OHM Europe Hi-Res Level_0

[OrbitHangar]

Author: grolander

This is a map of Europe hi-res surface tiles pre-release Level 0.

DOWNLOAD

 

[jinglesassy]

I didn't realize that textures could be level 0

 

[MeDiCS]

I didn't realize that textures could be level 0

My thought exactly. Plus, the only difference I could notice was the brightness...

 

[cinder1992]

My thought exactly. Plus, the only difference I could notice was the brightness...

look closely at the Alps. see a difference?

 

[Notebook]

Are we talking Surface Tiles level here?

N.

 

[orb]

I haven't downloaded it yet, but on the screenshot, you can see the difference when you look at contours of the land. For example if you look at Great Britain, or if you compare the detail of coastline of France and Belgium/Netherlands. Anyways I'm downloading it to check it in Orbiter.

I think that level 0 here is the level of surftiles used by some virtual base, that acts as Europe. And per martins, level 0 of surftiles corresponds to level 12 of planet textures, but this also depends on the resolution of used tiles.

 

[Notebook]

Have to download this and have a look, busy with a base in UK. If I can match these level zero tiles, will save a bit of work.

N.

 

[orb]

I've installed this in Orbiter 2010 over Level 11 Earth textures, and made some tests.

All surface tiles used by Europe in this add-on are 128x128 pixels large, and only surface tile level 0 is used for Europe, what gives an effective level 11 of planet textures, so the same as Hi-res Earth L11+14 textures from Orbiter 2010. Furthermore night lights are covered by those surface tiles, and you can notice this on edges of covered region, and when you zoom in and out from the Earth.

I've made some comparison:

{colsp=2}

Click on thumbnails to enlarge​

Level 11 Earth​

|

Level 0 Europe​

| | |

 

[Notebook]

Had an install and play.

This is Orbiter 2010 default wih 4 lvl 0 surface tiles:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/10061008-14-24GL-01.jpg

This is with the lvl 0 tiles removed.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/10061008-21-54GL-01.jpg

With Grolander's Europe installed:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/10061008-37-25GL-01.jpg

As above, with my Google Earth lvl 0 tiles.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/10061008-48-44GL-01.jpg

I think they are NASA Worldwind or LANDSAT derived? I'm sure Grolander will know!

Lot smalller than my GE tiles, 65k versus 257k.

Wide view:
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k207/Notebook_04/10061009-00-47GL-01.jpg

I like it, and will use it, have to come off for development stuff though.

N.

 

[fort]

Some information about tile level here, also, post number 8 (GE, Landsat7 WW, VE, Yahoo):

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=14088

 

[fort]

I made a new search, one more, to compare the sizes of compressed textures, in this moment I have a few time for addons to test and to free space on the hard drive.

These Groland DDS 888-8 are 32 bit, which is unusual i think, and I'm comparing the result (by reconverting) that this would give, visually, with DXT5 (probably the same thing in the circumstance). The DDS 888-8 32 bit seems frequently used, according to this research, in FSX, in parallel to DXT3.

Only difference, but noticeable: 65 kb for DDS 888 and 17 kb for DXT5. I want know if if that change something, as i suppose ( pour la fluidité ), and I'll try.

anemazoso made a ground for Europe in WW Landsat but that only covers the extreme east of the UK.

 

[n122vu]

I see what all of you are saying about the level 0 surf tiles etc. However, I read this as level 0 meaning the release level of the addon. "Pre-release level 0" to me sounds like an "alpha" release level maybe?

Maybe I'm wrong...

 

[krashkart]

I've had this installed for several weeks and haven't created any missions yet that actually take me over Europe. The screenshots in this thread are the first glimpses I've had of it. :rofl:

I'm definitely keeping it and hoping there will be more like it. :thumbup:

 

[orb]

I made a new search, one more, to compare the sizes of compressed textures, in this moment I have a few time for addons to test and to free space on the hard drive.

