PureBlue

Straight in the YourModFolder\Terrains\BlackSea\ folder don't forget to add the WaterMap callout to BlackSea.INI (also in the same folder)

I can't find TK's actual post, but if I remember correctly, the textures were resized at load time (not dynamically in game) The program i would suggest is the Faststone Image Viewer, it's free and you can do batch jobs of all sorts.

Thank you Monty. Downloading right away

That's nice for a change, thanks

Nice. Just watched my expedited training video, awaiting the challange

Many thanks Soulfreak, Ludo and Ravenclaw! Beautiful package

I'm not sure the purpose of locations.bmp is deterimining starting airfields.. Because then I would guess the index of the colormap, for different nations (int the locations.bmp) would somehow correspond to the nations.ini indexes. But they don't match.. And the sea is black and the lakes are light blue... So it's still a mystery for me

My editor won't let me move a land based object to the sea, or vice versa.

Insert this line to TERRAIN.INI: WaterMap=TERRAIN_Water.bmp If the CATFile points to the stock Cat then it should pull it off from stock. Or you can just extract it from the stock cats. And for beta testers of the Anatolia project: Anatolia_WATER.7z

Nope, I don't see it in the new nations.ini.

So the Mission Editor knows where water and land is, when placing ground objects. Only letting naval units to be created on water and vice versa. I'm guessing it does this looking from the Terrain_WATER.BMP. Think it was a mystery new file in the previous patch.

Great news! Can't wait to try the new goodies

Welcome to combatace Derailed! flightengine.ini should go straight into "C:\Users\Darren\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 Europe\Flight" folder. Most ini files from the flightdata.cat would also go here, if they need to be edited.

bad ass!

Beautiful tiles Ansons But can you have more than 256 tiles?

FC, I have a 1304km by 1304 if that works for you?

Thanks wilco, I've been using the Texan and your skin as a standin for the Turkish KT-1..

For shadows, create an INI file named the same as the LOD. Inside this ini, define your lod distances and also you can have a shadow definition. (Format is similar to other lod ini files) The sinking problem, I've been looking for a cure for that too. Buildings, objects & (and even your flight w/ AI planes) ; placed on another FLATOBJECT (like a ramp or taxiway), start to sink under that flat object, as you move the camera away. I'm kind of suspecting zbuffer values. Airfield objects are defined with zbuffer=6 in stock files, and perhaps we should lower that? Got to try this tonight..

Some days I'll be looking for something in my room and I come across these papers, full of coordinates and object names and drawings. Oh yeah, this was a year ago, when I was working on that naval base... And this, even older paper shows all those cities I'm supposed to populate... Then Santa (Swambast) came along Anyway, looking very good already Monty

