Menrva

Believe me, it's necessary. Here in Italy some football players got the virus, matches should have been avoided long ago, but when the decision was taken, it was already too late. ICUs are pretty much full here. Soon doctors will have to decide who to try to cure and save, and who to leave to die. I don't think this is a situation you would like your loved ones to be in. I'm no believer, but I am actually starting to pray. About those who go on a buying spree (whom Wrench rightly defines lunatics), I am not surprised. There's no limit to human stupidity.

Nice to see that you're still working on that terrain, it's awesome! Here, try the following _data.ini statements for solid and alpha object texture shaders. Notice the ZBufferOffset. [SolidObjectTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terSolidObject.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=FALSE AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terAlphaObject.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE However, it's odd that it happens on half tile. I think the issue may lie elsewhere...

I just heard the news about California... Jokes aside, it's hot temperatures that will most likely wash the virus away, so we gotta wait until Summer. You guys don't want to be in my country right now... I hope the US takes this matter seriously, it's not to be underestimated at all. The virus is silent, it shows symptoms only after a mean of 5 days. Cases surge exponentially, so containment and lockdowns are necessary. Our European neighbors are sleeping. In a matter of said five days, I fear they'll be in bigger trouble than my country's. Stay safe, people!

Latest version of my GUI mod has been uploaded, awaiting admin's approval. A few days before release, I was lucky to discover some old bugs which I have fixed for good. This mod is pretty much well polished and final. In addition to the support for the Campaign Customizer DLC screen, the mod package now includes additional single missions for you to enjoy! Once the package is approved, be sure to read the changelog.

Mod package has been updated to Version 1.3; important bug fixes and bonus additions.

@Wrench It's actually easy, I try to explain my steps. First of all, I use TFDtool to generate the terrain's water bitmap. Then, I edit it in a painting software (be it PS or GIMP, does not matter); I take the green and yellow colours from the extracted water bitmap of the IcelandNA terrain. You surely know those steps, but next one is important; once editing is done, I open both my water bitmap and IcelandNA's one in Paint. I simply copy my water bitmap over IcelandNA's one. This way, when I save it, Paint keeps the same file properties and file size of a proper SF2 water bitmap.

@JosefK There is no legal Su-57 for SF2 now, so all the ones you have are pirated models; actually, they should be all the same; you can easily see if they have the same skin mapping. russouk2004 was working on a proper Su-57 model. We'd better wait for that one.

Yeah, now I see... can't agree more with you. This should be dealt with.

That water bitmap is totally wrong, Wrench. It needs to be an 8 bit bitmap, 512x512 resolution. Here's a brand new one which should work properly: NAfrica_Water.bmp @PFunk generally, terrains with very little water areas (such as my Iraq terrains) have no working water bitmaps; the assigned fleet zones (green for Blue Side, yellow for Red Side), when too small, are totally disregarded by the game engine. The above water bitmap should have big enough areas, thus it should work properly. Water bitmaps must be 256 colour, 512x512 resolution and 257kb in size, otherwise the game engine will totally disregard them; most painting softwares save them with slightly different sizes (256kb or 258kb) and this must not happen. I suggest the simple Paint by Microsoft for saving such files.

I should have explained better, the model is not distributed here, it's nowhere to be found, as Wrench said. And yes, I think it's kind of silly to allow skins for those pirated 3d models. Nothing wrong with the skins themselves, but new users would always ask where to find a 3d model for those skins...

Yes, IIRC it was ripped from Ace Combat Assault Horizon. But the model is not allowed here, obviously. Also, thread has been opened at The Pub. it should be moved elsewhere where more appropriate.

Of course. I had to move everything, thus I had to retile a lot of things. Cities are there, have more accurate shapes and most of them now have rivers, just like their Real World counterparts.

