I found toys!

[Tazz]

I was nosing a bit through Falcon 4.0 with TACedit, (working on a new campaign for the 87th VFW), I came across the following toys that come in reallllllly handy for the Europe theater and I believe also in other theaters like Middle East/Desert Storm:

T-72 Tank:









T-80 Tank:





I don't know if the performance data is accurate but I'm happy to see that the 3D model is in Falcon 4.0 already.

Now ofcourse this might be very old news to all of you, but it pleased and surprised me nevertheless

[brewskie]

I'm with you Tazz. A huge complex project, don't know if PMC has decided to do the european theater. I see Crossup is also interested in Germany,if everyone teams up, it will get done alot faster, and no wasted effort due to redundancy. I think the F4 community would be very interested in this particular theater.

[T Bone]

Ummm... ok... the T-72 and T-80 tanks were always in the game if you didn't notice... LOL

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by brewskie:
don't know if PMC has decided to do the european theater. I think the F4 community would be very interested in this particular theater.

Well as you can see I got my hands full with the Vietnam and Desert Storm, not to mention I help out T-Bone with MidEast.

But I can make the initial files, coordinate stuff and possibly creating new texture.bin if needed etc small stuff.

Is the purpose of European Theater to be some 1980's or in future (meaning like default Korean campaign)?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Tazz]

Well I want 'my' Europe theater to be set in the late 90s cause this will raise minimum realism question (F-16C Block 50/52's in 1985? Don't think so) and I can bend the story good enough to be very believable.

I ran the autotiling on it, looks weird though. I'm a lil stuck now. I want to use the new tiles because they look different and are much better suited for an European theater. Problem is these are FS2000 tiles and I dunno exactly how to convert them and I simply don't have much time at the moment. If someone could give a hand with that? Would be great Then we start tiling I guess or place objects first? Someone suggested I should autotile, place objects and then refine the tiling .. is that better than first making sure all the tiles are neatly in place?

[brewskie]

Speaking of Toys,
I was reading at F4C the Fly2 article.
Well it might have nice terrain, but
it ain't even close to F4. No armor/infantry units
moving on the ground and capturing territory in a dynamically driven campaign. The new terrain scenery's are nice developements in sim technology, but limited.
I guess if you like civilian flightsims it's good. I think the terrain detail in F4 is adequate considering all the extra's you get.
After all, we ain't on a sightseeing trip. We're here to put craters on the ground
and messup all that nice SCENERY.

[This message has been edited by brewskie (edited January 17, 2001).]

[JETninja]

He He...can you say Viva Las Vegas!

Check out this site for a look at what's possible in a FS2000 Scenery wise... http://users.swing.be/flightsim/

And Tazz, here the site of one of the current Texture creators....lot's to chose from....Mostly Europe. www.textureart.homestead.com/

I was selected to be a beta tester for FlyII, I get the beta in a couple weeks....never had Fly before so it will be interesting....

[brewskie]

I've been hearing many good things about USAF, so i decided to check it out for myself and for only 15 bucks, what the hay.

Shot of the Grand Canyon,not bad, it's made by all these Isreali guys at Pixel? Graphics are outstanding on the aircraft, there is a nam campaign,and Snakeman, nothing to fear here. The nam missions, well,I don't want to be insulting,but they are arcadish. Very few objects, and unlike the pic above,the terrain in Nam is pew.
The airbase at Hanoi is distorted because it's about the size of TEXAS
Snakeman your Beta Nam theater is a 1000 times more sophisticated when comparing the two. The area around Nellis/Grand canyon is the best terrain, the others, not so.
Basically, this is a fun,eye candy, midcore-sim, not much attention was paid to object placement,bridges,factories,ground units,ect..



[This message has been edited by brewskie (edited January 22, 2001).]

[Death_119]

well there is no pixel any more.

