Lexx_Luthor

Original cirrus clouds, replaced by these newer effects here...
 
~> combatace.com/files/file/6567-siberian-sky-cirrus-clouds-for-missions-and-terrains/
 
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original description...
:
:
*Beta* test, updated for SP3 and SP4 generation of Patches, of very large layers of high altitude cirrus clouds that can move across SF/WoV maps and can be set to any desired altitude (you can fly through these clouds). Cloud effects are created by a type of "ship" object that follows a waypoint across a map. Read the Install file, it describes what's going on here.
 
The website is a thread on this at the ThirdWire SF/WoV forums.
 
Thanks to TK/ThirdWire and all the modders who made this Aw-Sim possible. Thanks to Polak for encouraging me in this.

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

This is purely experimental, rather deep, and is a first attempt at roughly modelling a moving warm front.
 
This project is off the deep end and assumes success in setting up the cirrus mod here ~> http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=6567
 
The different types of clouds almost cover a standard size 1000km map. I try to have the clouds evolve to the storm area in the following manner...
 
Cirrus in clear skies.
Cirrocumulus in clear skies.
Cirrostratus filling out the sky.
High altostratus covering the sky.
Low altostratus covering the sky.
Low large puffy dark clouds in the storm area (I call it "stratus" but its not really stratus).
Rapid clearing behind the front (assume fast cold front).
 
For "stratus" and altostratus, I use the Smoke3 and Smoke4 tga files which are NOT in the ThirdWire sims. They can be found in older Bunyap Weapons packs.
 
 
I hopefully will be discussing ideas about this at the ThirdWire thread here, probably starting page 7...
~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p...e1544904e1856b4

Updated aurora 2.0 completely replacing previous versions, hopefully with better instructions and a deeper understanding of how these effects work. There are now two methods of aurora creation:
 
(1) A terrain target object that generates aurora effects. This was derived from the stock power plant generator and the smokestack effect.
 
(2) A moving ship that generates aurora effects during ship motion. This was derived from the stock Tanker ship and the ship movement effect.
 
The aurora are vertical hanging sheets -- vertical sprites -- at roughly correct height and colours, and these can be changed easily. Red only and green only also look great. The aurora images or "particles" fade into and out of view in about 20 seconds -- speed up game time to see a most pretty thing. This effect was made for my new 6000km strategic map, but can be used in any standard size map. Other aurora ideas will be covered at the ThirdWire thread below...
 
page 6 ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p...=a&start=40

By introducing additional camera lensflares, I created a very hard and brilliant tiny sun surrounded by a large glare. In optimizing the brightness of the sun and glare, I was pushed to deeply modify much of the Enviro file more than I thought was needed. One result has been the development of a different philosphy on aircraft lighting and its relation to terrain, sky, and cirrus clouds, appropriate to early Cold War strategic operations at high altitude. Another result has been a focus on improving terrain shading at low sun elevation angles.
 
Included are a number of Enviro files with varying levels of changes, two grafix tga files, and instructions to get started. This is an experimental mod and will be continually developed for my own use, but with some work can be adapted to any taste for any use by anyone. I don't know where to start here, as this goes far beyond just the sun effect. I've started a thread at the ThirdWire webboard with screenshots and will try to describe what I'm doing. If any are interested, it would be helpful if you poast your changes to your Enviro system and screenshots in the ThirdWire thread.
 
ThirdWire Siberian Sun thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=25572#25572
 
Several topics will be covered as listed below; all of them related to each other which requires a tricky balance among them to optimize the overall environmental effect.
 
Sky colours.
Intense sun and large sun glare.
Terrain shadowing at low sun elevation angles.
Sun glare effect on cirrus clouds and new contrails.
Ambient lighting, and direct sun lighting and sun reflections on aircraft.
Appearance of aircraft, objects, and exhaust/weapon effects against the terrain and blue sky.
Moonlight effects on all the above.
 
 
* INSTRUCTIONS *
The project assumes the latest SF1 version (currently, v.08.30.06) and the WoV/WoE equivalents.
 
