Blurry Ground Textures

[777captain]

Hey FSDT!

You scnery for JFK is awesome! I love the detailed buildings, detailed...everything    

However I have just one slight problem...When I fly over JFK or I'm at the airport, my runway or grass textures aren't sharp at all they you can see them but they are not sharp AT ALL...(FS9 version)  ..

Could you the show me best settings like take a screenshot of your setting page in  FS ....That would be a great help

By the way, later I will post a screenshot showing you what my textures look like

Regards,
777Captain 

[virtuali]

We said this too many times already in the forum, the parameters that matters the most regarding texture clarity are:

In FS9:

- Global Texture Size - Should be at "Massive"
- Texture filtering - Should be at "Trilinear"
- MipMap Level - Should be higher than 4 (default). 6 or 7 works best, some system (very high res screens) might use 8

On the Video Card control panel:

- Anisotropic filtering - Should be at least 8x. 16x it's better if you card is fast enough

[Thibfly]

Hi 777,

Could you show us a screen of your JKF ground, please, just to see if it's the same problem than for me ??

Thks

[virtuali]

Have a look here, this user has very nice ground textures:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1058.0

This is how the scenery is supposed to look like.

[Thibfly]

Huuuuummmmm yes, sure, it's really great !!!

I tried once again my manipulations... my FS9 is simply completely undressed and virgin...

But I'd like to see 777picture of his jfk to compare with mine..

[kinm]

Few shots of Alitalia (Posky 777) after landing from Rome.........







Kin M.
(Klax)

[fsxjuli]

Well done A Beautiful Beast 

[a320driver]

Am having a ground texture issue as well. Textures are very blotchy and in some places the taxiway lines disappear. Followed the guidelines given above but still no good. Have also noticed that during taxi & take off the taxi & runway textures seem to "move" just ahead of me, a line of texture change so to speak. As always thanks in advance for any help.


Regards,
Joe

[a320driver]

Nevermind....seems to have corrected itself.


Joe

[okobjorn]

I changed my settings to the above-mentioned, but the runway-boundaries seem not clearly marked, neither on approach or on the runway itself. Usually there is a clear difference between runway and non-runway, whether it is grass or adjacent taxiways.

Also is it possible to have the runways load first on approach? When 5mi out I have more use for a clear view of the runway than the sight of the terminals.

Thanks!

[Gazer75]

I realize this is an old thread, but I think I managed to get a good picture showing the difference between what is sharp and detailed vs blurry.
The reason for this I suspect is that the concrete texture is a 1024x1024 pixel bitmap covering a small area, and the rest (runways and asphalt) of the bitmaps, while being the same size, are each covering a much lager area of the airport. I would guess that to get the same detail the other bitmaps would have to be ten times as big as they are
It looks great from a distance, but as soon as you get down close it looks blurry.

If you feel its blurry do not use the stutter fix as it will cut the size of those textures i half and make it worse.

[virtuali]

I'm sorry but, this has been explained many times already, and it's just NOT the case.

There's no difference in resolution whatsoever between the taxiway textures and the runway textures. BOTH textures are made with TWO layers, at exactly the same resolution: a lower res photoreal background, and a *detail* texture on top of it, to create the ground material effect.

The lower res photo background is exactly the same for the whole airport.

The ONLY difference between taxiway/runways and tarmac is the detail texture used, concrete or asphalt. The concrete give the IMPRESSION of having an higher res, because the features in the detail textures are more recognizable, there's a clear squared pattern, that creates a good effect.

The detail for the asphalt has the SAME resolution but, being asphalt, is more difficult to give a convincing effect, since the detail of real world asphalt is basically very small "sand-like" grain, and it would be almost impossible to make a convincing effect, without using a pixel shader (think of the sun-reflecting asphalt in modern driving games, that use shaders to the full extent). If we would work on FSX only, we might have used a shader but, in FS9 this is not possible.

So, because the asphalt as a much subtle "grain", it give the impression to be of a lower res, when it's not.

