ShrikeHawk

Thanks fellas. RTFM once again, eh? I believe that link to the tutorial is dead. But I was able to find it elsewhere. Thanks for the tip, Gambit. I'll try that one out next. Cheers!

Very cool, Tailspin. I like it! The immersion factor in the game been increased once again! I'll be installing this mod straightaway. Thanks! ShrikeHawk

Very cool. Looks great!

Cool - I'll give that a try tonight. But I'd also be interested in seeing how yours turns out if you "refine it" as you said. I think it looks good now. ShrikeHawk

Very Cool! Looks good. I was wanting to do the same thing! What file did you edit?

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...ode=sst&id=5059 File Name: Thicker, Fuller Clouds for FEFile Submitter: ShrikeHawk File Submitted: 30 Jul 2007 File Category: Environmental Mods Thicker, Fuller Clouds for FE 07/30/07 by ShrikeHawk I felt that the default in FE looked too much like faded white blobs and not nearly enough like clouds. So I set about to change it. My intention here was to make more robust-looking clouds with a higher density and a greater "presence". I also wanted to create the more complex shapes that clouds can form. The kind that makes you lay in the grass and imagine what animal shape the cloud is. I increased the random factor for the clouds as well, so scattered clouds can be almost as dense as the default broken clouds and then again the clouds could be very sparse. So you never quite know what you're going to get. I like that better. I wanted to fix Inclement Clouds too. Realistic or not, I felt that it was too featureless and too muddy gray. I thought the cloudlayerbottom didn't match the stormy gray of the horizon clouds. So I created a new CLOUDLAYERBOTTOM5.bmp that I think fits the look of a stormy sky better. I have increased the particle count in the clouds a lot. This is a big reason for the thicker clouds. In defense of TK, I think he had the default clouds the way he did because it would keep the framerates high for most machines. This is a guess. I have not seen a framerate hit on my machine (2.80Ghz CPU, @750Mb RAM, GeForce 6800GT 256Mb VRAM), but it is possible that some machines may get an FPS degrade with this mod. Have fun! Click here to download this file

I have been working changing the appearance of the clouds in FE. I thought the default clouds, particularly in Scattered Clouds looked too thin and decidedly "un-cloudlike". There are several downloads available for sfp1/wov/woe cloud edits. But one was an edit for horizon clouds and the other that removes all horizon clouds and uses only 3d clouds. I wanted something for FE that improves the look of the 3D clouds for FE. So whilst tweeking this, that, and the other thing I've been fiddling with my environmentsystem.ini file. And that lead to editing cloud1.tga and so on. So now I like the looks of the clouds in my install much better now. Here's what I saw originally: default Scattered Clouds / Broken Clouds: I thought Broken Clouds generally looked okay, but I still couldn't resist tinkering with it anyway. Overall, my goal was to eliminate the faded, simple circular blobs from the clouds and generate complex shapes with thicker, fuller looking clouds. The kind that makes you lay on the grass and figure out what animal they are, hehehe. The most striking improvement is with the scattered clouds. New Scattered Clouds: New Broken Clouds: I also really didn't like the skies in InClement weather. The cloud layer looked completely incongruous with the horizon colors. Most everything was a featureless, muddy gray. And I never saw rain while on this setting. So I set about changing that too. I'm not sure if you can see the rain in this screenshot, but it is there. I don't have a "before" screenshot but here is what it look like now: New Inclement Clouds: I couldn't figure out how to get clouds to appear in Clear clouds. I'll keep trying, but I can live with it if it's not possible. I'll be posting this in the downloads section shortly. Cheers! ShrikeHawk

I haven't gotten the formal approval of my submission yet. But I did find the download here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...p;showfile=5059 Cheers!

