gerwin

This crimson skies anecdote is not really a typical example, in fact it is very weird. The game is from 2001. Why would the 'Shadows' option in a game be unselectable until a computer from 2019 gives the game a go? I suppose it is just a true observation from your point of view. But it is not like the crimson skies developers have been anticipating computers 18 years into the future, then wasted their time on complicated Shadow procedures for people in 2019. The usual graphical enhancements that relatively new and powerful systems can bring to old games, are enhancement that don't require the old software routines to do anything different. Full Scene Anti-Aliasing for example, because the windows graphics' driver does all. Sometimes a higher resolution is possible without much hacking, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes a graphics driver wrapper can do some graphical effects, like bloom and color adjustments, if one likes the look of that. I am reasonably knowledgable in running old games for the heck of it, and usually understand the the main technicalities involved. But the crimson skies example is too weird to reflect it to other games.

Looks good like that. :) (Since you use .tga images: DamagedPostFix= _Dam.tga of course)

One does not put the full filename here. But the postfix. For the above object that would be: DamagedPostFix=_damage.dds The games uses this bit in combination with the normal texture names, to get the different file names.

Didn't all 'teen'-fighter series come with CCIP? Including any F/A-18.The classic Mirage Factory F/A-18A package has it. It is a very practical indicator, and the dumb bombs waste no space and weight to rocket motor and sensors. I will try the AGM-65A and see what it does.

Yes Geforce 2 MX was really great value for money at the time. But as soon as GeForce4 MX 440 became available I preferred those instead, not the bottom tier models though. The more serious cards of that time were the Geforce 4 Ti-4200 up to Ti-4800. With increased power draw and matching annoying cooling fans.

I just looked at this model. What immediately shows is that there is light-grey surface right beneath the actual deck, which is z-fighting with the deck... The light grey surface is part of the hull node so I cannot remove it.

That in itself does not make it less playable. Just incompatible with 32-bit systems. There are different things that concern me: Distance LODs and other polycount considerations, especially for high polycount situations such as airfields. Texture size for loading times and also SSD disk space. Consistent art-direction and quality control. Of course a lot of that is both tedious and unpleasant to do, it could even imply rejecting volunteer's work, but the worst alternative is ignoring such and calling the game engine 'unoptimized' instead. Which is a popular way of putting things. As for Falcon BMS's objects. My personal preference is to have low poly good-enough shapes for everything, instead of detailed shapes for a few objects and stand-ins for the rest. But making objects is just a lot of work, especially making nice textures from scratch, and mapping them. With my limited experience with making ground objects; it took way too long. Often, In my head it was long finished, but in actuality it was not. Good to read your other observations on Falcon BMS and IL-2 CloD. I don't know much about Clod, but adding another theater like that besides the Channel front sounds like a great addition.

Thanks again! I see it now in the _Data.ini.

Nice one! I suppose it is both a bit easier this way. And better for previewing the results.

One way I just thought up: Right before messing around in the RGB channel, use the Photoshop feature to 'Record' the actions. Stop the recording when done. Then make an image with the Alpha channel copied into the background layer. Press 'Play' on the recorded action, and photoshop will give you an Alpha channel to match.

Yeah, as usual a picture does better then words. So I made and attached one. This is the stock F-14A '77 and for this purpose I opened it twice to show the alpha channel beside it. But normally you work in the RGB *OR* the Alpha channel. Now this damage texture has the damaged areas above the nose section, which is obvious because I temporarely put the texture/skin there as well, as a faint overlay. Cockpit areas and gear have been excluded. But when you use this damage texture as a template for a new object, surely it won't be matched like this. Damaged areas will be on odd nodes. So then I move the areas around, photoshop calls that 'Nudge'. Sometimes I copy/remove/mirror some damage areas as well. But it is all a bit annoying since any such action in the RGB channel should be repeated for the Alpha channel in about the same way. In the example picture I show a selection to nudge part of the damage area, into a new place. When done in the RGB channel. I want to move just the selection area back to the shown position (or make a new similar selection area) and do the same nudge in the Alpha channel. Edit: it makes sense to start with a damage texture that is quite filled with damaged areas overall, unlike this one below. Since it is easier to remove then to add new damaged areas.

I take the newer stock Damage Textures as a base. Not the ones with just small bullet holes. Fuselage-ones for another fuselage and wing-ones for a new wing. Then I put the plane texture/skin in the background and decide on moving the damage areas to suitable places above the texture/skin. When done I remove the texture/skin and save my work. Now there is bit of a problem: I need to move both RGB channel and Alpha channel in the exact same way. But I don't know how to do this automatically. So in photoshop I mostly use keyboard arrows (with or without shift pressed) to nudge these sections in RGB channel. Then I remember how many times I hit the arrow key and repeat that same thing for the Alpha channel, so they line up again.

