Wrench

Something else I forgot to mention ... there's NOT an AE_Texturelist.ini, so that too will need creation. Meaning: there's several unique tiles to AE, and the DesertTexturelist.ini won't have them, so when you open the HFD in the TE, and go to "View Texture Tiles", there'll be blank spots or other oddities. Reimporting them really isn't a big deal (well, if you've done it before ... ), but it may mean regenerating the AE_Data.ini, as that lists the tiles in the order they appear in the texturelist ini, and how they're 'sorted' in the TFD. Best/easiest way to do it ... open the deserttexturelist ini, "save as..." AE_TextureList.ini. Then, when opening the AE HFD, while still having the blank spots, you can then add the unique tiles, "save texturelist", "SAVE ALL", exit, and repoen don't forget to convert any tga's to bmp (save as..in PS or Gimp or whatever), to remove the alpha channels, and place all the tile bmps in the MAIN TE folder. I"d reccomend creating an AE only TE (like in my screenie), so it remains unique to only Madagasscar. ---- Definations: TFD: holds the tile placement information HFD: Height Field Display (i thnk!), hold the up/down heights above MSL for mountains, valleys, generic ground, etc. If using the TE, View: Height field, it's the green/varying browns/blue that shows the types of terrestrial surfaces. The darker brown to orange, is how far UP, orange being VERY high mountains. Transition Tiles: those that join 2 differing types of terrain, or the transition between them (example: Sea2Desert50.tga, it's half ocean, half land, Desert2Farm75.bmp, etc.) Alpha channel: acts like a 'hold out matte', to allow portions of tile to show or not show, or to have terrain effects in the case of water/ocean/river tiles good advice: build in 1st Gen sims first, THEN convert the AE_Data.ini to SF2 type (with the ter***Effect.fx statement) much easier. I"ll put something together over the next few days, btw, there IS an easter egg on Madagasscar wrench kevin stein

not really, but Gepard's tutorials on map creation are a big help. Unfortunately, it's kinda hit or miss. Meaning, lots of "hair pulling and jumping about" (to quote Merlin from "Excaliber" You don't own any firearms, right?) Fortunatley, Mad is pretty much set, other than your 'sea hills' issue; that'll be taken care of by the "Adjust Sea Level" function Remember, too, ALL the sea sea/land transition (and if you add rivers, them too) will need new alpha channels to activate the water effects. I have 'newer' ones around here somewheres...if you want them to experiment with or whatever. Also, =and MOST important=, after adjusting whatever, retiling,flattening,etc, and moving the newly created TFD & HFD into the AE terrain folder MAKE BACKUP COPIES OF THE ORIGINALS!!!! Easiest way I found, was rename them with numbers; 1-AE.TFD, 2-AE.TFD, etc-same for the HFD. Then, move them into a /storage folder withing the AE terrain folder. Allows for easy reversion, if you mess something up. BTW, keep the first copy (original) backed up as well, just rename a copy of those ori-AE.TFD and ori-AE-HFD, so you ALWAYS have your zero starting point (albeit with any changes you'd have made on later versions) DOn't forget you'll have to recreate the AEcitylist.ini, as there isn't one. I usually include mine with my terrain uploads, or use a stock one as a guide. VERY IMPORTANT to have that. Another thing, a lot of those odd inis floating around in the AE terrain folder, that have names matching tiles? THOSE are generated by the TE when createing new TODs, and usually aren't included in a terrain up/download (they stay in the TE). With luck (of which I've had none with!), you can import them, and see where the trees, buildings and etc are. Again, KEEP COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL TODs!!! (expecially the M15 base TOD, as that one is VERY cool) wrench kevin stein edit: soon, you'll discover why those of us that work on Terrains, are quite mad!!

more groundobjects/vehicles are ALWAYS welcomed!!! wrench kevin stein

greenback??? that's the nickname for U$ dollars! So, are you a 1,5,10 or 20??? I put mine in C/ProgramFiles/Terrain Editors. You can actually put them anywhere, and can have as many installs as you want (I've got 8 for the various terrains I'm working on) BTW, the madacascar terrain used Desert tile naming conventions, so you shouldn't use the WoV/WoE/WoI editor, as that'll screw things up. You can, however, import the other tiles INTO the desert editor; just be advised the 'place objects' function for adding trees and building may not work properly. Max size for the tiles in the desert editor is 256x, and even then sometimes the entire tile won't load that section of the editor. wrench kevin stein

There sure is: http://forum.combatace.com/topic/32706-using-skypats-cat-extraction-tool/ in "Beginning Modding", iirc aircraft data inis are stored in the various object cats; check the SF2 KB for a partial listing of 'what might be where, in which cat' Wrench kevin stein

also, try using NORMAL or HARD game modes; you won't have the labels as you would in EASY wrench kevin stein

welcome back Daniel!!! Good to see you again! wrench kevin stein

Zur, The Great and Powerful, has spoken!! Let's hope someone picks it up!! Be a great place for all those Wildcards decals I've done... wrench kevin stein

or, you could take the REALLLLLLYY old fashioned way (circa 2004), and just rename the desert.cat to desert3.cat, and do away with the cat pointer line completely. one may also have to rename the TFD and HFD to match ... meaning desert3.TFD, desert3.HFD (they really shold be done that way, in any case -all files pertaining to the base terrain construction MUST match) Basically, this is a FULL terrain, with the TFD, HFD and complete tile set. You should be able to use ANY of base 3 terrains in you cat pointer line. It really don't get any simpler than that. wrench kevin stein