Hey Peter, Nice Work! This is what I thought flying in Hard mode would be like from the beginning. The aircraft are behaving in a much more realistic manner compared to the last time I tried hard mode. Very pleased with your results. I noticed that the Albatross DIIL and the Halberstadt DIII have a bit of roll to the left in level flight. That might be ascribed to torque effects. The other a/c simply push the nose to the left which I would expect. But the roll is most pronounced in those two FMs. Perhaps that was intentional. I'm not sure. The Sopwith Triplane flies tail-heavy and needs constant forward stick to fly level. Otherwise, I'm loving the flight model. It seems to turn even faster now. I've fought against the AI of your FMs too. Great improvement! They are more aggressive and much more active. They respond quickly to being fired upon. Also, the Halberstadts don't climb like they have rockets attached any longer, which I'm relieved to see. Overall, I'm incredibly happy with the new FMs. The dogfights are much faster now and feel like I'm in a very deadly knifefight rather than the slow and sleepy dance of before. The furballs are very intense and quick. Loving this! Keep it up! ShrikeHawk

Yes, rudder helps a lot and a slight bank against the skid. Also, if you're flying the game default SE.5a, that plane gets loads and loads of skidding. One time, after hard rudder on final approach, my plane was literally 90 degrees from the direction of motion. I figured I was dead for sure. But she stayed aloft and touched down while still 30 degrees from the direction of motion. I had a good laugh over that one! I just posted an alternative FM for the SE.5a in another thread "SE5a FM HELP". If you use that one, you won't get nearly as bad of a skid. But that's only with the SE.5a. Try flying on "regular" difficulty. The planes behave better in that mode. ShrikeHawk

Try using the se5a_data.ini file in the attached archive/folder. It doesn't slip around so much. I was still working on some other issues with the FM and finally got it all working better just now. It's quite a bit more steady and better behaved than the default FM. You can replace the existing one (if it's there) or just place it in the main se5a directory if you haven't already extracted the original. Cheers! ShrikeHawk

I was making some tweeks to my environmentsystem.ini file that I thought would pertain "only" to Inclement weather. After a while of that, I went to the other settings to confirm they were still normal. I ended up with these "Stormy Weather" clouds in "BrokenClouds" This produces a very wide variation in cloud color. Some of the clouds are actually black! I figured out what causes it and was able to change it back. But I'm still debating on whether to keep it like that or not, hehehe. Cheers! ShrikeHawk

Thanks much for all the work you're putting into this, Peter. FMs are very challenging. I did a lot of that in CFS2. It kept me busy for many many hours, hehehe. I'm looking forward to trying yours out. I've already modded my aircraftobject.ini based on an earlier post from you. Carefully avoiding the params you said were pretty tricky. I've been getting some real fights on my hands since then! Thanks for passing on the tips. I've been working on the Se.5a myself. Trying to get this thing to just...land! It hardly sinks at all or slows down even with no power! It's the only plane that does this that I can see. I've been poking around the _data.ini file trying to find that magical param that gives the Se.5 it's anti-grav, frictionless feature, hehehe. I'll find it sooner or later.

I have been diddling about with environmentsystem.ini, changing the params to get the clouds looking just the way I like. All is going well except for my CloudsClear setting... In the CloudsClear setting there are absolutely no clouds at all. That just looks wierd to me. I think of 'clear skies' as skies with very few or only smattering of small clouds...not completely blank! So I have tried changing the parameters in environmentsystem.ini in the CloudsClear section to get those few clouds to appear. But nothing works! Is anybody out there seeing any clouds in "clear" weather? Here's what my setting looks like now... [CloudsClear] MaxClouds=50 MaxCloudParticles=77 3DCloudMaterial=CloudMaterial 3DCloudHorizontalSize=3000.0 3DCloudVerticalSize=1700.0 3DCloudSizeDeviation=1.2 3DCloudParticleDensity=2.8 ParticleSize=200.0 ParticleSizeDeviation=0.4 MinBaseAltitude=600.0 MaxBaseAltitude=1800.0 UseBottomRow=FALSE The MaxClouds param is actually higher than I want. I was just seeing if I could "force" the clouds to appear. No joy. Any suggestions for what I should change to get clear skies to have "just a few" clouds? Thanks in advance for any thoughts/ideas ShrikeHawk

So...is anybody else seeing clouds in "clear" weather? Or is it just completely blue skies?