For now, Quang To and Ben Loi airfields have been removed. They are not used in SF2V's campaigns and serve no real purpose. Additional, important Blue Side airports have been added instead. Here's a quick comparison between stock and remake (there are lots of details you won't notice from these shots). All airfields have been moved to their correct locations with their correct runway headings, plus lots of tiling fixes throughout the terrain, with the addition of cities, accurate river courses and lakes, especially in the center of the terrain (which is just a barren jungle in the stock terrain). Stock Remake

Ace Combat is set on a totally fictional universe, so it does not bother me much, it can be believable to a good extent. It has got its own technology defying laws of physics, but it's not even set on our Planet Earth so to speak.

At least Battlefield got the FPS part of the game much better, with weapons that feel realistic; in most if not all Call of Duty games, if you reload before the gun is completely empty, you never get the 1 bullet that was still in the chamber. They're just fun games after all. ArmA III developers even released an expansion with aliens. I guess most game developers are running out of fresh ideas.

You have all the time of the world. If you find out more where this airfield used to be, I could add it back to the terrain.

Earth Map

A year later... I have updated the menu mod I had made. After I got the Complete Edition of Strike Fighters 2, I thought it was worth to add a new screen for the Campaign Customizer DLC. Not only that, I have fixed an issue with Invoice text missing from the Mercenary Loadout page. The new menu mod package is pretty much ready and will be released this month. Stay tuned.

It is the SF2 you know and love. It is a Win7 game, so of course it will work on Win7. It also works on Win10, but it's not officially supported, hence why TK is upgrading the whole series now. As for mods, I think it's easy as always, after all you're a modder like the most of us.

You wouldn't believe it, but it isn't so. At least, the developers themselves. Publishers are a different matter, Bandai Namco is huge worldwide and have departments in the US and France, and the Ace Combat series is such a niche product they don't really know about. However, some fans of the Ace Combat brand learnt Japanese and manage to speak with the brand game director via Twitter. This guy even got the opportunity to interview him, after he learnt Japanese; As I said and explained extensively above, I can assure you that using sounds from their old videogames which are no longer sold (I mean, kb of .wav files) is really no issue. We're not making money out of this. Also, only with the recent Ace Combat 7 game, PC modding started to be a possibility for this game series. The developers seemed pretty open-minded about it, and allowed some of their previous 3d models to be ported and used on their current game (this does not mean that their 3d models can be used elsewhere). In this thread, we've been discussing about using a few sounds taken from the no longer officially sold Ace Combat games for PS2, not their latest game which is fresh of release; due to licensing issues I explained previously, even developers themselves can no longer make money out of their old titles.

I definitely would, but I don't know Japanese

Yes, DirectX 11 was the base standard of Windows 7. TK's plan makes sense. SF2 currently runs on DirectX 9 with DirectX 10 additions on highest settings, and DirectX 10 post processing shaders make the game crash with latest NVIDIA drivers. I wonder if DirectX 12 GPUs will be mandatory to play the new edition. We can only wait and see. Off to fly with the DLC planes!

Exactly. As I said, I see no real issue about this. We're talking about sounds from no longer sold videogames (Ace Combat trilogy for the PS2 from early 2000s), not the latest ones which are still sold officially by the brand publishers and/or developers. Long story short, the developers and publishers of the Ace Combat series (Bandai Namco) can no longer sell the mentioned Ace Combat titles due to licensing issues (they built aircraft with licensing from the likes of Northrop, Boeing, Panavia, SAAB, etc.). This does not apply to their recent releases. @russouk2004 3d models are a different matter (not the discussion of this thread), and that's what we should be more cautious about; I obviously agree about it. Obviously, admins have the last word on it. I think it's way more troublesome to see sound files from games which are still sold and copyrighted, such as IL-2 1946, Enemy Engaged, and Falcon 4.0, and those are already shared here at CA.

I just got the Complete Edition! Can't wait to get my hands on the smaller DLCs I was missing. So, owners of the Complete Edition get the Win10 update for free, right? If it's DirectX 12 only, it will be unplayable on my end, but at least I can count on having the most recent edition once I can afford to update my crate.