This image clearly show this effect:



As you can see, there's no difference in resolution. The asphalt grain is as fine as the concrete one, and it can't be otherwise, since the 2 different detail textures used have the same res. It's just that it's easier to create a convincing effect with concrete than with asphalt. As I've said, without using a shader, which we might have, should we develop for FSX only.

[virtuali]

Want more proof of the fact that it's only how the texture is done, and not the resolution ?

Here's a replacement detail texture for the asphalt:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/download/JFK_det_01.bmp

Right click on the link and save it in the FS9\fsdreamteam\JFK\texture folder, replacing the one with the same name that is already there.

Resolution it's just the same (1024x1024) as the texture that came with the scenery but, a rework of the ground features and some alpha adjustment to make it stand out better, made a lot of difference...amazing how easy is to fool the eye, isn't it ?

[Gazer75]

I did not say the resolution was any different.

The key thing here is that the concrete texture bitmap only cover 4 concrete squares iirc, and is used in a repeat pattern at a much smaller area thus being sharp and clear. The area covered by one of the other bitmaps is huge compared to that, and thus it looks blurry up close.

If you cover 10x10 meter area with a 1024x1024 pixel bitmap, and then cover 100x100 meter with the same size bitmap the latter will look more blurred up close.

The detail bitmap have nothing to do with this. I did notice a difference, but the underlying bitmap used for most of the airport still look blurred up close.
You could remove the detail bitmaps and the concrete texture would still look sharp compared to the rest.

Only way to make it appear less blurry would be to double the number of bitmaps with a 1024 size and thus make each of them cover less area.
This would obviously kill any graphics card today as the memory requirements would be huge. Maybe those with 1Gb could handle it, but I think it would be stuttering a lot

The pictures below show two things...First, concrete bitmap coverage with cessna on ground. Second is background coverage of texture 11 with my cessna off the ground a bit and just a tiny spot on the picture.
Its quite obvious that the area covered by the Txx files will cause them to look blurry up close compared to the small area covered by the concrete because both have same resolution yet cover a very different amount of ground.

Edit: spelling errors

[virtuali]

I'm sorry, but that's not the case, and you are confusing two very different things:

1) A difference between asphalt and concrete textures, which the thread was about, and it's also what has been shown on your screenshot.

2) The fact that not ALL photoreal background scenery is covered by the detail texture.

In the first screenshot you posted as an example, to show an area of sharp and blurred textures together, we see an area where concrete meets asphalt and, I repeat and confirm, there's NO DIFFERENCE in anything, resolution or coverage, between the two. The ONLY difference is which detail texture has been used on the top layer.

Your coverage example is not fitting because, it assumes that the scenery was made with single textures covering different area sizes.

But, the scenery IS NOT made like that! The concrete you see in your 2nd set of screenshots is made using two layers: the "color" part, the one that gives the subtle grey/yellowish basic tone, is coming from the BACKGROUND photoreal texture, and it's the same texture that you have posted in the other screenshot, to prove the point of the different area/pixel ratio, as to explain the blurrines...

Instead, on TOP of that "blurred" texture, there's a detail texture, which only includes the visible features, like the pavement joints/cracks, overlayed on top of the lower res one.

The asphalt texture, that was shown in your 1st screen as being supposedly blurred, is made in exactly the same way, using the same method, just the colors are different: the basic dark grey comes from the background photoreal, and the small grains come from the detail texture. If you look very closely in YOUR screenshot, the grains ARE visible, even in the part that is supposed to be "blurred"

The issue is just that: that detail texture was probably too subtle, the grain was too fine and the alpha was too thin so, as soon as you raise a little bit over the ground, it just gets lost and it's not possible to see the detail anymore, so you are left with the much lower photoreal background only.

So, as I've said, the whole difference lies in detail textures, and it could be easily proved, by using the replacement texture I've posted, that is more visible and doesn't disappear so soon.

THEN, we have fact N.2, which is: detail textures are not used everywere, but only on areas were you are supposed to be with the airplane. Basically: every paved surface. Grass, for example, is made just with the photoreal background. But, nobody complained about grass, and your screenshot shows two paved surfaces anyway so, we were discussing about issue N.1