My next terrain project

[+Gepard]

Back to Michigan, USA

SitRep: I made two new tiles for suburbs. Further i created transistion tiles from sea to famland and from sea to forrest. I still have to create transition tiles from sea to city and then i hope, that the terrain editor will make his job to do the transistion of the map automatically.

You see in front the city tiles and in the background the two suburb tiles

Here the suburb tiles are on the left, the city tiles are right.

Here you see the two suburb tiles. One as only living area, the other with shopping centers or factories or whatever it is.

[+daddyairplanes]

13 hours ago, Gepard said:

Here you see the two suburb tiles. One as only living area, the other with shopping centers or factories or whatever it is.

bigger sets of buildings tend to be shopping centers. especially with bigger parking lots. smaller sets of buildings tend to be the factories

Edited December 31, 2024 by daddyairplanes

[+Gepard]

SitRep: I made some sea to city tiles. this are screenshots of the first test.

The mask in alpha channel has still to adjust. Thatswhy the differences between the seatiles.

[Viggen]

I'm not from Michigan but the suburb neighborhood tiles feel right at home. So many easter eggs could be placed on this map too. Don't suppose there's a cargo ship that looks close to a lake freighter?

[+Gepard]

I'm fighting a little bit with the TerrainEditor. Automatic transistion of tiles works fine. But there is one small problem. TE kicks out all of my city tiles and make them to farmland. Funny.

Surely it is only a small mistake in the textureslist.ini. But which?

[+Gepard]

SitRep: At the moment i'm placing forrest tiles on the map. This must be done by hand, what means, it is time consuming. As you see on the map the canadian forrests are now on the map and i'm working southwards.

When all forrest tiles are laid out, i will make the transition run with the terrain editor. Cross the fingers, that this tool will do the job properly. Otherwise i will have to do a lot of handwork.

[+Gepard]

I found a small mistake on my suburb tiles: "Willow creek". Funny.

If you want to know, where Willow Creek is located: The red button west of Detroit

[+Gepard]

In the last days i placed TOD buildings on the farm tiles of Michigan terrain.

Trees will come later.

[+Gepard]

I'm playing with forrest tiles.

It is not perfect so far. I will have to rework it. But first i must check which trees exist in the Michigan area.

[+Gepard]

A further test with TOD objects. This time houses for small towns or villages.

On this screenhot the houses are a little bit difficult to see, thatwhy shows the next screenhot a zoomed in view.

The pity is, that i can place only 180 of this houses on one tile. More will not appear in game. Unfortunatly.

I will do some research how the houses in Michigan looks like. I'm not really satisfied with the look the houses have at the moment.

 

And BTW. When i started work on the terrain i had fictive scenarios in mind with Canada on the one side and the US military on the other side.

Now with President Trumps idea to make Canada to the next US state ..... Never thought it could happen.

[+daddyairplanes]

what about making batch houses, with say the four houses in one row connected as one object?

[+Gepard]

On 26.1.2025 at 6:47 PM, daddyairplanes said:

what about making batch houses, with say the four houses in one row connected as one object?

There is no LOD of an house avaliable, which would fit.

The problem is, that all skins of this house must be included in one single bmp or jpg file. The house must be very low poly, otherwise i can place only very few houses on one tile. The house in the last screenshots is not to bad, but to small. It has a size of 10 x 8 meters. Better would be 20 x 10 meters.

And such a house i was unable to find, so far.

 

Edited January 28 by Gepard

[+Gepard]

TOD houses on village or small town tiles. I changed the roof colors. Looks more friendly now.

[+Gepard]

Experimenting with trees. In the SF2 world we knew two kinds of trees. One were flat in one plane  the others had two planes which were crossed in 90°. The later trees looked from above like an X. I found a third kind of trees. This trees have an additional plane which is crossing the X horizontal. It looks like a three-dimentional coordinate system. ( I hope my explaination is understandable. Mathematical terms in english language is not one of my strenght.)

So the experiment with the 3-plane trees looks in game:

It are 3 trees. from above they are looking good, but from side ....

