Slitherine

Hi,

Just bought FoG2 and I love it so far. I did however feel that the textures for the Mediterranean looked a bit washed out and fuzzy. So I started doing a mod changing the textures (more contrast, saturation and color tweaks) - see the post below if you are insterested:

viewtopic.php?f=492&t=100101

When doing this I was a bit annoyed that the distant mip mapping still was a bit fuzzy and noticed that there is no Anisotropic filtering option in the game so I forced that with the Nvidia control panel to 16x and tried the new "Image sharpening" to 0.8. And i really helps to add crispyness to the distant textures. Try it out yourselves! Some screenshots below:

Original textures - no Aniso forced. Look at the distant textures:


Original textures - Anisotropic filtering forced to x16 and "Image sharpening" at 0.8 Look at the distant textures - like the areas around the villa in the top right corner, distant road sharpness etc. Compare to the image above:


My "Darkmod" (low saturation version below) with forced settings like above. Gets even better as I have squeezed the contrast etc. Look at Hanibals troops and how they blend in much better with the background and look sharper (especially the sling throwers in the first line):


How to set it on an Nvidia card:

- Start the Nvidia Control Panel
- Click the "Manage 3D settings" and then the tab "Program settings".
- You then have to add FOG2 manually by clicking "Add" and then find the "FIELDOFGLORY2.EXE" file.
- After that, set the anisotropic filtering to forced x16 and the "Image Sharpening" to 0.8
- See screenshot below:

Colours look a bit better but it is like you are playing at night. Is it possible to get stronger colours but still in ‘bright’ mode?

The image above is the low saturation version - this is the "Default" Darkmod look. But I agree that it would be nice to get more "1 PM" feeling - it looks like a nice Italian evening now. Guess that involves messing with shaders etc...

Some good work.. keep at it! Thanks.

mazex wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:34 pm (...) the textures for the Mediterranean looked a bit washed out and fuzzy (...)

Many Mediterranean landscapes, such as the Garrigue, look 'washed out' :

(double post)

I think the greens are darker and more vibrant in your pics than in the game.

Even though I am from the dark green Germanic North (Sweden), I have seen my share of the "South European battlefields" depicted in FoG2. I've been to Greece 5 times, Italy 8 times, Spain 5 times, Southern France 7 times, Tunisia, Malta, Marocco etc. I agree that there are parts that are rather "washed out" - especially the greek islands have a rather harsh look.

What I have NOT seen are big forests in a color that we have in game now as the default (the tree color was actually my main "gripe"). The pale grey color of the leaves look like olive trees, but they grow separated in low rows and are not the "default forests". A lot of Italy is rather green, and some parts of Greece as well (like the Ionic islands).

Some private images from the region:

A house we rented in Tuscany in July:


The least green Italy image I could find - on route to Rome a hot day in July. Lots of brown in the hills - but the trees are dark green.


Skiathos - Greece:


Trecking outside Cannes

OK - but I agree with the comments that it does not look "hot enough" and has a late evening feeling. So I put down some work to get more sunlight. Updated the post in the mod section with version 1.3

Comparison below:

Original textures:


Darkmod 1.3:

mazex wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 7:02 am The pale grey color of the leaves look like olive trees, but they grow separated in low rows and are not the "default forests".

The question is : does the game reflects the landscape (or better a schematization of it) as it was 2000-2500 years ago (not as it is now) ?

I think it is the wild-olive (or some oak ?) :



Producers plant olive trees 'separated in low rows' but the Nature does not.

mazex wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 7:02 am the tree color was actually my main "gripe"

I can understand that.
However, the colour of the in-game ground looks good and the landscape's light is very well rendered IMO.
So maybe your problem is more a matter of replacing a certain type of tree with your preferred one (more pines than currently...) ?

My 2 cents. No big deal. Keep on the good work.

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:08 am I can understand that.
However, the colour of the in-game ground looks good and the landscape's light is very well rendered IMO.
So maybe your problem is more a matter of replacing a certain type of tree with your preferred one (more pines than currently...) ?

My 2 cents. No big deal. Keep on the good work.

Well - there is a reason restaurants have menus

I did a version that ONLY changes the trees to green. Only a corner of a texture changed from the original. Download from my post in the modding subforum.

If you download the mod zip-file there are three screenshots in the top folder. Open them in Windows and click left / right that gives a nice comparision between Default / JustTrees / Darkmod as it is the exact same camera postion.

Screenshot:

mazex wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 1:57 pm Screenshot:

I like this one. The stone pine version ?

Here is the chapter of a book about Landscapes. It is in French but there are lots of pics showing that the current Mediterranean landscape is varied : https://books.openedition.org/irdeditions/9794

OK - to have different options I added back a Low Saturation version of Darkmod now that it feels rather final. And I took the trees from that LowSat version to the "Trees only" version that just changes the trees and leaves the rest vanilla. I added all trees now - I did not include the Cedars in the first version and that made all trees too similar in color that does not work well...

And yes - I am going to stop posting new versions as I seem to be the only one that have objections to the standard version, but I'm happy now

The "new" JustTrees - rather like that now


And the Darkmod Low Saturation version. Similar to vanilla as can be seen but more contrast and color variations.

The last one looks really nice. I can almost feel myself sweating under the hot Italian sun here.