Get it here:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/hvcou66tbndcfoh/Desert_Ground_airfield_textures.7z/fileFrom the included readme file:
I offer here two variations on a desert airfield texture. The aim is to realize better integration into the landscape textures, via a similar hue. And blending is employed so that the airfield elements look more like a part of the ground upon which they sit.
The variation in effect upon installation utilizes my own alpha channel, where the edges are sharply defined, having the taxiways connecting fully to the runways and parking aprons. For a sandy landscape, I feel this is a better integration.
In order to avoid any odd discontinuities where adjacent parts are supposed to smoothly join, I've altered the UV values in the texture mapping, so that a seamless joining is achieved. Otherwise there would be odd lines present at the joins, more apparent at intermediate viewing distance. All these altered meshes are in their own folders, totaling 14, appropriately named (e.g., RunwayEnd, ParkingCorner, etc.). These new mesh alterations are intended for my new textures (again, in effect upon installing), and *may* need to be removed if you should prefer to use the stock alpha channel variations. (See immediately below...)
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Or you can choose to use the other variation having the stock irregular edges in the form of arcing wheel tracks. This one may not blend quite as well. And as just mentioned, the 14 folders containing the meshes *may* have to be disabled/removed, if any odd artifacts such as lines or other discontinuities appear on the runways, taxiways and parking aprons.
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Both sets of textures are 'archived' in their own folder, appropriately named, from which you copy/paste whichever is desired and place in the [Desert] folder.
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In the [Desert] folder is the file base.mat, within which is this line:
ColorScale 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.75
This defines the RGBA (Red, Green, Blue and Alpha) values to apply to the textures. The RGB values are maximal, at 1.0, giving the textures full brightness. If you wanted to darken them a bit, you could set, say, 0.8 0.8 0.8.
The alpha value of 0.75 sets 75% transparency. Now, the textures already have some partial transparency, and these areas will retain some transparency as long as blending is in effect (more below). But if you desired the fullest opacity, for the strongest definition against the underlying landscape tile texture, you could make this 1.0.
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About the blending. This is made possible by
tfBlend 1 //0
I've set it to 1, which enables the underlying landscape to be seen through the partially transparent portions. If you set it back to 0, there would be no see-through parts; only fully opaque and totally invisible.
To control the cut-off threshold between what is seen and what is not, you choose an appropriate value for
AlphaTestVal 0.1 //0.5 //not in effect when tfBlend 1
This parameter is effectively disabled when transparency is enabled via tfBlend 1; it is of concern ONLY when tfBlend 0.
For a great many game textures where blending is NOT enabled (tfBlend 0), this value is commonly 0.5, as it was here originally. This means that any part of the texture having an opacity less than 50% will be made completely invisible; above this opacity it will be made completely opaque. There will always be a very hard edge where opacity goes from 100% to 0%. The higher this value, the more aggressively the partially transparent parts are cut away, making the texture shrink in size.
WxTech
Mar 6, 2022
Author
Topic: Desert Airfield Textures (Read 1878 times)