Extract into a seperate folder for downloads. Then copy the 3 Enviro files and the two tga files into the sim Flight folder. To select an Enviro file to test with, rename it Environmentsystem. In the game grafix options menu, Camera Lens Flares must be turned ON for the Siberian sun to work, although in each Enviro file listed below at the location of the lensflare data, there are instructions on how to turn OFF the normal camera lensflares if desired while still using the new sun effect. The included Enviro files are...
 
Environmentsystem-0 --- Fully modded Siberian Sun Enviro file as developed currently, with full functionality of the stock Enviro file except the old sun.
 
Environmentsystem-1 --- the stock ThirdWire Enviro file with only the Siberian sun added, and the ThirdWire sun taken out. The hard intensity of the Siberian sun effect is rather washed out by the bright sky colours of the stock Enviro file, so...
 
Environmentsystem-2 --- the above Enviro-1 file with my current changes to the sunheight environment colour blocks (...[Day], [Day1], [Twighlight2], etc...). This offers darker sky colours so allows a relatively more intense sun effect.
 
In the fully changed Enviro-0, I use a new star tga file (ss-Star), and added changes to the stock [stars] data block. One may easily return to the stock Star tga file or the stock star Enviro data if desired. If you are now running a modded Enviro file, re-name it Environmentsystem-sav or otherwise BACK IT UP so you still have it.

This mod is an extension of my original cirrus tests from 2006 and produces multiple large layers of flat clouds at varying high altitudes, scattered across a map, and that can move with the wind defined in mission file. There are two methods of cirrus creation:
 
(1) A terrain target object that generates cirrus effects. This was derived from the stock power plant generator and the smokestack effect. This may be more suitable for the campaigns. Once installed in a terrain, it will be used automatically in all missions.
 
(2) A moving ship, with beginning and final waypoints, that generates cirrus effects during ship motion. This was derived from the stock Tanker ship and the ship movement effect. This method is useful in hand made missions, and I hope to extend this to large scale moving weather systems.
 
 
The cirrus are most brilliant with the Siberian Sun mod where the deep blue sky offers great contrast with the white ice crystal cirrus, and the large sunglare causes the cirrus to shine bright around the sun.
 
 
I will explore this in detail, probably on page 7 of this ThirdWire thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4964
 
 
....this is version 1.0 until I discover one of my standard mistakes in installation or content....
 
 
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Original test cirrus mod from April 2006 here ~> http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=2471

Update 1.3 fixes a titanic blunder in 300kt late cloud effects -- the flat clouds spread across the map at weapon detonation, which is badly wrong. More in the update details section below. The B-47 screenshot shows 300kt late cloud effect as it should be.
 
Updates 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 are listed at the bottom of this page.
 
 
Included are nuclear weapon grafix effects from the initial double peak pulse to simplified late cloud development, and most major things in between, spanning a time of about 1/20 second to several hours, depending on yield. No weapons are included, but only visual grafix to be set up for use by your weapons.
 
Surface targeted warhead effects (for bombs, ASMs) are modelled for 3kt, 30kt, 300kt, 3Mt, and 30Mt. Low airburst only -- see the weapondata "Add To" file.
 
AAM and SAM airburst effects are modelled for 300t, 3kt, 30kt, 300kt, and 3Mt.
 
** The latest Bunyap Weapons Pack is required for the use of two grafix files contained in that pack -- the SMOKE3 and SMOKE4 tga files . This pack is found here at the CombatAce.
 
As the sim does not yet support physical nuclear explosive effects, use conventional high explosives and experiment with very high warhead powers. The Weapon Editor can use exponential notation, and 1E+11 is a good start for experimenting with physical yields.
 
PROJECT USE PRE-REQUISITES:
(1) Know how to work the sim's conventional weapons and the Weapon Editor. This editor and some basic tutorials are found here at the CombatAce.
(2) Know how to work the Cat Extractor to extract several encrypted text files for editing. This extractor is found here at the CombatAce.
 
