Geezer

Good news! Quack, check your PM. I replaced my desktop earlier this year, so I dragged my old one out of the closet and found your mod!

Attached are "Verdun" files that Stephen1918 sent me - we used Verdun as a temporary test world for our SCW stuff. I'm not sure this is YOUR Verdun stuff, I just know that Steve used "Verdun" as a starting point. Verdun-Spain.rar

Sorry to hear that, Quack. Hope you can recover all your lost work.

Update: I've spent a fair amount of time evaluating CSF3 and Gmax. From the vantage point of a developer, not a player, the trade-offs are not good. It would actually take more work to produce something in CFS3/Gmax, but - with a few exceptions - the results would not justify the effort. WOFF looks outstanding but has been modified so much that it now uses just a small amount of the old CFS3 code. There are reasons why the WOFF guys replaced the code with better stuff! In contrast, TW code is actually pretty good but suffers from insufficient development.

I don't know the answer to that question as I know next to nothing about Gmax. It appears that some Max plugins will work in Gmax, but the killer is exporting a Gmax model into a TW game. I would be very surprised if TK's exporters work in Gmax because of its extreme age. Gmax is basically a truncated version of Max4.2, while most of TK's exporters were designed for Max8, Max9, or Max2008.

I have no answer because I don't know what I will do in the future. Stephen1918 and I are taking a break from the SCW mod to avoid burnout. Understand this is a massive undertaking for only two guys so it will take a long time to complete. Plus, we are only making objects at this time - we hope someone else will make FE/FE2 maps to run the objects in. From time to time I tinker with map art, which is why I am looking into CFS3. The WOFF team have done amazing things with the old CFS3 engine and I want to get a feel for making maps using the SDK editors. From what I've read so far, it looks like the CFS3 map editor isn't much better than TW map editors but I have no first hand experience. My first impression, based on many years' experience with complex systems, is that the TW editors are more flexible but are prohibitively labor intensive. The only map to come close to realizing TW's potential is gterl's FE/FE2 Italian Front map because of its many art tiles. To produce a professional quality map would require EVEN MORE art tiles, which is not realistic for guys fooling around in their spare time. Thus, I am looking into CFS3's map editor to see if it can produce a high quality map with a reasonable amount of effort. If it can, then I will decide if I will make objects for CFS3.

Scroll down towards the bottom and you will find a VERY laborious procedure for loading a Max model into Gmax. Note that Gmax was originally designed to ONLY export to CFS3, so going the other way - exporting a Gmax model to Max would be even more difficult. There may now be a process to export Gmax files to programs other than CFS3, but I am not knowledgeable about Gmax so I can't help you there. http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?92258-CFS3-modelling&p=1034153#post1034153

Been working a bit on skins, and had a good time fooling around with Golden Age biplanes.

The answer is "it depends." The sim will run default sounds unless told otherwise. Some modder aircraft have substitute sound files, but they will only run if: - The unique sound file is listed in the soundlist.ini - The unique sound file is included in the Sounds folder An example: http://combatace.com/files/file/15543-cr42-1940/

Yes...and no. If you want to employ bump mapping or specular mapping, the answer is yes - you can only use Max 2009. Absent those two features, most any version of Max will work. For example, Stephen1918 uses Max R8 while I use Max R9. One possibility: if you cannot locate Max 2009, you might possibly work out a deal with another modder who DOES have 2009. You could get the model working ingame - except for bump or specular mapping - then pass it on the the Max 2009 guy and have him export a final 2009 LOD.

Thanks! I'll modify the fuselage and see what happens.

Thanks! I'm glad to know I'm not just being an old fart when I complain about today's so-called educational system. When I served a hitch in the USAF, the aircraft maintenance manuals were written to a 12th grade educational level. When I wrote equivalent manuals for the B-2, the contract specified we write the manuals to an 8th grade educational level - we even had a kind of spell-check application that checked to make sure we were writing to the correct level. When I wrote the manuals for Global Hawk, they were written down to a 6th grade level.

Correct, I'm a retired aircraft field service engineer. But I also spent a couple of years in a drafting room so I would understand drawings and specifications - that was back when people actually DREW on drafting boards!

Thanks. I've also gotten some work done on the cockpit. The Gladiator was basically an upgraded Gauntlet, so it's been fairly easy to backdate a copy of the Gladiator cockpit.