Somewhere in Nevada. . . Top Secret!

[+Baltika 85]

Yet another terrain WIP. One day. . .

 

 

Top secret(!) USAF WMD facility. . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heading on to the nearby Death Valley for some speed trials. . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way down south near Mexico, NAF El Centro. . .

 

 

 

 

Finally heading off for some well-earned shore leave, I'll have a pint and a shot, barman. . .

 

 

 

 

Here's the whole shebang. . .

 

 

 

 

Full-scale California, started way back when we were looking to fix the seamountains on Dave's original SCal terrain.

 

Of course, since then, Wrench "The Machine" has churned out about three different and increasingly good versions of SCal, plus all the tons of other stuff he does. But I thought this may be of interest to terrain builders. TE and the sim engine can handle individual high-res terrain tiles right alongside low-res standard tiles. Scale your transitions right, and the whole thing fits together. Maybe we can't do photoreal terrain. . . but we can get close, in selected areas anyways.

 

Tally-ho!

 

Baltika

 

Edit: Get the alpha release here:-

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W31945U2

Edited October 16, 2009 by Baltika

[Silverbolt 104]

Lookin' good!

[+suhsjake 11]

LOL, you even got my crappy home town airport.

[Wrench 9,848]

HOLY S**T!!!

 

For somebody that's 8000 miles away from the region described, that's some seriously damed accurate target plotting!!

 

(my uncle lived in Bishop for like 100000 years -he was the GM of Inyo Lumber Co; the airport was a mile down the street from his house)

The Death Valley screenies remind of me Jane's USAF, when flying out of Nellis.

 

I have BEEN to most of the places shown. Love those 'round crater-y looking things. Kinda like the water evaporators you see in Lybia or Isreal (moisture farmers?)

 

Damn, but that looks good!!!

 

wrench

kevin stein

 

edit: if we time the relase correctly, we can go to Gilroy for the Garlic Festival!!

Edited October 15, 2009 by Wrench

[Icarus999 70]

Very nice!! Looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.

[+Baltika 85]

Thanks for the comments, all

 

Wrench, praise indeed, cheers mate. The baseline was original Scal terrain, plus the enhanced targetlist scavenged from your SCal upgrades. The tileset is a mix of that one (by Edward?) plus a stack more transition tiles based on that set (my favourite bugbear, not enough transition tiles in the stock sets). From that I created an entirely new .HFD in TE, stretched to full-scale in gimp.

 

The pale sand/salt lake tiles are whipped up by me, from Google Earth colouring of Death Valley and the surrounding area, as is the salt flat airstrip (just a standard airbase ini file plonked on top).

 

All the hi-res stuff is Google Earth imagery, cut, pasted, painted over a bit to blend in. I have improved El Centro tiles with the colour saturation matched to the surrounding fields a bit better, but no time to take a snapshot.

 

As for the Tatooine-style moisture evaporators, they are again Google Earth images of the North Nevada Nuclear Test Facility, whatever those stacks/piles/bunkers are, blended in to my desert tiles. I suspect they blew up a lot of warheads underneath them in the 50s or something. What I would like to know is, how to make a HM .bmp file to give them the proper pointy shape?

 

As for placement, it's a combination of GE, msn atlas, and my ever-trusty Phillips Universal Atlas of the World. And far too much time squinting at the screen when I should be actually finishing a terrain project or two

 

As for status, this is at alpha stage only, no airfield flattening or target placement done at all, other than some airfields of the cut n paste variety. Also, although the core tileset is completed, I have not made up the .tga files, so no water effects (yet).

 

And the hi-res runways are workable, but really blurry down low. They only look good from altitude.

 

Call it more of a proof-of-concept. But, as with all my stuff, I'll keep plodding away with it as and when time permits, and when the mood takes me.

 

Cheers all,

 

Baltika

Edited October 15, 2009 by Baltika

[Sparkchaser2010 24]

That is sweet! This terrain would be perfect for the Top Gun and Red Flag mods I'm working on. I'm also working on sets of Missions for Green Flag West (AKA Air Warrior)

[+Baltika 85]

That is sweet! This terrain would be perfect for the Top Gun and Red Flag mods I'm working on. I'm also working on sets of Missions for Green Flag West (AKA Air Warrior)

 

I must admit, it was reading your Top Gun/Red Flag thread that prompted me to post these screenies. Really, the ground covered here is more or less the same as that in Wrench's SCal upgrades. ATM, my targets.ini is set up the same way, positing a "Global Sedition" invasion and occupation of SCal itself, but it would be easy enough to change the Aligments for full US occupation of the US.

 

If you like, I can send the alpha over to you "as is" for a nose around, maybe with a view to developing this for general release. Likewise, @Wrench

[Wrench 9,848]

Would have been my next question .. is that SFO/ or Oakland airport operational. Great job!

 

You're reiterated MY biggest complaint about the 3W terrains - there ain't enough frakking transition tiles!! Driving me nuts with Tunisia map.

 

US occupied US? Hmm....could also be CSA forces, in Turtledove's alternate universe (can you image MiGs with the Confederate Stars and Bars!!???)

 

I'd be happy to look at it, if only to fly over Uncle Benny's house (unfortunatly, he's been gone for 30+ years...)

 

hmm...we could also bomb the Mammoth Mountain Ski resort!!! Take that Yuppies!!!

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+Baltika 85]

Thanks for the interest, everyone.

 

For Wrench and wpnssgt in particular, but really whoever fancies it, here is a link for the unsupported, as-is, no-money back, use-at-your-own-risk alpha release. No point in wasting CA bandwith on something which is in the very early stages of development, but as this is a long way down my list of WIPs, I can't see it being advanced much any time soon.

