Upcoming Nevada v0.5

[Snake Man]

Upcoming Nevada v0.5 release.

I have edited Nevada theater just by accident and it snowball rolled quietly into a full v0.5 state. There is now completely new tiles dropped on top of korean texture.bin which is much further developed terrain tiling (airbases, etc) than the existing unique nevada .bin earlier. Also the excellent airbase research work from Red Dog is now in for the first time. Due the new airbase objectives (actually the removed ones), linking has been upgraded a bit.

The tiles are taken from google earth and are 512 res, they are nothing special, but definitely better than the low res poop we had before.

This topic is created to pool up all the resources and I'm asking now that does anyone have anything to contribute for Nevada v0.5 release?

I believe Toonces at least have new campaign stuff, but that is obsolete also now because we have new airbases in with new linking so the .cam file is not compatible anymore. Again I remind everyone to use TCL scripts... Toonces, did you?

There is no estimated time for the release, I've been dropping missing tiles in every now and then for the past week(s) but now it looks quite complete. I will make full NSIS installer package out of it as with v0.4 so there is no install problems for anyone. Its going to be theater as usual, even though this is not to be considered PMC theater dev cycle beginning again.

So again everyone if you have anything to contribute to next Nevada release, please post to this topic. Thanks.

Read the online manual.

[ccc]

a bit OT.. will it include a FF4/RV version, or just FF5?

[toonces]

ccc got in before me. I had to finish my breakfast.

I have a few ideas for campaigns to put into Nevada. You've seen the first one, which needs some work but is fun. I also have an idea for another version that uses 70's era jets; sort of a Navy TopGun type scenario pitting Phantoms and A-6s against Adversary A-4s, F-5s. It hasn't been built yet.

The problem I have right now is that nothing I have previously created will work with FF5 using the newest DB build. The changes in the DB and other things mean that all sorts of unusual errors keep cropping up; sometimes they completely crash the sim.

I'm in the unfortunate position of needing to rebuild the campaigns completely with a new DB when it is available. In addition to that, any version I build for FF5 is going to be incompatible with other Falcon versions.

As I alluded to before, we're getting to the point where these theaters won't be one size fits all anymore.

So to answer your question, I have some scenarios to include but they aren't going to be ready for a while, and they will only work in FF5. It might be best for you to release when you're ready and I'll just produce .cam's when they are ready...I dunno.

[Snake Man]

Versions supported are AF, OF and RV.

[toonces]

Got it.

I have nothing to contribute then.

[Snake Man]

Would anybody want to help by tweaking the trigger files for more action in the campaigns?

[ccc]

Would anybody want to help by tweaking the trigger files for more action in the campaigns?

if you don't mind, i'd like to take a look first, then see what i can do. or can i have the DL link in advance?

for more action, TRI file plays limited role..imho it counts more on..
- complete, sound road network and link-move cost value check > got to check if main combat routes are all open.
- sufficient ground units > so to have major obj secured, and surpus units for maneuvoring.
- sufficient air units > to generate flights over the playground.

[Snake Man]

Do you know how to properly run htti, lxnormalfix and seasonswitcher?

If yes, then I could give you the essential files, leaving out the junk that you can generate yourself with the tools.

[ccc]

Do you know how to properly run htti, lxnormalfix and seasonswitcher?

If yes, then I could give you the essential files, leaving out the junk that you can generate yourself with the tools.

i can run the three programs..but i prefer to "check" and "tweak" the rest parts..no hurries, i can wait it out.

[Snake Man]

but i prefer to "check" and "tweak" the rest parts..no hurries, i can wait it out.

Huh what?

[Snake Man]

Here is the release candidate 1 for v0.5. For some time I'll be looking for bugs reports, fix anything I can and then compile another version which will be the final.

Check out the online manual for changelog and further details.

Do not post this RC1 into any other forums, this is not a final release, just an release candidate.

Download PMC_Nevada_Theater_v0.5_RC1.rar - 45mb.

