Bandy

Oh, just think about it this way that they dodging archie bursts. It was reality at least approaching the front and over NME lines most of the time. Now, all we need is more and more active archie!!! Somewhere along the way after myriad mods my archie went to sleep it seems... Anyone else?

Thanks gents. Yes Heck, I thought of that too, but decided that to throw more HD space at the issue was not viable, especially since I hope to shift my sims drive to a solid state .

Here under FE/Add on aircraft/flight models Yes, it looks confusing, but Peter01 has been updating the myriad numbers of aircraft over time. So pick a download that says ALL (or something like that) and then if you like download the others that appear later in 2's and 4's etc. THIS ONE has 108 flight models...

If you JUST installed FE for the first time, then download Peter01's flight model mod, read the Readme, and implement. The AI will make you weep!

Interesting you mention this, check outTHIS LINK to a very interesting project...

After Laton's post and brief discussion of the variables involved in crash smoke effects, I tried my hand at the numbers. Amazing that even something so simple has so many variables... I managed to give it a more oily heavy look with the wind blowing it around at times and dispersing it. The images are stills of course, so you can't see how it moves with the whims of the wind. Would appreciate any feedback, of course it may not be to everyone's taste. Also wondering if it works well with other effects; I noticed there may be a disconnect when a heavily burning and smoking aircraft hits the ground. I tried it out mostly by hitting the turf on take off to speed up the process... Attached below. Crash Fire & Smoke Feb27.zip

File Name: BETA FRTown tiles -- summer season File Submitter: Bandy File Submitted: 25 May 2010 File Category: First Eagles Terrain and Environmental Mods See the post on the FE forum for more detail... To install these BETA summer season town tiles into Jan Tuma's existing install: Unzip and back up your ...\terrain\seasonal\early summer folder (the tiles may work in the spring season and others, I have not tried yet...) Drag these .bmp and .tga files into the active sim folder and replace old tiles. Fly in July! If 1024 x 1024 size is too intensive for your system, resize in a photoediting program to 512 x 512 such as Gimp (shareware that mimicks Photoshop). As mentioned on forum, I plan to tweak colours for each season as time permits, but am willing to share the Photoshop files should someone be willing to help. Cheers! Click here to download this file

Hello, I've been replacing the stock portion of the town tiles that sit under Jan Tuma's incredibly detailed buildings. What I thought was going to be a relatively quick job turned into much more. I take my hat off to Jan (and all other 3rd party folks) who must have laboured long hours for our mutual enjoyment. These 1024 x 1024 tiles will work in Jan's "early summer" season, though they might work in other seasons such as spring, I have not tried. My plan now that I have the Photoshop files/tiles complete is to tweak for seasonal colour variation as time permits. I will pass along the PSDs if anyone is interested in helping. What I did to help with the max view distance of town tiles was to put the building roofs onto the 2D tile so that at least the roofs show up before the 3D buildings "pop up". In the first screenshot (taken from 10,000 feet) you can see one Vogensen town tile that chronically does not generate its 3D buildings (upper centre with roundabout), while this same tile does in other places in town. These 2D buildings allowed me to add drop shadows as well. In fact I used extensive layers and drop shadows to fake a 3D effect as much as possible, though some may find it heavy-handed especially down low. However this means that shadows conflict across tiles (tiles can appear in 4 different orientations!)so some tile margins show up as lines in places because of the shadows. Fortunately they are mostly hidden between buildings. So if you look for it, you will find imperfections, many of them. I do continue to tweak small things like shifting streets to better accommodate trees and poles. I tested mostly in Vogesen, but a recent flight over Verdun shocked me to see that some unique buildings, like churches and factories, were appearing in some towns (see 2nd screenshot) and buggering up things. These buildings must be coded into the campaign.ini as they do not appear on every tile of that name in that terrain. Also discovered that some tiles do not share the same .tod across terrains, so some trees etc. pop-up in unwelcome places consistently. The number of different building patterns prohibits naturally seamless tiles. The tiles would have been best accomplished while the buildings were being laid out, or have some underlying street structure already in mind to go across tiles. Also some buildings themselves cross the margin of tiles, while others butt right up against the margin. Thus the streets do some funky turns, pass into buildings on occasion, etc. I simply did not/do not have the time resources to re-edit the building patterns to allow this, though I encourage anyone willing to do so to do so, and I will correct the streets to match. That all said, I think they look good enough to release for beta testing. There is a small town in Verdun just south and west of the front that already has bridges across the river (see 2nd screen shot), but please note that churches appear uniquely on some of the round-abouts, but not others of the same tile. Please fly over different terrains and spot errant buildings that don't fit the tile and note position and take a screen shot. PS: I noticed that the file limit to attach in forum is 4 MB, and all the tiles zipped are 45 MB. Guess I'll have to upload to the regular section in a short while.

Thanks gentlemen, Have been requested to replace the turquoise-like river colour with a darker blue-gray, and have always planned to do so once the Town tiles were done. So I just need to find the time to do ALL the water tiles now, and there are A LOT of them... Hopefully I saved all the Flanders coastal tile Photoshop files I made a while back, that would speed things up. Has anyone figured out where the code is for the location of the churches that show up on the roundabouts in screenshot 2 above? The roundabout tile does not always have a church on it, so it can't be in the .tod file... NB: I forgot to mention that if you go into the Flanders Terrain folder, look for the FRTown.tod file, it is incorrectly named. There should be FRTown1.tod, FRTown2.tod, and FRTown3.tod, so rename the file to whichever is not represented.

