I'll send you a message over FB when I get the chance. I don't mind helping genuine modders and members of the community out there at all, just don't get much spare time to.
For some reason I can't see any messaging point on your FB page.
If you have a question pop it here if you like and i'll do my best to reply.
Wow, Bill, I didn't expect such a quick reply. Thank you. I, like you, love to map and always try to go the extra mile when it comes to realism and authenticity. I think we share many of the same frustrations with the entire process and limitations as I follow your posts with this rendition of the game as well as older ones.
Like I said, I am working on editing the basegame foliages for the oak, elm, and maple trees to avoid the hideously blinding fall foliage. I have edited the diffuse images for them all as well as their distance textures. When I go ingame, some of the foliages on each of the trees look like my edited versions but many still viually appear as the same oversaturated basegame trees both up close and far away. In my head this has to be something that would need to be adjusted in the tree shader if possible. I guess I don't understand how they can still appear like basegame trees if all the image paths point tiward my edited versions. I just want to mute these hideous things for heaven's sake!
My goal is for all my trees to have a varying shade of pale yellow like the area has in real life. I'd love for them to transition from their summer states to this color and eventually drop their leaves without going through the acid trip that is Giants idea of what trees look like in the fall.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with. If it is easier and we could find a time, I do use Discord a bit.
Thanks again,
Tim
Let me know your Discord name tag and i'll add you as a friend on there.
I can show you my custom tree textures as well as how to alter the treeBranchShader coding to stop GIANTS crazy over the top saturation.
The issue is they have autumn tree leaf colour set to change by nearly full saturation. On in otherwords it takes the autumn colour on the diffuse and moves the saturation to nearly 255 on the RGB scale.
Whoever came up with that at GIANTS is the biggest numpty ever and does not deserve to be paid as a professional dev.
Hey, if you guys find a nice solution for that, I would love to know as well! I agree BB, the full saturation is nuts, and destroys immersion. Especially in pre-summer months, it is excessively vibrant.
On an unrelated note, if anyone knows of a great tutorial on how to create a map from scratch using DEM data based on real life locations, I would love to know what you guys find as the "best" or preferred method. I am trying to really dive in and learn all I can, and would love to learn some tips from the professionals!