I do not know much about it either and still play IL-2 v2.04. That was the version that got the ACE expansion and the 'Battle over Europe' semi-official US and British aircraft. The way they did the Pacific Theater in the subsequent IL-2 releases never really appealed to me. It is a very good game obviously. Still, now I am slowly trying to make a WW2 minigame in SF2 instead. ;) As to reply to your last bit. I think the original developer TK should get a lot of credit for the Strike Fighters expansion in all directions. I have never seen a game so flexible and trouble free in importing and utilizing user made objects, only ArmA 2 comes close. It is like a database manager in itself. The usual way of modding other games is like dropping one original plane for each new plane added, and annoying things like that.

This subject in general is rather mysterious. Since I just checked several STOCK variants of the F-4 Phantom II, looking at the extreme left in the cockpit. See image. My preliminary suspicion is that there is some tag in the model files to exclude nodes from the cockpit view. Which was only properly set with the older models.

Ah, I know that card. And indeed it is not quite up to doing FSAA at decent framerate. It is a budget card often found in Pentium III systems. Don't worry I won't nag about it. Because you are creative and enjoy what you do, so all good. Besides that I am also by choice sticking to certain older Hardware and software. Though I don't really play flight simulations on the oldest of these systems. Because 320x200 pixels is not that great for depicting aircraft at longer distances, or a cockpit HUD. 640x480 is a lot better already. As to the detail texture system. Well I like the idea in all its ways. 3D acceleration, when it started to become available in 1997, made surroundings look washed out. Because of the small textures and the interpolation of those textures. A detail texture gives the eye something to focus on, at hardly any rendering cost. You call it a 3D object? but it is just as 2D or 3D as the tiles themselves. As for the other things about EAW. I will have to believe you, as haven't really tried it much. I am kinda stuck to Strike Fighters 2, and most of my time on that is spend tinkering and modding, instead of actually playing it.

Anything past the April/May 2012 patches of SF2 is very trivial. These two lines are the only ones that mean anything to me: Jul 2012: Fixed Mission Editor not saving out fleets with two or more carriers * I like this * Jun 2012: Damage from player missiles has been increased (in comparison to AI launched missiles). * don't like this * What you see in the cockpit is part of the external model. I don't know by hand of there is any trick to remove that node in just the cockpit view. I remember a similar annoyance with the refueling probe of the A-6 intruder. * checking now.. * No, I never solved that one.

Funny thing in that link that I posted: The Il-2 1946 continuation efforts have to respect the original system requirements. So no 64-Bit/DX11 allowed there, also limitations are implied for polygon counts and distance LODs. Well... I actually like that. since many modded additions are too cruel for system requirements. I tried Falcon 4 BMS briefly, and I don't think I ever managed to properly take-off with the F-16. I was flying but could not use any weapons because I had failed to upload some files into the cockpit, during pre-flight procedures... Falcon 4 BMS's object quality is all over the place. You can see that in their object reference interface: For example the T-34 tank model is used as a stand-in for an M60A3? They will need many years of effort to get all these objects up to some acceptable level. Like the level of Strike Fighters. In the past there was Jane's Fighters Anthology. And I remember a bunch of missions pitting the UK against France. That was a cool idea. So I was wondering the other day: did they even have objects to make it proper? Turns out they did not, and they used M1 Abrams and Humvee as ground units for both the UK and France. At that time the 3D objects were so fuzzy you could have just used these models and call them AMX-30 or something and nobody would notice, but no, it was called a French M1 Abrams.

These SF2NA anti-ship strike missions are lots of fun! There was a time that I still ran SF1 when SF2 was out for a while. But after playing with the SF2NA naval warfare features I never looked back. Even without harpoon missiles it should be possible to sink some ships, when using an F/A-18 with CCIP bomb trajectory indicator on the HUD.

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=50987.108 Very big difference right there.

When zooming in on the EAWpro screenshot: I see aliased polygon edges. Maybe you should consider setting "forced anti-aliasing" in the Nvidia or Radeon graphics control panel? It softens the edges and IMO it is very noticable.

A very simple method to get some extra detail in the ground textures is a 'detail/noise texture overlay'. But it is game graphics engine thing. Strike Fighters 1 and 2 do this. You can see the detail texture effect in the bottom left here. IcelandNA map. Tiles themselves are 256x256 pixels.

It respawns bombs and missiles as they were at the beginning of the mission. Silly anecdote: After triggering external stores jettison, it won't won't work anymore, at least not really:

Looking forward to fly around in these beautiful mountains! I found that with the FE/SF/SF2 tile-based system it is hard to make nice mountains, lacking control of the shadow directions. (don't want shadows pointing up, or shadows of nearby tiles pointing in opposite directions) In this video it looks very natural.

There is a similar setting there that gives you unlimited gun ammo. Also I remember this entry in the control ini file: [ControlSet001] //scroll at the end of the list// REARM_WEAPONS=ALT+W

Here are some drop-in naval guns for the OBJECTS\GUNS\ folder, to try. Should cover most of SF2NA. 3IN_MK22, 5IN_MK12, 5IN_MK18, 5IN_MK19, 6IN_MK16, 76MM_AK726, 76MM_MK75, 100MM_AK100, 130MM_AK130 For the guns with an original caliber of around 3" or 76mm I lowered one value: MuzzleVel=950 SF2NA_Tweaked-Naval-Guns.zip