I dont have the time to LFS at the moment, so texture editing is also on standby.

Electrik Kar -your work looks nice.

Can anyone provide a mirror for these please? (or if I sort out a temp FTP account, upload to my server?).. filefront is a joke and just sends me into an endless loop the same as megaupload does about expired sessions yada yada yawn

OEM textures are unusable for me and LFS currently sits idle on my HDD but these look pretty good



Regards,

Ian


EDIT: Scrap that request, just found them on the same site as the Aston textures which downloads fine

Ian,

Thanks for pointing that out to me - I've updated the frontpage link. Cheers again to LFS database for hosting.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Ian,

Thanks for pointing that out to me - I've updated the frontpage link. Cheers again to LFS database for hosting.

No probs.. and I like them

Under some conditions they look a _little_ grainy, but my AF is pretty low (I think 4x) due to me trying to balance performance with looks (gfx card issue, not your textures issue) but I checked out blackwood for a bit and they seem to have all but eliminated the fuzzy white texture join lines I and others have reported with the OEM textures.. so IMO, definitely a job well done and appreciate the effort involved as I've given up more than once trying to redo blackwood due to the terrible mapping.. top job



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Markz :

Excellent detail on practically every aspect on Blackwood for 2.0c. The only thing I have found now that bugs me is that the asphalt is so, how would I say it, "sparkly." Example:

[ snip image ]

It kinda like glistens at a distance and is VERY distracting and annoying, plus you can see that as the the texture has a line running across it defying the points where it is fully loaded and sparkly and where it is not fully loaded and kind of bland.

That's an AF / MIP bias issue Mark. Have you tried experimenting with the MipBias slider settings in the LFS 'display' (I think) settings? I get that effect (and worse sometimes) even with the OEM textures if I set the mipbias badly. It might take a little trial and error, but that along with your gfx card's AF setting should help eliminate a lot of it



Regards,

Ian

Sorry, but what is OEM? (Original Equipment Manufacturer?)

Before I released this pack I was worried that people would have these problems. Many of the textures this time around are much sharper than in previous incarnations- mainly due to the zealous over utilization of the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop, which I love (zealously ). With Smart Sharpen, you can get a kind-of pseudo bump-map effect appropriate for many surfaces, especially concretes and metals, but I also used it on grass, gravel... the details on the textures, when you compare them to the old pack- the old pack just looks really blurry. Now you have subtle shadows and highlights for each stone in the road, it looks much better than the old textures. But you also need good AF, and I recommend 16x if your card can handle it because if you use only 8X, or 4X, then the AF won't travel all the way up the road, it will cut off at 20 feet or whatever which will give you that shimmering look. It's pretty hard to cut that out all-together, but a good dosage of AF will help alot. Also as Mark suggests, the MIP bias has an effect there too. I just slide it right to the far right. Seems to work for me!

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Sorry, but what is OEM? (Original Equipment Manufacturer?)

Yup, spot on "Default textures" I guess would have been more relevant in this case.

Quote :

Before I released this pack I was worried that people would have these problems. Many of the textures this time around are much sharper than in previous incarnations- mainly due to the zealous over utilization of the Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop, which I love (zealously ). With Smart Sharpen, you can get a kind-of pseudo bump-map effect appropriate for many surfaces, especially concretes and metals, but I also used it on grass, gravel... the details on the textures, when you compare them to the old pack- the old pack just looks really blurry. Now you have subtle shadows and highlights for each stone in the road, it looks much better than the old textures. But you also need good AF, and I recommend 16x if your card can handle it because if you use only 8X, or 4X, then the AF won't travel all the way up the road, it will cut off at 20 feet or whatever which will give you that shimmering look. It's pretty hard to cut that out all-together, but a good dosage of AF will help alot. Also as Mark suggests, the MIP bias has an effect there too. I just slide it right to the far right. Seems to work for me!

I haven't looked at the 'Smart Sharpen' in Photoshop, but have come across the sparkling effect when using real normal / spec mapping when I was making tracks for rFactor but that was easier to fix just by making the spec map less contrasting and perhaps lowering the bumps in the normal map.

What you've done here I still think is a great job and I can certainly "put up with" (for want of a better phrase) the few spots in which I notice it. Put it this way, LFS has sat on my HDD now for a few weeks not being used as I couldn't tolerate the fuzzy texture join lines in the original textures.. yours have all but cured these meaning I can now play again

I know I also have my mip settings pretty heavily in the negative direction to get a sharper look so maybe I just need to readjust these a bit now for LFS as I no longer have rF installed to worry about

My gfx card (FX5900XT) will only do a max of 8x AF so the shortcomings here are really my problem rather than your textures, but as I say, I only get a grainy effect slightly and only in some areas (normally specific elevation changes etc) so I wouldn't worry about it too much.. I don't see many others reporting an issue any my gfx card is hardly top of the range.. I'd say carry on just as you are as I do like the detail



Regards,

Ian

just saw them south city thumbnails. they look good

BUT, that traffic light man what the hells it supposed to be, there not yellow in england! ours are just black n white!

ummm ... LATEST UPDATE: (27/07/07) ?
This date is 4 months away!

Quote :

ummm ... LATEST UPDATE:

Ay, thanks for that!

Thanks Ian

Bo-Kristiansen has already done something like this- changing over the fictional game ads for their real-life counterparts. They're not high-res but they look very good and help to convey a better sense of realism for SO. Unseen and I have planned to do different ad sets for each track, ie: fictional/real, but like everything, it's work, and may be a while before we get them done.

when we can enjoy this new textures??¿
Any report of the progress?¿? (SO Textures)

Quote from RedG :

Anybody have a link to the current pack thats out?
links dont work

Yes, where can i download "Blackwood 2.0c" and the other new files?....LFS Database is down.....

http://files.filefront.com//;7736106;;/

I've just temporarily uploaded blackwood2.0c to filefront if you want to download it right now. I forgot to log in first so it's detached from all my other files there. For most other stuff, try

http://hosted.filefront.com/EKar

Hopefully, LFS Database will be back up and running shortly...

Quote from Electrik Kar :

http://files.filefront.com//;7736106;;/

I've just temporarily uploaded blackwood2.0c to filefront if you want to download it right now. I forgot to log in first so it's detached from all my other files there. For most other stuff, try

http://hosted.filefront.com/EKar

Hopefully, LFS Database will be back up and running shortly...

Thx!

Thank you Electrik Kar, very much appreciated.

Thank you, TS