Is there any way to make weather more seasonal ?

[Gunrunner]

I'd just love to have inclement being light rain in summer, heavy rain in autumn, light snow in early winter, heavy snow in the heart of winter...

 

Unfortunately those effects seems to depend on environmentsystem.ini with no way (at least none I found yet) in the [terrain].ini to set up effects for seasons, defeating the purpose of seasonnality a bit (unless you want heavy rain during a snowy winter, or heavy snow in summer...).

 

The compromise I use at the moment is reserving inclement for snow and making sure inclement has a null or very low probability for anything except winter.

 

On another (related) note, is there any summer/spring tree set compatible with CA_Stary excellent fall/winter sets ?

Edited February 4, 2009 by Gunrunner

[hhf]

I'd rather wish to have more heavy ground objects.

 

That would be a much higher increase in reality than a weather that better fits the season.

 

I just miss to collide with trees or buildings and would like to see them explode

 

on a bomb hit.

[Wrench]

I beg to differ....

 

Seasonalism (a new religion, btw) was introduced in the Oct/Nov patches. Code from FE.

 

may I suggest, just for grins and giggles, the ANW 4 Season rebuild??? You can see how it's done...albeit not perfectly, but how it works

 

As to 'rain', the Game Engine ™ only has the one kind ... sort of like SoCal ... it's either on or off!!

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[Gunrunner]

Thanks Wrench but I know seasons are there, I'm using them. ^^

 

It's just that so far it seems that weather and lighting (environmentsystem.ini) settings are game-wide (applies to the whole game installation, regardless of the terrain used or the season), not terrain-wide (applied only to a particular terrain, regardless of season) or season-wide (applied only to a particular season, either for all terrains, or for one terrain in particular).

 

PS : It seems from your ANW4 that it can be terrain-wide at least, thanks. ^^

 

Unless I misread you and it IS there...

Well, off to reinstall FE and ANW4 just in case I missed something...

 

Code-side it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt the engine to override the game-wide environmentsystem.ini if it finds one inside the terrain it is loading.

 

HHF> Sorry but in Europe in the 60's with very few really AW fighters, flying conditions were a pretty important factor.

Remember that it is weather (and lower altitudes) which accounted for a great part of the accident rate of the F-104 in Europe.

And while in peace-time most aircraft wouldn't fly with crap weather, in a state of war, if there's bomber out there, rain or snow, you've got to intercept them... and conversely, if the weather means you're less likely to be intercepted, it might be an opportunity to strike.

 

Also, take into account that having "hard" ground object means more computing and thus a little less performance, seasonnal weather only costs a little tweak in the way settings are loaded.

Edited February 5, 2009 by Gunrunner

[Icarus999]

I'd just love to have inclement being light rain in summer, heavy rain in autumn, light snow in early winter, heavy snow in the heart of winter...

 

Unfortunately those effects seems to depend on environmentsystem.ini with no way (at least none I found yet) in the [terrain].ini to set up effects for seasons, defeating the purpose of seasonnality a bit (unless you want heavy rain during a snowy winter, or heavy snow in summer...).

 

The compromise I use at the moment is reserving inclement for snow and making sure inclement has a null or very low probability for anything except winter.

 

On another (related) note, is there any summer/spring tree set compatible with CA_Stary excellent fall/winter sets ?

 

 

Gunrunner you and I are in agreement the game should be updated to include seasonal "inclement" weather meaning both rain and snow as well as lightning . Its probably just a matter of letting TK know that people would like to see it in an update. Also HHF has a great point point too we need a ton of new destroyable objects/buildings.

[+76.IAP-Blackbird]

Are the cloud positions random?! Could there be linked an emitter, with a radius wich generates rain, So if you don`t fly under clouds there is no rain.. Don`t know how clouds are coded in this sim so maybe I`m on the wrong way

[Gunrunner]

From my little experimentations (but CA_Stary, Deuces, Lexx_Luthor and a few others are the only one outside TK who really know about these things), the clouds are random, but they can be fixed (including rain/snow emitters) or moving using the target method Lexx_Luthor uses for his cirrus clouds etc...

I didn't find anything allowing to link a precipitation emitter to randomly generated clouds.