[ccc]

- install process is ok for FF4/RV.
- UI theater selection, TGA pic for nevada theater still shows art missing. there're three or four nevada options on the list!
- in 2d map, the background map looks bright sandy, make it hard to tell white flight path lines. hope the map color and brightness could be tuned down.. AFAIK RedDog is working on a new UI map.

- in 3d, the new desert tile looks good.. tho most terrain elevation, high or low or flat, seems using the same tile?
>> correction : i checked all tiles with Pathmaker, wow SM creates many tiles.. maybe i just flying over the area that uses the same tile.. or the terrain needs CATE random autotiling?

- desert airbases tiles still the same as korea one, greenish. >> correction : i saw some airbase tiles has sandy tweak, yet not applied to the bases.

- the city tiles has two types.. one with darker color, and the other transition type looks brighter. >> i noted some old city tiles are still in the zip.

- checking with pathmaker, i found road-river definition does not match tile graphic, in some new sandy tiles.

[ccc]

- road tiles, road seems too light and blurred. from GE i found some roads have four lanes.
- found road-river tiles still use the old sandy background.
- the desert river tiles, maybe make dry river bed tile instead?

[ccc]

random check..

- i hightlight the highway on sandy tiles and check the road system with TerrainView, yes most roads look good and continuous.

- when hit [loading tiles] in Pathmaker, it pops up an Error warning - [ an inavlid tile offset number entered.] ?

- fire up TacEdit to check obj linking.. i pick the old buggy area in Toonces campaign bug report, here it is..


- Sandy to bridge 1915, and Jean to bridge 1904, still have high move cost value. i delete the link and re-link, the value lowerd to acceptable value. > it seems some obj linking has higher move cost value.

- i tried to re-link sandy to Tecopa, still high move cost. > seems due to river, or terrain.

- i added a new link from Jean to Mc Carren intl airport, move cost is extraordinarily high. > there're river lines in between.

- I use Pheonix711's THR creator, generate a new thr with no-river, then re-do obj linking in this area..Sandy and Jean to bridges are lowered, similar to my previous edit. Sandy to Tecopa has lower and acceptable value for movement. and Jean to Mc Carren intl has noticable lower move cost now. hmm.. a no-river THR seems work better.

- i've not started testing campaigns..reason is i need to know the main combat routes in these campaigns first > then check their move cost/obj-linking. i can not check all of them.. just the main routes, to ensure ground units can move to and fro, then a rolling war can be expected.

[Ripcord]

Installed fine in AF, even the campaign (tried just one) worked fine for me -- didn't test much, just started one, got in, took off, etc. Seems to work to that extent, I mean no CTD at least.

Ripcord

[Snake Man]

Hey guys, where is the feedback?

There are many people in these forums which have lately been very active and in fact very vocal about getting some action on theater development... well no we have some, but where are you guys, please send me feedback so I can build final v0.5 version and release it.

[ccc]

tho i've posted some, here comes more.. bear with me.

- tiles, maybe complete the missing/buggy part?

city-sand tile - city color not match with pure city tile.
airbase tile - the peripheral area should be sandy, not green.
river-road tile- the back ground sandy not match with new sand tiles.
road tiles - road could be too blurred, and too thin.

and..tho the main upgraded sand tile is true SAT image.. i wonder, shouldn't it be some short trees/bush scattering here and there? checking google earth along highways, i found bush "dots" over the dry land..i think it can help the sense of speed at low flying.

- campaign and TRI issue, It needs much more time to achieve working ground war, leave it alone. the air opreation is ok.

-road system, most looks good. but the [move cost value] should be checked. As i am not familiar with road system in this area, you need US residents to tell, or define the most important routes, then we can minimize the work to check move cost.
-campaigns, may need more ground units to secure key obj, and surplus units for maneuvoring.
-once TCL generated ground units, i think those units got to be re-located closer to roads/city objs.
- TRI files..the combat axis and priorities shoule be listed, then it can be tweaked.

