Merging FE2 with SF2, an experiment.
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KJakker, in Thirdwire: Strike Fighters 2 Series - Mods & Skinning Discussion
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By Eagle114th
Hello everyone,
I am re-creating the posts after hte ideas came up about the name of proejcts and what it is about. This project is to be known as SF2 Avionics Community Pack (SF2:ACP for short), because the purpose of this projects is to create the assets for anyone to usse for our mods, as well for customizing our SF2 installation. You will need to put them into aircraft folder and customize the .ini files, in order, for them to appear in-game.
This is what I find so enjoayble and I noticed that not many simulation does this. This s project aims to bring the realistic, immersive expereicnes in cockpits with actual textures for radar scope, RWR, HUD, and any avionics that is currently moddable in SF2 and aircraft mods.
I will exlpain the limitation of SF2 engine, so we can get better pictures of what we can and can't do for now. I said "for now, is becauuse I have the hope htat someday, somehow, someone manage to make it possible to make avioincs further moddable in SF2.
1) Texture issues: What can be done is chan ging radar scope texture. But the problem is that, the radar symbols / lines colors can not be changed. We are stuck with default green SF2 radar symbosl /lines / circles. And eve with new textures, the radar lines / symbols/ shapes will be applied on top of it. So it mean, if you have 'black line' on top of radar scope like A-4s as an exampe, the radar still overlap it.
Another issues is that, most of SF2 default aircraft does not have texture-able radar scope for 'turned off' radar, so it seem strange how CRT (texture) would suddenly show up when turnig radar on. I wished that the radar scope woudl be texture-able, so that it seem taht only radar lines / symbols / shapes would appear, therefore preserving the immersive experiences.
2) Lighting, after attempting to use the actual colors of radar scope based on the pictures, as an example, they usually show upup too bright comnpared ot another instructments / avionics in cockpit. So they need to be darken, in order to blend naturall in cockpits. And another issue is radar colors of green, it need to be readable, therefore further darken the texture. So they might will appear darker compared to the photo. (I am currenlty wokring on this part on both F-89s and A-4s radar scope and RWR new textures).
3) Avionics DLLs, there are only two DLLs I believe, that we can use either one of Avionics DLL for early and modern aircraft. But I still have the hope. The reason why I have hope is because, I am part of the community that is modding Jane's series simulation. That simulation is almost 30 years old and people still mods it. It amazes me, therefore gives me hopes.
Besides the lmitation, it does not stop us from wanting to create the mods that would improve the experiences in avioincs. What inspired me to do this, I was customizing SF2 installation for early cold war era (My favorite era), in Asia, midddle east, and other theatre, along with later cold war era, I noticed that there is always room of growth and improvement for cockpits. That is when I came up the awy to improve F-89 series radar scope, as you can see it in another theatre abou Stary's F-89 cockpits. Then here it is, SF2: Avionics Community Pack!
What would be great help if we can share the pictures and information on the avioinics for various planes, so we can get busy with the avioniocs improvement.
If anyoneo have the requests for radar scope, or any avioinics improvement, it would be great help if the resources can be provided too.
The next posts will cover what I am doing with both F-89s and A-4s gunsights, radar scope, and rwr, along with F-89's radar scope.
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DOWNLAOD: SF2 ACP v0.2
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Cheers!
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By johntitor
So I'am playing this strike fighters 2 black sea crisis addon and I believe I did everything right . The campaigns work for all factions except United States air force . When I select them and a specific squadron of aircraft and click on generate campaign ,the game just crashes to desktop . The same thing does not occur for Russian , ukrainian air force and united States navy . What could I be missing here . ? For some reason , the USAF aircraft are easily flown in single mission scenarios . Like the F16 will fly in single missions but when I try to click on its campaign . The game just crashes .
Your help is needed!
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By JamesWilson
Hi,
a couple of months ago i discovered this gorgeous total conversion called "Yankee Air Pirate", and that the "REVAMP" edition for SF2 (the original one was for WOV) existed, and other awesome total conversions like "Drug Wars" and "Flight School" too, so i got ready to download them, but since i hadn't enough space at the time, i waited.
Now i come back on the website to find out all the links and pages about the revamp are gone, there's only the original ones for SF1 series.
Do anyone of you know why they're gone? Will they come back? They're maybe updating the mods?
Thanks
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By VonS
Hi All,
Have been doing a bit of tinkering lately with my FlightGear install (see this thread for more info.) - and results are pleasing enough in what is a free, open-source flight sim. Managed eventually to get accurate photo-scenery working in FG, which is a noticeable improvement over the stock (dated) scenery that has been available in that sim for years on end (see pic. below for photo-scenery at work in FG, in this case in the Mesopotamian/s. Iraqi area; the Alb. D.I is a re-skin and FM-overhaul of a model done by Lester Boffo).
On a hunch, I then converted a bunch of the photo-tiles from FG (stock format is DDS) to BMP format - so that they become visible in the FE2 terrains folder - and it does indeed work - but would require careful, aesthetic choices regarding what tiles to replace in the terrains folder, such as farms, cities, deserts, etc. - for best cohesion and not too many jarring disconnects between tiles.
Nice to see that stock trees and buildings are populating over the satellite/ortho-terrains too, in FE2. Photo-scenery is simply an improved "satellite" carpet that covers the stock scenery and terrain framework in FlightGear - and by extension works the same way in the ThirdWire sims but requires manual conversion to BMP format and manual placement in the terrains folder (perhaps the DDS format would work too, but I didn't bother tinkering with the various settings/text files this time around in the terrains folder).
The other good thing about FlightGear is that it is fully under the GNU GPL (General Public License; i.e., "copy-left" license) - so there are no copyright problems that I know of if one borrows such ortho-scenery for FE2 too (haven't bothered to test with SF2). And if working on such a terrain swap as a personal project - that is of course even simpler.
A few representative pics. below with just a few ortho-scenery tiles placed over Stephen1918's upgrade of the Mesopotamian theater for FE2. Results look pretty good, particularly when flying higher up, and I haven't noticed any FPS drop with the photo-scenery tiles loaded. Some old tiles are still in place in the pics., for comparative purposes. Any empty areas are where I didn't bother to load tiles.
Anyway - I hope you find this post interesting - it's perhaps the "cheapest" way of upgrading tiles across the various theaters available for FE2.
If I find enough free time I might tinker further with this side-project; will post comments if the results prove particularly successful.
Cheers & good flying,
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