 
This project is designed and optimized for gameplay of hypothetical early Cold War era strategic strike and air defence operations on a massive scale, and will require a few simple, but very profound, adjustments to the sim to work well. One example why: Visible ranges to grafix effects can approach 1000 kilometers, and in one effect, far beyond.
 
This project works with the stock original game fully patched. However, this project was designed with the author's personal Environmentsystem file and a CRT monitor. I have no clue what this project's effects look like on LCD monitors during day or night missions.
 
Possible future tweaks, possible bugg fixxes, discussion of modeling methods, answers to questions, improving the effects and their ease of use for others, and discussion of what is being modelled can be found at the ThirdWire webboard at the link below.
 
ThirdWire thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3970
 
 
 
 
 
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*UPDATE 1.1 CONTENTS*
Fixed some faults in the KT/MT FireBall to HighCloud-1 transitions, especially for KT030.
All Pulse and SkyGlow emitters are set to 50% larger in the effects text files (no changes were made to any tga grafix files).
Tweaked some Visibility Distances.
Tweaked some later HighClouds for KT/MT effects.
Made FireBall particles turn a more deep red near the end of their lifetime. Too red? Tell at the ThirdWire thread.
Set the FlightEngine.ini's FarClipDistance to 5000000.0. This fixes bad flickering of large yield SkyGlows seen from very long distances.
Doubled the rate of GroundCloud emission.
And, a few other minor tweaks I don't recall right now.
Additional modding tips in the Install text file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**UPDATE 1.2 CONTENTS**
 
Removed all files for my personal Enviro mods, as the New Sun effect did not seem to work properly when I recently patched up to the latest
Patch (new sun caused black hole in the sky for example). Enviro mod and *new* new sun and star effects will have to be offered seperately
for better download support. This has taught me a lesson to be fully Patched with everybody else before releacing any mods.
 
I seemed to have found that the sim's custom Effects Details grafix option must be set to MEDIUM or HIGH. At the LOW setting, some
important nucular effects will not show.
 
Fixed a minor but potentially confusing Flight Engine file instruction regarding FarClip distances.
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**UPDATE 1.3 CONTENTS**
Fixed a devastating error in the KT300 flat clouds that I failed to catch. I had it working fine, but used the KT300 flatclouds to "experiment" with the flat layers as general weather clouds spread wide across the map, and becoming visible just after weapon detonation. I "forgot" to change it back to normal before uploading at CombatAce. This was sloppy. It works correctly now...I think.

*** Note added August 2013: Decrease the particle generation rate in case of slow flying launching platforms, such as helicoptors or WW2 fighter bombers, to avoid too high density of smoke particles which look bad.
 
**
June 2010. Updated to include the ancient Smoke3.tga. I had always thought this was game stock. I was wrong. Somebody, I don't know who, made the Smoke3.tga for the old Weapons Pack but that pack seems not used much today. So I include it now, finally.
**
I'm using 7zip as file compression. I first saw it at Column5's Cold War downloads pages, so I tried it and love it.
7zip ~> http://www.7zip.com/
 
 
This project is part of a planned series of grafix effects that may be used in an attempt to simulate classical era strategic strike/interception (Siberian Sky).
 
In 3D Rocket Exhaust, large numbers of 2D images combine to form 3D flame and smoke trails. The goal is immersive smoke/flame seen from the cockpit, and long range visibility of flame (night) and smoke (day). There can be a cpu performance hit with large numbers of missiles firing off within the defined MaxVisibility distances. Description, development, limitations, and possible employment or improvements of this and future grafix effects are at the ThirdWire webboard thread below...
 
ThirdWire thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4964
 
PROJECT USE PRE-REQUISITES:
(1) Know how to work the sim's weapons and the Weapon Editor. This editor and some basic tutorials are found here at the CombatAce.
(2) Know how to work the Cat Extractor to extract encrypted text files for editing. This extractor is found here at the CombatAce.
 
-----------
 
V 1.11 has Smoke3.tga included.
 
