FE2 & Ortho/Photo-Scenery

[+VonS]

Hi All,

Have been doing a bit of tinkering lately with my FlightGear install - and results are pleasing enough in what is a free, open-source flight sim. Managed eventually to get accurate photo-scenery working in FG, which is a noticeable improvement over the stock (dated) scenery that has been available in that sim for years on end (see pic. below for photo-scenery at work in FG, in this case in the Mesopotamian/s. Iraqi area; the Alb. D.I is a re-skin and FM-overhaul of a model done by Lester Boffo).

On a hunch, I then converted a bunch of the photo-tiles from FG (stock format is DDS) to BMP format - so that they become visible in the FE2 terrains folder - and it does indeed work - but would require careful, aesthetic choices regarding what tiles to replace in the terrains folder, such as farms, cities, deserts, etc. - for best cohesion and not too many jarring disconnects between tiles.

Nice to see that stock trees and buildings are populating over the satellite/ortho-terrains too, in FE2. Photo-scenery is simply an improved "satellite" carpet that covers the stock scenery and terrain framework in FlightGear - and by extension works the same way in the ThirdWire sims but requires manual conversion to BMP format and manual placement in the terrains folder (perhaps the DDS format would work too, but I didn't bother tinkering with the various settings/text files this time around in the terrains folder).

The other good thing about FlightGear is that it is fully under the GNU GPL (General Public License; i.e., "copy-left" license) - so there are no copyright problems that I know of if one borrows such ortho-scenery for FE2 too (haven't bothered to test with SF2). And if working on such a terrain swap as a personal project - that is of course even simpler.

A few representative pics. below with just a few ortho-scenery tiles placed over Stephen1918's upgrade of the Mesopotamian theater for FE2. Results look pretty good, particularly when flying higher up, and I haven't noticed any FPS drop with the photo-scenery tiles loaded. Some old tiles are still in place in the pics., for comparative purposes. Any empty areas are where I didn't bother to load tiles.

Anyway - I hope you find this post interesting - it's perhaps the "cheapest" way of upgrading tiles across the various theaters available for FE2.

If I find enough free time I might tinker further with this side-project; will post comments if the results prove particularly successful.

Cheers & good flying,

Edited February 13 by VonS
Deleted obsolete link.

[+Wrench]

that is VERY interesting!!! Nice looking tiles, too. much better than the stock SF1 desert that was used

[+VonS]

One more small update for this thread before I retreat temporarily into work mode - as per relevant info. in my previous post, have now done further tests and it is indeed possible to load DDS terrain files directly into FE2 (simplest is to point to relevant DDS files from within the general data ini file that resides in the "Terrains" folder).

Having said that, one peculiarity about loading of DDS terrains, instead of BMP ones - is that trees, buildings, other objects, etc., do not show up anymore. Once DDS files are converted to BMP format, on the other hand (as seen in the pics. in my previous post) - trees and buildings once again nicely come through.

So, unlike FlightGear that siphons in PNG-to-DDS converted satellite imagery (when its photo-scenery option is set up), FE2/SF2 would require conversion of DDS to BMP files, so as not to smother out the added immersion of objects and trees already present in/on the ThirdWire terrains.

Couple of pics. below with DDS ortho/photo-scenery being tested in the Mesopotamian theater in FE2. Graphics look quite good to me but unfortunate is the loss of trees and whatnot - so it's back to conversion to BMP format. Also, as evident in the pics. below, with careful choice of satellite photos the effects are not too jarring between different tiles when all are placed together. Not too bad for initial, manual placement of tiles - but very tricky to place correctly once you get towards rivers, seas/oceans, shorelines, and so on.

The job of a terrain modeler is not an easy one - virtual drinks on the house for all terra-formers, also for object-placement ini file crunchers.

One thing I particularly like about the satellite photo-scenery options in FlightGear is that, if you like, you can set things up in such a way that the scenery downloading/siphoning mechanism follows your aircraft as you fly, and nicely drops correctly placed terrains below, around, and in front of your flying path. Such a feature requires, once the photo-scenery siphoning system is set up, that you make sure to feed the following command/property to FlightGear itself:

--telnet=5000

The photo-siphoning mechanism then connects to local IP no. 127.0.0.1 (i.e., "localhost") on port 5000 and "feeds" satellite imagery to FlightGear as soon as terrain images are downloaded. Such an automatized process makes unnecessary the hassle of manually attempting to place photo-scenery tiles in correct places and positions. (Scenery can also be saved locally, for later offline use - without always having to re-download images.)

While there is no multiplayer capability in FE2 - theoretically, if the "telnet=5000" command could somehow be fed to the FE2.exe itself - then a simple re-duplication of one of the more accessible photo-siphoning mechanisms used by FlightGear (e.g., the Julia programming app linked to a photo-scenery Julia add-on) - might work for FE2 too.

Will post further thoughts in this thread if I find that there is any way to get the photo-scenery siphoning system to "talk" (establish a telnet connection) with FE2. Otherwise, it will be a very slow process of manually picking through, and choosing, satellite tiles - and that will be called up via the general data ini that's in the terrains folder.

Cheers all (& good dreams about auto-loading of satellite imagery in FE2),

Edited April 10, 2024 by VonS
Fixed typos.

[+Wrench]

I don't know about FE2, but the SF2 series does support jpg tiles. IIRC, their name extision needs to be called out in the terrains _data ini, with the tile listings.