Blue Marble Terrain

[dannyevilcat]

I see a significant difference, and I love it. It looks great, and I'll never go back.

Thanks!

 

[snafusmith]

I don't know how I got along without this terrain. Simply Awesome!!!!! No more cartoonish terrain for me... now if I could only do something about the unit animations....

 

[BeefontheBone]

Liking it, though there are a couple of thigs that I might just have to get used to - the mountains look ok on their own but a bunch of them together is still pretty unsatisfactory (not that the original ones weren't, mind), and the plains are maybe a bit green - I kept settling on them more often than I normally would because they look so much nicer now

 

[ColdFever]

this mod actually like fixed the slowdown issue i was having with civ 4. very very bizzare

It did the same for me... Wonder why that is? Funny how this is actually improving game performance for some of us...

Perhaps I have an explanation, as I did follow the original formats very closely with one exception: the original terrain uses some kind of "inverted" cloud textures to reduce the strength of clouds depending on camera altitude. As I prefer to see the clouds unchanged, I replaced the inverted textures with simple transparent ones.

Perhaps the graphics card/driver somehow notices that these transparent textures are superflous now, so that the rendering process can be simplified... Of course this would be great for people with slower graphic cards. But unfortunately I also received >one< problem report telling me that on the affected system in strategic globe mode the globe appears black apart from the clouds. So perhaps this optimization not only can lead to better performance but also to a problem on some older graphic cards? So please check your globe mode, and if somebody else also notices a problem with blackness, please give me a note here.

The intro text is strange. It gives the impression that the NASA Blue Marble team is responsible for this mod. This cannot be true, can it?

Of course the NASA Blue Marble team has more important things to do than working on Civilization mods, but the man who did compile most of the original Blue Marble images, Reto St&#246;ckli (who seems to be an awfully nice guy), liked the idea and the design screenshots I sent him so much, that he not only gave me an official ok but also this preface text. Here is Reto's homepage, where you can visit his other projects:
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/stockli

 

[meowsqueak]

BTW for me this mod makes the zoomed out globe view extremely "laggy" and unresponsive when the clouds are visible. As soon as the clouds disappear, it's nice and smooth. I have an Nvidia 6600GT.

 

[LeSphinx]

The zip file contains a CRC error !
Someone has this problem too ?
LeSphinx

 

[migo]

Really impressing graphics mod with great addition that it seems to reduce lag somehow. Also I find that units with different flag colors are more easier to spot now.

Just wondering why this mod is not working with multiplayer option? (or is it just me)

-- Migo

 

[ColdFever]

Just wondering why this mod is not working with multiplayer option? (or is it just me)

This looks like a Civ4 bug (or feature) to me, as Civ4 does not accept CustomAssets in Multiplayer mode. The only solution I know is to copy the mod from CustomAssets into the Civ4 Assets folder, as this original folder is used for multiplayer. I will report this to Firaxis.

 

[Raggamuffin]

Not sure what to think of this. I agree that the contrast is awful but the overall look is slightly better. And it does look a little too blue IMO. I'll have to try it and test performance. If it indeed does increase it I'll use it since I have big problems with that. Is it easy to uninstall?

 

[Custanius]

can some one help me please? I've installed the mod, and the title screen shows the blue marble logo, however i cannot seem to find anything in the 'load a mod' section, from which map do i have to use in order to use this mod? thank you in advance.

 

[ColdFever]

Is it easy to uninstall?

Just click the "Uninstall" button in the BlueMarble tool.

I've installed the mod, and the title screen shows the blue marble logo, however i cannot seem to find anything in the 'load a mod' section

Your installation is ok, just play what you like now, the new terrain graphics are always active, in standard game or via a mod/scenario of your choice. The only exception currently is multiplayer, where Civ4 seems to ignore CustomAssets.

 

[Raggamuffin]

Just click the "Uninstall" button in the BlueMarble tool.

Thanks! I'm definitely going to try it out. Thanks for making it so user friendly.

 

[Agraza]

Perhaps this is because my video card is aging, but I find jungles and plains to be hard to distinguish from forests and grasslands. I love the tundra terrain, but I would like to see some more yellow/orange in the plains and some spots of red/orange/yellow in the jungles, simulating blooms and/or tropical birds in the latter.

I remember when I downloaded specific fish resource graphics in civ 3, they were very blue and hard to see in the water, so the artist made one of the fish red and the problem was solved. They were still very fishy, but the contrast set them out for your eyes to distinguish them.

 

[Grohan]

Simply amazing!

 

[lordwei]

Amazing!!!

 

[Snoopy]

Thanks ColdFever, my dream game is finally falling into place.

Once I get the SDK, I'm gonna make this a game to drool over. At least I hope so.

From your mod, I can see that you are interested in the same sort of thing I am. This is not surprising, considering you are from Germany and I am from New Zealand; both countries that love awesome sceneries.

 

[Kudos]

How do you actually view those massive 500m/pixel pictures on Nasa? They're in .bin format.

 

[brunothegreat]

I've downloaded and tried out your textures - I must admit they look like an absolute dream.

I was wondering if it is possible to perhaps include the ability to switch between the Blue Earth textures and the defaults within the game - an option when creating a new game or perhaps in the options menu?

I understand that it's very easy to uninstall the mod however such a feature would be very nice indeed particuarly as the number of terrain tile sets starts to proliferate for civ 4.

 

[Matte979]

Awesome stuff. I like the more realistic colors. I also love the scaling tool now I finaly can reduce the size of those big units. Great work.

 

[ColdFever]

I love the scaling tool, now I finaly can reduce the size of those big units. Great work.

Credits for this go to Firaxis. They build this nice feature into the game and I just had to write a little interface for it.

I love the tundra terrain, but I would like to see some more yellow/orange in the plains and some spots of red/orange/yellow in the jungles, simulating blooms and/or tropical birds in the latter.

Hmm, perhaps I should make some experiments into this direction.

I was wondering if it is possible to perhaps include the ability to switch between the Blue Earth textures and the defaults within the game - an option when creating a new game or perhaps in the options menu?

With the upcoming SDK this should be possible. But this is beyond my targets and available time. Perhaps somebody (you?) may want to do it?

I am currently using your mod to create my own mod...Once I get the SDK, I'm gonna make this a game to drool over. At least I hope so.

Considering your Civ3 masterpieces, I'm really getting curious. Please allow me a peek at sometime.