Decals

[Grinseed 19]

Firstly, this is a great WW1 sim. Kudos to TW and everyone here who has contributed, its all excellent stuff. My old Celeron has been replaced with a 2nd hand P4 and things are now really rocking with FEG. Last night I had a memorable dogfight in a F2B against a pack of Albatri, and if it werent for the madman in back with the Lewis, we would not have made it home.

Back to topic.

Can someone direct me to a 'decals for FEG 101' thread?

I have got to the point where I'm loading squadron skins, RFC 56 and 60, in particular (thanks Quack74 and dhasdell). The skins aren't a problem, its getting the letters to show. I get the roundels, the 56th white band, and the various colour schemes for the 60th.

But when I select the 60th's early or mid skins in the loadout page the alpha options is stuck on 'N', which I assume means none because none show up in the game. No letters show in the game for any of the 56th either, despite being able to select a number in the loadout.

In any event I am really confused. I guess I have missed a few things. Can someone save me before I screw up my aircraft and decal folders completely?

 

Cheers Grinseed

[+quack74 329]

Hello Grinseed,

 

First try to open the Decal.ini inside the skin folders. Scroll down and check all the "DecalMaxLOD" settings for each decal. Sometimes it's set too low " =1" . I set all of mine to "DecalMaxLOD=4". If you pan way out you will still be able to see the decals when set to 4. Settings around 1 or 2 make the decals disappear at close distances.

 

Check this first

[Wrench 9,806]

and check the DecalLevel= for individual ID letters/numbers. Those should be set to =2

 

does the 60th skin have a 'numberlist.ini'? Some skin may not have, or use them. The next question is, are there acutally individual letter/number decals FOR that skin? (not being familiar with that particular one), or are the being referenced to another skin's decal set (a very neat trick we use sometimes for SF/Wo*/SF2)

 

Just to make you feel better, it's nearly impossible to screwup the skins/decals folders -- at the very wurst, you just delet the offending items.

 

wrench

kevin stein

[+quack74 329]

and check the DecalLevel= for individual ID letters/numbers. Those should be set to =2

 

does the 60th skin have a 'numberlist.ini'? Some skin may not have, or use them. The next question is, are there acutally individual letter/number decals FOR that skin? (not being familiar with that particular one), or are the being referenced to another skin's decal set (a very neat trick we use sometimes for SF/Wo*/SF2)

 

Just to make you feel better, it's nearly impossible to screwup the skins/decals folders -- at the very wurst, you just delet the offending items.

 

wrench

kevin stein

 

 

Most likely the decals (letters and/or numbers) for the S.E.5a's would be stock. they would not be found in a "D" Decals folder

[Grinseed 19]

Hello quack and Wrench, thanks for your responses.

Ok, For the first three questions: DecalMAXLOD=4 in all cases: DecalLevel=2 in all cases: no, the 60th skins have no number list.

 

Fourth question "are there acutally individual letter/number decals FOR that skin?" I can only assume so, as the accompanying FEG pic with the package shows the letters displayed, but I really dont know or understand enough just yet about the folder structures. In each D folder there are black and white letter Targa images.

 

Ok, my turn with a question for quack: No offense intended and I might be wrong, but might the FEG and FE2 folders of your download be reversed?

 

The FEG folder path is: FEG\Saved Games\Third Wire\ First Eagles 2\Objects\..then Aircraft and Decals folders each with a "SE5a" folder with early and mid folders for each flight, but with only D folders in the Decals.

 

The FE2 folder path looks more like the structure of the other aircraft in my stock FEG aircraft folders: FE2\Objects\Aircraft\SE5a.. which contains folders for each flight's early and mid versions, each complete with its own D folder.

 

With the 'First Eagles 2" reference in the FEG folder path, you can see why I might be confused. However I do feel much better that there is something at last that even I cannot screw up ; )

 

I took the precaution of pasting the FE2 path SE5a folder to my aircraft folder, only because it looks more like the structure of the other aircraft folders there, but what do I know? I'm just a noob for the moment.

 

Over to you and cheers, Grinseed.

Edited November 30, 2010 by Grinseed

[+quack74 329]

Grinseed,

My skins for the No.60 Sqdn SE5a's do use a "D" folder for black letters and white letters. The "D" folder should be placed directly into the skin folder for FEG only. For FE2 the Decal folder goes into: / Saved Games/ Thirdwire/ FE2/ objects/ Decals/ skin name/ here. I thought I left the "D" folders with the skins too. The decals that are not in the "D" folder are stock Decals that are in the security files. Their paths in the Decals.ini in the skin folders are a bit more simplified. There is no need for a "D" in the address. "D" folder are only for non stock decals. If you create or change any decals you'll need to create a "D" folder to put them in.

 

If you have the Decals folders in with the proper skins, and you have changed the DecalMaxLOD's I dont know why they dont show.

[Grinseed 19]

Roger, quack, all the FEG skins folders have D folders.

 

In FE2, only the 'early' skin folders have D folders, the 'mid' folders do not, but that's FE2 and I'm not using that at the moment.

 

From what you written it does appear the folder names, FEG and FE2 have been swapped in the download. Small point I know, and sorry if I'm being overly fussy, but it got this noob confused.

 

OK, so I have the FEG setup correctly installed (actually I found that the DecalMAXLOD settings in the 60C early folder were set to 3, but have edited those).

For the moment I get the skins and the stock squadron markings but not the letters. I can live with that.

 

Thank you for your patience, I know you have other threads running and other current projects. I'll get out of your way now.

 

I appreciate you sharing your talents.

 

Keep up the good work and cheers, Grinseed

[Grinseed 19]

Good news everyone.

 

I found the solution. All the markings and colours show now.

I recently moved from an old Celeron to a P4. To get a good frame rate with the Celeron, object detail was set to low. I repeated that setting on the P4. That's why the decals did not show. Sorry for the heartburn quack.

 

Cheers, over and out, Grinseed.

[+quack74 329]