VonBeerhofen

A 6th tile was added to this set, so it can be used to replace ANY nature group in EAWPRO. Here the set is temporarily replacing the entire forest set in the Ardennes to test it out: Of course any shown graphics may be subject to change in future updates, these are merely basic designs. VonBeerhofen

And here she is in full battledress: VonBeerhofen

Found this object in another addon where a failed attempt was made to get it working in EAW. It was a kind of wrecked Fleet Defender carrier but I managed to pull it back to live and reconstructed the model from scratch. It's now fully working and can be further improved, which is a lot easier once it's repaired. You heard it first on combatace.com VonBeerhofen

Interesting read Mark, Thx. VBH

And here's the SPARE tile replacing the center tile in the previous pictures. Obviously it can occupy ANY of the previous tiles or be used with any other set or as standalone and as such will significantly change the layout of the terrain. Talking about SPARES, there are some 600+ in the Harvest Set and new tiles are still being created. VonBeerhofen

Here's 4 tiles in the set in a mountain configuration, which in stock EAW also happens to contain a set of 4. Notice that these tiles have not been randomized yet so this is how it would also look in stock EAW. These tiles can be used in any configuration or order as they're not subject to stock EAW border transitions, which limits a tile's use, but will fit anywhere, even in an EAWPRO City. Another tile is still under development as an extra spare, after all it's never enough! VonBeerhofen

I think to maintain reasonable frame rates. Memory back in the days wasn't particularly large, computers were slow and as a result my WinME machine couldn't have more then 50Mb addons or very weird things started happening. Ofcourse it depended on each individual system. VBH

A new tile type in EAWPRO, the Spacer. No it's not about flying into space as in MAW but it's a set of tiles which will add a bit more rest to the Harvest terrain if desired. Some people who've been following this thread may think that it's the same as a Breaker tile and in a way it is but there's a significant difference. The Breaker tiles don't come as a set and have signs of cultivation or habitation, whereas a Spacer set doesn't and can be used as standalone or replace an entire nature, like for instance a forest or a mountain or grass set. You could fill an entire island with it and give it the impression of being uninhabited. You can see one of these in a group of 4 behind the left wing of this Me110, directly left of it's tail. 4 or 5 more are under development so stock tile arrangements can simply be copied into this terrain when required to quickly adapt visuals in our on line missions in the EAW Launchpad. VonBeerhofen (EAW Launchpad Janitor)

Cool find Mark, I hope there's still a few who can use it, Thx! VonBeerhofen

New pictures with new tiles showing the use of "BREAKER" tiles. These are tiles with not much on them and as such easy and less time consuming to create. They open up the crowded areas, which are obviously not everywhere as populated as some pictures suggest. So by replacing one or two 'crowded' tiles a bit more open space is generated. Of course such tiles can also function as a standalone nature and create a more desolate looking terrain. All tiles initially start out as a 'breaker' in Photoshop and allow them to be easily changed at will by moving, rotating, adding or subtracting layers, the one's shown here are new and will be turned into more populated versions at a later stage, the pictures were made for determining how the transitions to adjacent tiles work and to get an idea on how they can best be used. I also found this picture, on old gem from the past when I created the sky for Moggy's Dunkirk and had just begun investigating how to best create these tiles. Sadly I lost my border set which also provided the ground's irregularities background on top of which everything else was drawn so I reverted to using borders from previously created tiles instead to keep border colors as identical as possible, this to get as little seams as possible. To be honest they're not as precise as when I started as I had to make minimal changes for each new tile and those changes accumulated over time due to the new process I started using. Notice the alternative coastline and glasshouses I tried to mimic in my first attempts. I was very happy with the coastline as it contains the connecting road of the Atlantic Wall which ran from Spain all the way to the North of Holland, part of which is still present in my village, as are some coastal defenses. P.S. of course the lake color was later changed after I saw the result in this picture, in game things can look very different due to the ambient lighting, you learn as you go. VonBeerhofen

Way to go, works for me too. Hope you'll have a pleasant flashback with the old girl! VonBeerhofen

Hi Pips, Installation notes are included with their ZIP's but it's questionable if that stuff can still be made to work. Still works on my old legacy machine though, :) VonBeerhofen

Wow Mark, pretty elaborate review, nice one! Great to see all the information bundled, hope it'll attract a few more players. VonBeerhofen

