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[Bee]

Oh, as a quick comparison; here's the WiP Gasmata texture showing the semi-transparent recon photo with the white removed, and at about 30% opacity.  It's sitting on top of the basic ground texture, with details picked out in other colours underneath it.  The airfield layer is on top of that.  The game automatically lightens a texture by about 20-25% while the bumpH lightens it still more.  That's why this one looks quite dark compared to the screenshot earlier. 



I'm pretty rubbish at photoshop as you can see.  Luckily the game is fairly forgiving. 

[vegetarian]

Bee, this is looking fantastic, congratulations.

[rhinofilms]

Great job.  We will all enjoy the fruits of your labor very much!

[Bee]

Hello again.  Thanks everyone for your patience!

Some more progress below.  Earlier I removed many of the super-wide rivers around New Britain that were little more than creeks in reality.  I did the same on New Ireland, then realized that the Kandara/Weiten rivers on NI were actually very significant.  I couldn't restore the standard Il-2 rivers, as they looked very unrealistic.  Rivers never were this title's strongpoint.  So I started to experiment with something else.

The screens below show a river represented as part of the landscape texture.  Two textures actually, so that the bends in the river do not repeat themselves too often.  The reason I went to so much trouble is that this river is very important for navigating from Green Island to Rabaul and back especially if you've taken some damage on the way.  I have to say I'm very pleased with the result. 

Leave Rabaul and fly east until you hit the New Ireland coast.  Locate the Mouth of the Kandara river and fly along it on a heading of 120 degrees.  Cross the Hans Meyer Range (the bit in the middle) and keep on until you see the Weiten river.  Follow this until you reach the wide bay where it meets the ocean, then fly a precise heading of 090 for another ten minutes to reach Green Island.  It's a very small target and easy to miss.  It will make you sweat.









I also reworked Rapopo airstrip and gave it some much better textures, as well as added more detail to Tobera.  I'll add some shots of them later.  Getting late here...

Cheers!

[SAS~Bombsaway]

Very nice. That river looks great. I love the shore texture.

[Bee]

I took it from satellite photos of the actual river.  Very silty.  Just lucky its so straight

[cyberolas]

Oh my god! Looks great!

[max_thehitman]

Big Applause to you BEE!!  Its looking beautiful. Your pushing this IL2-map to new horizons.
Great details! Keep up the great artwork and the good fun!

[Dauntless1]

 

[Bee]

Glad you like it guys. 

It's a really unusual river in as much as it flows very straight, whereas most tend to meander all over the place.  It looks like the lower half of New Ireland is split by a fault line and the rivers are flowing along that. 

I was a bit surprised that the river texture looks convincing even from low level.  I'll have to see if I can look at incorporating any others.  There is one smallish river alongside Kerevat airstrip in Rabaul west.  It was abandoned in 1944 due to some unknown disease that was rife in the area, but would still look good if I could give it a bit of added authenticity. 

I've also removed the last of the original straight roads and added a lot more of the more accurate curving ones.  Had the good fortune to find a Japanese topographic map of the area as well, and gave Rapopo it's proper elevation. 

Also added this to the area just north of Tobera.  I don't think we'll ever know what it was...

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/airfields/png/tobera/wartime/usa/

[SAS~Tom2]

This is one cool looking river bed there, Bee! 
Your map looks like art from textures to population.
Some real talent in these forums..be it this very map or Bombsaway's creations or Mixx' new one or agracier's Woodlark, Avala's and DaveOD06's maps, and and and..a  lot of tropical art.
This one surely looks like pain of work.
~S~

[c87]

Those river textures look amazing Bee.  I'll follow on with what Tom2 said about the talent here.  I'm blown away by the effort and artwork that's offered here for the enjoyment of the community.  Whether it's these great map textures or 3D improvements like those by PA Jeronimo, these efforts have totally transformed this game.