Here's a quick tutorial on creating your own airfield. First lets get the model to display in-game and later we will add/correct the necessary bits. GETTING a Basic Model to display in-game ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Decide where to place the airfield. Turn on DisplayDebug from Flight\Huddata.ini. Using freecam fly to your construction site and note down the coordinates from ingame. Remember you need a flat spot for the whole airfield. If it's not flat, use TerrainEditor to flatten the area. (This is another tutorial topic, check KB) 2. Design your runway in 3DS Max. You can choose your own approach here. Either model different LODs for Runway, taxiway and ramps; OR make a single model. I suggest modelling the runway looking North-South. Make sure your runway centerline is at X=0. AI does take off roll on this centerline. Y coordinates doesn't matter that much because you will set the Taxi and Takeoff/Land spots from the airfield.ini file. 3. Export your lod and place it in the actual Terrain's folder. (Example: Terrains\GermanyCE) Files needed for your airfield: xxAirfield.LOD xxAirfield.INI (If you want to define view distance and different lods for your model) All texture files used in the model. AirfieldDataFile (example: Airfield_Merzifon_AJU.INI, more on this later) 4. Add an entry to Terrain_Types.ini [TargetType126] Name=AirfieldMerzifon FullName=Merzifon Airfield ModelName=AirfieldMerzifon.LOD TargetType=LARGE_RUNWAY ActiveYear=0 TargetValue=1000 UseGroundObject=FALSE DamagePoint=140.0 ArmorValue=0.0 ArmorType=0 RepairRate=10.0 StartDetectChance=100 StartIdentifiedChance=50 IncreaseDetectChanceKey=10 MaxVisibleDist=30000.0 ZBufferOffset=6.000000 FlatObject=TRUE DamagedModel= DestroyedEffect= DestroyedModel= SecondaryChance=0 Things to consider here: TargetType will tell the game this is a RUNWAY and the size will determine which aircraft can take off from here. (Aircraft_data.ini files have variables corresponding to this.) Set FlatObject=TRUE for all airfields. 5. Add your airfield to your Terrain_Targets.ini [TargetArea023] Name=Merzifon AJU Position=1007800.000000,810400.000000 Radius=5656.854492 ActiveYear=0 Location=1 Alignment=FRIENDLY AirfieldDataFile=AIRFIELD_MerzifonAJU.ini NumSquadrons=3 Target[001].Type=AirfieldMerzifon Target[001].Offset=0,0 Target[001].Heading=0 The position is the coordinates you noted in Step 1. AirfieldDataFile will cointain information on Takeoff/Touchdown coordinates, Taxi coordinates for AI, Parked aircraft coordinates and lighting data.) You can use one of the stock airfield data file as an example. (Example, extract from GermanyCE.cat) All coordinates here correspond to x,y values in your model. (Take reference from there or your Terrain_Targets.ini entries) 6. At this stage you should be able to display your airfield, in the game. After this, I use a mission editor (like KMD) to design a mission to take off from this airbase. So I can start testing and adding more groundobjects. FILES TO WORK ON ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AirfieldDataFile: (Ex: Airfield_Merzifon_AJU.IN) [Runway001] Heading=0 Offset=0,0 Length=2700 Width=56 TouchDownHead=0,1400 TouchDownTail=0,-1150 TakeOffHead=0,1464 TakeOffTail=0,-1209 TaxiHead[01].Heading=270 TaxiHead[01].Offset=40,1485 TaxiHead[02].Heading=270 TaxiHead[02].Offset=90,1485 . . TaxiTail[01].Heading=270 TaxiTail[01].Offset=50,-1231 TaxiTail[02].Heading=270 TaxiTail[02].Offset=100,-1231 . . ParkingChance=100 ParkingMaxSpan=18.0 Parking[01].Heading=320 Parking[01].Offset=321,720.4 Parking[02].Heading=210 Parking[02].Offset=288.4,818.2 . . LargeParkingChance=100 LargeParkingMaxSpan=40.4 LargeParking[01].Heading=270 LargeParking[01].Offset=204,1125 LargeParking[02].Heading=270 LargeParking[02].Offset=204,1175 For touchdown and takeoff data, take the coordinates from your 3DS Max model. Leave proper spacing and consider larger aircraft taxiing/taking off. Keep running test flights to see how the AI acts.. I think the max number aircraft taking off at one time is 16. So have at least 15 TaxiHead and TaxiTail entries, this way you have them all covered, because the first plane starts from the TakeOffHead/TakeOffTail coordinates. Parked Aircraft are great. You can get some activity going on around them in the next step. The best part is, in campaign gaming, the parked aircraft will be the actual squadrons based here. Terrain_Targets.INI entries: [TargetArea023] Name=Merzifon AJU Position=1007800.000000,810400.000000 Radius=5656.854492 ActiveYear=0 Location=1 Alignment=FRIENDLY AirfieldDataFile=AIRFIELD_MerzifonAJU.ini NumSquadrons=3 Target[001].Type=AirfieldMerzifon Target[001].Offset=0,0 Target[001].Heading=0 Target[002].Type=GFD-12 Target[002].Offset=309.524,1389 . . Target[041].Type=Tower1 Target[041].Offset=355,-30 Target[041].Heading=270 Target[042].Type=building3 Target[042].Offset=343,-15 Target[042].Heading=90 . . Target[071].Type=powercart Target[071].Offset=-165.3,-1263.2 Target[071].Heading=0 Target[072].Type=bombtrailer Target[072].Offset=156.45,-1274.73 Target[072].Heading=0 This is the most fun part of the process I think. Populating the airfield and breathing some life into the place :) The groundobjects you define here must be present in your Terrain_Types.INI file. There are many stock objects you can use. Also many ground object models were created by modders. Check the downloads section in CombatAce. Look for groundobjects, terrain projects, and airfield mods. I use the awesome STT (Swambast Target Translator) tool to create the target area, but notepad also works for basic modding. Take reference from your 3DS Max project and use the Debug display in-game to note down coordinates. There will be a lot of execute game, test, take notes, edit ini entries, go back test again... But don't give up, you will love it when it all starts coming together! When you are done adding all your objects, you can finally align your runway: TERRAIN_TARGETS.INI entry: Target[001].Type=AirfieldMerzifon Target[001].Offset=0,0 Target[001].Heading=50 This will rotate your whole target area. Becareful now your debug display offset coordinates will be different. Go back to heading=0, if necessary, it's much less painful to work that way.. Good luck and post any questions on CA forums or PM me. Thanks to Swambast, Wrench, Gepard, Polak, JSFAggie, Amokfloo, Ravenclaw, Dave, comrpnt and many others for creating the tools, info and environment to have this much fun. Cheers! -Pureblue

This is my favorite modding tool of all times. Swambast has really done a magnificent job here. He's been very helpful and fun to work with and I'm very proud to be a part of his project. Thank you very much buddy @Wrench: I don't think STT really knows which direction an object was modelled. So the terrain developer must take note and have an object rotated to face the correct way. Not that I've done any documentation of such, I keep placing them the wrong way all the time

Well if you copy&rename one of the Game Exe file and have the corresponding INI file for it, you can many installs running from this one base Game Install. I got the stock, SF2,E,V,I,Exp1 exe's in there and copied/renamed a few to create, NF4, Reds, SF2VGroundWar type of installs..

Here's a quick tutorial to get started: It's not much different than what Gepard and Wrench explained here. Just get started and we can sort any problems on the way. HOWTO File: http://www.mediafire...993vvkg5vru945u\ I'll upload it on CA soon. (Here's the KB entry: http://combatace.com/topic/60610-how-to-create-an-airfield-from-scratch/)

Be careful, airbase modding gets pretty addictive The most time consuming part is placing groundobjects. Because you just can't get enough of it, and keep finding new things to add. I'm compiling a tutorial now for you all to get your feet wet. Stay tuned