Thanks sinbad and stratos, While my own PS workflow is not anywhere near a professional's, I can't even begin to imagine the amount of time Jan spent. Wanted to also mention that the towns will NOT look like real old crowded/claustrophobic French or Belgian or German towns. It would be nice, but the number of buildings required and their arrangements would have to be done all over again. The buildings have too much space between them, and likely too many trees. That said, the tiles do add an underlying structure and visual interest that was lacking in the stock 3rd wire tiles, and dog fights over the towns and into the streets between buildings are much more enjoyable now, at least to me. Regards! EDIT: the screen shots look a mite dark to me, and hide a lot of the effect, but maybe it is just my work computer...

I've posted this elsewhere, but the OFF forum is pretty active so I'm hoping to get a fast reply b/c I'm waiting to purchase CS5 at 80% off education price. As the topic title asks, are any of the Photoshop Extended versions (CS3 to CS5 with their direct 3D manipulation tools to paint right onto a 3D mesh) able to create a texture that can subsequently be imported as skins into sims??? (ANY sim, though I know there are particular workflows for each...). For example, OFF requires DDS files and the nVidia plugin but that is working from a 2D template. I would like to paint directly onto a 3D models' mesh and then import into sims. So, can you use a 3D-program-made UV map (such as in Max, Maya, etc.) and the 3D model itself in Photoshop Extended to paint on and then import the skin into the sim afterwards? Hope somebody knows or has tried and can pass along an answer. Meanwhile I'm poised over the "Buy Now" buttom

Got me at work on lunch again. Will have to wait to have a peek for you, but hopefully somebody can help before then. BUT to my memory my FE install does not have a burning sound; try deactivating that. I hear you about the multi-mods...

As the topic title asks, are any of the Photoshop Extended versions (CS3 to CS5), and their direct 3D manipulation tools to paint directly on a 3D mesh to create a texture, good for subsequent import as skins into sims??? I know SF series requires Max import for 3D models, but can you use a 3D-program-made UV map (such as in Max, Maya, etc.) and the 3D mesh itself in Photoshop Extended version to paint on and then import the skin into the sim afterwards? Hope somebody has tried and can pass along an answer.

OK, thanks for reply, BUT do you use CS3 Extended??? That is the version that has the 3D tools allowing you to paint onto a 3D mesh. @ Fubar512 Doesn't matter really, but for the sake of argument let's say no, I'll be using CSx Extended for only new 3D models.

Can't say for sure Mike, I'll have a look later in my FX folder when at home, but after installing Laton's base file(s) it should be a simple substitute. Does his original crash/smoke still work?

Hi Mike, what Bucky says in post#10 above. You have to have the other 3rd party effects installed to make this work, then try replacing the ini's found here. If you're using FE2, then it just may not work... Going to finally make the switch over to 2 myself...

Please upload to the downloads section if you are willing to share. Thank you!

Doesn't have to be a light source per se, but a reflective object will do that as well, such as a picture frame or even a door knob at the "wrong" eye level. Learned that the hard way. Do a camera view to see what shows up, and adjust light filter. To be entirely honest, I love TIR and what it does for my enjoyment of flight sims when it works well. I've had it since 2006 so I am familiar with it. HOWEVER, I've found the software/drivers to be THE MOST FLAKIEST pieces of code I have EVER loaded on my computer. For instance, now running Win 7 64 bit, so am restricted in what version of TIR I can use apparently. In the past under XP I could look down my wing (90 degrees to fuselage, of course) and lean forward to zoom into the horizon (in another sim, of course). Doing that now nothing happens, or I get a slight backwards head motion, and no, the axis action is not reversed. Also when I center my head, I get a strong visual jolt. I am now literally getting motion sickness headaches from TIR because it doesn't react like it should to my head movements. Deleting/reinstalling is such a PITA, and there is no guarantee it just won't make things worse. I've had to reinstall the entire OS once because TIR killed the activity on the USB port it was attached to when I tried to delete/reinstall. They must be making money hand-over-fist at Natural Point, you think they could get the driver support correct...

I second that post...

Fascinating idea! Has this been implemented in any other WWI sim past or present? Not OFF at least. If no other, the FE community could scoop the rest of them... There are many accounts of flight leaders using flares to round up wingmates and head home, bombing/ground attack, etc. Don't know if using a flare to announce an air-2-air attack would be a good idea; kinda contra to the element of surprise

Yes this is true. I've noticed while poking around in the terrain folders while testing FRTown tile repaints that some files are missing and/or are not named correctly. Not complaining though, the creation of a mod the size of Jan's is bound to give anyone headaches and a slip hear and there. For instance, in Flanders folder one of the FRTown tiles does not have a matching .tod file, if memory serves FRTown.tod needs to be renamed FRTown1.tod otherwise a default tod is used and instead of the great buildings you see the default shoe boxes. I doubt this was intentional.

I was just looking for feedback on whether anyone has had experience with solid state drives (SSD's) and OFF, so thank you for posting Morris! Any other information or details of your experience with them would be sincerely appreciated. I'm still waiting for the price to come down... But beware, not all SSD's are created equally. There are 1st generation SSD's that are being sold much much cheaper, but they are problematic. An old but excellent review HERE another HERE. Current stuff HERE

Also ships are not supported in FE, or FE2 as far as I know. A minor point perhaps if you are purely interested in A2A, but anti-shipping was a big deal in WWII.

Very nice weathering touches, I truly appreciate that extra effort. While these crates and buses likely did not survive all that long (!), somehow flying a freshly-painted-appearing airplane into combat just doesn't seem right . For me the SE5a Mannock skin and p10ppy's Morane are the gold standard. Maybe somebody can post these to the downloads section for you? It would avoid the thread, and your work, from being buried unceremoniously...