SF2NA Iceland Classic TFD/HFD terrain

[+Julhelm]

Well all anyone ever really needed to make terrains look good was a decent tool for interactive target placement so you could put all these little details. But having to add things via textfiles as if it's 1992 is lame.

[+Stary]

maybe the guy has his own inhouse tools he keeps for whatever reason for himself

[+Julhelm]

If that was the case then the stock stuff would always be more awesome than ours since proper tools = less effort/time needed. So I don't think he has any special tools. The few TW tools available are still only basic GUIs for easier inputting data into text files. Except TE, and we all know how user-friendly THAT was.

[+gerwin]

UPDATE ALERT ;)

 

- textures tilemap and heightmap have been tweaked, lakes have been added.

[+Dave]

Gerwin youre a beast. c

[+gerwin]

Gerwin youre a beast. You are doing a hell of a job and I am looking forward to this as I said before.

Me wonder, Aren't you a convert to the new LOD terrain?

Either way, Thanks for the good reception!, good to know I am not just making this mod for myself.

 

Small update:

- Houses are now more scandinavian style, for as far as possible.

- Less villages on the map.

- Some little tweaks here and there.

[+Stary]

Great Gerwin!

re new format: trying some new format terrain modeling myself I can say every single day I'm more and more disappointed with the new engine

[+Dave]

Me wonder, Aren't you a convert to the new LOD terrain?

 

I said I liked it but I still love the old school stuff with the trees etc. If that new format can be like that then that would be great.

[+Stary]

it can be, I guess some features are yet to be enabled (read: DLC terrain...)

 

[TreeMesh]

Filename=iceland_trees.LOD

Shader=iceland_Trees.fx

MeshSize=4000.0

MeshCount=2

MaxVisibleHeight=10000.0

 

[FoilageMesh]

Filename=iceland_foilage.LOD

Shader=iceland_Foilage.fx

MeshSize=500.0

MeshCount=1

MaxVisibleHeight=1000.0

 

adjusting these values add automatically placed trees in grid, however in my tests only on water

 

 

[+Julhelm]

@Gerwin: Looking at Google Earth, Reykjavik and other towns seem small and sparse enough that if you made somewhat accurate city tiles for that, I could make groups of buildings to place on them that more closely matches the real look of the place. With collision of course.

[+gerwin]

@Gerwin: Looking at Google Earth, Reykjavik and other towns seem small and sparse enough that if you made somewhat accurate city tiles for that, I could make groups of buildings to place on them that more closely matches the real look of the place. With collision of course.

 

I am in doubt here. Looking at google earth, I don't even want to count the houses in Reykjavik, because it is much.

No chance of actually putting that in the game with 3D models. A few custom textures would be more effective.

The iceland cat includes plenty iceland houses, but it requires tedious ini placement.

Actually they are already there as part of the stock Targets. It is just that they are few (to keep framerate acceptable?).

 

-----

 

With this Iceland mod I just started the easy way with a few textures. As to be able to at least RUN SF2NA on windows XP.

I always liked the IsraelME green textures, and is not an unnatural color for iceland.

So then it was one green island, with not many visual clues about where one is. So snow had to be added.

I spend much time blending the snow into the terrain. If it blends in naturally it looks good, otherwise it looks questionable.

Also I added some quick filters to TFDtool to do some placements for me, example: put texture no. X only on steep slopes.

Only from high altitude you can sometimes see the square patterns in the snow.

From lower altidude it generally looks natural now.

 

As a bonus I added

-lakes

-the "fjord airfield" detail

-some barren/rocky hill textures.

-scandinavian house textures for the TODs

 

What could still be done is this

- rivers (priority)

- some snow glaciers (may not be practical with this tile system)

- some brown/muddy/rocky areas, where vegetation is little.

- City / Town / Industrial details (one can spend a lifetime on these...)

[+Julhelm]

They can be modelled as one group of buildings per tile and mapped to an atlas texture. Then you only need a single coordinate per tile. Not really different from .tods except I can make collision boxes around blocks of buildings.

[+KnightWolf45]

They can be modelled as one group of buildings per tile and mapped to an atlas texture. Then you only need a single coordinate per tile. Not really different from .tods except I can make collision boxes around blocks of buildings.

and keep de poly count low if you use box whit few polys

[+Stary]

but these will sink into terrain slopes if big enough

[FeDee]

Works nice with WIN7 - GF6200 DX9 - 2GB RAM

 

Thanks MAN!!

[+Julhelm]

but these will sink into terrain slopes if big enough

So make the city areas flat?

[+gerwin]

They can be modelled as one group of buildings per tile and mapped to an atlas texture. Then you only need a single coordinate per tile. Not really different from .tods except I can make collision boxes around blocks of buildings.

OK,

I will try to do some reykjavik tiles in the week ahead. And we can experiment with how to decorate them

[valter]

Gerwin,

thanks, SFNA was completely unplayable over the Island due to low fps until I installed your modded terrain. Now, to my great surprise, it runs fine! Great job!

 

Valter

 

(Windows Vista, on a bootcamped old iMac partition, 2G RAM, 256M ati video card)

[Icarus999]

I tried that Gepard, adding LOD meshes to terrain but the new way, doesn't compute

 

funny as the more time I spend with the new terrain engine the more I think old one is better and user friendly in many areas... imported small 300x300 km part of Vietnam map, ended with 60 MILLION polys

 

Gerwin, keep it up!

 

How does one go about importing an old style SF map into Max? I like that idea of building 3d terrain features like mountains and cliffs to fit the terrain and placing them on the old school terrain via ini in game.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Icarus999

[+gerwin]

How does one go about importing an old style SF map into Max? I like that idea of building 3d terrain features like mountains and cliffs to fit the terrain and placing them on the old school terrain via ini in game.

I do not use 3DSmax, but I figure one has to Convert it to a bitmap image with height information first. You can do that with TW terrain editor or TFDtool.

[+Wrench]

"export HeightMap as Bitmap"

[vietace1]

 

The snow cover is now more convincing.

Same download location, you can find it in the 1st post.

 

Hi Gerwin,

 

Can you show me how to use your map with SF2: NA? I unzip your map files and put in IcelandNA folder in G:\Program Files\ThirdWire\Strike Fighters 2\Terrains but it seems I still get the stock Iceland map with ugly graphic when playing Northern Sabre campaign. I have merged SF2: V, E, NA and my PC is Windows XP SP3. Thank you.

 

Vietace

[SFP1Ace]

Use your MOD folder, not the GAME INSTALLATION folder bro! It should be in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents \ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 NorthAtlantic\Terrains\

[+gerwin]

I worked in the terrain again. One could notice square texture patterns from higher altitudes. That is a common issue with SF terrains, but I managed to reduce it quite a bit.

Download link in the first post.

[+Dave]

Thanks Gerwin