My next terrain project

[+Gepard]

So the marking of the airfields at night now looks so:

Two red light beacons, made by Yakarow, each placed 1.000 meters away from runway.

 

[+Gepard]

At the moments i'm making rivers and roads on the map.

So the area west of the river Dnepr looks now in editor tool. New are the rivers Southern Bug, Ingulez, the Dnepr Delta, the canal from town Kriwoi Rog to the Dnepr reservoir. (Still WIP)

Towns of Cherson, Kriwoi Rog and Nikopol placed on the map or relocated. Nikolajew and Energodar with the nuclear powerplant will come next.

 

[+Gepard]

A first experimental tile for Energodar Nuclear Power plant.

I think it will need 6 or 7 tiles to make Energodar. Its a f..cking big plant.

 

[+Gepard]

Fly over Energodar Nuclear Powerplant. Still work in progress.

It is still a lot to do. Water tiles are in JPG instead TGA. Some more tiles in the east are to made and then the blendig to existing tiles must made.

If Energogar is done, i think i will make some tiles for the big iron mines of Kriwoi Rog. Ther are really big holes in the earth.

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Gepard

[+Gepard]

Some progress with Energodar. It looks better now. Its not perfect, but better.

The missing waves on the water are there, because the tiles are still jpg and not tga. Still WIP.

 

 

[+Wrench]

It's a pity we can't (actually) have things below ground -- seeing something like an open pit mine would be cool

[+Gepard]

1 hour ago, Wrench said:

It's a pity we can't (actually) have things below ground -- seeing something like an open pit mine would be cool

You mean something like this:

Its a first experimental tile for one of the iron mines near Kriwoi Rog. It should be twice as big as i have done it so far. With TFD editor i have lowered the terrain under the mine and formed a "hole" which is more than 100 m deep. At the screenshots it is not very good to see. Perhaps on the last one a little bit better. On the left side is a spoil dump, on the tight side the "hole" of the mine.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Gepard

[+Wrench]

outstanding! i didn't even think of that , using the TFD tool. when I used the height adjustment function, it never seemed so prescise (area say a few hundred square meters)

well done!!!! 

 

(in an addendum to my post above, i remember Russo made a ICBM silo that was open, and actually DID go below ground; or appeared to.)

[+Gepard]

The tiling of Energodar Nuclear Powerplant is nearly finished. There are still some refinements neccessary. And of course the change from jpg to tga format for coastline tiles.

So it looks in game at the moment:

Flightpath from East to West.

Placed target objects are at the moment the 6 reactor buildings and some big warehouses as placeholders for big generator buildings and last but not least the 2 cooling towers. Its still a long way till Energodar will be finished.

To comparision, so Energodar town and nuclear plant looks in reality:

Edited October 2, 2022 by Gepard

[+Gepard]

I have startet to built the town of Energodar by using Wingwiners blocks of flats. (I hope this is the correct english term, perhaps panel building is better.)

I converted Wingwiners buildings from bmp to jpg, to reduce the workload of the computer. I hope that the framerate will not suffer from the lots of buildings when Energodar will be finished.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Gepard

[+daddyairplanes]

flats is good for most of Europe i think. those of us onthe other side of the pond would go with apartments or just buildings if its a mix of homes and businesses.

looking good like usual tho

 

[+Gepard]

SitRep:

Building of the town of Energodar makes good progress:

At the moment 292 buildings, all complete destroyable. Apprx. 50% done.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Gepard

[+Gepard]

The town of Energodar is finished now. 481 buildings. It looks like a typical soviet town of the 1980th.

[+Gepard]

SitRep:

I'm still working on Energodar, town and nuclear powerplant. I added some more factories and other ground objects. Then i try to rework parts of the tiles which not match. And finally i have started to "plant trees".

 

 

 

[+Menrva]

Outstanding work, Gepard!

It's a tragedy that all of that is a current warzone, but in a way you're giving light to it with such artistic work. Props to you. 

[Wilches]

Marvelous!!! Pretty much immersive! This area should be heavy "flakked" don´t you agree?

[+Gepard]

On 6.10.2022 at 11:53 PM, Wilches said:

Marvelous!!! Pretty much immersive! This area should be heavy "flakked" don´t you agree?

First i will convert the coast tiles from jpg to tga and then i will test how much performance is lost. A jpg file is between 190 and 350 kb, a tga file 4096 kb.

And afterwards i will decide how many Flak and SAM i can place, without making the game to a slideshow. But you are right, a lot of Flak would be nice.

[+Menrva]

53 minutes ago, Gepard said:

First i will convert the coast tiles from jpg to tga and then i will test how much performance is lost. A jpg file is between 190 and 350 kb, a tga file 4096 kb.

You could try using the DDS format instead of TGA. I don't really like it as it brings a loss of quality but it's more optimized. You might want to keep backups of the tiles in original quality.

[+Gepard]

5 hours ago, Menrva said:

You could try using the DDS format instead of TGA. I don't really like it as it brings a loss of quality but it's more optimized. You might want to keep backups of the tiles in original quality.

I did not know, that SF2 support DDS formate. I will give it a try.

[+Gepard]

I was not able to convert from jpg to dds format with proper layer for the waves. So i made the tiles old school tga.

So looks Energodar at the moment. In the forground you find the town of Energodar. In the middle, where the smoke is, is the thermal powerstation Energodar situated and in the background you see the 6 reactor buildings of Energodar Nuclear Powerstation.

[+Gepard]

I added some small islands east of Energodar. Perhaps i will do some work on the north coast of Energodar.  Finally all trees are "planted". Ground combat at the bottle neck of the Crimean Peninsula added. So CAS missions are possible now. My attempt to make battlegrounds between Cherson and Nikolajew, which are relevant today, failed. I got strange results. The game was doing what it wanted, not what it should do.

I'm not sure wheter i can release a new Beta this weekend. But i think someday in the next week it will happen.

Screenshot: Energodar seen from the east. In forground the new islands, which i added.

[+Gepard]

I disliked the north coastline of Energodar. Thatswhy i made two additionaly tiles. Now it looks so:

 

[+Gepard]

I wasted a lot of time with making a coastal defence missile system, and finaly i was unable to bring that thing to fire at ships. A pure waste of time. Thatswhy i was not able to hold my deadline to release the next Beta in this week.

Back to the roots, terrain making.

For the guys that use SF2NA as basic game i added the ukrainian flagship to the map. It acts as southern missile defence unit of the town of Nikolajew. I created a lot of streets and some more small villages. At the isthmus of the Crimean Peninsula now ground combat areas are set, so that CAS missions are possible.

My idea to make a lot of CAS fields between Cherson and Nikolajew was not successfull. For that i would had to move the frontline in that area, but i cant bring myself to do that. For me the area of both sides of the river Dnepr is always Ukraine, not Russia. But CAS is only possible in game if one side of the combat line is on the red side and the other on the blue side. With both points at blue sides the game engine cant work properly. Sorry guys.

As a small easter egg i placed the old fortress near the village of Perekop on the map. It was created in the time of the russian Czars, but still usefull in WW2. Even today you can find it at sat photos.

So it looks in game:

 

[+EricJ]

I just hope that by adding the ship it doesn't have the same problem as with the other ships, as it too may be considered a "SAM" and not clear the area for REDFOR players.

[+Gepard]

I have uploaded Beta 0.40 some minutes ago. If an admin gives his okay you can download it and enjoy Energodar and the other improvements on the map.