The Curse of Uniformity

[Stwa 18]

Hi guys,

 

I love WOV/WOE, and I have stuck with the standard tile sets, for all this time. Sure I have downloaded plenty of the re-paints, and messed with them for a while, but only for a while.

 

The main problem, I have is a uniformity issue. For some reason that I can't explain, I just cant toggle from the WOV/WOE terrain set to the older (but very nice) Desert terrain set.

 

And that poses, some real issues for Israel terrain.

 

I want to share a solution, I came up with years ago, but I want to try again at improving this arrangement. Most of you won't like what I have done, and I understand its art, and I am not really an expert at terrain tiles.

 

The terrain I am using, is Israel 2 (from Gephard), which uses only 3 farming tiles (5 in Israel), and I retiled this terrain using an expanded WOV set.

 

I set up the terrain folder, so I could try out various farm tiles, to see the effect on the game. There are only 5 tiles that can be replaced, kinda like seasonal tiles.

 

Edited March 12, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

As you can see from above, I have created 5 tiles that were created from overlaying WOV farm tiles onto a SF1 desert tile.

 

When making these tiles, (which only take a few minutes), you can dramatically create a different effect in the game.

 

Now, I am not saying these tiles look like Israel, or Egypt, or Lebanon, or Jordan, which all look very different.

 

The tiles can also stand some improvements, to get rid of any pattern look in the overview map.

 

But, because of the uniformity with WOV/WOE, I like this set for Israel 2. (go figure)

 

 

[Stwa 18]

Well, you know, I have seen alot of aerial photos of the Nile Delta, and they look dark green for the most part, with no patches of desert showing through.

 

Funny though, I really stopped looking at aerial photos for tiling ideas when I was tiling Korea, one of my first maps. It occurred to me, your tileset provides you with about six basic colors. And that is what they look like from 20,000 feet, just colors.

 

Here is Northern Lebanon ... looks a lot like NAM, eh? But it also looks like Germany, or Korea, or Tawain.

 

 

[Stwa 18]

Did you guys like that fantasy F-100D with Israeli markings? I decided a long time ago, that addon aircraft (the free variety), would not be in keeping with the stock aircraft in the game. It's mainly a cockpit issue. I got the idea from downloading the Mystere IV about 50 times. One version used the F-100D cockpit, and then the lights came on.

 

Anyway, my Israeli Air Force uses all American equipment, even though they lifted the F-100D's off the French. It keeps even my aircraft tidy and uniform.

 

But I would like to switch gears to another fine Gephard terrain (the Persian Gulf) ... I just had to make it conform to my other terrains.

 

Anyway, its 1979, the Soviets invade Iran by mistake, when their armored columns take a wrong turn in Khazakhstan. The Islamic revolution is on, so the invaders are igonred.

 

Its the land of the F-15's, and its also the land of the Hunters. Everyone has one, even Kuwait, who's pilots cant reach their homeland on this map and must use the "near target" option.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

OK, so we moved the Kuwait sqadrons to Quatar, since its impossible for Iraq to rumble into Kuwait City on this terrain.

 

But, here we use the Hunters for CAP missions over the oilfields and air bases, and occassionly the all important Mosque. Once in a while there will be anti shipping missions. But one thing we never do, is send the Hunters across the Gulf to the other side. There is a monster SAM fence, and it has an exceptional warning system that detects us about half way there.

 

Now, with so many countries using the same bird, this posed a serious uniformity issue.

 

Fortunately, I was saved by a excellent skin. Anyway, it looked great on the aircraft, but when examining the skin bmp files, I noticed, additional stuff in areas that were basically not used by the 3d model. This caused a great amount of anxiety. So, I basically re-did the skin transfering the upper camo back to the original hunter under-side, and, oh yea, I removed the red stripe on the fusalage.

 

Now, every country uses this same skin, with Arabic numbers. Its available in game as the FGA Mk.9, but in real life the export Mk's were different.

