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Lexx_Luthor

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Everything posted by Lexx_Luthor

  1. Version

    723 downloads

    Currrently correct Texturlist file. Download includes only the tiles needed for "simple" version without complications of the Alpine biome attempted earlier. 6000km in size and purely experimental, this map is the beginning of a long term terrain project that hopefully may generate some interest in classical era strategic air warfare. USE REQUIREMENT: Be complete Master of the Terrain Editor (TE)....well the map could be used in the game as-is to experiment with, and a few example SAC and PVO airfields are located in interesting locations although some (x > 2400km) don't show up correctly in KMD which was not made for this type of oversize map. As far as I know, TE by itself can generate a maximum size map of 4800km with four GTOPO30 DEM files. This map is made of several pasted smaller maps, thus allowing a larger size. The included terrain tiles (4km size) are development blanks -- solid colours -- which are required for visibility at full zoomed out views in Terrain Editor. Included are a working Texturelist file and only the needed 71 tile blanks. Both Texturelist and the CityList filenames begin with "0" -- a zero -- so they appear first in the tiny TE open file box. A 6000 pixel import map is included. But most simple is to just "open" the HFD file (called "Baikal"), or one may import the 6000 pixel bmp file. If importing, use this in TE ini file... [bitmapImport] HeightScale=41.5 MinLandHeight=1 Before importing, in the TE choose File-New and use the following values... Terrain Map Size 6000 Texture Tile Resolution 4000 Height Field Resolution 1000 MANY thanks to Gepard for sharing this tip in the Brain Base terrain tutorials ~> http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showforum=191 The 6000 pixel bmp was developed by importing many GTOPO30 DEM files at 25% height scale, then exporting them each at the TE default's 10, then importing the final cut-n-pasted 6000 pixel bmp at height scale of 41.5. This results in 456m height for Lake Baikal which is my reference, and allows a few Himalaya peaks nearing 8800m. The 4km textures and 1km height field scale are double SF standard, resulting in some loss of terrain detail but the great advantage is a reasonable map size on hard disk and in game loading. A standard detailed map is easily possible, but at four times the size -- a whopping 275MB HFD file. Also, a vastly higher horizon distance can be used without performance loss. I'm currently running 250km horizon distance with an old ATI-9200 video card. Ideas for terrain tileage came from World Biomes website ~> http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/world_biomes.htm
  2. Its Siberian Sun, a mere mod, an insignificant subset of the much larger Siberian Sky mythological legend of LeMay and Savitskiy toe to toe in the ring. Basher:: Not possible. The deepest brilliance is not enough to permit escape from the shallow brilliance depth of computer monitors. The offered sky darkness often overpowers my heart as well, so I often brighten up the sky colours, and later darken them again, in a never ending search for reconciliation between the two. The dark blue sky is for (1) enhance contrast with what are supposed to be orders of magnitude brighter effects (such as sun, cloud/contrail sunlighting, direct aircraft sunlight reflections, etc...) and (2) is best justified as a way to model the lower stratosphere where the player would spend most of his/her time playing the Myth.

  3. Game engine

    Lexx_Luthor replied to Basher11's topic in Thirdwire: Strike Fighters 1 Series - General Discussion

    And the others will probably be Patched up to WoI standards.
  4. Thanks, but I need help making nice terrain tiles. I got the sky down, but I can't tile.
  5. Update -- actually, I can use KMD to set waypoints anywhere, including takeoff, but it requires a steady hand. I initialize the aircraft at map left (X < 2400km) and drag it East. The icon vanishes off the left edge, but the mouse cursor is still there so I look at the KMD mouse cursor coordinates. If I get the cursor within a few km of the airfiled location specified in the DATA file, it all works. If I lose an aircraft waypoint, I manually set it to zero and it becomes visible again at the left edge. Eventually I hope ot have a campaign system for this map, so its not dependent on a mission editor. I don't know if TK's campaign generator would work here. I'd have to have a "frontline" almost surrounding the USSR in a circle. Is that possible?
  6. Well, there's some issues. (1) I only have blank terrain now...ie...solid colours, colour coded for terrain type, and their transitions. Blank tiles are required for proper zoomed out view of texture file in the TE, like the view shown above. (2) KMD works like a champ, except there's a "bug" that drags unit icons off the map when the position X value exceeds about 2400km. The X position is corrrect, just the icon is missing and can't be worked with. I've been setting takeoff waypoints manually in the mission file by matching takeoff waypoints with airfields (which are also affected). But its not really a "bug" since I guess Kreelin nor anybody else expected this size map to be shoehorned into the SF series. (3) Somewhere along the process, I lost some terrain elevation detail. The hills and mountains are not as "strong" as normal. However, a more recent paste of some Alaskan terrain into this map preserved great elevation detail. This is seen in the F-100 screenshot below, having just taken off from a base I setup in Alaska. I have to figure out where I lost this. F-100s over Alaska. This elevation detail is good. Yak-25 over Lake Baikal. I had to manually texture the land bridge to the island (a ten second process). This has less strong elevation as that more recent Alaska area addition. The nice thing -- to reduce the map size on disk, I use a 1km height resolution which allows me to run a whopping 250km horizon distance, with an ATI-9200. The Yaks are at about 8km, yet no Combat Flight Sim Earth Pancake is visible.
  7. Any 30MT class nuc bomb should be (1) slowed by parachute and (2) dropped from at least 40,000 feet....or some kind of really good lo toss bombing. I don't know if training for low altitude releaces included very high yields. Does this bomb have a parachute?

