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[josem75]

I will open this Topic for put some ideas about how to improve  Outerra looks (even more if posible).
I will talk about colours, lighting, night, etc.

I do that because  i love all of the potential i see in this engine. And because i spend many time doing 3d projects, where how colours looks was almost an obsesion for me. I will show one example (this is all 3d, no any landscape):

[josem75]

So the first i will show is how i would change some colours. I will take the initial image default as example:

This is the first image by default.

 

This is the first image by default.


 


And here is with some modifications.

Basically (in photoshop)  i added some more blue, quit some yellow. Mixing between a simple "variations" tool, and choosing more blue with intensity in two. and also. after some tricks in selective correction for the greens. And also for the blues.  You can see the sky is changed. Its less cyan near the mountains, and also is changed up.

I dont know if all the images outerra use in the engine can be modified like that (i guess technically in photoshop yes, but maybe in outerra there are more complex things on the ground textures).
For the sky would be nice a tool for redefine the colours more accurately (and only the sky colours).     

Also added some contrast.  And other little fixes

[Uriah]

Uummmm.....  no need for Photoshop, you do know about the Environment menu right?!?!

Default settings:



Modified:





Psychedelic:

[Uriah]

For example, this is the kind of dramatic effect you can achieve by modifying the atmospheric settings. You can reproduce them by setting them sliders to the values I have.

Default settings:



Enhanced:





Default:



Enhanced:

[Uriah]

Default:



Enhanced:





Default:



Enhanced:

[josem75]

Uummmm.....  no need for Photoshop, you do know about the Environment menu right?!?!

Outerra has the most impressive atmospheric enviroment. So you are right at certain point.
But the base texture/colour can always be improved too.  I will show an example.

Its true that i can do the trick with the sliders in Menu.
But even if i put all the blue at 100%, and quit almost all red and green, i obtain a non natural grass.  Because of the green from the texture Source itself is not right.



And this is how the sky would look.




The objetive would be get something like that, imposible at the moment with the slides. And without hurt other elements like the sky colour.  Make the most natural source colour/texture posible for adapt in the diferent atmospheric conditions.

A green more natural like that:









 

[josem75]

My objetive would be get acces to the main textures/colours source and try to fix the channels for make more natural grass colours, sand colours, etc.

Must be a lot of images, but all can have the same retouch and put in photoshop all together in batchs.

Many fixes can be made. For get natural colours, more contrast, more complexity, etc. 
I can offer the time for do it in my free time.  Maybe can be tested just in one area.

I know at this point we cant customize that without the core work from Cameny and angry. Maybe someday yes, i dont know.  But giving a try in this can be interesting. 

In my proyects when i have the light ready i need to do a lot of fixes on textures. In this example was  hundreds.  And all can be improved a lot findind the correct natural colours. 
I would love to try that with Outerra.

[Uriah]

You can also modify/replace the textures directly.

The textures are contained in the build directory:
\Anteworld\textures\terrain\ground\

In this folder you'll see all the textures which make up the ground. Files ending in 'n' (e.g. 01n.dds) are normal maps. Don't forget to generate mipmaps, etc... more information about compression is in the Textures board.

You'll need the NVIDIA plugin for Photoshop, and/or I also use The Compressonator 1.50 for textures other than albedo, such as normal maps.

Kelvinr made some great texture mods, but somehow they disappeared and are no longer available. You can also make a complete set of texture mods, and add them to a folder in the texture folder so that you don't have to replace the original ones. This is done by opening world.cfg file in a text editor and change the line texture-mod = "", to the name of the texture mod folder, ( e.g. texture-mod = "summer",. I can't remember exactly how this is done, but there is more information in the Textures board, or else someone else will be able to provide more information.

Regards,
Uriah

[josem75]

You can also modify/replace the textures directly.

The textures are contained in the build directory:
\Anteworld\textures\terrain\ground\

In this folder you'll see all the textures which make up the ground. Files ending in 'n' (e.g. 01n.dds) are normal maps. Don't forget to generate mipmaps, etc... more information about compression is in the Textures board.