 

[Stwa 18]

Anyway, to the original creator of the Hunter Desert Camo skin, I want to express my sincere thanks. Now, all my Hunters, no matter where they deploy, look basically alike (i.e. UNIFORM).

 

Last year I spent lurking (in the forums ), and I discovered a wonderful Cuba map (by Tonix). He had the actual foresight, and clarity of thought, to tile his rendidtion with WOE tiles. I started to drool before I could hit the download button.

 

As expected, this terrain did not disapoint. But, the map included portions of Central America, so I reduced the terrain to 800 km's, cropping out these countries. Oh, I must mention, I retiled it ala WOV. I couldn't help myself. Years ago, I spent countless hours developing an autotexture scheme that is guaranteed to produce a tropical island (with or without rice paddies), in just 2 mouse clicks.

 

I love this terrain, and its home for my fantasy fleet of USAF F-104G's. I base them in Florida, and the only thing faster to Havana is a ballistic missle.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Map cropping, was seldom used in the heyday, maybe moreso now. But, the terrain, that led me over the hump regarding technique, was the Falkland Islands. On this terrain I employed, cropping, a terrain flat, skewing or streching the elevation data, and off map enemy air bases. My first custom terrain tiles were developed here.

 

Now, I am no terrain expert, and that is for sure. But I enjoyed making this terrain from sea up. The islands are the only land mass in the terrain and it has 40 or more sea movement routes. The largest planning map is highly detailed showing the locations of all the harbors and towns, and important coastal areas.

 

You can do any kind of mission, but CAP over the harbors, and friendly static cargo ships, are generally the most fun. Their is a single friendly air base, I believe the one the British constructed after the war.

 

Of course, to keep things consistant and UNIFORM. The terrain uses WOE tiles. Here you get 2 colors.

 

This might be a good time to discuss some of the techniques enumerated above, but I am guessing they are all common knowledge now.

 

 

Edited March 12, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Iceland, I developed along the same lines as Falkland Islands. I got the idea from another forum topic that was discussing the new NA stuff for SF2.

 

The original terrain was by Baltika. I used most of the same techniques applied to the Falklands, but I added snow in the higher elevations. So, it uses 3 colors instead of 2.

 

I like the terrains best, when you don't get too carried away with them. That being said, the original Iceland terrain is outstanding, and I almost felt shame modifying it in this way.

 

Anyway, I had to change the scale, by reducing the terrain bmp file from 3000 pixels to 2000. Then I cropped it as I did with the Falkland Islands. I added the "off map" enemy bases, retained 2 friendly air bases, and a few of the town, harbor, and shipping targets. It need more targets, but that will come later.

 

 

Edited March 12, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Despite its scarcity of targets, Iceland still has about 40 or so coastal towns and harbors, each with a static cargo ship that must be protected from the bad guys.

 

There are no targets in the upper ice cap, which is depicted with the CE snow tile. The volcanos and glaicers are conveniently covered with this tile. Now days, I like to make clear divisions with the tileset colors. It's simplicity is its greatest virtue, and though not very realistic, it still conveys the primary destinctions of the terrain.

 

The distinctions from coastal Reykjavik and the upper elevations of the island are made clear. This approach is simple, but its too simple for the more modern approach to ground scenery now days.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Apart from the mainlaind (and sometimes historical) theaters of operations, I have noticed a theme slowly developing over time. And the sim allows us to suppose conflict with the Communist nations anywhere on the globe. It is this attribute, that sets this time period apart from most others.

 

The island theme has emerged. In my case each terrain follows the same construction principles. A central air base, or capital city, with an abundant supply of coastal towns and harbors. Each terrain has been cropped to something less than the usual 1000 km square.

 

Guadalcanal was intended to be a cold war terrain set in the late 50's. But it could be used for WW2 as well, and its development was a method of befriending Wrench.

 

It is the smallest terrain I have developed, 400 km square, and supports the same off map enemy airbases. The missions require a CAP over friendly air bases (there is only one), and cargo ships spread out all around the coastal areas of the main island. In addition, there are enemy cargo ships attempting to supply the Communist infiltration.