 

What you get is a new terrain HFD build for full-scale California, with an enhanced version of the tileset which shipped with the old, original SCAL terrain (by Dave, Edward and others, I think). There is a full, expanded Texturelist.ini which may be of interest to terrain builders. There are also the early wip hi-res terrain tiles featured above, plus Alcatraz and Treasue Island, just for fun. There is a massively expanded targetlist, based on Wrench's SCAl upgrades. There are lots of runways, but there has been no, nil, nada terrain flattening, so select runway take offs at your own risk. Some work because they are in naturally flat areas.

 

There are no sea .tga tiles for activated water effects, so don't waste a lot of time trying to get it to work, it ain't there. Such targetising as has been done is purely of the cut and paste variety, and is more or less entirely lifted from Wrench's upgrades.

 

What there is, is a fully transitioned tileset. (Although I think salt flat can only transition to desert). Also, the tiling is completed on this version, I ain't gonna be moving the tiles around none. They are where they are gonna be (unless there are glaring individual tile errors to be fixed).

 

There is a working frontline, and a working movement.ini for all the usual mission types. So, it is flyable, for a bit of fun and sightseeing.

 

Any feedback, comments, requests greatly appreciated.

 

My to-do list on this terrain is:-

 

Airfield flattening, final runway placement and headings to be set;

Completion of .tga tiles for water textures;

Creation of .TOD tiles for skyscrapers, trees, bushes, farm buildings etc etc;

Photoreal NAS North Island, plus a few others of note (Area 51, oh yeah );

Creation of custom airfield.ini files for the photoreal runways, plus maybe some basic runway textures so they don't look so blurry when you're sitting on them;

Terrain targetisation (aargh!).

 

PLus no doubt various bits and pieces I cant think of right now.

 

But, as I say, this one is a long way down the list. My NZ terrain is closest to "official" release, and that Iceland terrain tileset is something I dearly want to finish and release. Kuril islands and North Cape are close behind NZ. Then there is all that WW2 stuff. So this one is really just for fun right now.

 

Cheers all,

 

Baltika

 

 

Link to alpha release:-

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W31945U2

Edited October 15, 2009 by Baltika

[+Baltika 85]

Urgh. . .

 

Took this for a spin out of interest (been a long time) and the first thing I find is a whacking great runway parked in the sea. First thing to do on d/l is to find the targetarea entry for NAS North Island and delete all the [Targetxxx] entries.

 

Shucks, it's why it's an alpha release

[+EricJ 4,245]

 

 

US occupied US? Hmm....could also be CSA forces, in Turtledove's alternate universe (can you image MiGs with the Confederate Stars and Bars!!???)

 

wrench

kevin stein

 

Go to simmerspaintshop and there's a psd with stuff like that for download.

[+Brain32 265]

Hmm...you got me interested....there's a lot of well satellite covered places in the US...this could be done very nicely...

[+Baltika 85]

Hmm...you got me interested....there's a lot of well satellite covered places in the US...this could be done very nicely...

 

Hi Brain32, good to hear from you

 

As you know, you got me started on all this tiling stuff, waaay back in the early days of my Iceland terrain, so I'm glad I could come up with something useful in return :yes:

 

Cheers mate

[Wrench 9,848]

OFF TOPIC Reply to EricJ (sorry Baltika!)

 

Go to simmerspaintshop and there's a psd with stuff like that for download

 

Been there, done that, got the airplanes!

 

sorry for the off topic. we now resume our normal terrain discussion. thank you

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Sparkchaser2010 24]

the DACT mods I'm working will also include new airfields such as Nellis, Fallon NAS, Yuma, etc. I love the idea of using satellite images, pretty good for an Alpha terrain

[Guest Eject]

:salute:Guys, how about adding UFOs here, made -- secretly -- by USAF as well and tested-flown already and those owned by ETs the Greys mostly. Kindly visit www.blackvault.com (perhaps black-vault.com). Just curious.

[+Baltika 85]

:salute:Guys, how about adding UFOs here, made -- secretly -- by USAF as well and tested-flown already and those owned by ETs the Greys mostly. Kindly visit www.blackvault.com (perhaps black-vault.com). Just curious.

 

Great plan, Area 51 is on the map, so we are good to go. I seem to rememebr a beta UFO model floating around somewhere?

[Wrench 9,848]

Use the AvroCar, with my "lighting mod" hehehehehehehehehehheee

 

"If everything is ready on the Dark Side of the Moon, play the 5 tones..."

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+russouk2004 6,958]

this looks like the start of a huge great mod ....

my contribution will be the Aggressors F-4`s...and mebbe a suprise item..

Edited October 16, 2009 by russouk2004

[+Baltika 85]

this looks like the start of a huge great mod ....

my contribution will be the Aggressors F-4`s...and mebbe a suprise item..

 

Excellent,

 

Cheers Russo

Edited October 16, 2009 by Baltika

[+russouk2004 6,958]

Ive got a ufo somewhere...got it painted and in game...the fm needs doing tho...got nice humming wav too....lol

[+Typhoid 231]

that's an awesome terrain.

 

for the Area 51 field, though, you need this baby...

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,557]

This looks great, a very good area to fly, keep it coming!

[Wrench 9,848]

Yet another seemingly off-topic post by everyone's favorite moderator:

 

russo, they be 'classic' as seen by people, or more like this (damn, wish I could figure out how to embed the video)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8RfzkhqBLY

 

wrench

kevin stein