Photographs in Cockpit
By
LaoHu, in Thirdwire: Strike Fighters 2 Series - Mods & Skinning Discussion
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Similar Content
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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 JamesWilson
Hi,
after seeing the TMF F-14 has wrong and inaccurate speed and fuel indicators, i found out the default Third Wire F-14 has working and accurate ones, but i dont wanna use it cause the TMF Tomcat is better and the cockpit too more realistic too, so can you switch the speed and fuel indicators on the TMF F-14 with the default Third Wire F-14? And for fuel too? Do you need to 3D model and/or do something else other than edit some text files?
And is it or it's not possible to do?
Down here are 2 pictures from the correct cockpit in the default Third Wire F-14:
And 2 from the TMF F-14 (the inaccurate one):
Thanks for helping.
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By JamesWilson
Hi everyone,
I just noticed that the speed indicator in the F-14 Tomcat by TMF (TheMirageFactory) only shows up to 800 kts, and the Mach indicator does not move, not letting you know the speed of the aircraft if you have your HUD turned off.
As you can see down here, i'm at Mach 2.23, but the indicator only shows 800 kts and doesn't go above. Obviously it adapts to my altitude, so if i'm higher, then the IAS is lower, but still should move, making it impossible flying at high speed without HUD turned on as i have it down here:
Another issue, maybe even worse than the previous one, is that the fuel indicator shows wrong numbers, or as i may think, it shows "a number less". For example: if i have 20000 pounds of fuel left, it should show 20000, but it shows 02000. This is a theory on how it works, not confirmed, and i'm gonna explain you why i think it is like that:
I hardly think i truly have 2000 pounds of fuel left, cause i choose Fuel 100% and tried climbing and flying for a long time with full afterburner, and the numbers slowly started going down, even reached the point of burning the engine at Mach 2.30and the fuel wasn't gone yet, it showed i had like 00700 left, so i presume it's 20000 in reality, otherwise i would have been out of fuel in no time, since it's a quantity even under the bingo quantity, but i flew for minutes and minutes in full afterburner, and at 8x speed, so. Speaking of Bingo, there's no bingo indicator.
Here's a picture of the fuel indicator:
I tried the default F-14 cockpit, and even if that one shows correctly both speed and fuel indicators and even if it's a great cockpit, i personally like more and find more realistic and immersive the TMF one.
In the end, since these two indicators are crucial, especially for flying without HUD, and the fuel indicator especially, since there's no way to know how much fuel you have left even with HUD turned on other than the cockpit indicator.
So, what i'm asking is:
Is there a way to fix these? A mod that remakes the indicators? Or another cockpit that is not the default one that i can use to swap this one?
Thanks in advance for helping me.
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By muhammad
Hi everyone!
after few miles of scrolling .INI files and testing everything on the game
FINALY:
" Cockpit Shadows " !!
--! enabling process is same for each plane ! --
--! enabling process should apply on each plane you like to have cockpit shadows on 'em ! --
--! Be Advised !: This "Cockpit Shadows" has some little BUGs so we all should work on it together to make it better !--
It's better than nothing :D
* Q: How to enable Cockpit Shadows?
- A: All you need to do is to make a .INI file with the same name and right at the place your chosen plane cockpit 3D file ( .LOD ) is located.
Example:
!! [ Cockpit file are located at the folder with the same name (most of the times) ] !!
SHO to Viper team F-16 BLK 30 to act like a test plane
here the plane's Cockpit 3D model is the LOD file named " Cockpit_F-16C_B30.LOD " and above of that, our personally made .INI file;
Now
Inside the .INI file we should drop this :
[Shadow]
CastShadow=TRUE
ShadowCastDist=5000
MaxVisibleDistance=800
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* you are free to change the numbers
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here's an example file which you have to change it's name to the plane's cockpit file name !
plane's cockpit file name.INI
*with this simple trick you can enable shadows for every .LOD file.
feel free to ask.
alexis99 thanks for that little help
sorry for bad English :)
hope ya'll enjoy!
one love.
plane's cockpit file name.INI
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By LaoHu
I downloaded this mod for the F-5 and all of the skins for the aircraft are black, which means the textures aren't loading but I can't find out why it isn't loading. There is no exact installation instructions other than extract it into the mod folder which I did and there doesn't look like there are any issues with the file placement compared to the other aircraft files. Can anyone help me out?
P.S. the drop tanks have the textures working and the cockpit, loading screen, menu, etc all work. Everything but the skin.
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