V 1.1 has...
(1) One additional step smaller rocket exhaust effect, and two effects for smaller unguided rockets -- U1 and U2 are made with greatly reduced particle density in expectation of large rocket volleys.
(2) Better naming system .... R1 (the new smallest effect) to R8 (the old R7 of v1.0).... also U1 and U2.
(3) Hopefully better instructions.

<< "I spotted an afterburner plume at twenty miles." >>
 
This is the only quote I recall from a Vietnam War air combat book I read back in hi~school and I forgot the title and author. The author spotted the afterburner at night, against the stars if I recall, and said it was a MiG-21. They (F-4 crew) locked it up and downed it with a Sparrow.
 
The VOLCANO MOD attempts to address, or bring attention to, a long missing feature in all combat jetsims: long distance visibility of afterburners especially at night. To do this, we oversize the afterburners as the sim, along with every jetsim it seems, does not model the brightness intensity of afterburner plumes. The same philosophy was used in sizing the recent 3D Rocket Exhaust effects, making larger flame plumes optional for missiles on a sliding scale of selectable effects sizes.
 
With the smaller of two oversized afterburner systems here, I can just see a MiG-21's pixel sized R-13 afterburner flickering from a little over 20 miles using 30 degree field of view (FOV) and 1280x1024 screen resolution. I believe that higher resolution would allow longer visible distance for any given FOV. The full size screenshot shows very late twilight F-106 AI squadron takeoff to the South, using the smaller size afterburner system. The yellow arrows point to aircraft in full afterburner following the AI leader.
 
The VOLCANO MOD uses specific engine names in aircraft DATA files. Any engine afterburner can be done at any time with a simple calculation. A list of engines currently modelled here and simple formulae for calculating their afterburner data are in the instruction file. These are some of the engines that will be of use in a mythological strategic strike/intercept campaign (Siberian Sky), and include engines that were used, or could be used, by Strategic Air Command (SAC) and manned Soviet Air Defense (IA-PVO) from the 1940s to the 1960s.
 
ThirdWire thread discussing grafix for classical era strategic air warfare: Volcanos erupt on page 3 ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4964
 
"VOLCANO" was a name used by one or two of our Old Timer SF simmers some time ago who poked fun at an early experimental closeup cameo screenshot that I poasted (it looked pretty bad). The name stuck.
 
 
v1.01--------------------------------------
*** ADDED TO INSTRUCTION FILE, but the replacement Zip file does not seem to upload here. So...
 
Grafix position of the afterburner may need to be changed to taste. This is done by changing the vector ExhaustPosition=[x,y,z], where...
-x is left, x is right.
-y is back, y is forward.
-z is down, z is up.
The numbers are in meters. I prefer the burner flame as close to the nozzle as possible, but without interacting to cause flickering of nozzle/flame.
--------------------------------------

Purely experimental effects for radical hardcore fans of generals Curtiss LeMay and Yevgeniy Savitskiy ONLY.
 
This is an exhaust effect mod that can change the large scale visual environment across a map, so I hope its okay to put this in the Environment mod section.
 
Included are experimental contrails that attempt to model both quickly evaporating and persistent spreading ice crystals clouds that shine brightly near the sun, and range in lifetime from 5 seconds to 1240 seconds, which is about 20 minutes. The contrail tga uses the same game grafix calls as my Cirrus clouds, which makes sense since contrails can become cirrus clouds over time. Best used with the blue sky and sunglare ideas in the Siberian Sun mold.
 
Instructions and advice on game limits of the longer contrails are found in the Instructions file.
 
Pics and words soon available at this ThudWire forum thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4964
 
 
======================================================
UPDATE EDIT: Somewhat reduced max visible distances. Contrails 320 and 640 had 1000x too great a max visible distance for testing vs cirrus. Now reduced. Will update later if improved methods are found.

This is a prototype 12,000km tiled, but not textured, map called Baikal, for summer season. The downloaded file is Baikal.7z. Unzip it with 7zip into a new folder not in the game folder. Copy the unzipped Baikal folder into the Terrain folder. The 99MB download is mostly very large bmp files used for development.
 
