Canadair

.CAT packs Creator View File Created by gerwin. Uploaded by Canadair. Used to recompile CAT files for the ThirdWire series. Reference this thread for origin and use of file: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=32054 Submitter Canadair Submitted 09/27/2008 Category SF/WO* Utilities/Editors

Link to the thread--->In this thread there are valuable information about updating this theatre. See POSTS No 7 , 9, 16

In greece terrain,( DESERT.CAT based terrain!) at the moment I have no flickering, no anomalies in the water, no anomalies on coastlines. Aside from the entry described in post no: 7 , to be added in Greece_data.ini: [HeightOffset] LowDetailMesh=-1.0 WaterMesh=0.8 What I else did was a: merging the germanyCe.cat and sp4's desertCAT (SEE HERE THE PROCEDURE I USED) into an updated massive desert.cat, to which the greece.ini has been pointed at. b: replacing the [watertexturematerial] entry in greecedata.ini with a "modern" one, that calls for Watereffect.FX. (I copied such entry form Germance.cat) This without touching the alpha stuff. The theatre works a blast.

This is a great and add LOADS to the immersion...thanks for the discovery.. WORKS in PATCHED SEPT08 WOE AND WOV DOGFIGHT

In case someone thinks the TV and Laser designator screens do not work, well they need to be airborne (higher that 30 ft or somethin,, althoguh I tried keeping the maverick selected during the approach and it was on all the way..) AND you need in the avioncs file the [TVdisplaydata] and the [Dtvfilter or somethinglike that] entries

We like orgies, don't we Wrench? Strictly aircrafts of course! Anyway, I don't know about all stock items being included in the vietnam and germany cats. Just look at dimensions Desert.cat (SP4) 45.9 meg. GermanyCE.cat (patched) 82 meg MERGED DESERT.CAT plus GERMANYCE 112 meg. which means that the brute sum would be 127.9 MB (45.9 +82) VS 112MB of the merged install. This means that out of desert.cat there are about 20MB that are NOT shared. (25.9 is the difference between total sum and merged install. Therefore, you have 45.9 - 25.9 =20MB) That manybe could account for some objects not wanting to appear in terrains until thrown in the root of the terrain. Simply because we thoguht they were in the newer cat, while they were not included, and still wrapped up in desert. cat I asked FC to write a procedure for catpack's use, but maybe is bust or I missed his ideas. so this is the procedure I used WHEN YOU MERGE .CAT YOU NEED TO UNPACK DESERT.CAT FIRST AND AFTER GERMANYCE.CAT, in order to preserve the newer files. CAT EXTRACTOR, DOES NOT ASK FOR OVERWRITE PERMISSION, THE SUCKER. SO: -COPY DESERT.CAT IN EMPTY FOLDER -RUN CATEXTRACTOR POINTING IT TO DESERT.CAT IN THAT FOLDER -REMOVE COPIED DESERT.CAT FROM FOLDER -COPY GERMANYCE.CAT IN THE SAME FOLDER -RUN CATEXTRACTOR POINTING IT TO GERMANYCE.CAT IN THAT FOLDER -REMOVE COPIED GERMANY.CAT -RUN CATPACK UTILIY FROM FOLDER IT WILL CREATE A CATPACK.CAT THAT YOU NEED TO RENAME DESERT.CAT , OR GERMANY .CAT AND HAVE THE TERRAINS.INI POINT AT. i NAMED IT AGAIN DESERT.CAT , AFTER RENAMINF THE sp4'S DESERT.CAT AS DESERTORI.CAT MAKE SURE YOU RENAME IT DESERT and not DESERT.CAT In the least in my vista settings I don't have extension showing, and the game was not picking up the cat becasue it was looking for desert.cat.CAT . Drove me insane for abotu 30 minutes.. Another finding. Aircraft with avionics70 need to have the radar ground mapping mode called GM in avionics.ini And also, later in the avionics.ini you need to have [RadarDisplayGM] and not [RadarDisplayGround_Map]

Dave, use the information where you think is most appropriate of course.Add it please yuorself to the KB. I am not worth of touching the sacred books. Also DAVe, you might want to put on KB the method and the CAT-maker utility that I ve found somewhere on this site, under FC's indications. Whoever made that little program, blessed be. On another note, I have to admit that I actually made a mistake in being so skeptical about the patch in the past. The upgrading so far has been relatively painless. My heavily modded Wov and Falkland are up n running. Natofighters'sWoe is going to be easy, althoguh I am waiting to install and mod Column's NF3. The Main install is coming along,migrating from SFP to patched WOE. Problems are being ironed out quickly, and man it is worth. The AI, the campaign (have you noticed the HUGE amount of flights the campaing generates now? something I REALLY wanted. Just crank up the supplies in campaing data and you have delirious missions. The FPS are decent for the amount of crap thrown in the scenarios. And the options opening,,OMG, limitless. The new campaign option, where you can focus offensive on one specific target area, opens a LOT to campaign makers. you can have limited campaigns, such as "wreck the nuclear north korea research facility, limiting side-effect" -style operations. The aircraft parked,,wow you can add a squadron, task it with no mission, but they should appear,, and give great cosmetic the the scenario.. think of airliners for example, or cargos, or awavcs..immerssion factor zooming. Next months are going to be FUN