People may have noticed the poor looking city models in EAW where it is actually possible to have at least twice and sometimes even three times as many buildings in a city block. With this knowledge I set out to create new 100% city blocks, to make EAW look more populated. Here you can see the difference between an original EAW block in the foreground vs a newly created block with the tower behind it. Notice that the original textures were replaced with the cleaner looking demo versions with replaced red roofs, so old and dirty black and new clean red can be mixed freely as required. The plan is to turn these models into flat roofed variants which can be used in my Suez addon as well, with appropiate modifications ofcourse and complementing the buildings I already created for it. A mediterranean set is already in the works too and nearing completion. You heard it first on combatace.com! VonBeerhofen

Regularly my terrain editor comes across this coastal situation for which the standard EAW tile set has no solution. It concerns a narrow passage between two land masses. Ofcourse you can simply widen the passage and use two corner tiles but I think this is sometimes more elegant when there's a large number of this situation, like for instance with a large number of islands close together. I think it serves a few more purposes so here's an example of the tile I use in 2 rotational states. VonBeerhofen

The Gameranger server is in Australia and will only cause delays when you're flying from elsewhere, let's say France or UK. Best find a few guys who're willing to fly through DirectX IP Multiplayer, as data travels directly between connected players through a central host when set up properly, and doesn't have to travel all the way to Australia and back again to all connected. VonBeerhofen

A minor adaptation was done to the on line region selection to allow the game a wider choice without having to go through the regions sequentially. Now any region can be set before the game picks a target and transmits the data to the other players. I.e. the routine can directly switch from let's say Channel to Berlin or Normandy or any other region without first going through adjacent choices, resulting in 30 possible choices, where the stock game only has 12 (up and down for 6 regions) . This to better use the resequenced target lists which in most cases are laid out from East to West, whereas Stock EAW uses North to South with overlapping regions already set in the target list. This change can now also select the 'in between targets' in the list, which previously was not possible and therefore often limited the choices available causing the game to regularly default to the failsafe target in each region if you didn't switch through the year selection and forced the game routine to reposition the pointer in the target list due to a changed frontline. At first glance nothing has really changed, the selection still works the same way as always for the host who makes the selection, but the players will receive the region selection upon the game countdown or when the host selects something which also forces transmission. Hope you guys understand what I mean, that it's still simple for anyone to use but more effective, :) VonBeerhofen

A miraculous transformation from the USS_HECTOR to the HMS_HERMES, as in use in various older addons. The bow section changed to the older carrier model and a bit of color was added to the life rafts to complement this version. Here it is in a quick adaptation of an off line shipping interdiction in EAWPRO. You heard it first on Combat Ace! VonBeerhofen

Updated pictures with a few recently created new tiles. VBH

A new variant on the above, single rows of trees to be used as field boundaries or on the side of roads, or just in the garden or around a target, :) Also great for shaking an enemy as AI are programmed not to get too close to ground objects, still you might see the occasional daredevil: VonBeerhofen

A few screen shots of EAWPRO's Supertrees II in action. Supertrees was originally released as a standalone addon at Sandbagger's to replace the 'ugly' forrest models and single trees with tree clumps, providing the game with roughly 4 times as many trees. It's been widely copied into many different addons over the years and most likely you also have a version or variant in your game. Supertrees II uses newly designed tree models which now have 25 trees in a single 3DZ, making it another 100% model using all 255 available polygons. EAWPRO can use two of these in a single object slot. This now again doubles the number as each treeslot contains 50. Here's a few screnshots of how it looks in the Final Cut. Notice the maxed out view depth on the tiles which also causes objects to remain visible from above the clouds! VonBeerhofen

Another neat model to compliment the above or can be used as standalone, the Orchard, a single group of 36 trees VonBeerhofen

Ofcourse there is a large range of skins available as some people may not like what they get (really there are such people!). So plenty of choice, :) VBH

The EAW Launchpad group and I hope everyone will still enjoy these festive days, in spite of the looming darkness in some parts of the world. Fortunately one doesn't have to be of a certain belief for that in our part of the world, or stay in hiding. Stay healthy and safe and make the best of it! VonBeerhofen

Yeah, 2D perspective can be a bit deceiving. Well perceived though, almost had me fooled me too lol. VBH