Noise in Landscape Textures

[tarn]

I'm creating a landscape with photo textures, and I have noticed that when I compare the original textures with what is displayed in Condor, there is additional noise overlayed on the textures. Please see below:

Original DDS Texture


Textures within Condor (Notice the graininess on the hangar roofs and runway surface)


Is this caused by something I have done, or is this the result of post-processing made by Condor itself. Please note that I have not yet built an airport or any buildings, so what we see in the image is purely the landscape textures.

If this "noise" is added by Condor, I have to say that it does a good job of masking imperfections in the textures. At the same time, I wonder if there could be an option to disable this for photo-real sceneries. Also, I find that the noise reduces the contrast and saturation of the textures.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Tim

[Lenticular]

Check your texture format - it looks like dithering. Are they 24-bit or 32-bit textures? Be sure you're working at maximum color-depth throughout your image processing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither

[tarn]

I have thoroughly checked the DDS textures. The "noise" shown in Condor is not in the textures themselves, it happens while Condor is running. The top picture in my first post shows the actual DDS texture, which I opened in Photoshop.

1) To rule out, whether this is being caused by shadows or shading:
A) I set the weather so that there are no clouds.
B) Time is set to 12:00 noon
C) I also tried setting RealtimeShading=0 in the .ini file.
None of these got rid of the noise.
2) The DDS textures are without alpha, so this is not caused by "water mapping". All textures are dxt1 with no alpha.

[GregHart1965]

Perhaps this is just the rendition of the image by .dds format? Dds look like they are painted by a splatter gun. It is a very compressed format which loses a lot of the colour depth and some definition as a result. I have also noticed in Condor 2 that the dds do not seem to display quite as cleanly as in Condor 1. My bitmaps are clean and crisp but it does not look that way in-game at all. One thing you may try is creating the .dds directly from photoshop using Nvidia plug-in. You can then set the level of sharpening applied to the mipmaps which yields a slightly crisper image (not a huge difference though).

I think maybe the compression through 'Water-Alpha' / Nvdxt.exe is set a bit heavy handed wiping out much of the definition at any kind of distance?? - I'm not sure, I also have no idea how to change that setting - sorry.

The other option is to make some .dds bigger than standard which will obviously carry more detail. 4096x4096 works but you can use even higher resolution if needed. Ive used 8192x8192 .dds files (Condor 2 does not struggle at all) and I am sure that 16384x16384 will also work, although this is getting a bit ridiculously huge for a .dds patch.

That said your scenery doesnt look bad at all, looks fairly typical.

[GregHart1965]

Ok I see in the NVDXT manual that the quality can be set via command prompt input. I dont know what command string 'Water-Alpha' sends to NVDXT but perhaps the quality can be altered there? Judging by the speed at which it flies through the processing I would imagine that the quality setting is at its lowest in the command string currently sent by Water-Alpha. JBR would be able to answer this more clearly.

Anyway If you can figure out how to alter the string with higher quality settings please let us know! In the meantime you can process important .dds (such as at airports) separately using the plug-in tools for Photoshop (available on the NVidia site in legacy software section)

[JBr]

Water Alpha uses the following params: -quality_highest -nmips 12 -dxt3 -Triangle

So, no low quality setting...

[arneh]

I have also noticed in Condor 2 that the dds do not seem to display quite as cleanly as in Condor 1. My bitmaps are clean and crisp but it does not look that way in-game at all.

I think it's Condor which adds this noise to add more detail, for low level flying. It's a common technique to add more detail than the texture provide.

Ive used 8192x8192 .dds files (Condor 2 does not struggle at all) and I am sure that 16384x16384 will also work, although this is getting a bit ridiculously huge for a .dds patch.

Have you got the water effects working with higher resolution tiles? For me it stops working if the dds file is larger than 2048x2048.

[GregHart1965]

@JBr: Aah ok well so much for that theory!! LOL!

There is still seems to be a sight difference in Quality between C1 and C2(?). This may just be the landscape I was working on - maybe the textures were not as good as the last scenery I made? - Checked. Ok I think what I'm seeing is softer edges as result of using .JPeg's as my base material (trying to avoid jagged pixel edges on buildings and use less storage space - which doesnt work as uncompressed JPegs still use 200+ megs a tile).