I have an answer for this one. Everything stems from the decision of not patching SFP1. Or in the least, not openly. What happens with those terrain based on desert.cat, is that rightly so you pointed to desert.cat. In germanyce.cat, thoguh, there are updated desert_airfields inis, with proper taxi and parking definitions. It is just a matter of unpacking those files and throwing them into those desert-based installs. Even better, would be merging the two cats into an updated germanyce.cat that includes desert.cat as well.

I had the same problem. I can't remember how I solved it thoguh. Could be a Flightengine issue.

In which terrain did it work drdoyo? and does it solve that coastline effect seen in my pictures?

Ok tried this. not all anomalies are solved with the method I suggested, but the majot problem seems gone. For starter make sure that in the greece.ini you are pointing at the right desert .cat. In the greece I downloaded (1.1) there was a typo in pointing at a desert_ORI.cat The coast profile should be redone,maybe working on the Sea1.tga/BMP and the waternromal.fx and waterdata setting. Also the water is TOO light blue to be realistic. What is bizzare is that the coast look better getting closer, as you see in one of thr two pictures BUT the main artifact anomaly is gone, leaving ground for more improvement.

I noticed those problems as well when starting to import Falkland terrain. I had also the same problem when importing customized Germany and vietnamsea I solved it in the following way (this was psoted elsewhere but I am reposting for visibility) What I did was extracting both terrain and water.fx from the germanyCe.cat. I extracted also the germanCe data and found some new lines missing in the previous terrain datas [TerrainMesh] TextureThreshold=0.80 LowDetailMeshThreshold=0.50 MedDetailMeshThreshold=0.30 TileToHeightGridRatio=4 RenderMeshVertexCount=4096 RenderMeshIndexCount=6144 SolidObjectVertexCount=12288 SolidObjectIndexCount=18432 AlphaObjectVertexCount=8192 AlphaObjectIndexCount=12288 [HeightField] DetailScale=1.0 DetailFrequency=1.0 MaxHeight=1000 MinHeight=0 [HeightOffset] <------------------------------------THOSE ENTRIES WERE MISSING in MALVINAS_data LowDetailMesh=-1.0 WaterMesh=0.8 [NormalTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=TerrainEffect.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=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.0000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=ONE NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [WaterTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=WaterEffect.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=TRUE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 SpecularColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 SpecularPower=10.000000 Reflectivity=1.00000 ZBufferOffset=2.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=2 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE TextureStage[02].TextureName= TextureStage[02].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[02].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[02].ReflectionMapping=TRUE TextureStage[02].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_BLEND_TEXTURE_ALPHA TextureStage[02].StageAlphaOp=DIFFUSE SO, by coping the missing underliend entries from the stock germany data, the water seems much better and looks good. I don't know it it helps, but maybe is a good insight Also please note that in many terrains, even just released those lines are just not present, but the engine was doing good withput them. (cuba for example) On a final note, plese notice that the [HeightOffset] entry was actually present in pre-patch GermanyCE , SP4 in this form; [HeightOffset] <--------------from SP4 GermanyCE NonTexturedMesh=-10.0 TexturedMesh=-5.0 DetailedMesh=0.0 as compared to this one, which is the one in Sept.Patch [HeightOffset] LowDetailMesh=-1.0 WaterMesh=0.8 Hope that this can help someone. I have to say that with a few clicks the Falkland install update is really stable, beautiful and complete. Was much less painful than what I initally thought. I used Falkland, relatively smaller install, to test the modding and updating procedure, and now I am ready to use the next three days OFF to move the main gigantic install into updated WOE.

