the image quality? If so, that would be a huge plus.

 

So, Here's what I might be able to do. I can use the 0.25 meters per pixel near airbases provided that the server has high resolution imagery for that area. That would give a nice clear image as you are coming in for approach. Further from the airport I could use 2.00 mpp tiles because you'll more than likely be above 2000 feet. For remote areas I could use 3.0 mpp or 4.0 mpp because you should be above 4000 feet. That's an idea and that would make the download somewhere around 10GB. Break it up in 500MB chunks and that's a 20 part download. If I can batch convert the images then I may be able to cut it down to 1.8GB or so. Maybe even less. Dunno! I'm not sure on the legal aspect though as I'm not planning on selling it. Hunch is that I would probably be told "Absolutely not!"

 

Now, Let me tell you what this does for "sense of speed" discussed here. It's awesome. When I'm flying above these tiles at 350kts it feels like it now. It fixes the otherwise slow speed feeling when coming in for approach or flying low below 4000 feet. Can it be done? Absolutely if I can setup TE to use a 128 x128 grid for tiles. And it can be done pretty quickly. The problem is this. Most servers don't have 1.0mpp or less resolution tiles in 1000 x 1000 km blocks. Google has Isreal at 3.0 mpp. It's pretty lame down low. Looks great at altitude though. So, I'd have to find an area that has Hi-Res tiles in and near the cities and at least 2.0 mpp in remote areas. Anyone have any ideas? I see a new campaign being built by someone! Hehehhehe!

 

I'd also need some volunteers to help add vegetation, buildings, targets etc. as I'm not going to have the time to do it. I don't know how. I can get the tiles and figure out how to convert them and get them in the sim if I can get permission? Any takers?

Edited November 4, 2008 by Bananimal

[+Brain32 265]

I experimeted with higher resolutions, when I did my ANW re-paint. Originally they were made in 2048x2048 which would give just slightly less than 1m per pixel which should be VERY good. However, what I didn't take into account is the quality of the texture itself. In the end it turned out that sizing it down to 1024 did not change the looks of it at all, only sizing it down to 512 showed some extremely mild quality reduction to the point of only a sand grain counter would notice, a worthy notice to mention is that tile size didn't affect my FPS AT ALL even though I had only 1GB system ram/128MB gfx ram at the time. At that point I realized that with current satelite imagery available to "mortals" such things are rarely worth the effort, or in other words, areas of such quality are very rare on GoogleEarth.

 

Now as for the mega tiles, to use 64x64Km tile and to get 1mpp you would need 64000x64000 sized tile, that's 411MB, I can't even imagine how long would the terrain load with several of those. However I must admit that terrain variety could dramatically improve with that. The second problem is the terrain mesh, or in our case HFD, which is not very detailed, how would a tile, which would basically be a 2D image of the area, fit onto the HFD...

 

However don't take my skepticzm as a downer, I'm really interested in your ideas and would like to see how and if you can pull it out

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Wrong sim for ground detail.

 

A 1m resolution might be "okay" for a helicoptor sim or (maybe) 1915 WW1 sim, using far smaller maps, say 100km size.

 

Especially considering near Mach 1 speeds at low level.

[Bananimal 0]

Now as for the mega tiles, to use 64x64Km tile and to get 1mpp you would need 64000x64000 sized tile, that's 411MB, I can't even imagine how long would the terrain load with several of those. However I must admit that terrain variety could dramatically improve with that. The second problem is the terrain mesh, or in our case HFD, which is not very detailed, how would a tile, which would basically be a 2D image of the area, fit onto the HFD...

 

To answer your question I can say that in FSX even using a 50 meter mesh resolution (which is very low) the satellite scenery makes up the difference. It makes the low res mesh look busier than it really is so it's a benefit.

 

The resolution or clarity of the tile is determined by the resolution setting in FS Earthtiles. Once I get the tiles FSearth builds a BMP out of them. Even better I could potentially build one tile per 128 x128 km in FSEarth tiles itself. The 0.25mpp tiles weighed in at a hefty 256MB a piece for a 2km square. The sim loaded hundreds of them too. It took about 3 minutes for the sim to load but after that there were no visible effects. I'm thinking along the lines of 1mpp. That seems to give a good balance of visual quality with low overhead.