I am using SF-1, patched to October 2008.
 
The files in the Baikal folder are alphabetically ordered. This is essential for easy viewing of the folder contents. Folder set to view "list" helps me see the whole folder in one screen.
 
Tiles are 3km on a side, which is a minimum for this size map. There are no "real" textures for the prototype map.
 
I can't texture. I tried, but...
 
Only blank colour coded tiles are here, for tile mapping development, and blank tiles allow easy viewing in Terrain Editor zoomed out view. This terrain is made for paleo-antiquity classical high altitude strategic operations, and terrain variation is over a vastly greater scale than normal SF maps -- which means less detail seen from the cockpit at normal low altitude SF gaming, unless one expands their horizon distance to see more of less. The good news is that 3km tiles allows a modest 1.5x increase in framerate or 1.5x increase in HorizonDistance over the SF standard 2km tile sizes. I am currently running 200km horizon distance with ATI 4850 video card, and other game tweaks.
 
Much more info is in the readme file called " = 12m3 notes " . Also, the Viewlist readme is useful for exploring the map quickly.
 
No tile was left behind.

J32B Lansen interceptor BETA, based on A32A model by Timmy.
 
For classic olde style StrikeFighters Series 1.
 
Good A32/J32 resources here...
 
Canit, deep stuff on all SAABs ~> http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/aviation/
Vectorsite SAABs ~> http://www.vectorsite.net/avsaab.html
 
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A32A 3D model by Timmy.
Skins by Timmy. Cammo 2048 and smaller cammo 512 version included. Metal silver at 512 only.
Uses Thirdwire F-4B cockpit for now.
 
I (Lexx) don't have time to research the attack version (A32A) loadouts, so this is somewhat simpler interceptor (J32B) beta for us to start with.
 
OUT file included. If time permits, Timmy may work on dedicated J32B 3D model with slight differences.
 
Timmy says: Model and Template are available for those wanting to work with them.
 
4 30mm Aden
4 Rb24 Swedish Sidewinders
Basic setup for 12 Swedish 18cm-m49 air-ground rockets but this is just an example use of Timmy's great pylons. Timmy made this as A32 so we have 12 pylons here if they are used (invisible if not).
Conformal nonjettisonable belly tank.
 
Swedish rockets 18cm-m49 *and* 15cm-m51 are in Olde SF Weapon Pac, along with Rb24. Thanks to who made those.
 
DECALS:: I placed the basic national insignia decals over Timmy's painted skin insignias. You choose which method to use. I still don't know how SF uses unit numbers, since my personal campaign can't use the Thirdwire dynamic campaign generator and I'll eventually need to program my own. So, no decal numbers nor units for now.
 
Beta flight model is derived from Hunter/F-86D and basically tweaked to J32B. Climbs too fast, a bit too high Mach -- 0.96 vs 0.91 level Hi. Decreasing lift/drag might help this. Beta avionics is F-4E but basic radar performance (not display) tweaked towards J32B levels. Shortest selectable track range is 1km to allow good radar gunnery approach.
 
Everybody is encouraged to work the flight model and avionics I ran out of time for. Air-air rocket pods don't work in the sim for AI planes, and the fix Wrench and I worked on does not fire too well under AI control. So no interceptor rocket pods here for now. Maybe we can eventually figure something out, as I'd like to have air-air rckt pods for this and PVO interceptors like MiG-15 and things like that.
 
I am staying with Olde SF and not upgrading yet -- if ever -- so the FM/Avionics are rough but workable and it will be some time before I get round to deeply learning FM and AVIONICS design for the practical goal of building and comparison testing all files for all SAC/NAVY/RAF/Swedish and PVO aircraft needed for my own strategic campaign between 1947-1971, and making them compatible with the game AI programming in this role.
 
RWR is F-4E but it won't show in F-4B cockpit.
 
Go Tweak!