[ccc]

two rough sample tga for nevada.. just for better placeholder. i read pmc wiki, TDF section said it can use more tga for different nevada mods.

download link.. copy the whole line here.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mwyh5wyyhry/ nevada tga 2 ver.zip

[Snake Man]

Thanks for the TGA's, they look nice and I have added them to my Nevada install. Contribution appreciated

[Red Dog]

can't wait to see thisversion as I really need to see my airbase work included before continuing my part of the dev

[ccc]

This one shows my rough tweak on road-river tiles.. the colors are not 100% matched due to texture format conversion.


and these shots show my test result on FORREST tiles. Thanks to Pheonix711 for his Aegean moutain tiles.. i picked and renamed some for test purpose. imo these tiles look really cool.. closer to what i see in Google Earth flying.




as you can see, i did not touch the transition part between FARM (sand color tile) and FORREST tiles( new moutain tiles).. for experienced PSP users, it should be quite easy to merge the two.

[ccc]

more thoughts..

- maybe checking items in the area of standard Red flag exercise.. a good 2d UI map should help checking this area. here's the area..
http://www.airforcetimes.com/xml/news/2 ... cb_500.JPG

- anther link to show the objectives of interest. it mentions some gunnery ranges and Red mock AFBs in this area.
http://www.dreamlandresort.com/maps/nevada.htm

- in current obj list, only few SAM site obj noted. hard to find info on internet.

[ccc]

two pics to show the Standard Redflag exercise area..
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n192 ... oparea.jpg

this one is the area in nevada theater mod, circled in red line along highway.


the pic show limited road system within red line.. so.. i doubt we can make a small scale ground war there..

[Snake Man]

I accidentally deleted the installer from our server (only download link available, as I requested), but I think its run its course already, anyone interested of it or helping developing it has got enough time to download it. So no big deal, but yeah the download is not available anymore.

Oh and also as my drive is failing, I've back upped most of my F4 stuff into dvdr and Nevada files and my F4 tools are offline now, so no new version until I'll sort the hdd issue out (I hope it wont drag for months, sigh).

[ccc]

With my horrible photoshop skill, i tweaked SM and Pheonix711's tiles, to make the terrain close to my very own assumption of "what nevada should look like".
the 22mb zip contains only H- tiles, in 512 size BMP format. no M and L tiles. i did not create night tiles as well. you may have to create M/L tiles and convert all of them into DDS format with DDS converter.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nytyqdyny ... 20test.zip

[Luk]

Despite of your "horrible" skill ccc, the result is really NICE!
Luk

[toonces]

Hey ccc, I usually browse this forum at work and can't see those jpgs. Dude, they look really nice!

You may want to coordinate with SM to incorporate those into his v0.5. Along with the GE tiles, the theater looks 100% better.

@SM, I didn't get the beta v0.5 when you had it up. I really would prefer to wait until you compile it into a release candidate. I don't use TCL for my edits. Therefore, I'd prefer to wait until it is an official PMC theater before working on it.

I'm being deployed soon, and then going on sea duty after that, so my time to dev is getting very limited. Not your problem, I know. I just want to ensure that I'm not wasting time working on a campaign that isn't going to fit into your final version, with the limited time I have.

I'm looking forward to the release!

[ccc]

i probably miss a road-forrest tile folder in last zip.. and here're two screenshots.. i add wider road for farm and forrest tiles.



here's the link of new road tiles..

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mjyhjjdnj ... 20test.zip

[ccc]

PS - once an idea comes to me.. maybe i can use these tweaked nevada tiles for theaters like Afghanstan, Iran, and Lybia.

well...after checking tiles with terrainView..i think the workload is much more than expected..new tiles in Afghanstan are so many.. errr. the idea dropped.

[derStef]

nice job on the tiles dudes!

cheers

Stef

[Polak]

I also like very much those mountain tiles. Well done. I wonder in which place in the world you found such a well pronounced ridges?

