edit:

BetterBlackwood VER1.0
(version 1.2 coming sometime, stay posted)

released...

From the readme:

Better Blackwood ver1.0

This .zip is a small collection of texture replacements for LFS (Blackwood track)

Most of these modified files are authored at twice the resolution of the originals (rather than simply upscaling the original textures).
The hope is that by running these replacement textures, you will experience a noticable increase in graphical quality at the blackwood demo track.

Hope you enjoy!


-Installation-

Simply extract the .dds files over the originals in your LFS/data/dds folder. Remember to backup your .dds folder first if you want your original files back!

pack includes...

High-res version of Evostar/ATL/Castrol/ESL signs (BW_ADS1.dds)
High-res version of Blackwood Startsign & big Evostar Tire! (BW_adback.dss)
High-res version of Blackwood Speed Signs (RALY_Arrows.dds)
More detailed barrier (BW_walls.dds)


also...

2048*2048 evening sky for Blackwood
download at http://rapidshare.de/files/21816000/Sky_sunset4.raw.html (12mb)

or

http://rapidshare.de/files/21819798/...nset4.rar.html
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SD2R31RX (zipped, 4mb)

2048*2048 clear sky for Blackwood
download at http://rapidshare.de/files/218 ... lackwoodclearsky.zip.html (zipped, 2.8mb)

Alternatively, try this one from Don and Kid,
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=8852 (imo Don's semisun7 is a great sky for Blackwood)

NEW High-Res gravel texture

Download at,
http://rapidshare.de/files/22828458/BWgravel.dds.html

NEW High-Res grass texture, tyre barrier

Download at,
http://rapidshare.de/files/22909483/grasshighres.zip.html


Check out comparison screens and download the .zip below Any comments/suggestions/criticisms, (constructive please) most welcome...

Excellent! I just finished doing the same thing for the signs on Westhill. Hopefully I can post them soon.

edit: I actually found that 256x256 was plenty big enough for the signs. I noticed most of the poor look was due to blurry textures and very aliased fonts. I used vectors for my edits which helped a LOT and still gave a good look at the normal 256^2 resolution.

I've never seen Westhill (because i'm a demo racer)

but would love to see your new textures!


Maybe, if the current community higher-res project group(?) - Becky, Devil 007, Don+Kidcodea, (...just off the top of my head) yourself, myself and others- got organised, we could put out our own higher-res texture pack for LFS. This could help satisfy racers until the devs decide it's time to spruce up the game on their terms. This doesn't have to be an exhaustive replacement of textures, just a few good ones here and there to spice up an already great game.

Keep 'em coming

edit:

Quote :

I actually found that 256x256 was plenty big enough for the signs

You're right- I guess whomever downloads these can decide whether to leave the file at 512x512 or resize to the original (256x256) size. I still prefer the larger ones, as on close zooms the smaller version will appear to be slightly jaggy. On the last corner at Blackwood you get this mega-zoom to the 100 sign and it just looks yukko.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Maybe, if the current community higher-res project group(?) - Becky, Devil 007, Don+Kidcodea, (...just off the top of my head) yourself, myself and others- got organised, we could put out our own higher-res texture pack for LFS. This could help satisfy racers until the devs decide it's time to spruce up the game on their terms. This doesn't have to be an exhaustive replacement of textures, just a few good ones here and there to spice up an already great game.

One thing I've noticed is that when you start updating tracks with some high-res textures, you'll find the low-res ones sticking out more, just screaming for a fix... Take Westhill for example... I've updated it with my own high-res road textures, but now the grass looks terrible, and the tirewall when you enter the pits... gawdawful!!! Oh, not to mention the max speed sign... and the pitbuilding textures look horrible now too! Track looks great though...

(I guess I'm saying that once you start updating one texture, you'll have to update them all to at least have the same area covered by each pixel as much as possible)

Hmmmm....

I understand

edit: Having a think while drinking my morning coffee, I'm concluding to myself that you've just gotta be sensible when it comes to replacing textures at this stage. Someone else reminded, LFS isn't even finished yet- there might be a patch tomorrow which updates textures. We don't know what the devs are doing...

On the other hand, it can't hurt to muck around a bit...


<sip>

Maybe I should start learning to drive instead!?

LOL, maybe you should learn to drive, yes...

Personally, I don't mind it one bit if the textures are changed on a daily basis... The thing is... When you have high-quality, high-res images of everything that makes up a track, it's just a matter of copying those images over the original textures (even if the mapping changed) and your textures are good to go.

If the devs create high-res textures for us, then great! We'll just have to see if they look better. Personally, I think some textures need to be replaced completely, because even in high-res they look weird.

