Photo Realistic Terrain for Cambrai

[OlPaint01 0]

Anyone

 

I have been flying over the Flanders Terrain after loading Edward's beautiful Photo Realistic Terrain Mod into the Pre-EP1 game. And wwiVerdun, BTW. The ground is a lot more interesting and natural looking than the flat fields of the default game terrain. The EP1 expansion added the Cambrai area. I have successfully copied my Flanders terrain folder from Pre-EP1 into my EP1 terrain folder and can fly all over my favorite areas. I have not been able to load Edward' photo realistic tiles to the wwicambrai folder and get the terrain to work for me. What am I overlooking? Also what goes into the summer, winter and fall folders in the main wwiCambrai folder?

 

OlPaint01

[OlPaint01 0]

Salute TailSpin

 

It appears that no one is interested in helping me add Edward's photo realistic terrain tiles to the wwiCambrai terrain. So I have started experimenting. I have extracted the BMP files from Edward's Flanders terrain tile set with all the matching TOD files and copied them to the wwiCambrai folder in the Terrain folder. I also copied the TGA files as well. The same tiles appear to be in Edward's Verdun Photo reaIistic terrain tiles set. Now am flying over the Cambrai sector terrain with some very interesting farmland and woods that appear to have great depth instead of flat rectangular cultivated fields and dark green low relief textures that are a poor imitation of tree tops that come with the default terrain scenery tiles.

The photo realistic tiles I have copied over do not fully cover all the Cambrai terrain however. It appears that there are many missing high relief tiles especially the tiles that are at borders between Farm Land and Open Praire areas and also Forest and Open Praire areas. If I change to the map view (M key) there are large areas that are not filling in with any detailed tiles at all. I can recognize where the missing photo realistic tiles should go on the map view but I have no idea where to retrieve them or how to merge them into the landscape. If I fly over Edward's Verdun and Flanders terrains, they already show full photo realistic terrain with no missing areas and the map view shows all these areas filled in with the photo realistic terrain tiles.

Does any one know if Edwards is even around our FE community anymore and if he is available to consult? My original posting has been read by over one hundred viewers but no one wants to add even a single comment or suggestion.

 

I am very disappointed.

 

OlPaint01

[Heck 496]

I wish I could help you, but I honestly don't know anything about terrain. You might PM some of the terrain gurus whose names you find associated with terrains in the download sections, like Major Lee. I think he's still here, even though his site is no longer up at this time. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. You might also post this question to the general questions at the WOV/WOE/WOI board, because someone might notice it before, or after, the admins move it back here. Just a thought.

 

 

Heck

[+Tailspin 3]

Same here Olpaint. Don't know much about terrains. I actually prefer the stock terrain or max188's hi res version of Verdun over more of the same type of FS xyz stuff I've been flying over since 2000 or so.

[MigBuster 2,884]

Anyone

 

I have been flying over the Flanders Terrain after loading Edward's beautiful Photo Realistic Terrain Mod into the Pre-EP1 game. And wwiVerdun, BTW. The ground is a lot more interesting and natural looking than the flat fields of the default game terrain. The EP1 expansion added the Cambrai area. I have successfully copied my Flanders terrain folder from Pre-EP1 into my EP1 terrain folder and can fly all over my favorite areas. I have not been able to load Edward' photo realistic tiles to the wwicambrai folder and get the terrain to work for me. What am I overlooking? Also what goes into the summer, winter and fall folders in the main wwiCambrai folder?

 

OlPaint01

 

 

I will look when I get back - but to simulate seasons im pretty sure you actually need a full terrain for each season - so for example if someone released a new version of winter then you would put those files into the Winter folder only - the other seasons would not need to be changed and would stay the same until someone did a newer version of them (hope u r getting this)

 

Basically (i think) you only actually have 1 terrain with edwards set - and that would probably be summer if anything - just BACK UP the summer folder and take a look in there - i think you could just drop the files in there - but as i say am just guessing at the mo.

[Bounder 0]

Ill give ya a hand,but time is at a premium right now

[MigBuster 2,884]

Can we just clarify here - you are trying to put tiles from Edwards Flanders terrain - into the stock EP1 wwicambrai

 

The wwiCambrai folder is in a new format compared to previous terrains due to the seasons being added

 

Open up wwwiCambrai.ini and you will see it makes reference to the snow/fall/spring Directories:

 

 

[season001]

Directory=Snow

StartDate=1/1

EndDate=1/27

ScatteredChance=0

BrokenChance=40

OvercastChance=50

InclementChance=10

 

[season002]

Directory=Spring

StartDate=01/28

EndDate=06/21

 

......... etc

 

Dont put anything into these folders unless it specifically states it can be used with them - if anything you need a set of tiles in a subfolder exactly how they are in say "Fall" and maybe the tod files would go in the main wwicambrai folder - but am guessing here tbh

 

Potentially you could rename the "snow" folder to snow_OLD then create a new "snow" folder with the files from the terrain you want to add in - making sure they have exactly the same names and are of the same type as whats in the the original snow folder.

