Blue Marble Terrain

[ColdFever]

I've read that it's possible to make the terrain change over time, is it possible to get the terrain change in seasons then?

Sorry, I have no real idea about this yet. I only know that if you toggle the grid, another texture set is loaded (the one with the grid). So it certainly is possible to change textures, but I do not know if you can access this function via scripting.

And yes, the Blue Marble Terrain (BMT) will be released on Friday. I am just finishing the finetuning and install our new German download server. Fortunately Thunderfall offered to host the mod for the English speaking world on CivFanatics, this really helps to spread the burden. Thanks!

btw: the BMT will be accompanied by a small extra program making it possible to adjust the dimensions of many 3D objects comfortably via sliders. And with one slider you can to adjust the strength of the clouds, so who thinks the NASA Earth clouds are too strong can make them as transparent as desired.

 

[Venger]

Yes. YES. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I think my overall favorite mod to Civ3 was Snoopy's Terrain. And as many have noted, the cartoonishness of the terrain in Civ4 did leave some folks a little non-plussed.

Pictures look great. Well done.

Venger

 

[Thunderfall]

It should be out Friday, is what I'm gathering (if I'm wrong, then my excuse is that I'm only in German 2).

Yeah, it's coming out on Friday.

Here are two bigger screenshots:

 

[CrazyMrLeo]

Asolutely fantastic.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Simply beautiful. Now that i've seen the masterwork, i refuse to play until Friday.

 

[ColdFever]

Please do not expect too much if you have an older graphics card. The screenshots have been taken on a DirectX9 card (ATI 9800), showing all texture overlays. I also tested the mod on an older graphics card and here the game reduces the graphics quality, so some texture overlays do not appear. So on an older graphics card the BMT still looks more natural, but because of the missing overlays the terrain appears less "grown" and a bit more "blocky".

 

[Snoopy]

ColdFever, what do you mean by "showing all texture overlays"?

 

[Greek Plunder]

Does anyone want to post a comparison screen-shot of the original Civ IV terrain along with a Blue Marble shot?

 

[ColdFever]

ColdFever, what do you mean by "showing all texture overlays"?

The terrain consists of up to two textures:
- one basic "blend" texture, applied to each tile
- one "detail" texture overlay, applied to more tiles

As the detail texture is applied to more tiles, the individual tile borders become less evident. But I found that the detail texture does not appear on older graphics cards, so here only the basic texture is visible and the individual tiles are more evident.

 

[JDexter]

Does anyone want to post a comparison screen-shot of the original Civ IV terrain along with a Blue Marble shot?

Yes pleeeeeease!

Looks great my German fellows

 

[Leonel]

Aaaah! I now see the big hullabaloo about this terrain! It certainly looks more realistic that the default terrain.

 

[Gojira54]

Definitely looks GREAT!

 

[SoCalian]

this looks to be the best mod for civ 4 yet.

 

[MattJek]

will they put more strain on my graphic card??? They do look awesome though

 

[ColdFever]

will they put more strain on my graphic card?

No, I applied great care to use the *exact* original formats to avoid troubles. I only made one exception: in the scenario selection menu I used a high res image of the wonderful NASA Earth for the Earth scenarios. But as this image only appears before the playing begins, it should not matter for the gameplay at all.

 

[Kindness]

Its out!
Looks amazing - get it HERE!

 

[Feet]

Wooooo! FAN-TUPPING-TASTIC!

I can't wait to try this tomorrow.

*jumps up and down*

 

[Jecrell]

It's so realistic it's unreal...
The screenshots don't do it justice.

 

[dog77_1999]

Hmm, I am having problems unzipping it. When I try, it says the file is corrupted. Tried to redownload and did the same thing again. Any suggestions?

 

[SoCalian]

I'll download it when I get home.