Examples of applications are bumps, joints, cobblestones, potholes, road irregularities, markings. However, not every vehicle reacts in the same way to the changed ground conditions. For example, the sound and force feedback when driving over them can vary from vehicle to vehicle.
In addition, surfaces can also be used to simulate "skidding", e.g. with a snow texture.
1. Surface textures with .surf files
Surface files in .surf format are simple bitmaps consisting only of the red channel. This red channel reflects the height map of the respective texture. Height differences of up to 4cm can be reproduced. The lighter the shade of red, the more pronounced the unevenness towards the top, the darker the unevenness towards the bottom. A black area therefore corresponds to -2cm, a white area to +2cm deviation from the zero point. This red channel bitmap is created for each texture individually and then according to the scheme referencetexture.bmp.surf where referencetexture stands for the file name of the texture to which the height map refers. If the reference texture has a different format, for example .dds, the file name is accordingly referencetexture.dds.surf, but the .surf file itself is still a bitmap.
1.1. Step by step
- First create a normal bitmap file in black and white from the reference texture (Note: For use in paint.net we recommend the pencil or contour filter as well as the function "brightness and contrast").
- Then go to the file in the explorer and change the file extension from .bmp to .surf (for this, "Hide file extensions for known types" must be deactivated in the explorer settings).
- The file is named as described above.
2. Surface with .cfg files
If no .surf file is needed because of the texture (for example, flat asphalt) and you still want to give feedback, you can solve this with a .cfg file. This is a simple text file that is named like .surf files, but with the extension .cfg (for example reference texture.bmp.cfg or reference texture.dds.cfg).
OMSI offers the following options:
| Keyword | Explanation |
|---|---|
| [surface] | The surface texture, followed by a number from 0 to 16 in the following line: |
| 0 | asphalt (standard) - normal asphalt |
| 1 | concrete - concrete (slabs) |
| 2 | cobllestone - Cobblestone |
| 3 | dirt - Dirt/earth |
| 4 | grass - Grass |
| 5 | gravel - Gravel |
| 6 | snow - Snow |
| 7 | deep snow - deep snow |
| 8 | slush - Slush |
| 9 | ice - Ice |
| 10 | water - Water |
| 11 | mud - Mud |
| 12 | sand - Sand |
| 13 | metal - Metal |
| 14 | wood - Wood |
| 15 | small cobblestone - small cobblestone |
| 16 | interlocking paver - Interlocking paving |
| [moisture] | The surface can get wet. This has an effect on the driving behaviour. |
| [puddles] | If activated, puddles are displayed on the texture. |
3. Terrain texture
OMSI offers the possibility to replace a texture with the terrain texture of the respective map. For example, grass can be displayed that seamlessly follows the terrain texture of a map. The keyword [terrainmapping] is used for this. This also works with monochrome 1x1px files to save memory.