[OlPaint01 0]

Salute MigBuster

 

I am making great progress in my efforts to add the Photo Realistic terrain tiles to the wwiCambrai terrain set. I successfully extracted the missing Summer BMP files that I was looking for out of the wwiCambrai.CAT file using the SPF1 CAT file extraction tool. I recognized a pattern immediately. All the terrain tiles I am missing from my Photo Realistic tile set have the string of "ROUGH" included in the file name. So I am editing the BMP files for all the ROUGH tiles that are in reality bordering tiles - between Farmland or Woods or Trenches or Cities/Villages and the Rough areas that appear to be either grassland or praireland from the air. I also recognized another pattern in the actual graphic on each of the default tiles. The 25, 50 and 75 modifiers in the file name indicate the percentage of the primary area contained in depicted tile. I am easily merging two similar tile graphics by cutting and pasting in PhotoShop; for example, the Grassland area over the Woods area to make one of the missing Photo Realistic terrain tiles. All that remains for me to do is tweak the tile edges so the terrain flows seamlessly from one tile to the other in the terrain view. I appears the Edward's used the EAW tile set for his aerial views. and the tiles seem to be 256x256 and 16 bit color.

 

I need to know if there is a Terrain Editor that I can use to arrange and rotate and possibly edit the tiles then view the results. It is very difficult and time consuming to test my edits in the actual FE game.

 

OlPaint01

[+sinbad 27]

Go to

 

http://bbs.thirdwire.com/

 

You'll find a number of utilities, including the TE and a advice on the forum,. You'll need to register for that, but NP.

 

TE is here http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=6492

 

sinbad

Edited August 14, 2008 by sinbad

[OlPaint01 0]

Salute Sinbad

 

Thanks for your advice. I discovered the TE Utility on ThirdWire Website several months ago. I got thoroughly frustrated trying to figure out how to use it that I set it aside hoping that someone had a better one. BTW, who is helping you design and build your English Terrain for your new Heavy Bomber Mod? Is the TE utility capable of showing the arrangement of terrain tiles so I can determine which tile edges need an edit to make a visually seamless passage over the landscape from one tile to the next? There has to be a file hiding somewhere that helps the game place and rotate the pieces to make a full terrain matrix? I have yet to discover it. I found the Verdun Texturelist file in the Utilities section of the ThirdWire Website. Do I need to use that file in some manner? Does the TE have the capability to help in placing trees and buildings on the Terrain? I have so many questions. I am sure someone has worked through these issues before since I am finding many custom terrains for other ThirdWire games on the Combat Ace Downloads pages. So I assume that these mods did not just jump into existence.

 

OlPaint01

[+p10ppy 2]

TE is a bit of a transcendental experience...

But it does get the job done...(mostly...if you keep trying... )

 

Check out Gepards tutorials in the KB

 

 

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showforum=191

[OlPaint01 0]

Salute P10ppy

 

Thank you, thank you. Gepard's tutorial in the WoI/Woe/Project-1 KB is just what I have been looking for. I do not have to invent the wheel all over again. All I have to do now is figure out how to edit an existing wwiCarbrai terrain as opposed to starting with a blank slate. This community is outstanding with its helpfulness. My experience so far with FE mods is that it is like using a dictionary - you have to know how to spell a word before you can find how it is correctly spelled...

[Heck 496]

Thanks for the time you're putting in on this, OlPaint01. I'm glad you found the help you were seeking. Really looking forward to this. I knew the community would come together for you, and I'm glad to see it happening.

 

Heck

[OlPaint01 0]

I have been following Gepard's excellent terrain building tutorial in the Combat Ace Knowledge Base. But I am stuck trying to locate the TextureList.ini file for Cambrai tileset. I found the TextureList.ini for Verdun on the download page of the ThirdWire Website but there are no entries for the "Rough" areas that are definitely a part of the vast areas of grassland/praire in the Cambrai terrain. The TextureList does not appear in the wwiCambrai.cat file. Can anyone point me in the proper direction?

 

OlPaint01

[Heck 496]

I know nothing about this, but couldn't you add the types you want to this existing ini? Just like you can add things to the data.ini? I'm not sure if it would work, but you could always work on a copy of your terrain, and delete the file if it messed things up. Most of the ini's in the game I've found you can add things to, by copying and pasting parts of the ini back in and renaming them to call out other things. In this case I think you would have to add the items you want to the following:

 

1. [TextureTypeList]

 

2. Then add your texture type by copying and pasting one of the existing texture types then renaming it to what you use.

 

Then add it to the:

 

3. [TextureMapList]

 

remembering to number it next in line, which is what I always forget in other inis

 

4. And then add the bitmap callouts by copying, pasting, and renaming once again.

 

Don't know if this will work, but if I were attempting this, this is the way I would try it. Hope this helps,

 

Heck

Edited August 17, 2008 by Heck