well, we can 'disapprove' and hide them until they're redone. btw, I'm TRYING to rework the mossie pit for use on the 189, as that seems to be the biggest "issue" at present. But I can't get it to be "full and proper", given the fact the Uhu has essentially an "eyebrow insturment panel" Trying to move the floor, IP, gauges, etc is not quite working ... but I'll keep at it for bit. At worst, I'll reskin the gauges with the german sets, and the player just won't be able to look through the 'floor' of the glass nose. btw Ed, I added the 2 wing 7.9s, so when I have "something worth something", I'll pass evrything on to you. wrench kevin stein

up in the top right corner of the page, you should see your name. If you mouse over/click on it, it should open a drop down with link, including a "Pruchase Paid Subscription" what the panel finder does, is become a new layer on the skin template. When saved as *whicheverskin.bmp, it'll show up in game AS the skin. The letter/number grid will show you what's where on map, and where it is on the LOD. (see screenie below) the second shot, is the actual item, as a jpg. Just drop it (resize as needed)into the psd, and have at it wrench kevin stein

float/seaplanes CAN be used, but you have to use Gepard's "Invisible Airfield" (patpending) as he used in his WW2 Midway terrain, and I shamelessly borrowed for my WW2 "Central Pacific" terrain (and a few others). The major side-effect is, the game engine "sees" (or maybe seas?) it as a normal airfield, so in single missions, you can expect land-planes to operate off it as well. However, campaign builders can force their use ONLY to seaplanes/amphibs, in their squadron basing statement. wrench kevin stein

yes, but what of Flora's sister, Fauna???? (sorry, I sooooo couldn't resist that ... it's an old 3 Stooges joke -I think from their trip to Venus) wrench kevin stein

close enough! wrench kevin stein

he did a story in this months "Air & Space Magazine", that I just got the other day, about one of his X-15 flights, that I just read yesturday. RIP. http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/An-Extra-Two-Seconds.html wrench kevin stein

Somebody wanna tell me just WHAT the hell is going on???? via PM, if necessary. wrench kevin stein

Beauty, Greg!!! wrench kevin stein

yes, there is. so, one would need the squadronlist.ini from WoV, and EDIT the SF squadronlist.ini, adding the necessary navy/marine Crud squadrons at the bottom of the list (changing the number sequence goes without saying) btw, merging the cats, imho, is NOT a real good idea. just extract/use the necessary files for the particular aircraft. wrench kevin stein

In theory, if you have the original SFP1 desert terrain, it should be a matter of a VERY few minutes to move it over into SF2. 1) extract Desert_Data.ini (as you'll be making some small edits to use the new terrain effects) 2) create /Desert subfolder in you /***/**/ThirdWire/-nameofgame/Terrains 3) copy/paste the contents of the Desert terrain folder out of SFP1 into the above named /Terrains folder -make sure the desert.cat is there!!!!! (or just copy/paste the whole damn thing into the /Terrains folder 4) open Desert_Data.ini, and where the terrain effect callouts are, change to: [NormalTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terTerrainEffect.fx [WaterTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terWaterEffect.fx [backgroundMaterial] EffectShaderName=terFarTerrainEffect.fx [solidObjectTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terSolidObject.fx [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terAlphaObject.fx save and close. that should it bring it, at least partway, up to SF2 spec. BTW, it'll work even without the new shader lines, just won't look as nice for you lucky people with DX10. 5) download, unzip, install the Desert3 mod. 6) go fly at worst, since the tileset is already included, you can edit the catpointer line (as I always show in my terrain mods), in the Desert3.ini to read something like this: CatFile=..\Desert\Desert.cat //CatFile=..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.cat //CatFile=..\VietnamSEA\VietnamSEA.cat now, you can select any other terrain cats. NOT advised to try and use the IsrealME cat, as it's different. wrench kevin stein

They find them in WOV, cause that's what it's built for...it's looking into the object cat, that has them all. SFP1 don't have them so, you've extracted ALL the relevant decals for the various 'sader skins? well, it' looks like it's the same issue we had in way back when, when importing the 104G into WoV from SFP1. you'll have to place ALL the relevant decals IN a /D sub-folder for each skin (unless its something like the USNFighterNum, which should be SF object cat. if not ....) so, after extraction/moving,etc, you're new path would be something like this: [Decal001] MeshName=winglet_left DecalLevel=1 DecalFacing=LEFT FilenameFormat=F-8E/USNGray1/D/F8Fin Position=-4.57,-0.65 Rotation=0.0 Scale=3.95 DecalMaxLOD=3 and so on for all the others. The only way to be sure, and get it right wrench kevin stein EDIT: an alternative, would be to create a /D subfolder of the MAIN F-8E folder, dump all the decals in there, and change the path to F-8E/D/decalname excepting for level 0, like the insigina or nationname. all you level 1 and level 2 (excpting the UNSFighterNum) would also be there.

did you edit the decal ini for each skin with the new, proper path??? wrench kevin stein

this is what happen when we have a power outage in LA ... I miss Dave's Birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!!!!! wrench kevin stein

like (nearly) all the other skins from 1st to 2nd Gens, the mapping has been slightly changed; you'll probably have to extract the skin bmps and compare them side-by-side to get a feel for what got moved to where also, the "panel finder" bmp ... should be in templates d/l section somewhere ... is a HUGE help wrench kevin stein

moving this to the "PropHeads" Forum, where all us WW2 types hang out.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- screenshot, please?? It's been working fine for lo, these least 5 years.... wrench kevin stein

happy birthday paulo!!! and many, many, many more!!! wrench kevin stein