 

Here, the old Henderson field is restored, and its home to a fantasy squadron of Australian Hunters.

 

I love fantasy aircraft, and these Hunters duke it out daily with MiGs from the various, now independent, Indonesian nations.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2012 by Stwa

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Interesting.

 

Stwa, try a map centered on the Celebes, the most fascinating spot in the ocean. Make it 1000km or preferably larger. Very nice mountainous jungle islands. If it wasn't for my main project, I'd be doing a SW Pacific campaign about 1960 with USSR+China (manpower) replacing the late 1941/early 1942 Japanese....except nothing can replace A6M2 range.

[Stwa 18]

Hi Lexx,

 

I remember you discussing more or less the same concpet years ago over at TK's forum. I thought it to be a good idea at the time.

 

But, I gotta tell you, there are a lot of advantages to using the single base reduced size map. The Solomon Islands map above does not depict the entire island chain, just a 400 km square. But that is 16% of the area of a 1000 km map.

 

You wouldn't believe how much frame rate you recover because of that. I can turn everything to high, except water and shadows. (I dont like the high water anyway), and furball with over 2 dozen planes, and my box is 1.7 GHz and Radeon 9600 (an antique).

 

For instance, in the screenie below, I have cockpit reflections and mirrors turned on. High effects, and terrain textures, I am in a beeg furball, and there are plenty of frames left over.

 

Now, the system obviously does not try to process all the ground detail at once, even in the large terrains. But the combination of reduced area, and fewer ground targets can affect your processing speeds.

 

Edited March 14, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Sub polar terrains seem to dominate my collection, and Bering Strait was my first terrain. Actually it was lifted off Major Lee, back when he had his own site, and is otherwise known as DBS.

 

Of course, I wanted to retile this terrain as a "summer" terrain, using WOE tiles. Well this was my first terrain hack job, and I was very green. I grappled with peculiar shoreline effects, and the infamous autotexture routine, to mixed results.

 

Eventually I discovered a perfect shorline needed about 4 mouse clicks, and I finally got the snow tiles to go down in a predictable way. The very same method I applied to Iceland, in more recent times.

 

How was I to know, a fellow named Stary, would come along years later, and now I can have both winter and summer seasons for Bering Strait, Iceland, and Falkland Islands, if need be.

 

This terrain is a full 1000 km map, and there is no need for off map enemy air bases. If I had a nickel for every MiG I have shot down over this terrain, I would be rich.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

OK,

 

Now might be a good time to pause, and review the bidding. What have we learned so far.

 

1. I like the dull, uninteresting stock terrains from WOV/WOE.

 

2. I like fantasy aircraft, so much so, I took a perfectly legitiment Hunter skin and turned it into a generic (fantasy) skin, by swapping out its sky blue underside, with the stock RAF grey underside. Maybe the Chilean pilots are happy.

 

3. I pitched a most clever and artistic tile set (Iceland), in favor of a 3 color stock set.

 

4. I like sub polar terrains. Tierra del Fuego will be next.

 

5. My computer needs to be replaced.

 

6. I still have many more terrains. The ones that took forerver to get "right", or I just didn't finish them off. The partial list includes, Korea, Iran/Iraq, and Libya. For instance, I found a completely functional Korea, tiled in WOV, in a 2007 backup file, just tonight.

 

While there are much better versions of these maps here at Combat ACE, I am happy that I can round up all my old stuff. Korea is so large its daunting, and I doubt I will take the time to finish out its targets.

 

Anyway, it was fun posting, thanks for the patience.

 

I gotta improve my spelling. Its the source of lot of the post edits.

 

Oh, and I was just over a TW looking at the screenies for the new NA. WoW, but you know, I doubt seriously that when I do upgrade the box, I will probably not even try to match the requirements for that game.

 

 

Regards,

 

Stwa

Edited March 14, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Well, that pretty much wraps up my terrain collection.

