Fubar512

Maybe there's (some) hope for you, afterall.......

No, your card's not crazy at all...that's an issue with Z Buffering The wave effect is being rendered just above the "ocean's" surface, which has itself been raised slightly to give it a feeling of depth, by the use of both Z buffering and mipmapping. The reason that ship wakes look so white and prominant in my screenshots is that I'm using a version of DO's 'CVN Wake Effects", which I've modified. One of the mods I've made to the .ini, is the ratchet up the ZBuffer offset value to "7.0"

If you follow the directions and install in the entire terrain folder, yes. You see, there are six files contained within that folder, one of which is WoE specific. The terraineffect.ini, farterraineffect.ini, and noisenormaldot3.tga will also work in WoV's VietnamSEA terrain set, but must be manually placed. They imbue the terrain with a "grassy" appearance, when sen up close. The modified GermanyCE_Data.ini is only for WoE, of course.

If what you mean by that, is that some terrain tiles appear to turn white, then that's known as clipping. Is it happening all the time, or just in the cockpit view? Try playing with the horizon distance in options, and see if that helps. My settings are 1600x1200 resolution, 8xAF and 4xFSAA.

Here's something that'll be easy enough for the noobs to accomplish, allowing them to get their hands dirty without hosing anything, and something that should be a cakewalk for more experienced hands. *The following step is only necessary if you do not have the missileobject.ini and soundlist.ini already extracted* First, using the SFP1E extraction utility (you'll find it under downloads, in the SF utilities section), extract the following files: From the ObjectData.CAT (it's located in the Objects folder), the MISSILEOBJECT.INI From the FlightData.CAT (which is located in the Flight folder), the SOUNDLIST.INI Next, open the extracted MISSILEOBJECT.INI by double clicking on it, and perform the following edits: [LargeMissileEffects] GroundHitEffectName=LargeMissileGroundExplosion GroundHitSoundName=SmallExplosion.wav WaterHitEffectName=MediumBombWaterHitEffect WaterHitSoundName= ObjectHitEffectName=LargeMissileAirExplosion ObjectHitSoundName=SmallExplosion.wav ArmorHitEffectName=LargeMissileAirExplosion ArmorHitSoundName=SmallExplosion.wav AirBurstEffectName=LargeMissileAirExplosion AirBurstSoundName=SAMBurst.wav CraterModelName= CraterType=2 Save your edits by closing notepad or whatever editor you've used, and leave the file in place (in the Objects folder). Now, go to your flight folder and locate the soundlist.ini and add the following line to the list section, numbering it as required: SoundFile029=SAMBurst Then, scroll down, and add this data entry to the very bottom of the page: [sAMBurst] Priority=HIGH Looped=FALSE NumBuffers=4 3DSound=TRUE DopplerEffect=FALSE MaxDist=3500.000000 MinDist=10.000000 InsideConeAngle=360 OutsideConeAngle=360 ConeOutsideVolume=1 Save the edits, close the editor, and leave the file in place in the Flight folder. Now, download this .wav file attachment and drop it into your Sounds folder: I did this several months ago, and had forgotten about it, until I experienced a near miss from an SA-6, that detonated a few hundred meters behind me...

Don't feel bad, A few years ago, I uploaded a sounds "megapack". The readme included with it detailed the necessary steps to add new sounds. Despite this, more than a few people (who's names I shall not mention), had issues installing gun sounds, namely, the Gsh sound. Right, Kevin?

Awwww, those damn modders...they forgot to add the training wheels!!!!!

Lexx, There's a B&W film clip out there showing the same sequence.

Worse case scenario: Take all six files out of the Terrain/GermanyCE folder in the archive and manually extract them to your GermanyCE folder. The GermanyCE_Data.ini that's contained within has shader-specific values for the watermaterial entries, as well as values for each tile that uses water.

There's a folder in the .zip archive named "Terrain", simply placing that in WoE's main directory will install the effects. Yes, the plural is intentional, and not a typo

Why, what could you possibly be referring to?

Uploaded and ready to rock n' roll: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=30415 Thanks to Dave, Column5, Typhoid, Drdoyo, Brain32, and all the others that provided feedback.

View File WoE Shader Effects 1.0 INSTALLATION: Assuming you have WoE (ie., "Wings over Europe"), the process is simple...just extract and place the folder named "Terrain" into the your Wings Over Europe Folder, and you're ready to go. In all other titles, extract the watereffect.fx and the waternormaldot3 into the Terrain subdirectory of your choice. In Strike Fighters, that would be "Desert". In Wings over Vietnam, it would be "VietnamSEA. In WoI, it's "IsraelME". This effect is optimized for use with Brain32's WoE terrain using Cellisnsky's widesky 1.0 mod. *NOTE*: I cannot guarantee that it will work to everybody's satisfaction with other ThirdWire titles, terrain sets, or environment mods. KNOWN ISSUES: Cards that lack FULL DX9.0C support, such as ATI Radeon 9x -X1K series and the nVidia GeforceFX(5) series, may experience pixelation issues when close to the "water's" surface. The only workaround is to either turn off the shaders, or to break down and purchase a card that supports DX9.0C. This effect is all but unusable in Windows Vista, due to its poor DX9 support. The .FX files contained in the zip archive based on ThirdWire's original's, and re-compiled & debugged using ATI's RenderMonkey. Submitter Fubar512 Submitted 07/22/2008 Category Environmental Mods

Uploading tonight.....

Of the two, the Eagle can be pushed into nasty stalls in real life (as it's not really FBW), and, the Viper's software had to be rewritten sometime in the 1980's because of pitch authority issues at high angles of attack. Though the Viper is fully FBW, one must understand that the "F" in FBW does not really stand for, "foolproof" IIRC, the Viper also recieved larger stab surfaces to correct this issue, as well. But you are correct, if one were to input (into the game) the correct mass fractions and aero values for the Viper, it would be all but unflyable.

No worries. 4-8X AF should be fine. I was simply concerned that you were trying it at 16X AAF, which might be a bit much under the circumstanses sampler BumpSampler = sampler_state { Texture = <BumpTexture>; AddressU = WRAP; AddressV = WRAP; MipFilter = LINEAR; MinFilter = ANISOTROPIC; MagFilter = LINEAR;

Ahhhh....how high is your Anisotropic Filtering (AAF) set at? You see, I invoked AAF when I compiled the shader, and it may cause anomalies in 9500-x1K Radeons.

Do you have a GeForce, or do you have a Radeon? If I were to take a guess, I'd say the latter

Yes, but why would anyone want grass or sand texture rendered beyond 500 meters, when one could not see any detail at that distance? Re-read my previous post, and you'll understand

Well, I've come to a few interesting conclusions regarding shaders, after killing myself trying to learn HLSL code. Shaders, in this series, must be specifically tailored to the terrain and the environment file. A change to the (water surface) color or ambient lighting may force one to use either a different bumpmap texture, or force one change the values and parameters in the .fx file. Water shaders seem to be at their best when they have a dark, solid, background to standout against. The default water tiles in the VietnamSEA terrain are not good in this regard, whereas the much darker and solid ones tiles in WoE and WoI are. A 32-bit .tga water-shader bumpmap works a ton better than one that's in bitmap (.bmp) format, and is waaay better if one intends to use reflection (or environment) mapping. Terrain shaders do not need to rendered out much further than 500 meters or so, so one can get away with using a larger, finely detailed bumpmap on the order of 2048x2048.

It's in the Megapack at Checksix