Wrench

they're called 'transition tiles'. These also include those you mentioned of the 'sea-land interface' , along with those between the various terrain types (desert to farm, farm to mountain, mountain to desert, city to whatever -- usually all others) For example, say the region of the Qattara Depression, you create a "gravel field' tile for the center. Then you need to make 3 transitions -- gravel to desert 25, 50, and 75%. So, each single tile is actually a set of 4 tiles. This does not include any 3-way tiles (like gravel to desert to mountain, for example - of which 2 are needed, mirroring each other ie: gravel to mountain to desert) TOD importation is something very few have learned (I'm not one of them!). I know it CAN be done There's provisions in the TE for 'adding new 3d objects) or some words like that. The object itself, plus the texture for it (terobject_building**.bmp, terobject_trees**.tga) The other alternative would be to make LOD objects, of low polys, and scatter them around the landscape. This is how the trees and such are added on the IcelandNA terrain in SF2:NA. Some of the ground texturing (roughness, shading) should be able to be done with the noisenormal. bmp (for land). Seas/water/rivers use a waternormal.bmp to create the animated wave action.

In a stock unmodded game, there is NOTHING in ANY aircraft (or ground object) folder except the main ini (example: F-4E.ini) . So, deleting those folders, other than for the creation of an era specific install, saves almost nothing. To split NA, all one needs to is the same steps as creating an era specific install. Copy/paste the exe up and down in the core files install, rename it whatever fits, run it to create mods folder, create shortcut, and build from there. This has been covered many times...

VERY cool!!

.

everyone knows that gasoline tastes better, too. (don't make me tell the story of the diesel tacos....)

Look to your SF2 Version.ini .. was supposed to be out sometime after NA, and was rumored to have the Mirage F1. Well, we all know how that went.

iirc, the color codes called out are "hexidecimal'; somewhere on the net there's a hex to rgb converter. (also used for the aircraft exterior lighting) also, iirc, aren't the hud tgas standard rgb? and therefore, easily repainted? (in the r/g/b channels)

pity. be nice to have them

want to really weep? I'll have to find and scan the pictures my Dad got in the Phillipines (WW2). Piles of Japanese aircraft bulldozed into piles, ready for burning

possibly because they don't have campaigns written for them? If no campaign ini exists for a terrain, you can't fly campaigns on it

yes, and it has been

both of you are confusing "mods folders" with "game installs". perhaps this can be of some assistance? http://combatace.com/topic/85995-seperate-vs-merged/

WOW!! very cool! thanks for sharing!

THAT is good news!

charts. I thought I sent you the super-secret link??

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

mind you, mine is set a "little bit earlier", but Butterworth

change the game's year spread: http://combatace.com/topic/68224-adjusting-beginning-end-year-spread/

outstanding!!!

looking good!

and the Chao Phraya...at least you don't have to deal with the Irrawaddy and Chindwin and Bhamaputra/Ganges and ... and .. and .. I only mentioned Toba because of it's importance to the development of the human species of today. And it's a nice tourist attraction. I really should send you the CBI map (even in it's very unfinished state, around 70ish %) .. I think there's a lot of very special "specials" you might be able to use. Some intricate, and rather uniquie, city tiles.

unfortunately, it is not possible. Without getting too technical, each map is based off a digital elevation model of x by y degrees (or km -can't remember which). That model is imported into the Terrain Editor (which was never finished, and lacks many functions). After importation, it's then tiled -- and they never go where they should. The larger the terrain, the more work in hand placing every single tile for cites, mountains, forests, fields, oceans, rivers, airbases. Then, you get to build each target area. Not withstanding at the start of terrain creation, telling the TE at the start to expand the DEM by 120%. If you don't, you're stuck with the "usual size" terrain of 63% of reality (the difference between a kilometer and a statute mile) Hell, even the ability of kicking back The Wall, and expanding the usable terrain by 20-60 km has been removed (The Wall is 80km in the outer map edges). As difficult as 3d modeling can be -including the nightmare of cockpit creation-, as creating a FM can be considered a black, Sorcerer's arcane art, Map making is probably the hardest, most mind-numbing, brain-draining and frustrating thing that can be done. That's why there's so few of us. And we're all quite mad....

while NA may have the 'better' coding (I think!), all the others seem to have gotten it as well. I don't know when or how; perhaps as part of the Full-5 merge?? What with all game exes using the same set of dlls and whatnots ... hey, as long as it works, right?

Polack made large city blocks like that around 2006? 07? for WoE. They were pretty much ok. IIRC, there was some frame slow-downs. Stary also made some super dense blocks for both Vietnam and Germany (they are used on the India-Pakistan terrain). I think Rends used them on his GermanyCE rebuild (although thinned down a bit). One of the major problems, as I see it as a terraformer, is those super dense blocks make it nearly impossible to place targetable/destroyable items within the city limits. In that respect, they defeat their own purpose. The weakest link in the SF series IS the terrain engine. The older TFD/HFD terrains, while having major limitations, are still better at rendering (IMO) than the LOD base SF2NA. Even on IcelandNA, all those buildings (and the trees!) are NOT part of the tiles (TOD)-since that terrain doesn't use tiles-, but fully separate, "hand placed" Lods. And we all know what all those lods did to the frame rates! There are a lot of flight sims that render their terrains far better than these. Shoot, even "Wings of Prey" looks a zillion times better (and more physically accurate) than the tile based 3W ones.

that can be done in the terrain's Nations.ini. A nations ini in a terrain folder take precedence over the game's main nations ini. That's how I got Egypt friendly on the Eastern Med map.