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Showing most liked content on 02/23/2024 in Posts
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8 pointsFalcon 4 (1998) also has a tile based terrain. Like Strike Fighters 1/2, also like European Air War (EAW) and the old Novalogic flight 'simulations' Raptor/F-16 MRF/MiG-29. I had a look at the files a long while ago. But could not recognize the essential bits. Essential bits being: - The tile textures. These images are easy to find - The tile-map. In hindsight, this is interwoven in a big L2 file, together with other data. - The tile texture files to tile index numbers table. Which needs to be translated to _Data.ini syntax. - The height-map for elevation. But this week I tried again, and got it to work. See screenshots. This Korea terrain has 1024x1024 tile positions on the map. There is only 1 height value per tile, also 1024x1024. Each tile represents 1km. Each tile bitmap image is 128x128 pixels. There are 1109 tile images, 1051 of which are actually used. These 1998 original ones don't have alpha channels for the marking of water. None of the tiles are placed on the map with a rotation (nor mirroring like Novalogic did) To compare: Stock Strike Fighters terrains are 500x500 tiles. Each tile represents 2km. Each tile bitmap is 256x256 pixels. Each 2km is spanned by 4 height-map points. Tiles can be rotated 0/90/180/270 degrees. So different in all ways. I had to adjust some settings in the terrain _Data.ini to make this Falcon 4 terrain work better, as to prevent "terrain mesh build-up gaps", visible on the horizon. Preliminary values being: [TerrainMesh] TextureThreshold=0.90 LowDetailMeshThreshold=0.75 MedDetailMeshThreshold=0.50 TileToHeightGridRatio=1 Fred Balding's Falcon tools were a must. As hosted here https://www.pmctactical.org/f4/downloads.php . His Terrainviewer 1.55 has the texture files to tile index table. It can display the list without copy-paste option. To prevent hours of typing, I ripped it from hex data in the Terrainviewer executable. TheaterMaker-03 has a tool Pathmaker that can export a matrix from the Falcon L2 file. (Basically a photoshop interleaved raw file, with 7 channels and 7 byte header, with the tile-map in Red and Green channel.) As explained in this old forum post. https://www.pmctactical.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21366 Since the terrain has this huge amount of 1000+ tile textures, I automated handling of everything involved here. By photoshop batch scripts, or by programming quick temporary conversion tools. Don't want to do such manually, 1000+ times. Soon, I will host a copy of the SF2 terrain conversion on my website, when I get it finished up a bit better. Don't feel like manually doing to loads of water alpha channels and targeting area work. So I will leave that be.
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4 pointsJimbib sent me some static planes for populating the airfields: Here the DC-9
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2 pointsYou can change the date without big problems. The only problem would be, that in MiG-Alley terrain are no SAM. Its designed for Korea War. Simply add some SAM sites and thats it.
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2 pointsIf you want a 100% scale Korea terrain try this: It would only need a new tileset.
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2 points@gerwin Outstanding work! I can't thank you enough for all the improvements made to TFDtool over the years and for the conversion of NovaLogic's terrains. This is another fantastic addition! I wonder if the same conversion process could be applied to Falcon 4 Allied Force's Balkans terrain. Given that F4 terrains are pretty much in Real World size and that SF2 does not support in-flight refueling, the 60% or so sized terrains we made can co-exist just fine.
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2 pointsJust keep the fun and games close the Demilitarized Zone? I am considering adding an amount of dummy tiles around the terrain, or just south+east. Because the way it is now, Korea's southern part is near, or in, the game's inaccessible wall zone.
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2 pointsNot what if, but what almost was in 1992, in the shuffling of units, aircraft and missions, the 192nd TRS of the Nevada Air National Guard was tapped to take over F-4G Wild Weasel assests being retired by the 3rd Fighter Wing and 35th Fighter Wing. the plan far enough along to have an aircraft painted up in preliminary High Rollers markings. instead the aircraft were assigned to teh 190th Fighter Squadron, Idaho ANG and the High Rollers traded their Photo Phantoms in for C-130s a couple of years later
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2 pointsAnd not related to the Fencer, I am making the Kh-38 Family Kh-38ME-V1 Kh-38ME-V2 Kh-38MLE V2
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1 pointAn alpha release of the Falcon 4 terrain is now available for download at my website http://www.gb-homepage.nl/index.htm This evening I made the SF2NA Naval Map setting work. Added some more airfields. Made minimal working movement.ini routes. Removed unused textures. What I want to to later is to auto-batch rotate any tiles that would benefit from less repetition. With some random rotation they will look better. To open this in TFDtool, please download a new version v1.15 with tile limit raised to 1100. @Menrva A lot of the conversion process does apply to Allied Force Balkans, but a lot will be different as well. There are even more tiles in that terrain. I also looked at the Falcon BMS 4.33 Korea terrain, and it has a different files structure, different tile index ID cross-referencing. For now I have my hands full with this Korea one.
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1 pointI always hated Motor Pool Mondays when I was Heavy. Tore up my shined boots, and liked when I went Light and had a Hummer to worry about. Anyway, I mean I'm not expecting a full on targeted map, but it would be nice as I can maybe get back to flying missions again, rather than just fly around and such :)
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1 pointso you want call of duty, not motor pool monday for the older, pre Hornet/Viper era birds, theres a certain quality with big terrrains of just not getting lost or flying into the ground (shush about following the way points)
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1 pointI'm all for big terrains, but the targets have to support it. I know it's harder due to the large size to fully populate it, but the gameplay value is worth it if done right.
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1 pointBristol F2B 'Brisfit' - Everytown Air Force, 1970 An affectionate nod to the 1936 film 'Things to Come'.
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1 pointthey look ok to me! BPAO would get it right, I'm sure ================================================= The body and paint guys are NOT gonna be happy with me! OTH, the new damage tgas work just fine!!
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1 pointAmidst the blue skies, a link from past to future. The sheltering wings of the protector...
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1 pointMcDonnell Douglas F-4M 'Kārearea' - No.2 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1992
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1 pointIn the last days i was busy with TOD object placement on the tiles. Its a boring and time consuming job to move the trees and houses to the correct position. Some went good, some other things not. So i was never really happy with the TOD buildings for the London tiles. So i made a new one, but, to be honest, it looks more like soviet town flat blocks than London row houses. In the background you see the TOD building, which are original on the London tiles.
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1 pointLatest about the Fencer LOT'S OF DETAILING TO DO so far It Looks a bit of a Fencer, does it not? And now, some appendices are to be added... KAB-500KR KAB-500L KAB-500S-E KAB-1500KR KAB-1500L KAB-1500LG And there will be many more as time allows, Hope you liked it so far...
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