[ccc]

I also like very much those mountain tiles. Well done. I wonder in which place in the world you found such a well pronounced ridges?

heheh.. you got it..the moutain tiles make ridges look small and repetitive.. the result is even prominent at high altitude. compared with SAT image in GE, the ridges are larger, wider, and extend longer acrossing several kilometers.. well our standard tile covers 1kmx1km. so..we can not reproduce such huge ridge grafix unless using ALL SAT tiles. Another comoproised way is, creating a new set of moutain ridge tiles with LESS ridge grafix.. thus helping reducing the repetitivenss.

making tiles is NOT my hobby.. for professinal quality, i hope capable hands can take it. my nevada tile tweaking test ends.

[Polak]

Afraid we have little misunderstanding here. I did not mean to be critiquing. I really like the ridges , but I hear and know that from the high altitude all , no matter how well chosen, and good tiles look repetitive. This is why I try and call to introduce more generic tiles. So.... where in Google Earth are those mountains to be found?

[ccc]

relax. i am not serious about tile making. just a test.

where in Google Earth are those mountains to be found?

ask Pheonix711.. i think it's somewhere in Aegean theater coverage.. Turkey or Greek?

[Luk]

I really like the ridges , but I hear and know that from the high altitude all , no matter how well chosen, and good tiles look repetitive.

Yes, its true. But it is the point, where the clever tiling work should start. It is mistake to fill large area with some tile. If you will scatter them around peaks and mountain edges, it will look good. Of course hand-tiling can produce the best result with some dodge. But even smart prepared layout for CATE can make well looking terrain.

I really like this image. It is not faultless, but the edge in foregroun make it very impresive.


You can see some nice areas in AF Balcans theater - even with quite poor "mountain rock" texture. When it is not widely used, it is good. But at large filled Alps - it is quite ugly...

Luk

[Polak]

I would like to continue the praise by mentioning that choosing right tones of and colors of adjacent natures is very important in rather limited Falcon4 world tile variety. One thing is to have interesting tiles another is that they work together in the terrain. Sometimes there is a clash. This above is really example of very good choice of the natures and its blending. Again - well done.

Hand tiling is very interesting however must be time consuming. I wish there were more tools (or they were easier to use) to hand edit Falcon worlds. I believe that scripting used in Falcon is rather very difficult to learn and implement for fast trials.
I was doing terrains (from scratch) for MSFS and SF:P1. Falcon4 terrain engine is by far the most hard to master.

[toonces]

If SM is still reading this, and the new Nevada hasn't been done yet, a good idea (IMHO) might be to make the Nevada theater MUCH SMALLER and try integrating some of these tile ideas into it. It would be much less work to do some hand tiling in a small theater than a large one.

Again, IMO only, SM could make this theater Panama sized without losing any fidelity in campaign making.

The natural direction for Nevada is to create Red Flag type scenarios. As such, we really don't need all that area north and NE of Las Vegas/Nellis.

I can do up coordinates if there is any interest SM.

[Sherlock]

If SM is still reading this, and the new Nevada hasn't been done yet, a good idea (IMHO) might be to make the Nevada theater MUCH SMALLER and try integrating some of these tile ideas into it. It would be much less work to do some hand tiling in a small theater than a large one.

Again, IMO only, SM could make this theater Panama sized without losing any fidelity in campaign making.

The natural direction for Nevada is to create Red Flag type scenarios. As such, we really don't need all that area north and NE of Las Vegas/Nellis.

I can do up coordinates if there is any interest SM.

To make Nevada smaller would take it from a 128x128 theater down to a 64x64 theater which is 1/4th the size. Yes, easier to hand tile but will it meet the war scenarios you have devised then?

[toonces]

Absolutely.

This theater, with ccc's tile tweaks on SM's new tiles, plus some hand tiling by the experts like Polak and such, along with Red Dog's airbase edits, and me putting together some Red Flag scenarios...this could be a very, very popular and fun theater.

64x64 would work fine for me.

The biggest burden of work falls on SM's shoulders though.

[Snake Man]

Nevada is 64 segments...