Where are all the terrain tiles?

[Grinseed 19]

As most of you would know in the early part of the war the Belgian engineers who operated the complex system of dykes, sluices, weirs, and canals, at Nieupoort, flooded the land down to Dixmude to prevent the German army from taking the coast. They had a little help from the British Navy who pounded the German positions until the floodwaters drove them back. 

In WW1 flight sims I have played I have tried to include that piece of history which nicely rounds off the geography of where the front line meets the sea. The other end in the far south had the Swiss mountains to clearly define the end of the front, in the north, a flooded land. What I have presented here is a very simplified version. The land was flooded in several areas. What I have depicted is the main body of inundation. The western side was straight, defined by an elevated railway line that ran from Nieupoort to Dixmude. (Not quite sure I actually reached the Dixmude on the map.)

Its simple work with the TFD editor and I'd like to do a few more things including adding that artificial little round body of water at Ostend called the Spitum which served as a seaplane base during the war. I would also like to add some detail to the east coast of England, maybe create Gotha raids over Canterbury. I'd really love to make missions for the 1917 Gotha bombing raids against London, and the earlier Zeppelin raids, but that may be some time later, perhaps using Gepard's terrain.

Anyway, when I have worked on graphics tiles for MS and RedBaron3d the tiles were all available for editing and modifying. However when I open the moddified terrain folders of Edward or even Gepard's Battle of Britain folders and even the wwiCambrai and wwiVerdun cats it seems not all the tiles are available for editing. 

Am I looking in the wrong places?

I realise there is a lot to learn. I am reading the Knowledge bases for both SF series, but finding the tiles is my next step.

[+Geezer 3,569]

Wow!  Outstanding work - very impressive.  Perhaps gterl, Stephen1918, or Wrench can give you some useful advice, as my only experience with maps has mostly been tinkering with colors of already existing artwork. 

One thing I have learned is, if you are working in FE2, you can convert the artwork to dds or jpg format to reduce workload on the game engine.  Back when TK was responding to comments at his website, he once remarked that the biggest performance limitation was processing graphics.  Shot below shows how much reduction in file size there is for dds or jpg format, so there would be a corresponding reduction in your tile artwork for the game engine to process.

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Geezer

[Grinseed 19]

Thanks for the encouragement Geezer, but I haven't done any original artwork up to now, just using the existing tiles, copying, pasting and realigning with the TDF editor.  I have made the flooded plain, using the existing coast/lake files but then that has freed up six coast/lake tiles that could be adapted for other uses with a minimum of fuss, I hope.

However in the Flanders terrain folder, only two of those six  coast/lake tiles show up, and these two tiles are used only once where the front line met the sea, which I have replaced with the flooded landscape. I will be looking to alter these and reinstall them in jpg format. The other four tiles I cant find anywhere. I suppose they might be 'hardwired' into the game and only available for use with the TDF ie copy paste and realign. That would severely limit my editing hopes.

[+Stephen1918 1,474]

All of the terrain tiles should be in the terrain folder, or in one of the CAT files. (If there are seasonal tiles, each season will be its own folder inside the terrain folder.) If there is water on the tile, it will be in TGA format and you won't see a preview when you look in the folder on your desktop. The rest of the tiles will be in BMP format. Each terrain has a  _data.ini  and that assigns a Texture number to every tile. In Mue's TFD tool, missing tiles will show up as pink squares, if you align the cursor over that square, you will see the number of the missing tile at the bottom of the window. Then you can look in the data.ini to find the name of the tile - that at least tells you what you're looking for.

Edited June 15, 2018 by Stephen1918

[Wrench 9,801]

one of the reasons that learning and using, even with it's flaws and (sometimes) difficulty in use, is the stock 3W terrain editor. Not only allows the quick and easy addition of new tiles, but automatically generates the necessary TFD, HFD and _data inis. Then, it's a simple matter to copy/paste the newly added tiles statements to the data ini, and TFD & HFDs into the terrain under construction. BE ADVISED: back up the original _data. ini, and the TFD and HFD before doing anything!! There's no automatic save in the TE or the TFD tool. You make a mistake, you eat it.

I find the TFD tool less than useful for creating and modifying full terrains. Oh, its good for viewing, and maybe carving a river valley through a mountain, but overall ...

to the questions:

not all terraformers included all the tile necessary for their terrains, especially the very early 1stGen versions. That's because they reference them from one of the main terrain cats. (one of the reasons I include ALL tiles in ALL my terrains. Then you only have to worry about terrain objects. Also referenced from "main cats")

all tiles from all the 3W games are in bmp and tga formats (we won't discuss the format changes right now), and are stored within the varying terrain cat files (ie: wwiverdun.cat). You will one of the cat extractors, and just pull everything out of the cat. Store it someplace (relatively safe) You will need the data ini, as you need that to add the new tiles too. Unfortunately, you'll also need the textruelist.ini for the terrain you're working on. Odds are, there won't be one. Which means you need to create one using that function in the TE, and following the numeric listing from the data ini.

If you're trying to make a "swampy" or party flooded region, with patchy water or patchy dry land, you'll have to make tga's for those. The best example, visually, are those I created for the Everglades on the Cuba OTC map.

So, more questions, ask and I'll try to answer.

 

[Grinseed 19]

Thank you Wrench for your time and that info. Ok it looks like I need to learn more of tga files. RB3D was much simpler but not as satisfying graphically. 

I have collected all the mod tools here at CA but haven't used them all yet. I have all the cat files saved from Verdun and Cambrai. I have a lot to go over. Heading off to collect Cuba and I will certainly take up your offer when I know what question to ask next.

I am assuming the 3W terrain editor is over at 3W, if not that will be my next question.

Come, Toto, it looks like a big adventure ahead of us.

Edited June 15, 2018 by Grinseed

[Wrench 9,801]

both versions are here:

what you want to use, is the later version, the "WoE TE". Has slightly better functionality

[Grinseed 19]

Roger, got them both. Prodding and poking now. 

Thanks too to Stephen for that info. The Lebed 7 looks great. Will give it a whirl when the TE wears me out.