There's always a use for high-res texture packs in one game or the other... If we don't need them, then give them to the rFactor community or nKpro community, so they can develop great tracks too. Or better yet... The TrackMania Nations community needs some asphalt textures.

Ahh, TM Nations, my former love...

I didn't know you could mod textures in that game- apart from the signage. It's always looked good to me and I never really thought about it.

IMHO LFS looks really fantastic too... Before I downloaded the demo, I'd heard that LFS was a game made by 3 people, with great physics, and a blast to play online. I was really surprised the first time I first saw LFS.The graphics too were awesome. I thought they were just as good as TOCA 3 (which has a good rep in terms of gfx), but having a more naturalistic look, not going overboard with sunflares or shiny tracks. Crazy damage modelling (not just the cliche approach of doors hanging off, bonnets flying and engines burning- though I admit there's still room for improvement there). TOCA is made on a much bigger budget, bigger art department I presume. It's great what the devs have managed to do with LFS. Maybe the more realistic driving physics helps to convey this sense of realism..?

This is all based on what i've seen of the Blackwood track. As I mentioned, i'm still a demo racer (but will get licence soon). Maybe other tracks are more desperately in need of retexturing. Still looking for a good high res sky for Blackwood though.

Maybe a vote by racers as to what they would like to see upgraded the most?

Or we just keep doing what we're doing...


edit: And nKpro needs better trees!!

lol these are great textures... I'm downloading loads of this sorta thing at the minute I just think it's cool how you guys actually notice that the standard textures can be upgraded... I have to confess to never actually paying much attention!

Know it's a bit OT but does having loads and loads of high-res textures have a big effect of performance/frame rate? I've got quite a few on at the minute and it's no done anything... I guess it's all down to hardware, and I'm not using amazing hardware. Just wondered if it is significant or not :S

Anyways... viva las high-res! Keep up the good work guys!

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I just looked at the thread title and thought "Who is Better, and who are Blackwood?"

LOL... Been drinking?

@Kotan:
Having bigger textures has absolutely 0 impact on performance unless you go overboard with it. The only noticable difference I see is the part when LFS says "Loading textures" upon start... That takes longer (maybe it scans all the textures for caching). And of course if you start using my "soon-to-be-released" high-res textures, you'd need at least a 128MB videocard (because the textures for each track are about 70MB)

Quote :

Know it's a bit OT but does having loads and loads of high-res textures have a big effect of performance/frame rate? I've got quite a few on at the minute and it's no done anything... I guess it's all down to hardware, and I'm not using amazing hardware. Just wondered if it is significant or not :S

There's another thread in the general discussion about LFS section- about the possibility of obtaining higher res textures for LFS, as many people now have the computing 'juice' to warrant the use of these higher textures (if they exist) without sacrificing performance. The official statement is -

Quote :

It MUST be optimised as a racing simulator, not a screen shot generator.

which translates that at this stage performance is more of a concern than pretty graphics for the devs. My philosophy is if you can get away with it, do it. A 256m video card should be able to handle quite a number of higher authored graphics textures before you start to see degredation in performance. The name of this game is experiment- experiment with how much you can get away with. When you find that things are getting a bit too choppy (I haven't hit this boundary yet in my own experiments) take things down a notch. Always back up your original data\dds folder to a safe location. You never know when you'll need it...

The ideal here being a practical balance between graphics/gameplay. It doesn't make sense if you're sim looks like real life, only at 3 fps. Neither does it make sense if you've sacrificed going to the dentist and instead bought that shiny new video card, your game flying by at 300fps but you can't concentrate on that because now your teeth are pushing together like ships in a storm and the game looks like Pole Position for the commodore 64...

Remember that anything you do will likely have a small impact (however negligible) on performance. Increasing texture sizes with wild abandon ultimately adds up. Be careful. There are very few free lunches in game world.


Risk and reward...

edit: although as TagForce says above, LFS seems to be very flexible when it comes to adding stuff if you have a decent enough (128mb-256mb) card

edit2: 3 weeks later... TOTALLY CONFIRMED. LFS will handle almost anything you throw at it.

Thanks for the advice tag! I've got a 256mb video card, 5600 XT I think, but the rest of my system isn't anything to boast about (mind you neither is that card nowadays lol) but yeah hopefully I shouldn't see much difference I havn't yet! Thanks!

New textures available!

See first post

edit: Minor cleaning up, and some colour corrections to latest file, now closer to original colours (just re-download)

Nice one actually iam working on the sami idee

...Boy do I feel stoopid...!

Browsing through the .dss files I came across high res versions of 3 of the 4 ads I spent the afternoon working on!

BW_ADS1.dss has big brothers in the file adds7dirty.dss.