[brewskie]

Pixel, no more, that sucks. It's really too bad, and this has happended to almost everyone that made flight sims(F4 too), very unfortunate for everyone involved. If it's any consolation, the Pixel team did a good job. All these flyable aircraft make it different from other sims. FM's seemed okay,probably near to what C++ can do.
Although its not even close to F4 on air to mud, it's a very good air to air mid-core sim, just not made for strike pilot simmers.

[This message has been edited by brewskie (edited January 22, 2001).]

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by brewskie:
there is a nam campaign,and Snakeman, nothing to fear here. The nam missions, well,I don't want to be insulting,but they are arcadish. Very few objects, and unlike the pic above,the terrain in Nam is pew.
The airbase at Hanoi is distorted because it's about the size of TEXAS
Snakeman your Beta Nam theater is a 1000 times more sophisticated when comparing the two.

Thanks for the kind words, it makes all the sleepless tiling/object placement/testing nights worth while.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[brewskie]

not kind words, i am telling you the truth as i see it as a technician/technical person.

[Gordo]

IMHO
While Pixel did an excellent job on graphics, that game too is loaded with multi-play problems. There is no live campaign either. USAF was suppose to be the start of a series of Flight Sims to use a online electronic battlefield where players could fight in either planes, or command land units, all controllable by one supreme commander. No more Janes, no more Pixel, no more vision.
While the theaters built here may not be professionally built, they are the start of something very good. Flight Simmers exploring the possibility of creating their own version of released games, at no cost to those who download them.
So, Snakeman, your countless hours of tiling are not unappreciated, and as a group, all the theater makers will benefit from each other, and benefit the F4 community for their efforts. I know Brewski was trying to inspire your creativity.
Keep up the great work and effort. Someday, I hope my theater is able to be critized as well.
G


[This message has been edited by Gordo (edited January 24, 2001).]

[brewskie]

I tell you from a sales point of view, good graphics help. I saw at Dogfighter USAF still has very good sales and it's two years old! Don't know unit values but i bet usaf has made Ea some good ROI.

[ccc]

The graphic part of USAF is wonderful, really. so do the 3d models.

hmm.. i dont know how Com_gp extracts those sat photo terrain image...they are packed by dedicated image processing co., in img format. my 2c, the resoultion could be too low for f4 at low level, but excellent at mid to high altitude.

[crossup]

Tazz,
May I suggest we collaborate on a Fulda Gap
scenerio. It appears you are about where I was this summer, and I have,since, redone the theater using DEM2L and the latest tools and
textures. It is ready for hand tiling and extra object placement.
What I had in mind, considering we both have about the same "investment" in this is to
jointly manage the development. I imagine we both have our own strenghts and hopefully this could lead to a natural division of
the responsiblities. Also I have some experiance with the entire process and have
InstallShield 6.21 and two computers to do work on...
I agree that this theater has the greatest potential for an accurate yet F4 suitable
theater. Let me know what you think.
Crossup

quote:Originally posted by Tazz:

Well I want 'my' Europe theater to be set in the late 90s cause this will raise minimum realism question (F-16C Block 50/52's in 1985? Don't think so) and I can bend the story good enough to be very believable.

I ran the autotiling on it, looks weird though. I'm a lil stuck now. I want to use the new tiles because they look different and are much better suited for an European theater. Problem is these are FS2000 tiles and I dunno exactly how to convert them and I simply don't have much time at the moment. If someone could give a hand with that? Would be great Then we start tiling I guess or place objects first? Someone suggested I should autotile, place objects and then refine the tiling .. is that better than first making sure all the tiles are neatly in place?

[Tazz]

Crossup,

Sounds like a good idea. I suggest we contine this discussion through email. Infact I'll mail you right away!

[Com_gp]

Hey, ccc, to take satellite photos from USAF you just have to use the user mission editor and a program to capture the screen, choose the area and the zoom where you want to take a pic and then capture the screen, thats how i do it, its easy.

[ccc]

thanx Com_gp,

so the resolution downgraded due to additional processing? I know that UME, its really tough to do the capturing. didnt you use SAT pics directly from some libarary sources?

