[Rus_Andrey]

Thanks for answer!
I wait the release of this wonderful map with great impatience!!!

[asheshouse]

Rotterdam again.
First shot is taken in FMB Map Editor.
Second shot is in game. Odd graphics glitches with the screen capture but it looks ok on screen.

These are a mix of sk_MidCity and sk_DownCity textures. I'm reasonably happy with these, and the game speed seems ok even on my creaking PC.

Note the road which runs under the railway viaduct on the second shot. I didn't realise this was possible until recently.

[beercamel]

I am really looking forward to this...

I am working on skins for a May 1940 Campaign. I am using the IAR to simulate the Bloch and the KI 61 to simulate the D.520...

Should be fun!

[asheshouse]

Looking forward to seeing your work beercamel.

First part of the map to be released is planned to be The River Meuse, covering the area St Quentin to Bastogne and Stonne to Huy, (208x118.4km). Now that I have the object densities worked out I can work on a smaller area knowing that it can be expanded across the map in the next stage.

I always thought that the TB3 would make a passable Amiot 143 for the attacks on the Sedan bridges.

Also potential for contested recce flights over the Ardennes during the German advance to the Meuse.

[beercamel]

Not done yet .. but here is what I have so far..

I am using the KI 61 Hei as it has the lowest performance of the KI series... so it it somewhat 'realistic as compared to the Bf 109E..

[asheshouse]

Looking good.

Map is still progressing too.

Detailing the R Meuse area previously described.

Added rivers and canals, R Ourthe, R Lesse, R Oise, St Quentin-Cambrai canal, Charleroi-Brussels canal and a few lakes.
Also all bridges added for these rivers and woods trimmed to clear waterways.

Next step to review all the town textures in the Meuse area to get City0, City1 and Country1 in the right areas. City3 which defines factory areas will be left till later.

[Incubus]

Any update ?

[asheshouse]

Nope! --- Been away for a while so no progress since 15th

[actionjoe]

Very audacious, guy, 1.3 millions objects!! But that's what happen when you modelized one of the most dense area in the world, I suppose .

Anyway yes it will suit for a lot of scenery, Battle of France Battle of Bulge, Diver, Dunkirk, Escort, Nigth Bombs and many more....

And that will be good to fly above my home(Rijsel!) By the way, but it is maybe too much to ask, did you modelized the train station of Lille-D

[asheshouse]

Main focus of the map is the Battle of France, although it will have other uses.
I am concentrating on completing the River Meuse/Ardennes part of the map.
The first version will not have the area of Lille populated with objects.

The first area to be released will be populated with objects from southeast corner to St Quentin/Cambrai in the west and up to but not including Lille and Liege in the north.

The second area will extend object coverage north to include Maastricht (Ebban Emael), Albert Canal Rotterdam etc.

The third area to be released will extend west to the channel coast, including Amiens, Arras, Abbeville.

The fourth area to be released will cover the channel ports and Southeast England.

The logic for splitting it this way is, sort of, the chronology of the Battle of France.
Strictly speaking this would mean doing the northeast part first.
Nobody is perfect.

[JAMF]

Maastricht is, in flying terms, just a navigational error away from Liege/Luttich/Luik, so if Liege is populated, a combat mission over Liege could find you 25km/15miles north without you noticing it. Just an observation.

[beercamel]

Any Progress to report?

French skins are essentially done... including a bunch of research into squadron (SPA) patches. I have a lot of French fighter squadron patches incorporated into a single template. This will be made available when it is complete.

I took a couple of short cuts and used SOME other skinner's templates, and performed major modifications to them. As soon as I get permission from the original artist to post skins that I made from these templates I will.

Here are the skins I have..

MS 406

[asheshouse]

Not making much progress at the moment due to other commitments but hoping to get back to it soon.

Urban texture editing for the southeast area of the map (R Meuse/Ardennes) has been completed, then hit problems with Autopop. Large areas of town were missing objects perhaps because of road or rail in the texture squares? or perhaps due to issues with boundary areas between different textures? I need to try making a special map_T with no roads for using with AutoPop to see if that solves the problem.

Once I can get AutoPop working properly its just a case of editing each of the larger towns to correct object auto-placement errors.

The parts of the map where AutoPop worked correctly look pretty good, even before editing.

The area I've been concentrating on completing is St Quentin to Luxembourg (east-west) and Laon to Namur (north-south).

[6S.Maraz]

I don't think that autopop takes roads/rails into account when placing objects.
I had to manually delete buildings that were placed right into the middle of a road.
The city boundary areas look sparsely populated with autopop, this probably depends on how do textures blend in IL-2 and I din't think it can be corrected using autopop.

Maraz

[zipzapp]

Use the 'file/clear roads' and the 'file/clear water' function for clearing roads and water. Works fine, no need for manual clearing. Autopop works with the water (not roads/rails) but is a little bit generous here.

The missing propulated areas depend on the missing tiles in the autopop squares, i think. They are not full squares:

xxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxx
__!xx


I changed it to full squars and after filling the new area with buildings i had a much better result.


What about template-exchange? Autopop is wunderfull but makting the 1600-templates is not so very exciting. By now i can offer

country1 1600, very small village, about 1300 objects (if i remember right), appropriate to 1 to 6 tiles- villages, no special style, 1000 tiles about 250 Kb or so in the static (uncompiled),

country1 1600, bigger village, about 1200 objects (i.i.r.r.), appropirate to 2 to some more tiles- villages, no spezial style.

Doing mostly roads and rails the last time. Thats wy i dont have city/industrial templates yet.