These Groland DDS 888-8 are 32 bit, which is unusual i think, and I'm comparing the result (by reconverting) that this would give, visually, with DXT5 (probably the same thing in the circumstance). The DDS 888-8 32 bit seems frequently used, according to this research, in FSX, in parallel to DXT3.

Only difference, but noticeable: 65 kb for DDS 888 and 17 kb for DXT5. I want know if if that change something, as i suppose ( pour la fluidité ), and I'll try.

anemazoso made a ground for Europe in WW Landsat but that only covers the extreme east of the UK.

DXT5 compressed image won't look the same as R8G8B8A8. First, because it's 16 BPP, and the second, because DXT5 is a lossy compression algorithm. However, that doesn't mean, they would look different on a screen (but maybe only when zoomed in to pixel level, i.e. near surface). But they also use 132 MB of video memory now, instead of 35 MB they would use, if they were saved with DXT compression, and these textures are a bit blurry when comparing to level 11 Earth, so using DXT5 wouldn't make much information lost from them.

I see what all of you are saying about the level 0 surf tiles etc. However, I read this as level 0 meaning the release level of the addon. "Pre-release level 0" to me sounds like an "alpha" release level maybe?

Maybe I'm wrong...

They are what the add-on title says, a level 0 surface base tiles:

BEGIN_SURFTILELIST
0	-16	75	1

First number is a surface tile level, and only level 0 is present either in Europe.cfg, and in file names, e.g. "Earth_0_E0000_N0054.dds" (first number in file name is a texture level too). However, they correspond to level 11 of planet textures, because all the tiles in the package are 128x128 pixels (standard Orbiter tile would be 256x256).

I don't think someone would name a release revision "a level", in a case where levels are used to indicate the texture resolution (level).


If you use Level 11 Earth, you can notice the same resolution of this Europe, and the default level 11 of Earth (you can see screenshots comparing their resolution a few posts earlier). The only differences are colors / source of textures, lack of night lights, and that those textures can be used as a virtual Level 11 planet textures in Orbiter 2006, where level 11 planet textures can't be used.

 

[fort]

Thank you orb,

I never paid much attention to the DDS 888... for this reason that I had never really heard much talk in Orbiter. However, I retain this statement: "Only When goal maybe zoomed in to pixel level, ie near surface". I'll try on a meshe with an external texture:

MESH
FILE ...
TEX ...

But on the whole I do not really doubt that for this type of construction, stage flooring, and at level 0/128px, the difference is almost invisible. I'm trying to convert something like one or two hundred tile to see.

I think these are Virtual Earth. It fit not well, for my taste and on my screen at least, the colors of Orbiter's basis textures. I'm looking to find a tone in the editor halfway between VE and WW. I do not success ( and i do not want ) to abandon the WW colors.

 

[martins]

On a general note, it would be best if any local surface texture patches that can be represented by up to level-14 planetary textures (which I think is the case here) would be distributed as such, rather than as base surface tiles.

As I've mentioned before, the base surface tiles are a bit of a hack, and I am trying to gradually make them obsolete by supporting higher resolution planetary surfaces. Local high-resolution surface areas represented via the planet texture files have various advantages:

• Load on demand support
• dynamic resolution selection depending on distance and viewing angle
• not linked to a surface base
• support of night lights
• no black seams at water mask edges

To distribute local high-res surface areas, create a texture pack by running pltex with the local high resolution planetary surface patch option.

Include a readme file with your texture patch explaining to users how they can merge the patch into their own planetary texture files, again using pltex, this time with the "merge" option.

Alternatively, you could pack the texture patch into a self-extracting exe file that, upon unpacking, runs a small batch file that does the merging automatically.

 

[Urwumpe]

Did somebody already notice that the add-on is released for Orbiter 2006?

 

[martins]

Ah, didn't spot that. Much ado about nothing?

 

[Urwumpe]

Ah, didn't spot that. Much ado about nothing?

Not sure, didn't release an add-on on OH lately to test if it is possible to release them for Orbiter 2010. But it does not look like it is a real rival to the Level 14 textures, but rather an update for the older version.

 

[n122vu]

Orb - my mistake. Thanks for clarifying.