No they are not Easter Eggs.
But before I reveal from where I got them allow small like National Geographic contest.
Any guesses what terrains they represent?

Russia?

Poland/Ukraine, Korea, Kuwait, and Panama? You find those links in the WRAPPER.INI file?
This game appears to have been designed for add-ons right from the start, doesn't it? Or were those links created by the patch?

No they are: Ukraine, ? , Iraq and Panama (EL wins ) from first edition for Longbow for DOS.

I remembered vaguely about some previous AH-64 prior to LB2 and after the "Flashpoint Korea". I went to attic (well I have no attic :rolleyes: ) and bingo! Wonder what else we could find in this edition of that sim?

The maps are all in the correct format for LB2? Now that's interesting, it gives a better time-frame for when the technique was created. I still bet #2 is Korea.
Did you see what I meant about the references in the WRAPPER.INI file?
etc.

Okay, I can confirm that the game is accessing that file, because I changed [Ranks] O6=Colonel to:
O6=Bg. General in the WRAPPER.INI file, and it now shows up like that in the game.

EL,
I knew about that Wrapper.ini. When I was doing that compilation of all ini files I glanced briefly at them while copying and pasting. Then I noticed those "foreign land" names. In fact there is even more about 3D objects like buildings and trees, etc. (!)

Anyway... that Panama name brought me vague memory of something in my attic . Now you know the rest of the story.

Actually I do not even think that I have ever loaded that 1996 AH-64 in the drive. Talking about oversaturation with the sims in those days.

As an add to the above there could be a host of things we could use: maps, 3D objects, campaigns etc. etc.

Things fly so furiously fast here that I really have no time even ponder whats what.

I'm beginning to see that, the only thing that surprise me is that they kept the same format for the files through that long of a time frame. This might really get good if they did all that work for us.

whats the deal with the misnbldr.ini? is it just for the custom single missions, or something that wasn't included? do you think they were planing on adding a mission builder later on? that would have been sweet!

Good find Polack!
I've got the AH64D CD in the back of a cupboard somewhere, will only take a few hours and a wrenched back to find.........

Cheers,
Keith

PS LBMap now sorts out the tile sequence correctly for large maps, just need to get around the memory problem for the largest ones

Good job! Can't wait to see how new maps work.

Couldnt find the AH64D cd.........rats.

Did find Wings of Glory though - a WW1 sim by Origin from 1994.
It has TRE files, but sadly detre wont open them 'not Longbow 2'.
Also no map files, shame, LB2 over Flanders would be novel!

Cheers,
Keith

OK, no maps found no probleam as long as I have them and we can always share.
But here instead I would like to share something else. Something what I consider real treasure trove of mapping materials.


web page

If you dig into that site a little youll be granted access to three equally precious commodities for making maps: 2m/pxl sat color photo, topographic map in cad format, greyscale hightmap. And that for the entire part of the country. Spain to be exact....

I do not need to tell you how we could utilise this material in Lb2. With what we know already about it, and yet what we can discover and perhaps even soon. Just only I say that CAD can be converted easily and imported into 3D models so: various features like cities and villages, highways and roads and maybe VEGETATION (!) can be modeled on the spot ... I've tried it and did it once(not for L2 of course) and it works.

This IS what made me excited me about this Project of Lb2 at the first glance. And real possibility of making small gameworlds -realistic and bridging even 2 genres, but about that later.

Many possibilities, very many.

There are a couple of sites for satellite data, they have been used to create terrains for Strike Fighters.
But that looks an interesting site (Spain isnt an overused location!) and should be usable.
Edit - the spanish maps are 2M / pixel, we need 4M / pixel so thats an easy conversion to make in the import code!

The LBMap in development has an update facility which will apply a minimum and maximum height.
I used it to set the high-detail map to a constant 100 with interesting results.
I cant post a screen-shot, but:

The helo is surrounded by a flat plain of approx 100M radius - ie the high detail map only applies to your immediate surroundings, around that is the medium etc.
Edit- a terrain import program can create the _m, _l and _ul maps automatically by averaging the higher rez map.

The flat plain is solid green - indicating terrain colour IS height/contour derived.

The edges of the plain merge into the surroundings, they dont just chop-off.

The implication is that once I've coded the retiling issues then importing new maps is not far away.

I will post this version soon as it may help investigations, eg into terrain boundaries.

Cheers,
Keith

Do you have any idea what parameter might change the distance/radius where the high detail level is invoked? Making it lager would solve that mesh warping that is quite distracting. I've played with a lot of .ini settings with no apparent affect.

KB very interesting progress. It is a pity that we cannot see screenshot as the picture would explain all better.

