[spud]

Yeah, I wondered what the resolution was. Too bad you can't make them as narrow as rivers (clearings).

[spud]

OK, I did some samples, it's possible after a fashion like you did at Ondonga, or even a little more narrow.

I also messed with very slight terrain rises all around air bases. It works fine. Narrow wooded areas near coasts don't work much of the time, there's not enough room. Regardless, it really mitigates the invisible forest edge problem. I would suggest doing this to ALL air bases.

The hill can be some distance away since the invisible edges mean you see to the horizon. Close is a little better. A few clicks of the mouse wheel, and you're gold. Watch from ground level, and tweak!

This should have been SOP for ALL airfields in IL2 from the start. It gives the impression of taller trees if anyone wants that, too.

Images later!

BTW, I notice that many of the fields already have minor alt variations in the woods nearby, was this for the reason I suggest, or was it just the RL data, or making the woods look less flat? Regardless, much of this is already well started by skunk!

tater

[FA_Cheech]

Can I help with object placement (for that populated villages)? There is that way to do it that lowfighter mentioned, that looks pretty simple?

~S~Avala,
I appreciate the offer, but the object placement work for the villages is about 95% complete. What remains to be done is going through all the late-1930's British Admiralty Charts, one more time, to make sure we haven't missed anything, verify spelling, etc.

Having spent many years in the military, T and I want to make sure we have all the proper navigation points included on the 2D map, so that when guys are navigating around the islands looking for Japanese subs, in their Catalinas, SBDs, and Turkeys, they can refer to navigational landmarks by their proper, period correct, names. It also allows downed pilots to steer clear of villages that might be looking for "big pig". :lol:

Thanks anyway m8 8)

[spud]

^^^ Munda as is looking kinda NW.




^^^ Munda with some minor raised areas pretty close.

It might be worth moving some dispersal areas a hair more inland so that we can raise the WOOD between the dispersals and the coast a touch. It makes those treetop passes so much easier to judge, and it looks better on the runway, etc!

tater

[Skunkmeister]

Looks pretty decent spud.

When you are done, can you send me the map_h.tga so I can take a look at how you did that?

[spud]

You seem to have done it already many places, perhaps just in the name of making it look good...

All I did was to set the PEEK (I used FILL mostly, not sure the difference) to be the largest matrix I could to fit in the area in question (1 or at most 3 near the coast) and moved my camera right down tot he airfield ground, and raised it til it started to blur the forest layers into view. I moved the camera around to make it for every possible view.

Some of the 7 and 9 matrix size areas I did were quite far from the base---they all work since you see forever. If there are any RL small hills, I'd tend to put those in in some way just because a taller hill makes the effect much better, then the slightly raised ground blends in.

I think a few 4-tree objects thrown back in the forest here and there would help, too.

[Skunkmeister]

Well actually, for some of the airbases what I would do in order to have a flat surface to place the runways on, I leveled the terrain by dropping it, instead of raising it. So inadvertently I did that.

BTW, for our excellent settings users, the issue of texture tearing seems to be a thing of the past, so now all I have to work on is map_f, so you guys can have a better visual experience.

[FA_Cheech]

BTW, for our excellent settings users, the issue of texture tearing seems to be a thing of the past, so now all I have to work on is map_f, so you guys can have a better visual experience.

Well what are you waiting for, get cracking! :wink: 8)

[VFS-214_Hawk]

I wish I could do that. It would just take me too long.

Spud I think it was you that said taking a batch out of the trees caused too much taken out. Is this a problem with strips like Barakoma being so close to the water? When you take out a batch of trees for the runway, it takes out a larger than wanted batch of trees?

[spud]

The trees (all the terrain tiles, actually) are in pretty large chunks.

I just made a version of Munda that had a little of the right look... I should have saved it since my 18 month old turned off the computer while I was working on it (#@%$@%$@%$!@@$#@!%$#&^U). About an hour gone, doh!

The tiles seem to be sort of a grid, they don't show up as something you can rotate, though perhaps I'm missing something.

Bottom line is that I think we can get some reasonably decent looking airfields (meaning looking like the real thing.

One nice thing is that if we want versions for different time periods, we can open the current Slot, then delete airfields and cover it over with jungle

That would be cool in a campaign... you fly a mission that takes you low near munda (perhaps to hit some shipping as the objective). a few missions later, you go by, and the jungle is cleared, then a few later and there is an airfield

The "Cactus" campaign was brilliant in the way he had the dozers making the airfields and revetments, I could see something similar with custom maps, too.


tater

[spud]

I'm experimenting with Munda right now. One thing I tried was to use midland3 (does the FMB show limited TILES only?) for the ground in the dispersal areas. One cool texture that I only sometimes see is the forest floor.

Sometimes you click to place Woods, and instead of layered forest, you get just the floor. That floor looks a lot like the low scrub seen at many jap bases. Then I used taxiways to make the paths.Actually it has worked OK so far.

It's a little oversized, but it sorta looks like Munda.

I'll post some images when it's nicer.

tater

[Skunkmeister]

The tiles seem to be sort of a grid, they don't show up as something you can rotate, though perhaps I'm missing something.

If you're talking about rotating textures, no you cant do that.

[spud]

Munda WIP I keep wondering if the darker dirt would be better...


tater

[Skunkmeister]

I admire your patience spud.

I'll PM you with instructions once you're done with all that.

[VFS-214_Hawk]

Tater, thou shalt not tease the children!