 

That should be doable. I'm going to poke around the middle east and see if I can get a large enough area at 1mpp. Maybe Afganistan or something.

 

You have to see this. It looks very good and I personally think that this engine is better than what MS has been using although I think it would benefit the community immensly if TK would spend a little time refining the terrain editor. The clarity is there out to the horizon at 600+ kts and it never goes away as in FSX. With 3d elements added to the ground, proper tree and building placement I think it would be great. I just need to find an area big enough with enough tiles. That, I think is going to be the challenge.

Edited November 4, 2008 by Bananimal

[Bananimal 0]

Ok, have been doing a lot of tinkering with this the last two days. The first issue was finding a suitable area. Sorry to say but anything in the middle east is out of the question. There are no decent areas of 1mpp that I can use. More like 8mpp. that's not going to cut it.

 

I have run into some software limitations. I had planned on downloading 4 16km tiles at a time and pasting them together in photoshop to make a 64 x 64 km tiles before placing it into the sim. That requires a new palette of 38400 x 38400. Photoshop will only do 30000 x 30000. That means the largest area I can download at a time would be 16km. That doubles the work and means I will have to place 900 tiles manually for a 500 x 500km map. Roughly 300 nm square. So, I turned my attention to the Southern California and Nevada areas. I can get a 300 x 300 nm area that encompasses Edwards Air Force base all the way past Nellis, AFB. Red Flag anyone?

 

I also did some experimintation with reducing the file size of the tiles. I can take a 1mpp 256 MB tile and reduce it to 17 MB using software. Still trying to find a better tool as the one I was messing with doesn't do batching. 17MB x 900 tiles = a 15.3GB download. I also experimented with 2mpp tiles and that knocks them down to about 2MB a piece. That would be a much more doable 1.8GB download.

 

Now, I have a question. I followed the tutorial on how to setup a new Terrain area. I am not going to be using any tiles from the GermanyCE terrain though. I will be replacing them with new individual tiles. Can I get rid of all the entries and name the tiles what I want to name them? Like Redflag 1 - 900? I guess I will be building a custom texturelist.ini right?

 

The good news is I can get the tiles. I can reduce the size of the complete download and I know the sim can run the tiles. Especially if they are only 2MB a piece for a 16 km tile. That's not bad at all. I'm not too sure about how to import the DEm data and how to get it lined up correctly. I guess a little experimintation is in order. Would anyone be willing to help sort this? Write the ini file? Or at least get the inin started? I have my work cut out acquiring, touching up and placing the 900 tiles.

[+Dave 2,321]

The bad part about what you are doing Ban, is terrain tearing. When the sim can't handle it, it will tear and from what you want to without having added any ground objects yet, the sim is going to stall and quit working no matter how good a computer a person has. I think what you want to do is WAY past the limits of the sim.

[+Dave 2,321]

In fact a good example is the DS terrain. we have redid the terrain, tiles, added targets galore and the sim is just screaming at us performance wise unless you turn stuff down. People with a low end system IMHO wont be able to run it (your terrain) and people with a high end will get a slide show.

[+Baltika 84]

Bananimal,

 

It is possible to create a new texturelist from scratch in TE, to use only your own custom tiles. It is what I have ended up doing for my Iceland tileset.

 

Instead of opening an existing texturelist, select /Texturelist/New Texturelist from the toolbar. You will be given a dialog box to enter the name of your new texturelist and save it where you want (probably best in your /Tileset folder in your terrain folder).

 

Then, click on /Texturelist/Edit Texture Type list from the toolbar.

 

You will be given another dialog box, "Texture Type List". This is where you create your base tile types, eg Sea, Grass, Field, Mountain.