 

In the stock game, in inclement weather, as long as you're under the cloud layer, you'll get rain/snow (in fact, it seems that the engine only generates rain/snow around the player's aircraft and/or the focus of the camera).

[Wrench]

I actually think it's like the old Bugs Bunny cartoons ... it only rains on YOU!!!! (that little cloud follows you around )

 

You can have a seperate enviro ini in EACH terrain folder (ANW has one, SoCal, I think I did one for Libya). In that, you can specifiy cloud height, and possibly seasonality -although this is something I haven't looked at. For the most part, the seasons are determined in the terrain's main ini....this from ANW:

 

[Terrain]

TerrainFullName=American Northwest

DataFile=AmericaNW_data.INI

TargetFile=AmericaNW_targets.ini

TargetTypeFile=AmericaNW_types.ini

MovementFile=AmericaNW_movement.ini

EnvironmentFile=AmericaNW_ENVIRONMENTSYSTEM.INI

NationsFile=AmericaNW_nations.ini

BriefingText=AmericaNW_briefing.ini

DogfightFile=AmericaNW_dogfight.ini

DogfightOnly=FALSE

//CatFile=..\Desert\Desert.cat

CatFile=..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.cat

Longitude=123.04

Latitude=49.08

 

[Map]

FilenameFormat=PlanningMap%d.bmp

Width=500000.0

Height=500000.0

NumZoomLevels=2

 

[WeatherChance]

ScatteredChance=25

BrokenChance=25

OvercastChance=17

InclementChance=8

 

[season001]

Directory=Winter

StartDate=11/1

EndDate=01/27

ScatteredChance=0

BrokenChance=40

OvercastChance=50

InclementChance=10

 

[season002]

Directory=Thaw

StartDate=01/28

EndDate=03/21

ScatteredChance=40

BrokenChance=25

OvercastChance=17

InclementChance=8

 

[season003]

Directory=Spring

StartDate=03/22

EndDate=6/25

ScatteredChance=25

BrokenChance=40

OvercastChance=17

InclementChance=8

 

[season004]

Directory=Summer

StartDate=06/26

EndDate=10/31

ScatteredChance=0

BrokenChance=40

OvercastChance=50

InclementChance=10

 

you can see the percentages (ie: **Chance=) so you can theroetically re-create a monsoon season, by increasing Inclement= to say, 99. What I don't know, is if all the chance numbers have to add up to 100 (which would make sense, in a way)

But most assuredly, EVERYTHING is adjustable!!

One wonder, however, if CA's "blizzard" can only exist in ONE terrain seasonal sub-folder...for "winter", with the needed tga and inis and etc ONLY residing there....??? Or is it a 'global' setting???

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[Gunrunner]

Thanks Wrench, I already find that out from ANW ^^

 

From my experiments, trying all known or possible positions for both declarations and alternate files, you can't seem to get per-season environmentsystem.ini, and if you can include them into the terrain specific environmentsystem.ini I haven't found how either.

 

I haven't tested getting effects in a seasonal folder though, that's worth a try...

[Gunrunner]

Doesn't seem like you can replace effects texture with seasons.

 

But since you have to modify the rainemitter to make it work, it might also be that my method just doesn't work (the original RainEmitter is a particle system with no texture, so I had to write another crappy one as a replacement to test the idea).

[+Stary]

Rain (or any other weather effect) is indeed linked to the camera positions, and moves with the current viewpoint; as far as I know it's not possible to have rain only under clouds, not when doing it via environmentsystem.ini,

However doing clouds Lexx-style you could have both clouds and custom rain effect under them. The downside is these clouds (being ground object -attached effects) are all time on, not weather -dependent

 

As for the summer and spring trees -they're in the works (by me) together with reworked HR summer and spring tiles, common rule of 2 weeks apply

[Gunrunner]

Nice, I'll just have to wait :) I just love your work, the PR tiles while stunning at the right altitude often look too repetitive from altitude and too strange once in the weeds.

 

For the Lexx-style clouds I knew the limitation, but that would make sense in simulating a "semi-dynamic" weather system, as usually the weather is not uniform from France to Ukraine, as the system work yet.