gerwin

Spinners-Style Modification, nice one! To end my topic hijack, here is the new place for the F-14_77 LoVis, together with some other skinning projects in the same style. SF2 Patches and Tools \ USN-LoVis-Paintshop (I will remove the file from the previous location. )

View File USN-LoVis-Paintshop USN/USMC low visibility tactical color schemes Paintshop - GB 3-7-2012 All USN/USMC low visibility tactical color schemes are now put in a single archive for sharing at combatace. All due credit to the original model and skin creators: Third Wire (A-4M,A-7E,F-4J,F-14A_77) Mirage Factory + BPAo + Flying Toaster (F-14A+B,F-4S,FA-18A) Mostly I just made masks and converted colors which took enough time as it was already. Work In Progress Release: Beware that in the past the max resolution I worked with was 512x512 per skin, and lower res decals. Beware that I was sometimes to lazy to make the correct seperation from light grey to medium grey. Leaving the seperation where the old Gull grey used to fade to white. Photoshop 60 Conversion.atn contains the following automated actions for color conversion: -F-14 grey Med (convert to Medium grey, from gull grey as used by third wire) -F-14 to grey light (convert to Medium grey first) -F-14 to grey dark (convert to Medium grey first) US Navy/Marine Low visiblity colors: Dark: FS 35237 used as anti glare, or topside F-4S Medium: FS 36320 (RGB 157,164,176) top A-4,A-6,A-7,F-14,F/A-18, side F-4S Light: FS 36375 (RGB 171,176,184) bottom A-4,A-6,A-7,F-14,F/A-18,F-4S The Medium and Light RGB values were obtained by taking average color values from photographs on the net. Submitter gerwin Submitted 07/04/2012 Category Utilities / Editors

Sorry about that. was fast enough during upload. I felt it was too unfinished to upload here. Here is an alternate address, I will keep it there for the weeks to come: F-14A_77_LoVis.rar The skins have the detail of the Third Wire Skins, but with adjusted colors. The selection masks I used are in the PSD's too (alpha channels).

F-14A '77 in experimental paintscheme, Iceland 1984.

Glad I could help. Something entirely different, well not entirely, I just had to see how this F-14A looks in Low Visibility Tactical paint, The skin pack made the color conversion a lot easier. Here are the PSD files of the skin, maybe someone feels like reviewing the details and adding decals? (first time I use this file host, don't know if it works well) F-14A_77_LoVis.rar:

That is weird, I just tried it again a few times with my install, and these folders are automatically regenerated and updated. I attached the folders for your convenience, but really, they should be created by the game. Aircraft.zip

I had that too at the first try. This fixed it: Delete the F-14A and F-14A_77 folders from your user content folder / mod folder and restart the game.

The patch is quite big in size: 105 MB. Whilst the previous may patch was just 20 MB. I wonder what changed other then wat is officially listed.

Should work fine on XP, without compatability wizard. Works for me.

Another update: I noticed Jane's US Navy Fighters has different music tracks, these are now included.

Next time it would be better not to import the DEM height data like this. It is sourced from a rectangular world projection which squashes everything in the north and the south of the globe. Stretching it with photoshop can reduce the effect.

Glad you got it sorted out. It takes some tweaking to make it run nicely on XP.

eh.. Read the readme file.

The latest Third wire cat extractor is from april, not march. Third Wire Tools

I checked it: they are in flightdata.cat, but locked.

I don't have much to add to whgat was written already. The only sure way to determine any tile placement is by reading both the terrain TFD file, and the terrain Data.ini. Then of course the tiles themselves .BMP/.TGA. The TFD is the tilemap, the Data.ini is the reference table. When these files are in a CAT archive, they need to be extracted first. The file formats are pretty easy to read, except for the latest CAT format, that one is terrible.

IIRC they are in flightdata.cat, but locked.

I keep three installs: SF1 2010 merged and modded, SF2 nov 2011 with mostly same content as that SF1 2010. Both installs are just 1,5GB each IIRC. Then there is the stock SF2NA level merged install, which I do consider unfinished as it is. Even though the campaign experience was excellent. It depends on the announced patch(es) whether SF2NA will be able to replace Nov 2011 or not... I hope so! I am not unhappy with the releases of thirdwire. It was fun when I first got into the series in 2007, and now don't want to go without the features released up until nov 2011. I find most of TK's design and business choices understandable. That does not mean TK did exactly what I want, but neither did other sim developers, and neither did modders. That's fine.

The rounds gives flashes of light after a certain travel time, that is true. video: Here is a fuse for 23mm: http://www.arcus-bg.com/products/fuzes/1_medium_caliber/1_mg25/1main.htm "MG-25 is a mechanical, nose, point-detonating fuze with delayed action. The fuze features self-destruction." It is certainly no proximity fuse.

I did another comparison, side view matches quite well. front cockpit view suggests some differences.

The shape and size of the cockpits seem.... questionable.

According to some posts here, that is how the First Eagles terrain works right? So if the game supports it, it is technically possible. Yet I have not seen any such terrain for SF2. Me, I find the current resolutions just fine, and find the artwork quality of much greater importance: The painting, hiding the square patterns, and especially the color choice. The stock terrains could have looked quite a bit better if only they got the colors right. I do see the problem with shorelines, roads and rivers. They are never exactly where you want them in relation to the heightmap. One can create and add alternate tiles that fit the spot better, but then one needs transitions too, and new TOD's, and new heightmap _hm.bmp's. So it is a lot of work. (That is why I am reluctant to add roads and rivers to IcelandNA.) With enough custom tiles things can look quite nice though. Like the suez canal port in IsrealME. As I like short loading times I stick to small tiles too. Looking forward to the arrival of my solid state disk. Did anyone else notice certain SSD prices decreased about 20% past days :)

Good, In a way it is nice that the classic TFD terrains are still going strong compared to the new terrain-type. I uploaded a new version v0.82. - B key pastes copied tiles as a 3x3 wide area. - Left-Shift+R reloads the targets.ini file. - Height values when fully zoomed in are now drawn op top of airfields instead of below them. - Left-Shift+TAB now cycles backwards through height values when fully zoomed in. There were some more procedures, which I used to create that IcelandNA terrain from scratch. But they were just quick hacks, and I cannot really see how they are gonna help anyone in their current form. So I removed them from the program for now. Note that TFDtool takes command line parameters, you can make a windows shortcut, and paste the path to the TFD file behind it. For example: "D:\TFDtool.exe D:\IcelandNA\ICELANDNA.TFD" Then when you start the shortcut, it will load up the terrain immediately. Well, that is that. I did intend to decrease my time on SF stuff for a little while, IcelandNA took quite a while too.