[Com_gp]

The only sources i have for photorealistic pictures are MSFS and UME, i know capturing the screen with UME is hard and boring, i usually put the maximum zoom and take several pics from a place, then, take all of them and copy/paste in a HUGE picture, i already have many of them (they are 2024x2024 pixels) but i only use pieces of it, for example, if im doing roads tiles i look for the highway and then looking there i create new tiles, its boring but is the only way to create "decent" tiles.

[ccc]

Geez..thats indeed tough job!

hehe..maybe other desert theaters want borrow some tiles!

[crossup]

Im guessing you couldnt get email to me.
Try crossup@starpower.net or ICQ 9165219
Crossup

quote:Originally posted by Tazz:
Crossup,


Sounds like a good idea. I suggest we contine this discussion through email. Infact I'll mail you right away!

[Tazz]

I just forwarded you the email I send to your MSN account.

[GOrlob]

Well I want 'my' Europe theater to be set

Hi TAZZ, read that you are working on an Europe Theater. I´m on the way to do the same, but i think it´s mad if i do the same work like you. So if can help to build the theater,let me know!

[Tazz]

Just go ahead with it - because of work and some serious real life issues I'm not able to continue working on the theater atleast until the summer.

If I can help you just let me know.. Crossup was doing the Fulda Gap and offered to join forces - I emailed him, but never heard from him again?

[GOrlob]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tazz:
Just go ahead with it - because of work and some serious real life issues I'm not able to continue working on the theater atleast until the summer.

No Problem, but there are some questions befor i can start. How big should the Theater be? What countries should be in there? What about the Tile-Size (L0=025, L0=0.375, L0=0.5?? 128X128 ore 256X256 ??) and so on!! I´m just in the beginning so it does no matter for me to create a new Map. I startet with a MAP including germany, austria, switzerland, belgian, luxembourg, part of netherland, france, poland and tchechien. But if there are joning other guis who would like to help we/i have to know what kind of europe we want.

G.O.

[Tazz]

I think the most important countries would be West Germany and East Germany, providing you'd use the standsize theater. With a little shifting here and there you can get a piece of poland in there as well and some of the Czech Republic. Assuming you want a Cold War theater.

Because of skinning problem and overall complexity I think it would be best to make this a USAF(E)/USN/USMC vs Soviet AF theater. Let's say we take 1988 as a date for the war. This would give us a fair share of USAFE and Soviet AF types:

USAFE had in 1988:

F-16As and F-16Cs
F-15Cs
F-111s and EF-111s
RF-4Cs and F-4Gs and a handful of F-4Es
A-10s
AH-64s
UH-1s
AH-1s

.. a fair share of interesting aircraft.

Soviets had in '88 in Eastern Germany and Poland:

MiG-29s
SU-27s (Poland)
SU-24s (not in game)
SU-25s
SU-17s (not in game)
MiG-23s
MiG-27s
MiG-25s
Mi-24s
Mi-8s (not in game)

and Polish and/or Eastern Germany AF still operated the MiG-21 so we won't lose them either.

And ofcourse we can assume a ficitional deployment of USN F-14s, F/A-18s and EA-6Bs into German bases (Northern ones wouldn't be too unlikely).

Ofcourse there are also the NATO countries but since you can't assign seperate skins to the same aircraft-type, it would be too much of a hassle to include their aircraft. These would mainly be F-16As, Tornado's (which we don't have) and if France would join in, a whole bunch of Mirage types...which we don't have either.

Since we can't fit the UK into the theater, it would be realisticly justified to place B-1B and B-52 units as well as KC-135 and KC-10 units at Rhein Main AB and Geilenkirchen AB.

That's why I see it anyway. This way we have a very good mix of aircraft types in a very interesting theater that would provide everyone with their favorite aircraft to fly.

