This makes me want to go back to 1.5 instead of 2.0 - a bit off topic here but DRM wise is it possible to have both 1.5 and 2.0 installed on the same machines without the modules DRM going crazy?

Yes.

Thanks to Barthek for the great textures, and Art-J for telling me to come here to find the mod!
Not sure what happened on the other forum, hopefully there is some freedom of speech here

Anyway regarding the building textures, I'd like to point out something (which I also pointed out elsewhere but somehow my post "disappeared"): I am using low-vis settings, and when I installed Starway's texture, I had horrible popping of buildings textures very close to my aircraft.
I modified some parameters in the LUA file, but lost some FPS.
I know that probably a lot of people are using high vis, and maybe they don't have this problem, but for me high vis settings are impossible due to low FPS. The problem is that there is a set of "far" textures, and a set of "near" textures. Starway only changed the near textures, and the colors are very different from the "far" textures, and that's IMO why the popping is so evident.
Barthek please have a look at this point and try to make the "near" and "far" textures match.

I don't think is true.

look at this picture:



This is the "far" texture and it is modified also and has plenty of mips... so minimum popping should be visible. Also modifying the corresponding line in your visibility range .lua file should help.

Effectively you can prohibit the use of the far texture by setting the parameter nearDistance = 5000; a bit further but don't exaggerate.

IMHO the remaining popping looks like a shadow switching problem. The texture is fine. You can test it by using plain color textures to see if they "pop".

Yeah as I said I tried to play with the settings in the visibility file (and put it to 5000 or similar), but this ate up FPS and the "popping" was actually still there, even if in the distance. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with my gfx card settings, I have an Ati, but never had this issue anywhere else.
My MipMap setting is set to standard. Plus, there are people reporting the sam problem in the "coloured roofs mod".

I see from your screenshot that there are indeed different textures sizes there, but I can tell you for sure that in my case, the smaller textures are not being loaded at all, because I can clearly see the default dcs textures before the "popping".


Shadow popping is another problem that I noticed, but it's not too annoying.

Hello fellow simmers,

thank you for such a warm welcome! Sorry for not posting for a while. Below you can see a preview of what I am currently working on. Mind you that this was just a test and does not represent the final effect. There is still a lot of work ahead as far as villages and towns are concerned but I hope you will like their new look in the end.











The trees have been redone completely:







Since it will take me more time than I expected to provide you with an bigger update (including towns and villages), I'll be uploading the current release version today. You can expect the download link this evening.

Best,
Barthek

Excellent work, many thanks for all your efforts!

Those new village textures are just amazing, can't wait to see the final version. Those trees look really realistic, I still can remember my first repaint, the Afghanistan mod, a real shame I counl't get modified trees, as it would have completed the Afghani look. I think the terrain can work as several real world locations with the proper repaint, arid terrain, desertic, Central America...
My idea was to get this:









And got this, both fields and villages need more work.




Dusty fields.





Would have loved better villages textures like the ones you're showing and better trees.

Amazing work Barthek! The last shot looks like a real photo.

Hi Barthek,

Followed you from 'you know where'...

Looking forward to using your mods.

I just make a couple of small comments (just my opinion of course):

-The fields look nice from higher altitude, but from low level I personally don't like textures that have "fake 3d details". I hope you get what I mean.
Your ground mod is great for low flying because there are not so many fake 3d details as in other mods, and I hope you keep that feeling somehow.

- The white roads in the villages look great, but with the shadow to me they look like they are suspended above the ground.


Ok that's it, everything else looks absolutely superb

Thank you for your feedback! Yeah, it's hard to find a compromise between what's looking good at low level and high altitude. I'll still be testing different solutions.

Below you can find some further alterations:

Hey Barthek. I don't know if you remember this discussion we had:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=2234538#post2234538

So... I wanted to remind you (and Starway or any other talented modder like you two) of it and I made this little movie to make a moving picture speak more words (I talked over also so the picture lost the competition )

Hey talking about Starway...these fields on your village textures really look familiar too me

Hello Zaelu,

thank you for the video. Let me surprise you by stating that exactly the same technique has already been used in GTM 6.0. It's not as visible as in your case but believe me - it is present in my mod. You can check it by comparing the summer noise_1.bmp mipmaps (). It helped a lot to minimize the tiling effect of this texture which was visible when flying high.



And by that you mean...

Hello Barthek, nice to hear you already are using this. Indeed is subtle on your texture, I had to really look carefully. I think you can be more "aggressive" with it without problems.

I think your choice to have rocks visible down low is better than bushes. Rocks, roads and land features (hill and ridge lines like those from Kavkaz/B3OP texture) I think go very well with this technique. Maybe in the future 2.5 it will also have some normal maps.

The roads look great now, and also th overall look

I'm just sayin' But hey, I don't care if you take some of Starways textures for your mod. I mean they are open source right? But I guess it would be fair to credit him. I am not an expert but I think it is a lot of work to create these things...Anyways looking good so far.

The thing is I haven't taken a single texture from Starway. All you can see is solely my work. And I have worked on them from a scratch.

whatever you say bro…