Now I'm wondering why they weren't used- for example the gigantic Castrol sign over the bridge before the finish (a higher res candidate if ever there was one??)

I'll leave the file up- because it still does what it's supposed to do. I'm actually going to copy the original 3 (of 4) ad texture files over to this new file, as I feel they're better quality than my textures, they are after all the originals!!!. I'll leave the ATL ad (4th) texture where it's supposed to be. It will be easier for you guys to just download this modified file (BW_ADS1.dss ...includes the 4 ads) and paste it into your .dss folders over the original. This will save you from cutting and pasting from the other higher res file, plus you also get the 4th ad free!!


It's all good.

DOH!

Quote from Electrik Kar :

...Boy do I feel stoopid...!

Browsing through the .dss files I came across high res versions of 3 of the 4 ads I spent the afternoon working on!

BW_ADS1.dss has big brothers in the file adds7dirty.dss.

Now I'm wondering why they weren't used- for example the gigantic Castrol sign over the bridge before the finish (a higher res candidate if ever there was one??)

I'll leave the file up- because it still does what it's supposed to do. I'm actually going to copy the original 3 (of 4) ad texture files over to this new file, as I feel they're better quality than my textures, they are after all the originals!!!. I'll leave the ATL ad (4th) texture where it's supposed to be. It will be easier for you guys to just download this modified file (BW_ADS1.dss ...includes the 4 ads) and paste it into your .dss folders over the original. This will save you from cutting and pasting from the other higher res file, plus you also get the 4th ad free!!


It's all good.

DOH!

lol... There are some more textures that I have no idea about where they are used... One of them is in the linesALPHA.dss where the pitroad lines are defined... There's 3 boxes in the lower right corner, but what they are for I have no clue (and they're only in the alpha channel, so they're planted over some other texture).

Quote from TagForce :

And of course if you start using my "soon-to-be-released" high-res textures, you'd need at least a 128MB videocard (because the textures for each track are about 70MB)

huh?
Any WIP preview?

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

huh?
Any WIP preview?

Look in the other high-res textures thread for a very early WIP shot of westhill... ("soon to be released" is between parenthesis because I have no clue when they'll be done, but they will be done)

Quote :

There's 3 boxes in the lower right corner, but what they are for I have no clue (and they're only in the alpha channel, so they're planted over some other texture

First thought is that they're skidmark textures. That's also my last thought! lol

edit: Tag, I just checked out WIP westhill. The new textures just look awesome. Love the grass down the sides, like it's just been freshly cut (for the big race of course), and the wind's gently blown it onto the track Also, the grass in the background looks nice too, more variation and a bit dry and Summery... Keep going!!!!

Cue-ball, how are your signs going? No update as of yet... Just wondering is all.............................

I've been really busy the last few nights and haven't had a chance to work on them for a while. I would have just released what I've got done so far, but for some reason the "75" is showing up in the wrong place, so I need to fix that. Once that is fixed I'll release what I've got, even though I don't think it's as good as it could be.

Alrighty then...

New high-res goodness for Blackwood, this time the Blackwood starting sign as well as the big Evostar tire get a new coat of TLC- Feel the LOVE:hippy:

All the modified files are now zipped together for your driving pleasure... Simply extract into your .dds folder!

Take care!

:bounce8:

I think the low res 'Welcome to Blackwood' sign looks better than the hi res - these is less alaising on the text than on the hi res one. The hi res one also looks a bit too photoshopped into the scene, it doesn't quite fit.

The other hi res ones I like though. Keep going, you'll have them all in hi res soon

i dont like the font on the "welcome to" bit

I think unfortunately I got a good photo of the low-res sign, and a poor photo of the high-res sign. The horizontal edges do look a bit aliased in the shot, but trust me, it looks much better in game than the older sign.

I'll work on it a bit anyhow, i'm not entirely satisfied with the results thus far.

edit: Ok, worked on the 'welcome'. Font is matched now with original (had to do with turning on italics). Going to bed now... Will fix other stuff up (eg, tails on the letters) tomorrow...

nighty night

Couldn't help but Taavify the Blackwood start sign somewhat! hehe. Tell me what you think, whether you want me to go back to copying original designs or not. I've an idea to add bits of graffiti here and there (very minor) to some of the other textures, but the aim is to make things look more realistic, not necessarily look older (Taavi is doing a great job there! ). When you're working in a higher res, it's tempting (maybe necessary?) to add in more superfluous detail. For instance, I added some graffiti at the top of the sign: I could imagine some punk walking along the top, stealthily penning in his signiture. I gave the Blackwood sign a heavy dose of wear and tear because I think it looks good that way, but i dunno...

edit: Will tone down the wear and tear a bit, methinks...