I am looking forward to those releases. with new Campaign data entries there is alot ot experiment. I was actually going to try myself in campaigns upgrading. If you need help in something shoot me a PM. I d be glad to help the transition to the new standards

Which water flickering? I don't know what you are referring specifically about, but I had a LOT of water flickering when updating the falkland terrain basing it ona woe, with the desert.cat for the terrain and the merged objectdata.cat from updated WOE and old SFP. As for the water flickering, what I did was extracting both terrain and water.fx from the germanyCe.cat. I extracted also the germanCe data and found some new lines missing in the previous terrain datas [TerrainMesh] TextureThreshold=0.80 LowDetailMeshThreshold=0.50 MedDetailMeshThreshold=0.30 TileToHeightGridRatio=4 RenderMeshVertexCount=4096 RenderMeshIndexCount=6144 SolidObjectVertexCount=12288 SolidObjectIndexCount=18432 AlphaObjectVertexCount=8192 AlphaObjectIndexCount=12288 [HeightField] DetailScale=1.0 DetailFrequency=1.0 MaxHeight=1000 MinHeight=0 [HeightOffset] <------------------------------------THOSE ENTRIES WERE MISSING in MALVINAS_data LowDetailMesh=-1.0 WaterMesh=0.8 [NormalTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=TerrainEffect.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=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.0000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=ONE NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [WaterTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=WaterEffect.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=TRUE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 SpecularColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 SpecularPower=10.000000 Reflectivity=1.00000 ZBufferOffset=2.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=2 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE TextureStage[02].TextureName= TextureStage[02].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[02].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[02].ReflectionMapping=TRUE TextureStage[02].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_BLEND_TEXTURE_ALPHA TextureStage[02].StageAlphaOp=DIFFUSE SO, by coping the missing underliend entries from the stock germany data, the water seems much better and looks good. I don't know it it helps, but maybe is a good insight Also please note that in many terrains, even just released those lines are just not present, but the engine was doing good withput them. (cuba for example) On a final note, plese notice that the [HeightOffset] entry was actually present in pre-patch GermanyCE , SP4 in this form; [HeightOffset] <--------------from SP4 GermanyCE NonTexturedMesh=-10.0 TexturedMesh=-5.0 DetailedMesh=0.0 as compared to this one, which is the one in Sept.Patch [HeightOffset] LowDetailMesh=-1.0 WaterMesh=0.8 Hope that this can help someone. I have to say that with a few clicks the Falkland install update is really stable, beautiful and complete. Was much less painful than what I initally thought. I used Falkland, relatively smaller install, to test the modding and updating procedure, and now I am ready to use the next three days OFF to move the main gigantic install into updated WOE.

Another good question...

Thanks FC. I am planning to build an UBER install too,, like I had so far. But based on SFP1, and now it is goign to be WOE. And I have three days OFF as well which I am goign to sue for the same purposes. One question. When you merged the old and new data.cat which one is the "base". I mean, I am planning to use SFP and WOE only, leaving WOV as seprate install. There must be overlapping files. Have you used any precautions to amke sure old objectdata.cat's file (from SFP) are replaced by newer objectdata.cat (from patched WOE)? Also the new merged objectdata.cat must be STILL named objectdata.cat , right?

Can you please help me striaghetn and understand something.. This problem with .tod's heights in migrating new map. I haven't tried yet, but if I read all you guys properly, the files needed are included in the .cat and called _hm.bmp or something..I can see them in the _data file of the terrain. So, let me understand this, every terrain that uses the desert.cat, will continue to work happily, as long as it is pointed to desert.cat with tiles names in _data file's tiles named with the stndard convention. In order to have other maps that use ggermanyCE or WOV name conventions, can we find those _Hm.bmp available in respctive cat file? Therefore it is just the matter of pointing each map to the proper .cat?

Yes FC. I have a BIG SFP install. When you have time could you write us a few lines about the procedure you followed? I guess you used WOE as start platform? Thanks!

I actually think is a Vista problem

I have it too. And on the previous patch. So it did not get fixed...I opened a thread, noone answered thoguh it was just me

I am with you on this. I am getting ready for the crusade for "PATCH CLEAN INSTALL" in our regional forum. Of course I am not even touching the super-modded install, and setting a new one. Respectufully Dave, with 1000 post in this forum and about TW games I have this downpath. Your path is the ONLY one to follow, unless you know what youa re doing. My question and my jbba-jabba or whatever, as MrT nicely addresses it, is simply this one: since the AI feature and the Vista compatibel shaders, SHOULD non influence any mod, and those are the main feautres (to me) of the patch, I wonder if there is any way to do a file-surgery and have only this two features, as an interim plan while slowly updating the mod one by one. It is somethign delicate and you have to know what you are doing, and take full responsability for it. Actually I should not even suggest the idea, in order to avoid putting strange ideas in those that don't know what they are doing, and run into the serious risk of porking their install. And the "I ruined my install" posts because one did not patch over a clean install, won't have an help from me either.

Not asking to do anything to TK, because he won't. But asking if it is thereotically possible to have an hybrid, why not? But maybe I am thinking too much out of the box. On the other hand, wasn't a "patching with confidence" guide wrote by you that could be a good starting point to patch without losing addons? Or is the patched game so different that addons as they are are fubared anyway?