I have several books on the Soviet Air Forces in Eastern Germany and Poland so using this (and my first hand knowledge of American Force in Europe) we could put the units at the airbases where they belong.. and also put the airbases in the right spot.

As far as ground units go......no clue, that's not my cup of tea.

[Tazz]

forgive me the utterly CRAP english in the message above......i'm just dead tired and now off to bed.

[GOrlob]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tazz:
I think the most important countries would be West Germany and East Germany, providing you'd use the standsize theater. With a little shifting here and there you can get a piece of poland in there as well and some of the Czech Republic. Assuming you want a Cold War theater.

Good, here is the map i have created. It´s only for testimg but i think that the Terrain will be ok.

Here I´m over Sylt (North Sea)


I´ve all Streets, River´s, City´s and Airport data of all the countries you can see on the map. I´ll wait to the end of the week and when there are no objections, i´ll start with the Tiling. I´ve some satellit-pictures from some german citys and i try to use them for the texture. Still a lot of work bit i think i have time because there are a lot of Terrains we can use before our is finished.

[Widowmaker]

Map looks good.....

well you got my aproval ..start the tiling


I saw my hometown Eibergen it is near Twenthe airbase...would be cool to be able to fly over my city...

Good Luck and keep up the good work

Widowmaker aka Metalhead

[ccc]

wow, looks great! where's your official website?

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by GOrlob:
I´ll wait to the end of the week and when there are no objections, i´ll start with the Tiling.[/B]

Did you use Spherical Converter to create the map and features?

If not, I highly suggest you use it. The perl dem2lf is old news and ancient stuff. Spherical Conversion is the "right" way to do things nowadays.

eFalcon v1.09 has Long/Lat coordinates in the DED display, this is Spherically calculated.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[GOrlob]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Snake_Man:
Did you use Spherical Converter to create the map and features?

No, i used the Perl sripts because i had problems with the Spheric Converter. I could not add all Features at once, so i had not all Streets, River´s and City data´s on one *.tga File. Also the Airport.tdf file was not in the right format, so i could not use it in TerrainView! And i can not mix perl script generated *.tdf files with SphericConverter generated. But i need the correct Airport datas to place the airfields. I asked Miran Klemec but he told me that this problem occur only on my system. He did not hear it from other creators. I know that i can build the *.tga file from the TerrainView created *.bmp file, but what about the airport datas? If you know a solution, feel free to give me an advice.

GOrlob

sorry for my bad english, hope it will be better some time!

[GOrlob]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Snake_Man:
Did you use Spherical Converter to create the map and features?

No, i used the Perl sripts because i had problems with the Spheric Converter. I could not add all Features at once, so i had not all Streets, River´s and City data´s on one *.tga File. Also the Airport.tdf file was not in the right format, so i could not use it in TerrainView! And i can not mix perl script generated *.tdf files with SphericConverter generated. But i need the correct Airport datas to place the airfields. I asked Miran Klemec but he told me that this problem occur only on my system. He did not hear it from other creators. I know that i can build the *.tga file from the TerrainView created *.bmp file, but what about the airport datas? If you know a solution, feel free to give me an advice.

GOrlob

sorry for my bad english, hope it will be better one time!

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by GOrlob:
No, i used the Perl sripts because i had problems with the Spheric Converter. I could not add all Features at once, so i had not all Streets, River´s and City data´s on one *.tga File.[/B]

Why dont you copy the feature e00 files into the DEM data .bin directory and rename then like aepoint.e00 -> countryname-airport.e00 for example. This way you can select and convert one country at the time without problems.

quote:Also the Airport.tdf file was not in the right format, so i could not use it in TerrainView!

Hmm did you look about the TDF file, what does it look like?

quote:creators. I know that i can build the *.tga file from the TerrainView created *.bmp file, but what about the airport datas?

Just do it again, hopefully it works better the second time

Btw there are great Spherical Converter versions coming up, I'll post them to the downloads the minute I receve official release packet. I think the current version is now v1.23

PMC TFW
Snake Man