mue

Lately I read in the forums some complaints about the too short drawing distance of aircraft in sf2 and how it is not moddable. So I decided to make some tests. My test setup: Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080 Game graphic settings: unlimited (horizon setting: very far) Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam (Jul 2013) I used two different aircraft: B-52D and MiG-17. I made the tests with three different zoom levels: gunsight view (fov = 30°), normal cockpit view (fov = 60°) and wide cockpit view (fov = 90°). Further, I varied the LOD005 Distance settings in the <aircraft>.ini . In the following tables you can see the distances at which I could spot the aircraft: aircraft: B-52D fov: 30° 60° 90° LOD005 Distance: 24000 (stock) 6.7nm 6.7nm 5.3nm 30000 6.7nm 6.7nm 6.7nm aircraft: MiG-17 fov: 30° 60° 90° LOD005 Distance: 10000 (stock) 6.7nm 3.8nm 2.2nm 20000 6.7nm 6.7nm 4.4nm 30000 6.7nm 6.7nm 5.1nm I came to the following conclusions: 1.) The maximum drawing distance is locked at 6.7 nm. And this can't be exceeded by increasing the LOD Distance settings. (Ok, that's nothing new. It was already described here: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB3w/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8850 ) 2.) With stock LOD Distance settings the drawing distances for fighter aircraft in normal and wide cockpit views are very short. But you can increase the drawing distances in normal and wide cockpit views up to the 6.7 nm limit by increasing the LOD Distance settings. Of course, you will not see the aircraft unless it has the projected size of at least one pixel. Because of that I saw the MiG-17 (with fov = 90°) at 5.1nm and not 6.7nm. (Mathematical backing: An object that appears on the screen as a single pixel has the distance = (object size * (screen resolution width / 2.0)) / tan(fov / 2.0) With object size = 10 meter (MiG-17 wing span and length), fov = 90°, resolution width = 1920, the distance is 9600 meter = 5.2nm. That matches my observation.) Overall, apart from the 6.7nm limit, it seems the rendering is not that unrealistic.

I have the following problem: Target objects are shown only if I'm very close to the objects. Moreover the distance where the objects appear depends on the field of view (fov). The most time I use a fov of 90 degrees. With a smaller fov (= zoom in) the maximum view distance of the objects is greater. Take, for example, the (stock) warehouse in the range terrain: With fov = 90 deg the warehouse appears at ~3 nm, with fov = 60 deg it appears at ~5 nm and with fov = 30 deg it appears at ~12 nm. At fov = 90 and 60 deg I think the maximum view distances are way too small. The only solution I found to increase the maximum view distance is changing "MaxVisibleDist" in <terrain>_types.ini and (LOD) "Distance" in <targetobject>.ini. But it's a little bit tedious to change every single object. For the warehouse I set in range_types.ini "MaxVisibleDist" and in warehouse1.ini "Distance" both to 60000.0 Now the warehouse appears with fov = 90 at ~9 nm. Thats ok for me. Does anyone know how "MaxVisibleDist" and "Distance" result in actual maximum view distance at a given fov? Is there an easier way to increase the view distances, without changing every single object?

Thank you! It works. No tree-sized buffalos in south vietnam anymore :-)

I've got the same error (tree-sized water buffalos) but only in the South Vietnam terrain. The SF2V Expansion pack has two terrains: North Vietnam (VietnamSEA folder) and South Vietnam (SouthVietnam folder). I just copied the GH3.5 files into both terrain folders. With the North Vietnam terrain it seams to work but with the South Vietnam terrain it does not. Does anyone know what I've done wrong? Or is GH3.5 not compatible with the South Vietnam terrain?