AntigOne's Project

[manga rivotra]

Your work is truly incredible: the lavender and sunflowers as well as the grass model are amazingly realistic! 
It's fabulous to see such a level of perfection with such an old game, and I can't wait to see more of your mountain village. 

[Girafe]

These plants looks great  I am really surprised by the result swapping away the modeling phase. Even the redundancy is barely noticeable 

Lavender result is nice, much nicer than anything I attempted regarding this species 

 

[Badsim]

Hi ,


Previously;



But it was a year ago, corn has replaced sunflowers and the wild flora has evoluated;



Cornflower (Cyanus segetum)  has been improved, yarrow (Achillea  filipendula) and fireweed (Epilobium angustifolia) have appeared:







Previously, I was unable to MMP more flora, while I was thinking that my kSC4FloraParametersProperty was a killer… due to the scale, it was outdated; the new one is a killer, I can plop almost indefinitely, at least more would have no sense. I have dropped the 11th rep. from 0.10000 to 0.010000:




… I don’t know if that value is in meter but it doesn’t matter. Another point which irritated me many often, the minimum space to respect before to be able to start a new sequence whithout finishing the active one … that’s now solved too by dropping  the Flora: Cluster max radius value from 1.3 to 0.1 (I don’t know either if that value is in meter but it doesn’t matter more  ) ;



… let’s say that the cursor of the mouse has now to stay perfectly immobile if you want to browse a complete sequence.   These changes are, of course, valid and relevant for that kind of small flora only and it needs such a MMPing precision that you’re forced to go beyond zoom 6. The other dark side is that ctrlX SizeOf 5 zoom level is extremely addictive and that’s hard to come back to regular zoom levels and make do with them. 

Next wild small flora, already in the pipes:




Burdock (Arctium lappa), thistle (Silybum marianum) and hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum).The most difficult (and time consuming) is to extract correctly these plants from their background.

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Thanks Antoine, that said, I think this method is reasonably practicable to small flora only…that’s more complicated that I’ve shown, it is almost impossible to replace a FSH without correcting the UVMapping for XY position, then SC4ModelTweaker to correct the Z axis. The benefit of small flora is that you don’t need to replace the 20 FSHs, those for zoom 6&5 ( they’re the same) then, those for zoom 4, is largely sufficient.

manga rivotra; thanks for your enthusiast comment. Well, I’m doing all these wild flora for the village suroundings, so … it could take some time … a teasing close up for you:



You should be able to see it full sizes (1600x900) by left clicking on it.

C.

[Badsim]

Hi,


Is there something, by this world, more delicate, lithesome and fragile than butterflies ? 



A « Paon-du-jour »  (European Peacock Butterfly/Aglais io) , gathering nectar from dandelion (Taraxacum) flowers …



Zoom 6, for the corn field …





Zoom SizeOf 5 for hogweeds (an invasive, toxic and dangerous plant from Caucasia) and thistles …



Alejocgc13’s Mercedes_Benz truck and Girafe’s car from vol.4, both  resized up 1.2, Girafe’s Berries resized down 0.7 ( and maybe not the first time I resized it down, I can’t remember…)

Zoom SizeOf 10 for the very first dandelions…



Zoom SizeOf 20 for the European Peacock Butterfly…



Next step, zoom SizeOf 30 for SC4 ants ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?



C.

[manga rivotra]

When I see all these plants in "UltraHD mode" (same for re-skins trains), I tell myself that I don't need a 3D game: everything is there and this new way of creating flora could well extend the life of this game further. 
Thank you for that ! 

[mattb325]

Gorgeous! I'm amazed at how much you can achieve without actually having to use a 3d modelling program 

[Girafe]

Butterfly and not guinea fowl  what a betrayal 

It's time to release all these beautiful recreations stacking in your hard drive 

pintade 

[Badsim]

Hi ,


That’s also an occasion for some upgrading…



Vnaoned’s ferns from VIP Rural Pack Vol1 - STEX, 2011:



Vnaoned’s ferns 2020:



… especially dedicated to Antoine: bon appétit ! I resized them down (0.7), which has the benefit to make them U.H.D. and simply reworked hue/saturation/brightness of original FSHs:
 


Air6’s marsh iris (Iris pseudacorus) from VIP Rural Pack Vol1  -  STEX, 2011:



Mine (new FSHs), 2020;







SizeOf 10:



Orange_o_’s Salix pendula… I’m surprised, but it seems that he didn’t upload it. Xannepan released a good one too. Same changes than for Vnaoned’s ferns; resizing down (0.9), and hue/saturation/brightness changes.








SizeOf 10 for caucasian hogweeds, invasive, dangerous, but so impressive...