 

Hehe, me thinks I am getting the terrain scales confused again, so maybe Lexx, if he is still following this thread, can help me out. I could have sworn the DEM starts of as 500 NM as each pixel is 30 arc seconds. And you give the TE a 1000 pixel square.

 

Anyway, one of the greatest joys (in my mind) for doing one of these terrains, is reducing (drastically), the number of target areas.

 

Some of them have over 300 target areas, and some of those areas can contain quite a few targets.

 

As an example, the Persian Gulf terrain, had around 50 air bases. I reduced that to 9. Now for sure, I am doing 1979, and I think the terrain was really meant for modern times. In 1979, I am thinking Oman wasn't fully mapped. Each capitol city got an airfield. (for the Hunters). Saudi Arabia has another (for the F-15's). Then there are a few enemy fields. In so doing after, these maps go together quickly.

 

In the end, the main feature of this map, will be blowing away enemy tankers, while protecting friendly ones. Of course you need to CAP the oilfields, and capitol cities. etc...

 

Here is the only airfield in Bahrain. Now that I think about it, they might not of even had and airport then.

 

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Hehe, me thinks I am getting the terrain scales confused again, so maybe Lexx, if he is still following this thread, can help me out. I could have sworn the DEM starts of as 500 NM as each pixel is 30 arc seconds. And you give the TE a 1000 pixel square.

 

I don't remember. I went to making my own bmps and importing them, instead of importing the downloaded geo DEMs straight into TE. It all depends on the new terrain setup variables...under Flle ~> New ... the New Terrain Dialogue box. It took a few years before I used that. In fact I think it was Gepard's tutorial that pointed me to that dialogue box.

 

TK did a fantastic job on TE, once you learn it.

[Stwa 18]

Hey Lexx,

 

Thanks anyway. But this is my assumption, and I have always wondered, because you hear so many contradictory things. But TE spits out a 2000 pixels bmp file, that normally represents 1000 Km in the game. But, in reality its actuall ground scale is 667 Km. So I think, that is why the guys are now using 3000 pixel bmps, which I think equates to a full scale 1000K.

 

Like the Denmark map Gepard is working on.

 

And I agree with you about TE.

 

But, me thinks it is no obsolte, because of SF2 NA.

[Stwa 18]

The Persian Gulf terrain, went together faster and without hassle, more so than any terrain I have done. This is mostly due to how desolate it is, and there just isnt that much ground infastructure that needs to be modeled or even shown.

 

After all, it all boils down to how much earth detail you want to use. That is the basic question. You cant do it all, thats a fact. I came from CFS3 to WOV, and I was wanting a sim that did not try to model the entire ground war. It is a combat "flight" simulator, right?

 

Here is a pic, that at least shows you how desolate this area was/is. I found one for all seven countries, but will show just one.

 

[Stwa 18]

One more fantasy aircraft. Well not exactly. The Saudis were flying the F-5 Freedom Fighter in 1979. I think they got F-15's around 1984.

 

But in this terrain/scenario, the will get them in 1978. They threw a total fit, when they found out Israel was getting theirs in 1977.

 

The main problem with this bird, and the F-16A too, it is just hard work keeping up with the wingies. We probably wiped out an entire squadron on this mission. Makes the campaigns go quick.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2012 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Well, just to wrap things up. I thought I would show a "hangar screen" which is part of the new RSAF Middle East Theme. I do have the camo tanks that came with the skin, just haven't got around to adding them to the weapons data base yet.

I was thinking, that I might talk about some of the "techniques" I used when do my own re-makes of these maps, but there is plenty of SF1 maps going, so really no need at this late date.

Anyway, SF1 is a very colorful, nice looking game, and looks best in wide screen, me thinks.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Stwa

[+Baltika 84]

well, this is certainly the most interesting manifestation of OCD I have ever seen

[gregair 0]

Hey Stwa thats great work you have done there.

 

Any chance of you doing something similar for Angola/Namibia border area for 1980's?

[Stwa 18]

Hey Stwa thats great work you have done there.

 

Any chance of you doing something similar for Angola/Namibia border area for 1980's?

 

Hi, Thanks!