As I understand the "how to" mechanism of the implementation of height map in Lb2 is quite similar to that of SF:P1
forum page
Terrain Editor Discussion #1: Tile layout and Topography

However, there IIRC only shore tiles were furnished with this feature and later I believe abandoned in one of the patches due to annoying and similar mesh warp effect. Jane's F15 suffered from this too. As for high altitude sim, as the mentioned above, this feature did not constitute "make or break" - for low flyer like Lb2 it may be very significant.

"Green plane" confirms that the color of the terrain is pixel computed, but depending on what (not hight I think) - a slope? More we go into that I see no terrain textures at all anywhere.

I'll post some layered maps tonight - they should be very small when compressed due to being flat.....
That way anyone can try them.
I dont know which INI file controls distances for terrain resolutions...do any of the in-game adjustments have any effect? Will experiment.
If they do then a comparison of the INI files before and after will give a clue.
---
Been meaning to check back on the StrikeFighters info - I'd forgotten about the detail height-map issue.

The basic height-map in the SF HFD file is a sequence of 16-bit spot heights, just like the LB2 MAP, except that LB2 heights are 8-bit.
And the sequence is different.

I wonder if the _HM.MAP file in LB2 is a detail height-map like in SF.
I thought it was just a detail section of the main map but its not.....no similarities obvious.

Its a 6 x 6 x 256 tile map just like _UL.MAP, looking like the surface of a walnut ... or a brain ... or maybe river valleys.

Maybe its a clue to LB2 on how to render colours on to the 3D surface? I will try levelling this one too to see the effect.
There are also the HT and HX files which look similar, and the HT.PRO which doesnt. I think the PRO is a PROfile for line-of-sight?

At a guess the terrain is coloured from 'seed' palettes, depending on an algorithm including height, slope and maybe the HM file.
Plus time-of-day and weather?
---
I've been looking into USGS DEM data too, I think the resolution is a little too low for LB2, although a fractal detail level can be applied over it.

Cheers,
Keith

PS Has anyone tried Hatchets Bosnia terrain?

It makes it hard to explaing the "fields with rows" type terrain I see near some of the towns in the Azer campaign. I think there must be some kind of terrain type code, such as the "type" field we see being decompressed, possibly? Is that overlaid on the mesh, also?

Edit: Oh, and I agree with you about the terrain slope being used as a modifier. I believe the slope is factored in to arrive at the final pallette color applied.

I'd bet you're right, or it's the data used to generate the "Profiler" display in the Mission Briefing screen (or both).

I also would like to suggest look at the hight maps of the terrains used in Steel Beasts. Using the same terrain for helicopter and tank sim even in separate games makes me, for the lack of better word .... humping . With soon to arrive better editable Steel Beasts 2 that could be in the long run, who knows, something really yummy.

BTW Steel Beasts has best mission editor and map 3D painter editor. Period. Worth looking if anything could be "interchanged".

I guess we are talking the same thing. PRO is for Profiler a feature in ME to find the ridges .

Polak,

I have an update for you: the NTC campaign does not load a new map during the campaign, you start and finish on the same map (unlike the AZR that uses a E, center, W map set). The NTC map is the same 50x50km area as the active map in the Azer campaign that is loaded at any one time. You may have already known this, I had to go play through it to refresh my memory. It would be useful to understand what "triggers" the loading of a new map set in the Azer campaign, that opens up a much better technique than being limited to flying on a single map. Any ideas yet on how they manage that?

Update: Here's the only reference I can find, in the WRAPPER.INI file:

[AZR1]
Prefix=AZR
L=0
B=0
R=6
T=6

[AZR2]
Prefix=AZR
L=6
B=0
R=12
T=6

[AZR3]
Prefix=AZR
L=3
B=0
R=9
T=6

[NTC]
Prefix=NTC
L=0
B=0
R=6
T=6

[NAZER]
NavMapFilename=azer
LeftNavMap=azerw
MiddleNavMap=azerm
RightNavMap=azere

It appears that L,B,R,T are Left, Bottom, Right, Top offsets used to define the area of the map data loaded to memory. There are NavMaps that match with the loaded data set. Agree?
It also appears that you could "scroll" a map vertically, which would be useful for something like a Korean campaign, if we could figure out how they send the "trigger" event from the .exe.

Three maps for AZR campaign are AZR 1 and AZR2 are side by side. With phase lines (longitude)


AZR1 0-6
AZR2 6-12

AZR 3 3-9 sits in the middle and overlaps both other maps 50% each. Each map has 6 phase lines but the total is 12 because of that overlap.

Front of campaign shifts Right to Left ot rather East to West depending on success in play. Maps are selected accordingly and the score is recorded depending on the phase lines your forces occupy.

Bottom and top never changes.