I have also resized down (0.8) ducks and swans (and all Lilith’s pond props from  BSC BAT Props Lilith Vol2 on the LEX). Years ago I’ve modded 3 MMPs related to her pond props pack, one with the 12 props and two others with ducks and swans isolated. File attached at the end of this post. Of course BAT Props Lilith Vol2 is a dependency. All my MMPs ( I modded tens of personal MMPs to avoid LotEditing…) have a ghost model at the end of their sequences, so if you’re not satisfied with the position/orientation you can correct it without bulldozing everything. You’ll find them in your MMP menu with the following icons:

Ducks



Swans



All pond props





Vnaoned’s herons, Air6’s water lilies and pondweeds (Potamogeton) have been resized down 0.8. In fact, BATers do not respect scale for small items; they work for visible details on the closest classical zoom 5, which is perfectly understandable and justified (why to spend hours to BAT something hardly distinguishable in game?).  But, when like me, you want to zoom further, these scale differences become unbearable. Yeah, that game is a 17 years old machinery not conceived for that level of realism, with underscaled automata and overscaled props and flora (and others defects for buildings’ perspective), but the flexibility and adaptability of this old machinery are astounding; its limits are our creativity.

Color palette in game would be the reference and still, I would be cautious as you will mainly focus on the colors / tone / saturation of the terrain mod which are sometimes not correct. I would advice to always check in game all your export, you could be surprised...

Antoine, reading your post at alejogc13 BAT thread, I decided to test that new flora with 2 other Terrain Mods, Appalachian from Lowkee33;



… it has been for a long time my favorite…

Sudden Valley from Gobias:



...it’s better, but its grass texture is too dark green for my taste, and it reveals irrelevant details on extra zoom levels:



In short, I’m afraid that the color palette I’ve chosen for this new flora will blend perfectly with my own Terrain Mod only:

It's time to release all these beautiful recreations stacking in your hard drive 

pintade 

Instead of dreaming, have you tried Ctrl X «You don’t deserve it » ? ? ? ? 



C.

[Tyberius06]

Hi,

Ferns... One of my favourite plants. I'm living in the UK countryside, we have a bunch of woods/forests here. Today I was driving in one of them (narrow UK single lanes - bi-directional of course... I hate them, but the nature is beautiful) accross to reach an address, and along side of the road there were a bunch of Ferns. I was thinking, it would be cool in SC4 if we had those... Now I'm coming here and realized that we DO have those, I just wasn't aware of them!

Thanks for the reminder. By the way, I don't know what you are doing exactly and if you plan to release any of these or share them as forum attachments, but pretty cool stuff.
Thanks for these teasers! Keep up the good work!
 
- Tyberius

[thundercrack83]

This level of detail is just blowing my mind! Really extraordinary stuff here, my friend. But, everything here is always extraordinary!

Can't wait to see more!

[manga rivotra]

It's impressive how the unity of color between PROP and ground textures plays on the final rendering of the composition. Your version of "marsh iris" is exceptional and I think it could be used with any ground textures, especially since it will often be near plopable water. 
And Thanks for the MMPs with Lilith's PROPs, a welcome addition. 

[mattb325]

Just beautiful  I really love the pond: the edges are just seamless in the landscape. The willow is really beautiful. I hope it will be released soon 

[art128]

I have to agree the grass texture on Gobias' SV doesn't fit with your new creations.  The marsh iris look much better now. I did prefer the color of the previous Salix pendula, but that's just my taste. Spectacular work!

[Badsim]

Hi ,



manga rivotra, I hope you’ll don’t mind that I’ve cut a part of one of your mosaic to focus on Orange_o_’s Populus and post it here, that’s while looking at your fabulous work that I decided, whatever alejogc13 will release, to rework them. Quite a simple hue /saturation/luminosity and size changes.

Orange_o_'s Populus from Gissey, 2012:


   
From Gissey, 2020:





On one hand, the picture is less striking, that’s also due to their resizing, but on the other hand, they’re more realistic and I would have mostly to reduce their spacing along the canal, which is about twice larger than what I had in mind, like on that real picture;



Vnaoned’s brooms, VIP Rural Pack vol1, 2011:



Vnaoned’s brooms, 2020:



Clik left —- » display picture for full size  - 1600x900;






Work in progress; moor and heathers…



That’s a good start, but I’m not satisfied with the result which looks too much like a piling up of spheric heathers instead of real carpets...



…so, I’m going back to work.

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Thanks for your comments. To release a complete VIP Rural Pack Vol1 upgrading would be an immense (and complicated) task, not only the visual aspect needing to be upgraded, but also the Moding; timed props, evergreen version for flora MMPs, kSC4FloraParametersProperty of all examplars of all MMPs and a better .dat files organisation (Girafe’s uploads will be my reference). At least, being a VIP Team member, no need to run after authorizations.

