WOV - Target Object Placement Interface Tool WIP

[+swambast 604]

All,

 

Since I have owned Wings Over Vietnam, I have always been annoyed and disappointed by how barren and lifeless the airfields and target areas have been. After my initial complaining, I began to slowly educate myself on adding/placing objects. My insight led to a huge admiration first and foremost for the work and sharing by Comrpnt on statics and “populating airbases”, the many objects that Rebel Ryder created (PM me rebel!), CA_Stary’s mesmerizing “world makeovers” and Tannethal’s densely packed airfields (Ubon is a masterpiece) – just to name a few!!! I started to learn the internal structures of the Sim and began focusing on exploring methods/tools to place and manipulate target objects. As most realize, common techniques leverage using HUD debugs and hand-placement of target objects….but that all changed for me when I found an old forum thread on the work Polak had been investigating. Out of complete fascination and awe, I read everything I could about the ideas Polak pioneered, which focused on integration with another program called “Flight Simulator Scenery Creator (aka ‘FSSC’ written by the great Derek Leung).” I began to really get excited about this discovery, and was absolutely confused why the community had not adopted this solution or taken it any further. I corresponded directly with Polak who shared his knowledge, offered his encouragement and gave me a heads-up about current limitations and challenges. Ironically enough, I had worked with FSSC years ago during my MS Flight Simulator days, so I picked it up again and started dabbling around.

 

Yes, the possibilities were still as relevant and achievable as they were during the time Polak uncovered them! Based on my rusty programming ability, I could see that a “target translator” interface would be needed between the Sim and FSSC. And so this Spring I kicked off my efforts and started work on picking up where Polak’s masterful idea had left off…and as usual, real-life “start-and-stops” jumped in the way. But, I have made some progress perhaps you may find interesting, so thought now might be a good time to share a sneak-peek, despite the enormous amount of work left…

 

Quick Info:

• Designed specifically to support Wings Over Vietnam with Patch v08.30.06.

• Since still in Beta, converted Thirdwire .INI target areas are not currently imported / integrated directly back into the Targets.ini file (i.e., VIETNAMSEA_TARGETS.INI). Future releases will support this ability.

• With one click, filter out Thirdwire target areas without target objects

• Target .INI file conversions support ALL known parameters including Active Year, Location, Airfield Data Files, Num Squadrons, etc.

• Conversions to FSSC .SCN files check for and report missing Target Objects against a “master” Target Object Library to report out missing / blank target objects

• Over 75 .API custom macros programmed for FSSC each sized with width x length dimensions which greatly assists with object placement / scaling

• Fully integrated Target Object Library that can be completely customized and freely updated by the user using just notepad

 

Enjoy the screenshots, while it won't be the ideal target placement program we have all "dreamed of" - my "Swambast Target Translator (STT)" as I've named it, breaks the boundaries of what we have now in my humble opinion, but I must fully acknowledge that I am just carrying on the torch that Polak already lit some time back...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2011 by swambast

[Silverbolt 104]

very nice

[+Stary 2,426]

Now THAT is something!

 

I thought all forgot about Polak's idea of using MSFS creator posted on Thirdwire and SimHQ... I thought wrong

[+EricJ 3,943]

That is a good idea, would make making targets more dynamically placed, and allow you to make more custom stuff..

[The_Editor 2]

Great work!

[+ST0RM 145]

Getting closer to how Fighters Anthology's editors worked. Very nice idea and work. Thank you!

 

-S

[FastCargo 412]

Excellent work! That's something this sim has been really needing!

 

FC

[+malibu43 142]

Yeah, this could be really cool.

 

I've been wanting for a long time to add AAA randomly all over N Vietnam and Laos. I don't know if this will allow it, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

[Wrench 9,471]

I'm looking at this with 'some' anticipation ..... (ok, a lot!)

 

What about importing pre-built target areas? I've got a pretty extensive library of 'places to place', so it's just a copy/paste once the X/Y coords are know. Can it import these?

 

And for new areas, will you be able to search and locate the x/ys for placement? (like we've been doing with either WoVSqmd or the free camera view)

 

Since the core game engines are pretty much the same, I assume it should work on the entire series?

 

Wrench

kevin stein

[+swambast 604]

All, thanks for the replies and encouragement, greatly appreciated!

 

Kevin,

The program is really designed initially to read existing Target Areas (i.e., Target Area 15 - Cat Bi) from a default Targets.ini file (i.e, VIETNAMSEA_TARGETS.INI), convert to FSSC format, and write it back out to a Thirdwire .ini format. FSSC is very, very nit picky and one wrong entry/file structure will throw up multiple errors.

 

Now, with that out of the way, once someone understands the logic of how the headers are generated, it is very easy to make a 1-minute quick fix as a work-around. Tannethal provided me his custom Ubon Airbase Target Area, and I successfully imported his file which holds an incredible 446 target objects into FSSC for manipulation, and back out again to a 3rdWire .ini file. The only problem with this quick shot approach, is you may lose some benefits of my translation functions, which include proper scaling of the objects width/length...but again I've designed the program to be really open-ended and scalable, so even then you get around that limitation. So in summary, short-term custom files can only be converted using a quick work around, long-term I expect to integrate this capability. If you're really interested in the capability to work with your pre-built target areas, send them my way and I can give them a quick test.

[Polak 0]

All, thanks for the replies and encouragement, greatly appreciated!

 

Kevin,

The program is really designed initially to read existing Target Areas (i.e., Target Area 15 - Cat Bi) from a default Targets.ini file (i.e, VIETNAMSEA_TARGETS.INI), convert to FSSC format, and write it back out to a Thirdwire .ini format. FSSC is very, very nit picky and one wrong entry/file structure will throw up multiple errors.