For me, I went into the _data.ini file and edited the moment of inertia value for yaw. I'm not at home so I don't have the exact variable name handy. But it's something like "DryweightInertia". It comes with 3 parameters. The third number is the value for yaw (rudder). I boosted this number up very high, something like 7024 or so. Try several settings and test it out every time you make a change. My Se.5a still slips a lot but it doesn't fall into that crazy oscillation anymore. And then there's a sticky page here for common .ini edits. The very last instruction at the bottom is for editing the aldis sight. I'm still experimenting with that value myself. Here's a link. http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=16272 Of course, always keep a copy of your original so if you do anything very bad, it's a simple matter to dump the bad one and restart with the original. Cheers!

I have noticed that while flying the Pup (love this airplane!) that whenever I lose a portion of a wing, it looks way too neat. Like it was sawed off with a laser. While with some other planes, like the Sopwith Triplane, when losing a wing part you can see shredded canvas and broken spars. Love it! So how is this done? I thought I had figured it out but my testing has resulted in a surprising...nothing. Here's what I did: In the Pup.ini file there is a section like this... [DamageTexture] DamagedPostFix=_holes.tga DestroyedPostFix=_holes.tga Well, in the primary directory there are two files: Pup-s_holes and Pup-t_holes. These are obviously the gunhole images to use when an aircraft is damaged. But in the Triplane folder there is also a Sopwith_Shredded.tga file. And in the triplane.ini file there is a section like this... [DamageTexture] DamagedPostFix=_holes.tga DestroyedPostFix=_Shredded.tga So "destroyed" parts can use a different texture than merely damaged ones. The light dawns. The shredded texture for the Sopwith triplane is like the holes texture, only it ends with "_Shredded.tga". So I thought I had it all figured out. I made a copy of the shredded triplane file and placed it into the Pup directory. I renamed it Pup-s_Shredded.tga so that it would match the naming convention of the Pup's textures. Just the way the "_holes.tga" files work. Well, that didn't work. What I would like to know is, how "should" this work? What parameters do the damage textures need to operate correctly. Any suggestions welcome. ShrikeHawk

Okay - Thanks for the info. I'll stop charging that particular windmill. I assume then that the 3D model is embedded in the .LOD files. Just out of curiosity, what program are most folks using to create the 3D models?

File Name: Breaking part sound for FE v2 File Submitter: ShrikeHawk File Submitted: 14 Jul 2007 File Category: Sound Mods This is an update to my previous sound. It begins with an explosion sound and empahasizes the cracking of wood more. I like this one better. This is only a replacement for the previous sound. If you need the .ini files to install it, please download the original. Have fun! ShrikeHawk Click here to download this file

It seems odd to me that that there is no sound when you collide with another aircraft. There oughta' be a wood crunching, canvas ripping, pilot screaming, BIG SOUND when you collide with another plane! So I have been poking around the .ini files trying to figure out how to add a sound to a specific event. Has anyone out there already done this research and figured out how to mod this? Cheers! ShrikeHawk

I just posted a new version of my sound to the sound mods section. I think this one sounds a lot better. Cheers!

Thanks Christian, now the gun is appearing on my single-gun plane. It was amusing having an invisible for a little while, but...hehehe. Thanks for posting this.

Yeah, I was thinking the the same thing. I was missing the (earth-shattering) kaboom! So I recompiled the sound. I am using a free edition of WaveEdit by the way. I modified the TankGun sound and placed it at the start of the sound. I also thought the old sound had too much emphasis on the canvas-tearing part. So this new one has more of a meaty, wood-crunching sound to it. I am attaching it here. Cheers! ShrikeHawk