Red Hot, perhaps?









Or... some new models with new colors/shading. Below you can see the new contrasted with the old.

Not sure I agree with this. The .3 format seems to be very flexible....but a lot of things need to be considered when modifying the files so that they remain 'consistent'.

From the first picture in the last post, it looks like textures have been replaced with shaded surfaces (I know that hanger well ), but in this day and age, isn't the idea to replace shaded surfaces with textures?

I haven't kept up with this, so I'm probably missing something though.

By strict definition perhaps you are correct and certainly it is not impossible to modify the .3 files, however, the process of maintaining that consistency is slow and tedious, effecting only one file at a time. For a team of individuals working together, no problem, but that is not the case here with TAW.



Actually, each of the pictures in this thread have been a combination of models using textured surfaces and shaded surfaces



I don't know about you, but I suspect one of the main reasons I have spent years working with a program that is now more than a decade old is because I have little desire to keep up with modernity for the sake of simply following the trends. Besides, I'm an optimist not an idealist

Seriously though, I have been working on new building surface textures and have provided one of the pics (below) which is appropriate for our current fall weather here in the midwest. The problems are: 1. simply substituting with 8-bit textures is complicated by the fact that a.) they are difficult to find and b.) not much is to be gained by their substitution IMHO. 2. Using the conversion process you coached Polak through on the terrain to now upgrade the surface textures to a higher color depth is also an option, however, many of the basic 3D objects for buildings in TAW are unusually non-conventional, to re-texture these with upgraded textures using what Polak seemed to suggest was a difficult and time consuming process, would be an investment. The end result would perhaps be like what you should expect to get when you put lipstick on a pig

What we need is new 3d models.

Some good points there, DKD.

I really do need to get back on the case...

Just to let you guys know that I'm paying attention and haven't been ignoring the thread.

DKD, I think your discoveries are fantastic. 3D modelling and reading hex-code just isn't my strong suit. I'll let you guys with the big brains attack this issue head on!

Since the topic of textures is appropriate, I thought I would include a few pictures of the AGP textured TAW sky. Mind you, this project was abandoned but if there is renewed interest...

Use my colors, and you could make some absolutely amazing sunrises and sunsets.

DKD, Interesting stuff.

HomeFries, I might have asked you this before, but do you have any experience with with the scripting language Python?

No Python experience, Mike, but I am a quick study.

Good, I was almost hoping you'd say that because if this is of any interest, you may want to join in.

When I've written any utility to help decipher TAW, or do any general computing task, I've lazily just used my 13 year old version of VB5. This is a computing dead end though, and I'd like to move on to something else.
I've picked Python since I really don't like the bloat of the modern .NET Microsoft stuff and I like the idea of cross platform open source software, and the active Python community is huge. Being able to put Python experience on a CV doesn't hurt either, which is why this has come up right now.

Why am I saying this here?
Well, since I will attempt any new TAW tasks in Python and I haven't a clue what I'm doing (although I've got a big book), it may be some time before anything useful appears. I have seen what Python can do though, and I predict that if I can just get over the initial learning hump, productivity should increase dramatically compared to using VB. The idea is that having something interesting like TAW to work on will accelerate this learning process.

Anyway, I'll try and write something TAW related in Python over the weekend in order to show its potential.....

DKD, apologies for hijacking your thread.