@Arneh: I dont know about the water texture but surely as long as there is an alpha channel it will work. I have it working fine on 4096x4096 so I would think you may have stripped the alpha channel when you enlarged the .dds(?). Always make sure you check its still there and add back in if necessary. Also make sure to save to DXT3 - NOT DXT1.

[JBr]

Arneh: 2048px tile or patch (ie. 8192px tile)? It works fine for me with 8192px tiles.

[arneh]

Arneh: 2048px tile or patch (ie. 8192px tile)? It works fine for me with 8192px tiles.

Yes, that works for me, but if I try a 16k tile (4096px dds), then water stops working).
I'm using the exact same settings for nvdxt.

[tarn]

I figured out what is going on. Arneh, you are correct, when you said that Condor adds the noise to add "detail".

There is a .bmp image:
C:\Condor2\World\Textures\detail.bmp
which gets overlayed on top of the landscape textures. I believe it is added in the same manner as "multiply" in Photoshop. I replaced this file with a red and white checkerboard, and was able to determine that it is tile-mapped on the landscape textures at a scale of 192m x 192m. The BMP itself is 512 x 512 pixels, so this effectively adds "texture" at a scale of 0.375 m/pixel.

I learned that using this method to add detail is common practice in the FSX world:
https://stevesfsxanalysis.wordpress.com ... aka-grass/

I have a suggestion for the dev team: It would be nice if we could place our own detail.bmp file in the World/Textures folder of our own landscapes. This would allow scenery designers to either create their own custom detail map, or to replace the map with a white map, which would essentially disable the feature.

I think that the added detail map does improve the visual quality of most landscape textures. It would be nice, however, to be able to either make a custom map or disable the feature. The overlay of the detail.bmp map does cause the landscape textures to appear slightly darker and less saturated than the original textures. For this reason, I plan to experiment with making my textures slightly lighter and more saturated to compensate.

Thank you for such an amazing soaring simulator, and I look forward to creating more landscapes!
Tim

By the way, the textures I am making are 4096 pixels per patch, or 16384 per tile, giving a ground resolution of 1.40625 m/pixel.

[JBr]

Yes, that works for me, but if I try a 16k tile (4096px dds), then water stops working).
I'm using the exact same settings for nvdxt.

Maybe a memory issue, 16k tile needs more than 1 GB when loaded into memory. I will have a look at it.

[arneh]

There is a .bmp image:
C:\Condor2\World\Textures\detail.bmp
which gets overlayed on top of the landscape textures. I believe it is added in the same manner as "multiply" in Photoshop. I replaced this file with a red and white checkerboard, and was able to determine that it is tile-mapped on the landscape textures at a scale of 192m x 192m. The BMP itself is 512 x 512 pixels, so this effectively adds "texture" at a scale of 0.375 m/pixel.

Great find!
I too would like to be able to have scenery specific details-files, as well as the files used to add details to asphalt and grass in the airport objects.

[GregHart1965]

Hi Arneh - this screenshot is of a 4096x4096 .dds patch at one of my airfields, so it's definitely possible.

The resolution should make no difference as it is simply a matter of scale. Again the .dds MUST have an alpha channel containing some black for any water to show. Check your file is actually DXT3, check that the alpha information is still there.

I work by opening a .dds texture directly from the scenery textures folder, resampling the image up to 4096, adding a layer with the 16K tile resolution imagery, then saving as DXT3 dds. That way you dont lose the alpha.
PS: Its agood idea to store copies of these larger dds patches in a separate folder so as not to lose them if you re-run water alpha to update imagery.

Shot72.jpg

[Capricorne]

Yes, that works for me, but if I try a 16k tile (4096px dds), then water stops working).
I'm using the exact same settings for nvdxt.

Maybe a memory issue, 16k tile needs more than 1 GB when loaded into memory. I will have a look at it.

If you have downloaded my scenery bigpyrenees2 you can try and see that a 4096x4096 dds patch work also with Water!!
here the one from "Ainsa Lake" : http://www.nakaminow.info/CondorV2/t4204.zip this lake needs 2 patch dds..
I add the alpha channel in Photoshop with NVidia pluging...Have not try the Jiri tool. (sorry)
The dx3 dds is 21,33Mo