[Guest]

I always wanted more smoke........that's why I'm always asking about a delayed start for the smoke/lights/fire Objects

Yes, I remember posting this in the suggestions thread over at 'the zoo' a while back - jeez, maybe a year or so back?
I'm still holding out for someone to come up with a way to do this. It would add a lot for realistic 'battlefields/bombed factories/buildings, etc.
This could be put to good use by careful mission/campaign building, in the continual pursuit of more immersion....

[asheshouse]

Time to make a start on airfields, now that I have most of the information needed.

The existing generic field at Calais-Marck is historically incorrect and will need to be redone, but I've decided to start with an unimportant small field in the east at Montcornet, near Sedan.

This shows the basic ground template set up in my temporary map. Montcornet was an emergency field set up in 1938 and was essentially a grass strip with limited facilities, typical of many small field in Northeast France, prior to further expansion by the Luftwaffe.

A mini tutorial on how to set up these templates is provided here -- viewtopic.php?p=30459#30459
The template is a special tiled area 3200x3200 metres in size. Any 16bit tga image, 1024x1024 pixels can be used.
Because the game engine overlaps the tiles they tend to become "burned out" (all white). This is prevented by reducing the brightness in the original image. In photoshop I applied -100 to brightness before importing the image.

The airfield model can be created in the temporary map and then cut and pasted into the master map. The template allows you to accurately position all the airfield objects, but make sure that north is at the top of the map (if that is how your game map is aligned) and that you have the scale adjusted correctly.

[asheshouse]

Montcornet Airfield - just west of Sedan

[RealDarko]

Looking forward to this one Ashes, keep up the good work

[Dudok22]

I have one question:When will be this map finished? I can't wait any longer! :o

[fly_zo]

it looks great ,m8 :-)


..... just take your time


cheers,

Z

[asheshouse]

Progress is very slow due to work activities.

My plan is to release the map before it is complete which will give others a chance to add stuff if they want.

I'm concentrating now on the southern part of the map in the breakthrough area from the Meuse to the Somme and the Channel coast -- but when you complete a bit all you want to do is set up a mission and fly around the area. I'm easily distracted :lol:

[asheshouse]

Cambrai-Epinoy Airfield

I'm interested in the orange hatched area which is the 1939-40 airfield.
Cambrai was significantly enlarged by the Luftwaffe, shown by the black detail and green outline.

[asheshouse]

Cambrai-Epinoy
These basic grass strip fields lack a lot of clutter, but that sort of stuff can be added later.
For the moment I'm content to get the field perimeter accurate to 1939/40 plans. This one is fairly large so I'm guessing that two separate units might be based here with separate dedicated parts of the field. Some might prefer not to see the IL-2 style grass runways, but I like the visual marker which it creates even if its not strictly correct. In real life grass fields are pretty hard to spot from the air unless you have a pilots eye for terrain.

[canonuk]

Looks good

I've gone back over my grass airstrips and modified them a little. Originally I just covered the area with blank groundplates, but the FPS hit was pretty big. So, now I've put in grass groundplates. They don't look that bad, and at least it's clear where to land without really hitting framerates

[spud]

Any idea why the clear plates are such a problem?

tater

[canonuk]

Maybe it's something to do with having to render the texture below whilst still taking into account the 'texture' above.

:?

[asheshouse]

I'm not bothering with any taxiway plates at the moment. I think it looks better without them and keeps the object count down.

Because the ground surrounding the runway is rougher you need to keep your taxiing speed down in order to avoid flipping over.

I haven't tried any AI taxiing yet, so I don't know how the AI will handle it.

[canonuk]

The AI is completely happy with any terrain. The AI can take off from flat ground that doesn't have any groundplates at all, and has no problem at all with taxiways

[Neil Lowe]

Looking great Ash, keep up the good work.

Cheers Neil