So, I’ll try to upgrade things one by one, progressively. The first item to be released will be Orange_o_’s Populus, via a direct link to my DropBox posted here, so watch this place regularly. For today, I’ve decided to share my Terrain Mod like it is, I planned to test some changes but considering that my To Do list has no end…

Link to download it:
 
VIP Terrain Mod


Of course, you have to remove any other Terrain Mod of your Plugins folder, HD textures mean game set on Hardware rendering. Beach, rocks and water are in the VIP Terrain Mod Optional subfolder where you can replace them with your favorite ones ...

Hope that you’ll give it a go and enjoy it.

C.

[BartonThinks]

Your updates look fantastic! I'll be paying close attention to this space. 

In addition to the Populus update, I love the look of your cornfields. Is there any chance they'll be released in the near future?

On a final note, really interesting to see what you've accomplished working purely with 2D textures. I might need to give this technique a try for myself. I'm always hunting for smaller flora, and it never occurred to me that I might be able to create some on my own without learning how to make the BAT tool work. Really cool stuff.

[Badsim]

Hi,

Back to the pond… I always have had to fight with my dispersion tendency.

Years ago (2011) I’ve explained how I resized down Jeroni’s Transparent Plopable Water Dirty and then, modified related MMPs kSC4FloraParametersProperty(ies) to be able to drag narrow streams as easily than with a paintbrush…





… I noticed that the transparency was also reduced, but staying at classical zoom5, the loss of details was negligible. Today, with the use of extra zoom levels, that’s another affair so I reworked their transparency;



Seems nothing with Photoshop, but a small change here makes a big difference ingame, so I have had to make a lot of tests before to be satisfied. The previous pond to stream transition;



And the new one;



Not easy to spot so let’s switch to zoom SizeOf 5, previous one;



New one;




Now, if you ever wonder what this couple is looking at so attentively, let’s switch to SizeOf 10;



The woman:
- Of which species are these fish? 

Her husband:
- Don’t know… if only NBVC wasn’t retired from the community for years, we could have asked him...

 

They’re not the only ones;






They’re NBVC’s plopable sea fish so, once resized down 0.4, they  make good freshwater fish. Of course, they go well with the suggested transprency, but in reality, the MMP plops them with an elevation (even if I’ve corrected down their Z axis) so they’re out of the water... 
 
I’m still working to upgrade VIP Rural Pack vol1, Air6’s cattails and reeds version 2020;





SizeOf 10, (where you never dare to go  );



Zoom5;

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In addition to the Populus update, I love the look of your cornfields. Is there any chance they'll be released in the near future?

In fact, that corn cluster is a re-FSHing of Air6 one, who made seasonal ones for the VIP Team and which were never released… I’ve shown here years ago their maturity version, going along with Orange_o_’s harvester…



I’ve to check if my summer version is compatible, or if I need to create a new maturity version. Timed props, MMPs and LOTs are made, so … why not.

C.

[Girafe]

fabulous details there Cedric 

I am afraid that this pickiness is turning to obsession

I quite like the color of the corns, few repetitions but I am think it's tweakable 
Where is the soil base texture from? you?

Funny thing as I was looking at finishing the rapeseed and working on some tractors and trailers (plow, plant, roll belt...) to complete a LOT



 

[manga rivotra]

It seems that a new Rural pack is finally in works, with a level of realism that no one could have imagined a few months ago!   
Your new colors for the poplars are certainly the most accurate and adapted to the different ground textures  and they make it possible to make the bird nests more visible (for my MD, I in fact desaturated the FSH of the poplars, then desaturate the whole of the photo).
I love everything I see, but I have a real crush on your new broom: details are such that we believe to see an HD picture! 

[Kitsune]

great work! Glad to get some inspiration for the 600 large tile's + farm region I'm planning . BTW.. love the Ocicat Maxis ... although be warned they are quite the breed to work with ... (I mean .. the breed foundation is Siamese and Abyssinian afterall)

[BartonThinks]

In fact, that corn cluster is a re-FSHing of Air6 one, who made seasonal ones for the VIP Team and which were never released… I’ve shown here years ago their maturity version, going along with Orange_o_’s harvester…



I’ve to check if my summer version is compatible, or if I need to create a new maturity version. Timed props, MMPs and LOTs are made, so … why not.

C.

Oh, that's really bittersweet news for me -- I've been searching for a high-quality seasonal corn set for ages. The SPAM corn props are scaled way out of scale, and while I've modded the RFR maize to be seasonal, it just appears and disappears. It's such a shame that the VIP set of corn props was never released.

That said, I'm glad to see you working on all of this stuff.