 

From the Texture Type List dialog, click on "new." You will then see the Texture Type Dialog. Enter the name of the new tile type, check whether it has sea on it or not, and whether you want TE to use it as an autotexture tile type. If you don't check the autotexture box, you can only hand-place that type of tile. If you check it, all the autotexture parameters become available for you to mess with. They are relatively self-explanatory, but how they all interact is, well, less than straightforward. I haven't worked it all out yet. Don't leave altitude gaps or TE will fill the gaps with sea tiles or other random tiles.

 

So, you have created a new texture type. Say, "Grass," and defined the parameters as you want them. Click OK on the Texture Type Dialog Box, and close the texture list dialog.

 

Click on TextureList/Save Texturelist from the toolbar. This will save your work to the location you specified. Do this often - TE has no autosave facility - and make a manual backup of your texturelist file somewhere safe where it can't be overwritten. You will be grateful for this later, when a minor change in one parameter screws up all your autotiling. TE does that a lot. TE has no "undo" button.

 

Then, click on Texture List/ Edit Texture Map List. This is where you load in your new tile .bmps to TE. From Texture Map List Dialog, click on new. You will see the Texture Map Dialog. Use the "Texture Map Name" browse button to browse to your new texturetile.

 

You may hit a technical limitation in TE right here. In order for TE to work with a tile, it has to be sized to 256x256 pixels. This is explained in Gepard's TE tutorials. (I assume you have read them. They are in the KB here at CA. If not, do so and work through creating a terrain as Gepard describes it). The actual in-game tile can be much bigger (512x512, 1024x1024), but TE will only read the mini versions.

 

For each tile, you have to assign it to a Texture Type as defined in the drop-down list in the Texture Map dialog. This reads the tile types you have created in your new texturelist.

 

Certain parameters are not implemented, i.e. road tiles and river tiles. Transition textures are two- or three- way splits in various percentages for where different tile types intersect. Exclusion region does what it says, as does limited random rotation. The "terrain object" box is wherer you define things like trees and buildings (non-targetable) on each tile type.

 

Once you have set up your tile, click OK, exit the Texturelist dialog. Save texturelist from the toolbar.

 

Repeat for all the different tile types you plan on using. Yes, that can take a long time, as in, forget about the day job.

 

I simply d/k if TE will allow you to place tiles in the way you are proposing. But I would suggest you certainly want to create a custom texturelist. let's face it, a repaint of Germany_CE is not what you are going for here.

 

You probably want only one texture type, which is not set for autotiling. The, define each of your big tiles in the texture Map dialog, naming each one however you want to organise them. Then, hand place them in the TE map itself.

 

Good Luck

 

Any questions, fire away.

 

Cheers,

 

Baltika

Edited November 6, 2008 by Baltika

[Bananimal 0]

Well, it appears I've hit a huge stumbling block. The BMP compression utility I found cannot deal with a 1GB file. A 32 km tile at 2mpp weighs in at 1GB. Basically that's about a 20 x 20 square mile tile. I can work with that. For a 500km area that would be equal to 225 tiles to be placed. That would have been doable. Even then the compression wouldn't be enough. If I were to be able to compress a file of that size it would probably result in a compressed file of 290MB per 20 X 20 squire miles or each 32 KM tile. That's 79GB. That would be equivilent to each 2 km tile being at 1.27mb. That's as small as I can get an image. That would be good except that there are so many 2km tiles in a 500 x 500 km grid it would crash. In fact, There are 62,500 2km tiles to be exact. This sim probably wouldn't even load. That sucks. Unless this sim loads only visible tiles. Does anyone know about that? And if it does how many KM are we looking at? If it is a 50K horizon or whatever It just might be doable. Still, the download would be huge. Awesome but huge!

 

 

I guess then that the advantages of FSX are that the tiles are drawn on the fly. The disadvantage here is BMP files. They are huge and there is not much you can do about it. If this sim was setup for JPG or GIF then we'd have something to work with. I could compress those into oblivion. BMPs are too hard to work with when trying to develop an area this big. Oh well, sorry guys.

 

Maybe one day we can hope for a combat sim that can utilize a satellite tile set as does FSX.