You'll need the NVIDIA plugin for Photoshop, and/or I also use The Compressonator 1.50 for textures other than albedo, such as normal maps.

Kelvinr made some great texture mods, but somehow they disappeared and are no longer available. You can also make a complete set of texture mods, and add them to a folder in the texture folder so that you don't have to replace the original ones. This is done by opening world.cfg file in a text editor and change the line texture-mod = "", to the name of the texture mod folder, ( e.g. texture-mod = "summer",. I can't remember exactly how this is done, but there is more information in the Textures board, or else someone else will be able to provide more information.

Regards,
Uriah

Tks Uriah.  I was trying time ago with the textures. But i was only able to change the non-change textures (not depending on the base color).  For example mountains, Beach sand, etc.  I remember i added some white nice beach sand.

But i think the problem with the other textures which change his color with the base color is the source, from Blue Marble.

I have downloaded those Blue Marble images, and i can understand why thos colors look like that in Outerra. 
My guessing is, changing and tewaking some channels in photoshop can do the trick for make outerra colors, grass, etc, look more natural.

Blue Marble has 8 big images i think. So it would be easy to tweek.  But i dont know after which jobs are necesary for the vectorization before can be usable for outerra.
But as i think on it. With this vectorization job made. The images itself could be color fixed, and then, the source colors that the green grass, sand, etc, take as a guide, would make them look more natural. 

[josem75]

This is a cut from one blue marble pic.  This first is with the original colour.



This second is with some fixes, similar i did to the Outerra images. 





Here we can see in the first image. The greens and reds are what we see after in Outerra grass and sand.  Which look a bit not natural. 

[HiFlyer]

In the last few days I have been playing with Outerra color settings for the same reasons mentioned in this thread. I think the land colors in Outerra sometimes don't look natural, and I mentioned it in my "The grass must die!" thread.

In fact I almost opened a new thread a few days ago, but I didn't want to keep beating the same horse, and I trust the developers will eventually do something, though I think what they really need (for a number of reasons) is a good artist and some content creation people.

One of the main problems seems to come from the interaction of Atmospheric scattering and Outerra land textures, and this is seen best from orbit. Go into orbit and look at the Outerra earth at default settings and you will see very bland and washed-out colors.

Remove or lower atmospheric scattering, and the closer you approach zero, the more natural the outerra earth colors appear, even as the "sky" colors then do very nasty things.

I suspect that the land colors urgently need to be modified to take into account the effects of atmospheric scattering on the overall color balance.

When that might happen is an open question. In the meanwhile I have found that raising the sun intensity to about 50% while lowering the atmospheric scattering settings to your liking before playing with the colors can give a generally pleasing natural effect, and you might want to start from there

Compare this Earth and Outerras from orbit.

[KW71]

When you make your tests, just remember to hit Alt+F8 when you switch from locations or change day time, to update the reflection cube map.

[Acetone]

Your texture ideas are really interesting, and your tests results really good.
Some of the colors problems may indeed come from the blue marble data, and I'm wondering if there is a way to access and modify it.

For the atmo settings: the real problem with those is only the fact that they are not dynamic. A setting will work really well at high altitude and look horrible close to the ground. I'm sure one day it will be possible to do presets depending of the altitude, biome or location of the player.

These elements (ground color and atmo settings) will probably never be perceived the same way be every user. At the end, the ability to easily tweak the settings is one of OT strength.

[HiFlyer]

Some of the colors problems may indeed come from the blue marble data, and I'm wondering if there is a way to access and modify it.

The interesting thing is that Proland is also using blue marble, but its grass texture coloration and in fact general coloration is very
different from Outerras (I believe a bit more natural, though maybe not as detailed/varied?)

[M7]

Im pretty sure the color of the grass is run by the biome. Dont know if its possible to edit the biome.