  8. 30 Mt Bomb

    Lexx_Luthor replied to mammut's topic in Thirdwire: Strike Fighters 1 Series - File Announcements

    Downloaded it! Thanks. What bomb is this?
  9. Can you duplicate pylon use? ie...use the same pylon call, same position, but for different station numbers that can be selected at loadout screen?
  10. Hey nice perspective, that's what I like. Awsim pics kct and Basher. I am so relieved others got some of this stuff working.
  11. kct, I notice a form of lighting chop to the terrain. That's the nuc SkyGlow under default conservative FlightEngine settings. SkyGlow is made mainly for night operations and is best seen from hundreds of kilometers distance, and even I find it a bit irritating close up during day. Come to think, sky glow should only really be modelled for night. If you fly most in day, you could eliminate the SkyGlow (the core HDS+B pulse will remain). Do this by several methods. Best method may be set SkyGlow particle sizes to zero, or set particle life time to zero (not as good method though). Maybe set Eject Time to zero?? This is what I made SkyGlow for...here is a 30MT blast far beyond the horizon (near 2000km away in enlarged map), with nothing but the sky glowing. All other visual blast effects are not rendered at this distance, assuming the blast happnes far beyond the horizon.
  12. Yep, 60% crash means terrain busted. I'm trying to recall the last time I had a 60%, but I can't. I may have never. Also, terrain here includes all the DATA objects and stuff. Right now, I have no Objects in my terrain DATA I work with now.
  13. mmm, I might have seen one too around here, a MAX shot, but I'm not sure. Would need larger maps.
  14. Sounds like you did right. Two possible things... Are the Typhoon tanks perma-fixed to the 3D Typhoon model? Did you do the Weapon Editor thing with the new LOD?
  15. Sorry Veltro, I'm not doing a B-36. Long ago, there was a CombatAce thread asking for aircraft model WIPS. I thought it was a WISH thread. I WISHED for B-36 in a WIP thread. I since learned the hard way to read thread titles before poasting in them. But if anyone out there is wipping a B-36, I'd wish to wrestle down the FM.
  16. TK --- And we're not doing strategic-level Cold War game anytime soon either, the focus of the series will remain tactical. That was for me. But that's "ok" ... we are calling a bottom in strategic-level Cold War gaming, so we remain long term Bullish!
  17. Don't forget the Wild Boar visual intercepts using Bf-109s and Me-262. But, they often were led by searchlights to their targetsl, and often bailed out at the end of mission. Nicky:: There was one in development, Target For Tonight, RAF bombers and Mossies vs Luftwaffe night fighters, radar, aurora borealis, everything, but it was cancelled a few years back. Old Target For Tonight (T4T) interview now LOST -- website gone ~> http://www.womengamers.com/interviews/t4t.php Night operations would involve different gaming challenges than the industry standard dogfight simulation. The Silent Hunter series of sims modelling strategic intercept with long range underwater unguided missiles seems popular with many combat flight sim players, so its not the "type" of gamer, since both sims are enjoyed by the same players, but it is a vastly different type of game. Night air warfare operations with features more deep than "flight model" such as ECM for example, would offer a game with more thinking and planning features like I assume Silent Hunter offers (I never played it).
  18. Texture type is what tile the airfield uses. Confustingly, in the TextureList, the texture type list near the top numbers texture types starting with 1, all other references to these start with zero...ie... n-1. EXAPPLE: say Jungle tile type is map listed at 3, this is called 2 in other references to Jungle. I think, all you need do is load your existing HFD file, new TextureList file, and new CityList file, then hit level airfields, and then SAVE ALL. You will be prompted for file replacement. Replace the existing HFD, the TE replaces TFD file as well ... has the new terrain tile for the new airfield. Also confusting is ... CityList airfield locations are in kilometers, while Target airfield locations are in meters. I always use exponential notation in Target so they look like kilometers ...like 540E+3 instead of 540000. If CityList has airfield terrain reference number not corresponding with any numbers in TextureList (remember n-1), TE will crash.
  19. krg, capun long ago made an F3D Skyknight. I use the ThirdWire A-6 cockpit.
  20. ordway, I haven't seen the 15 pit readme, but if you Moved the A-4 mirrors out of the way, they still "work" to hit computer performance if game mirrors are turned ON. Suggest MiG-15 players turn mirrors OFF.
  21. Sounds interesting, then the radar missile plume goes dark, leaving the target's heat for the IR missile which may be close enough to the target now. But if I recall, the PVO's theory was the same as ADC's ... you fire the infrared missile first, so it does not just follow another missile's exhaust just in front. These things were launched within a second or two of each other, very close, so infrared must be in front...or so my understanding goes....or went until now. This assumes the target is within range of both types of missiles, and tail chase for IR missiles that could not handle head on (R-8MT for example).
  22. * bump * I'd like to here ....edit -- hear ...more too. I saw this, but right now I'm deep into tiling a titanic 6000km map. In time, working ballistic missiles will have very interesting use for me. Al, do you think your concept could be extended to IRBM~esque ranges?
  23. Top end question Basher, but not possible now. I always expressed hope that TK would add dual missile salvo for AI as well as Player, one infrared missile followed by a radar controlled missile of some type. Specter:: Same reasons why ADC (Ussian Air Defense Command) and IAPVO (Russian manned strategic Air Defense) did it.
  24. Describe in detail what you see before and at the time of crash. For example, does the CTD happen at the end of the first Autotexture progress bar, where it seemingly hangs, and then you get crash message?
  25. At 6000km map size, it would take about two hours to fly across the map, ignoring climb out and descent.
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