Can TODs be resized?

[+Menrva 4,099]

Resuming my terrain modding, I decided to to have a look at the various terrains in my mod folder and decided to tweak things here and there. I wanted to see if I could use hi-res First Eagles tilesets in SF terrains. Tiles are no problem obviously, but TODs are, since they do not scale properly, they are like 1:8 or more of what they should be. I think this might have to do with the fact that First Eagles' TFD resolution is 500, while in SF it is 2000.

 

I discovered this old thread (http://combatace.com/topic/21873-resizing-terrains-thread/), it explains how stock SF terrains can be resized to RL scale thanks to Hex editing and doubling of values in the .inis. But TOD files are always a problem, they do not scale. I am wondering if the same idea (Hex editing) could be applied to TODs as well.

[Wrench 9,728]

nope, TODs are pretty much fixed in size

[+Stary 2,427]

what Wrench said... that said I wonder if Mue wouldn't be able to produce TOD resizing tool of some sort given he seems to have the format nailed.

 

Blaze95 don't expect the FE2 TODs to be that good looking in SF2 even if resize would be possible, the 500meters resolution as compared to 2km of SF2 series gives you like 16 times the visual density of FE/FE2 TODs compared to jet titles. I was able to push the limits far beyond what seemed possible in SF2 TODs per-tile objects but by trial and error Terrain Editor ini "hacking" and more so odd approach to texturelist writing/reading etc as Terrain Editor too has it's age and limitations.

 

TL;DR

don't expect much, the engine won't allow like 10000 objects per tile anyway

[+Menrva 4,099]

Thanks for replying, Stary. Indeed you're right, I was out of my mind, density in FE2 TODs is way too high for SF2 to handle.

 

I have seen some interesting screenshots you made and posted in the SF2 screenshots thread a while ago. Your terrain experiments always intrigue me. You managed to obtain a sort of Jane's USAF look in regards to the terrains (with an hi-res patch, Jane's USAF terrains do look so much better than the ones in stock SF2). But I think that TODs would be a problem, since they are tile-based.

[+Stary 2,427]

Precisely. Interestingly the "new" NA/Iceland terrain system even if incomplete and porked (so they say) has in the inis buried sort of automatic trees generation together with what seems to be splatmaps for objects generation. But if that works I can't tell. have even one or two test  terrains in LOD format done but without some guidance from TK or some additional tools/plugins I wouldn't be able to finish them. COL files taht seem to be collision meshes come to mind.

I think more sane would be the other way around, asking someone in the know of HFD format like Gerwin or errr... Gerwin to do some additional HFD terrains tools to increase the pure meters per mesh resolution, be it some other higher resolution import files than DEM (simply heightmap files?) for heightmap generation or some tools to add some procedural detail into the HFD. Just thinking out loud here ofc.

I consider the "old" format pretty good still, just could be upgraded here and there by TK -but as the guy never replied to my mails (been like 9 years now!) then we are left with what we have or we could look for some wizard's help (again, Mue or Gerwin)