 

[+daddyairplanes]

i think they look ok from the side (not great but not terrible either).

my only issue is the size. most of the trees that big in the midwest got chopped down nearly two centuries ago

[+Stratos]

We will need Great Lakes Freighters...

BTW, this terrain made me tought on this wargame...

http://www.avalanchepress.com/gamePlanCrimson.php

[+Gepard]

During my military time i had some lessons about history of tanks (or panzers, how we call it in german language). About the USA was said, that the Army after WW1 was not up to date. They still believed in trench wars, like WW1 and so the american tanks of this timeframe were outdated and less usefull. But one bright american ingeneur named John Walter Christie invented the wheel-track tank, which had no future in the US Army, but was bought by the Soviets, which modified it to BT tanks, which were the forerunners of the legendary T-34.

In such a lesson i heard, that the USA in the 1920 made two war plans. One against Mexico and one against the british dominion Canada. Not to make war, but to have something in the drawyer in the case of emergency.

Was not to wrong the background history lessons in the east german military.

EDIT: For the american war plan against UK and Canada look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

 

BTW the size of trees. Yes they are to big. IIRC there was a way to scale TOD objects with the old Terrain Editor of TK. But i have forgotten how to do it.

Edited January 31 by Gepard

[+EricJ]

50 minutes ago, Gepard said:

During my military time i had some lessons about history of tanks (or panzers, how we call it in german language). About the USA was said, that the Army after WW1 was not up to date. They still believed in trench wars, like WW1 and so the american tanks of this timeframe were outdated and less usefull. But one bright american ingeneur named John Walter Christie invented the wheel-track tank, which had no future in the US Army, but was bought by the Soviets, which modified it to BT tankd, which were the forerunners of the legendary T-34.

In such a lesson i heard, that the USA in the 1920 mad two war plans. One against Mexico and one against the british dominion Canada. Not to make war, but to have something in the drawyer in the case of emergency.

Was not to wrong the background history lessons in the east german military.

 

BTW the size of trees. Yes they are to big. IIRC there was a way to scale TOD objects with the old Terrain Editor of TK. But i have forgotten how to do it.

Nobody's questioning your logic but that's an interesting tidbit to know. I mean given what's going on now it well... Yeah.

[+Gepard]

I resized the trees. The big ones are now around 30 meters high, the smaller ones are 25 meters high. This should be more or less correct. I hope so.

The trees on the right side are standard X shape trees. The trees on the left side and in background have the additional layer, which make them looking more "tree style" from above.

It is still a test.

[+Gepard]

Sitrep: I let the TerrainEditor do the transition work. So sea to farm, sea to forrest, forrest to farm tiles are now all over the map available. Towns, cities and transition of city tiles i must do by hand. It's still a long way to go.

Screenshots of a test mission:

I was intercepted by a bunch of Air Force Phantoms. Had a short discussion with them. Thatswhy the black dots in the sea.

 

[CSomers611]

23 hours ago, Gepard said:

I was intercepted by a bunch of Air Force Phantoms. Had a short discussion with them. Thats why the black dots in the sea.

Oil Slicks?! 

Looking forward to this terrain, looks great!

[+Gepard]

It is still a long way to go. So the planning map looks at the moment:

[+Wrench]

4 hours ago, CSomers611 said:

Oil Slicks?! 

 

Yeah, it's part of the "DestroyedShipEffect". Does the same anyplace there's water, and a boat sinks. Unfortunately, it's not burning, like one see in "Atlantic Fleet"

[+Gepard]

I made an additional tile for suburbs. The houses are smaller, than in the other two suburb tiles.

I have no idea, how i should populate this tiles with TOD houses.

#

On the left side you see one of the older suburb tiles, in the right the new tile.

 

[+Gepard]

I just finish to reread Tom Clancy's "Debt of honor". Was an fantastic scenario around the islands of Saipan and Guam in Pacific Ocean. The islands were captured by the Japanese and the US Navy was going to fight down F-15J's and Mistubishi F-2 with only one carrier group of F-14's and F-18's.

Would be a nice terrain. Or what do you think?