Let's localize the building textures

    Hi all,

    while doing some work for Venice and Paris I decided to give localization a try. The www offers a bunch of facade images from Paris, so I added them to the library.

    All images have a size of 1024x1024 pixels. I had to learn, that we need a facade of about 6 levels for our templates. The number of levels shown at the walls depends of the floor number in the cultivation TOC. Also I should add some basement as you can see, that some doors nearly vanish in the ground. But the rest is really a lot of fun. So give it a try as well! :)

    This is my current library:


    Hi Rodeo,

    Good testing. For Paris, I'd assume a flat roof with adequate mansarde texture would provide better results than gable.

    With some "localization", cultivation based on isolated rectangular buildings will give very good results for country sides and villages, up to small towns.

    It will also be very powerful for large parts of US cities with a square structure.

    But experience on European city centers is pretty much disappointing because you cannot replicate the intricate building shapes and road networks. Procedural 3D is the best solution so far. Even Orbx is gently coming to it...

    BTW, editor France VFR sent the complete city of Paris intra-muros in 3D collada blocks to IPACS for testing more than 1 year ago, why don't you give it a try ? Ask Torsten for the files.

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

    Hi Antoine,

    I think you misinterpreted my topic. I will not cultivate a megacity like Paris with the current available tools.

    But I want to stimulate users to create their own textures instead using the default library all over the world.

    It's clear that the aerofly cultivation with simple blocks and a single roof shape is dissatisfying for complex city structures. Nearly scale models from a 3D software will always be superior to 'autogen' objects. But that's another story ... ;)

    Just a little clarification please:

    1 / where should we place the folder containing the custom textures ?

    for example: "my_buildings_texture", in the same folder as the .tsc file?

    2 / How should it be declared in the box [building_textures_folder] of .tsc file

    for example: [building_textures_folder] [./ my_buildings_texture /]?

    thanks for your help

    Hi,

    I named it building_textures and included them into the related airport folders.
    I did not specify them in the TSC file.

    I'm pretty sure there are other possibilities as well, especially when you will use the textures for more than a single airport area.

    But I did not yet test it....

    Thank you for your answer Rodeo!

    I confirm that you can combine several texture buildings folder for the same airport I just experienced it ;) and it works fine :)

    In fact, you just have to place your building's textures in a specific folder in the "Scenery" folder of the Addons.

    for example:

    copy your files in AFS2 Addon folder : "Scenery \ building_textures \ Martinique\my_textures"

    and create the link in the .tsc file as well:

    Code
                <[tmsimulator_scenery_cultivation][element][79]
                <[string8][filename][res_specific_buildings]>
                <[string8][building_textures_folder][building_textures/Martinique/my_textures/]>
                <[bool][auto_height][true]>
            >

    I haven't really been following posts on buildings and building textures, so forgive me if I'm asking something that has already been answered.

    My question is ..... how do you actually create the TTX files that go in the "building_textures" folder? I assume you start with a BMP or similar, but how do you get from there to TTX? I've done a bit of searching on the forum but haven't found anything so far.

    No problem,

    1. download my template and rename the .txt to .tmc

    2. place the content_converter_config.tmc into the same folder with your textures,

    3. edit the output path to your needs
    (I often use a converter folder for output and move the files then manually into the final folder),

    4. run content_converter_config.tmc.

    This is the only line you may modify:

    PS: You have to install the aerofly SDK package to run the converter program.

    OK thanks Rodeo - I'll have a play with it.

    Quote from Ian C

    OK thanks Rodeo - I'll have a play with it.

    Success - I've managed to get a TTX file from a trial image, I assume that the different TTX files in the default "building_textures" folder ..... 01 02 03 04 etc ..... are just alternatives that are chosen randomly? Can I have fewer options? (I'm only interesting in the residential ones - I'll keep the default commercial TTX files as they are.)

    A couple more questions:

    1. Are "color" and "light" simply names for different textures - or do they have different functions?

    2. Do I need an image of a roof from directly above for the "res_roof" textures (ie with the roof ridge across the middle)?

    Thanks

    Ian

    - You can have less textures.

    - They will be chosen randomly, so a certain house may look different next time you start aerofly

    - _color is the daylight texture, _light is the night texture. aerofly switches automatically dependant from the time.

    - the roof texture is from directly above, the gable line is horizontal in the center

    A full set of textures for a house with gable consists of:

    res_gable_00_color.ttx

    res_gable_00_light.ttx

    res_roof_00_color.ttx

    res_roof_00_light.ttx

    res_wall_00_color.ttx

    res_wall_00_light.ttx

    Many thanks for the info!

    Quote from Ian C

    Many thanks for the info!

    Hi again rodeo

    The images apparently need to be 512x512, 1024x1024 etc. Are they then stretched or cropped to fit the house? I'm trying to figure out how to size the image so as to make the roof tiles look a normal size. The slates/tiles look the right size on large buildings, but on small buildings the roof slates/tiles look far too large. I guess I need an image with smaller roof tiles on it, so I'll keep experimenting.

    Other than that the improvement is enormous. I'm cultivating Cornwall (UK) and, as can be seen from the screenshot below, the overall colour of the buildings (grey, stone and white) is way better now that I've got rid of the red roofs etc. If I could make the slates smaller the roofs would be perfect. (I have the same problem with the stonework texture on the side walls, but the walls are not so visible from the air so it doesn't matter so much.)


    Ian

    Edited 4 times, last by Ian C (February 14, 2019 at 9:59 PM).

    Ian,

    great, I like your new results!

    Do you have the template BMP files of the default building_textures?

    If I remember correctly, I included them into the Airport design package

    This will give you an idea about the roof slates. It is indeed important to find the appropriate size.

    Regarding wall textures: From today's view I recommend to make a kind of basement texture at the lower end of the image.

    Thanks Rodeo - I'll have a look for those template BMP files. I think another problem I have at the moment is that my "gable" doesn't match my "wall". The wall is dark stone - the gable is light stone. How are the TTX files randomised? Does "res_gable_01" always go with "res_wall_01" for example - or could you get "res_gable_01" with "res_wall_02" say? If the latter, then I guess there will inevitably be some mismatches?

    OK - just had a look at your BMPs. You have a lot of tiles on your roof images. I may have to copy my roof image and join together the copies to get that many tiles. Same with the walls - you have a lot of windows in your wall images. I guess I need a lot of windows to be sure of getting at least a couple of windows in a small house?

    Ian

    Edited once, last by Ian C (February 15, 2019 at 12:08 AM).

    Ian,

    gable_01 goes always with wall_01 (if present!!!).

    So if you have a certain wall color, your gable should have the same color.

    Actually the 1024x1024 wall image covers about 5-6 levels of a building. I create that often by copy and paste of a whole level.

    If the cultivation building is smaller, aerofly pastes only a part of the texture onto the building.
    Sometimes the placement of a window at the building's edge is unfortunate, but we have to live with that.

    OK thanks Rodeo - that's been a big help.

    I've attached some samples of what I've done so far. They are for the "Celtic Fringe" - i.e. northern and western parts of the British Isles. They're probably not perfect yet, but they do make the scenery look massively more realistic - even in quite large towns.

    Edited 10 times, last by Ian C (February 17, 2019 at 1:43 PM).