 

I really do not think I will start any new terrains. Even though I do not have them all, I have plenty of actual and potential cold war "hot" spots that keep my busy enough with the game.

 

The most interesting terrain turned out to be the Persian Gulf area. Desert maps look a whole lot better, when you can use the desert shoreline tiles I made to extend the WOV set. They have the look of standard WOE/WOV tiles (not SF tiles).

 

This terrain storyline follows an alternate history article from the Wiki regarding a Soviet invasion of Iran. I have attached a PDF of this article. It is very thorough.

 

Soviet Invasion of Iran.pdf

 

Edited July 19, 2013 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Hi again,

 

I wanted everyone to know I am still messing with this game. I get it out periodically and it is still a blast. Of the beeg three, I guess I like Israel the best, but its a close call. Persian Gulf is very interesting, so if anyone knows where a good IIAF Phantom skin is, please let me know.

 

I am still on the 2006 version. I just have too many mods to seriously consider SF2. I would probably lose functionality if I upgraded. But, I am having fun, and that is the main thing. I hope you guys are having fun too.

 

Just lurking around the forums, its hard to not notice my approach to terrains is not normal. Same is true for targets. For instance, the Israel terrain has exactly 150 target areas, compared to the 360 after Wrench ran wild in the version 2 that I download several years ago.

 

I did the airports first. There were 65 of them in Israel 2 that I used. I just take the locations (already provided), and add the stock airfields. No custom objects allowed.  

 

Then I did the ports next. I have serveral prototypes for the SC50C tile (the one with the docks), with basic target offsets for a few warehouses, tanks, cranes, and cargoships. Think of these like airfields, (i.e. port1, port2, port3, etc.). There were about 20 or so ports.

 

Then I did wrenches, or maybe Gepards oil fields. There were three.

 

Then I did the SAM sites (just the SAM sites), and replaced the radars and launchers with SAMRadar and SAMLauncher. I take just the SAM complexes. Not the SAM sites near the cities or air bases. You know, Osiris, Isus, Ra, etc. The junk by the canal. There were about 50 areas since each has 6-15 launcher sites.

 

Then I pitch the rest of the targets. A lot of them are filled with more third party object references.

 

I generally don't do target areas over cities, especially if there is not going to be a ground war in the campaign. But if there is, I might use target areas to denote major cities, but with NO actual targets. So this whole enterprise (all the steps, might take 5-6 hours depending on how many times, I have to reference the tiles with the Terrain editor.

 

As I messed with the terrain over time, I added more targets to all the port and air base aeras. These additional target have good offset data derived long ago, so they can be cloned and ripped and appended to the air base or port target area. Things like oiltanks, HQs, SAM stuff, comm buildings, city buildings, etc. But generally in ones or twos. For instance, I don't like putting 32 scud lanchers into a single target area. I usually place 1 or 2 in several remote air bases.

 

Well, anyway, have fun. I hope the downloads come on-line soon. The pics show some of Israel, which I didn't post last time. I know what you are thinking. It looks like Vietnam, right. 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2013 by Stwa

[Stwa 18]

Recently, I have been messing alot with the Falkland Islands. In my game the islands can be defended by all friendlies. (i.e. including Argentina). I do have a small campaign as well.

 

It is 1985 (after the real Falkland Island War), and the Soviets (of course) have managed to infiltrate one or more of the much smaller and uninhabited islands in the Falkland chain. They have established a base and though lacking supplies, it represents a way station for Antartic exploration (Aha!), but also has a small airfield and can support at least a few fighter aircraft.

 

And in keeping with the theme of our game, the Soviets, just cannot restrain themselves from messing with NATO countries, hemisphere not withstanding.

 

As it turns out, with this terrain, if the date is 1985 or later, you get two airfields. Mt Pleasant Airbase, which was new as of this date, and the original airport at Port Stanely, which is smaller.

 

The pic shows an Argentine A-4P flying over the Falklands, which implies to me (since it is 1985), that they won the war in 1982!

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2013 by Stwa