 

Now, with that out of the way, once someone understands the logic of how the headers are generated, it is very easy to make a 1-minute quick fix as a work-around. Tannethal provided me his custom Ubon Airbase Target Area, and I successfully imported his file which holds an incredible 446 target objects into FSSC for manipulation, and back out again to a 3rdWire .ini file. The only problem with this quick shot approach, is you may lose some benefits of my translation functions, which include proper scaling of the objects width/length...but again I've designed the program to be really open-ended and scalable, so even then you get around that limitation. So in summary, short-term custom files can only be converted using a quick work around, long-term I expect to integrate this capability. If you're really interested in the capability to work with your pre-built target areas, send them my way and I can give them a quick test.

 

Hi guys ....

Long been away, but this topic brought some old memories.

 

So for being so nice and too kind to bring my name in acknowledge of my early research here is little tasty secret you might want to try.

 

FSSC has one interesting format in import . It is an *.apt which is Airport for Windows a little, but well known at the time creator of airports in FS. Try to find it because it is worth to have it and here is why...

 

Airport can read sca files (scasm) which is decompiled form of bgl. And bgls files are of FS sceneries all available on the web for nearly each area and each airport in the nearly entire world. What is ONLY needed is just another converter capable to read bgl (BGLanaliser is just one of them).

 

So... bgl BglAnaliser->sca->into the Airport ->apt into the FSSC->Third Wire.

 

I know takes some manipulation, but the resources become quite abundant in return.

 

Best regards and S!

Edited December 17, 2008 by Polak

[+rebel ryder 4]

Swambast the program is good looking, it is very helpful to the community.

Thank you, what is PM?.

[+comrpnt 16]

Very nice work Swambast - this will save a lot of tedious effort. I look forward to trying it out.

 

Kind regards, comrpnt :-)

[krfrge 742]

Amazing work!

 

Thank you Polak and Swambast for your efforts. A tool such as this would be extremely beneficial in the future development/placement of targets.

[eraser_tr 29]

We've needed this for so long!

 

Please, be sure to patch to the sept/oct 08 level and make sure it works with the latest version!

[+Brain32 265]

Awsome news, will eagerly anticipate further development...

[+Tailspin 3]

Cool. We need this baby. THANKS!

[Tannethal 2]

Polak, Swambast nice to see you around again.

 

I get the feeling i should really finish my long ago started tutorial on Target Area creation for FSSC.

Started it as a guideline for creating real airbases when I did NKP and managed to avoid errors made when i did Ubon back then.

 

 

Holidays are coming so some time should be reserved for this.

 

S!

Edited December 19, 2008 by Tannethal

[jtin 0]

Nice work!

 

The stuff that was done with FSSC was truly amazing; making it easier and more efficient is going to bring a lot more to target placing.

[+swambast 604]

Great progress today on the FSSC side, what an exhausting effort! Finally finished up an incredible 99 custom macros for FSSC based on stock Wings Over Vietnam target objects, all with specified width x length dimensions (which will still need to be tested for accuracy of course). Almost done now with the stock WOV Target Object Library file which will be pretty significant in my book...a few more screenies for ya to enjoy....

 

Next Critical Phase To Be Completed: Fully automated merge of Thirdwire converted .INI Target Area files directly into any specified TARGETS.INI file. Note that I absolutely didn't plan to do this for the Beta, but after all my time-consuming testing it became such an inconvenience, that I figured that I might as well take it on now. Man, this endeavor really seems to be coming together, my "Wow" factor is starting to really increase as I cannot believe how much time and effort is being saved here. For example, I just added a 27-barracks community and southwest shack in literally 5 minutes to the West side of Da Nang Airfield...it is just too fun and easy now!!!

 

Finally, as a special treat, hopefully I will get around to creating a quick beta teaser video soon on how I did that, so stay tuned for that as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WDH 0]

Swambast,

This is to really gonna make it interesting for novice users like myself.I admire your time and dedication.Patiently waiting with anticipation of what this will do for the community.Thank you sir ahead of time.

 

Brady

[+swambast 604]

All,

 

I have been working relentlessly to bring this to a reality, and have made significant progress. As promised, here are some quick demos of the beta in action. All of the coding for the beta is complete, and in the classic "2 weeks" or so, I may be looking for additional beta testers. Enjoy the demos, hope you find it exciting and full of potential!

 

Swambast Target Translator ("STT"):

 

For some reason, the demo is all funked up when using Firefox (my personal preference) - so please use Internet Explorer to view!

 

 

DEMO Intros (just click the link to view!)

 

Demo Part 1 - Converting an .INI file to an FSSC .SCN file

Demo Part 2 - Manipulating and adding Target Objects within FSSC

 

Enjoy!

Swambast

[+swambast 604]

Swambast Target Translator ("STT") DEMOS: For some reason, the demo is all funked up when using Firefox (my personal preference) - so please use Internet Explorer to view!

Click the link to view: Demo Part 3 - Converting an FSSC .SCN file back into a Thirdwire Targets.INI file

 

Enjoy!

Swambast

[Tannethal 2]

Although Swambast briefed me on the features to expect, this is freaking amazing!

 

Cool thing with the macro selection for different stuff and most of all a painless reimport. Bye bye editor and wasting a hour trying to get the commas sorted.

 

Many thanks for your work.

[+Dave 2,318]

Swam

 

That thing is amazing. Couple questions though, will you make one that works with the other sims? Also one that works with the Oct 2008 patches?