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#3847277 - 10/07/13 07:42 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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We could use the return to SimHQ of Mr. Steve Hunt and see what treasures of knowledge he might recall about this game.

Marco, EF2000 "artist - world building and design of texture maps" once had a presence here too.



The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run
Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#3847515 - 10/08/13 04:27 AM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Originally Posted By: MarkG
Krycztij, prepare to be disappointed. frown

I have no idea where the road and rail information (i.e. vertices) are to found, I'm only tracing out the route valleys using the moving map (NORWMMAP.bmp).
Alright. Thanks anyway! If I recall correctly, for TAW, this information was somehow encoded in the .ASC files.

#3847711 - 10/08/13 04:17 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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I'm sure we'll find it one day. smile

++++++++++

Now here's someone who gets it...

Breaking News!

I want THIS, but having war highlights dynamically generated to follow the campaign...

"BREAKING NEWS: Russians advance south to Kristiansund, Molde airbase expected to fall, Alesund residents flee!" smile

We need automated newspaper headlines and stories. We also need to import the couple of text-based campaign files and...

A. See what the campaign is doing in detail beyond the low-res in-game maps (ala Strategic Command).

B. Make any necessary adjustments and/or have automated adjustments (i.e. WP and stores for better AI success).

C. Play AWACS Commander (ala TAW) for an 8-hour period, then properly save campaign for WarGen to continue normally.

The ground war can happen, just maybe not in 3D. EF2000's resolution is so low you would probably miss it visually anyway. smile If we were flying an A-10 this would be a problem, but we're about dropping LGBs with laser precision and MiGs from the sky. What happens outside of WarGen proper can affect the campaign as if it was part of the game (i.e. Revive's reserves and the nuking of bases).

If this were a dedicated stealth sim I'd have the Reds ground another nuke boat off the Swedish coast, only this time tension escalates. For fear of greater conflict NATO is reluctant to get involved. Sweden says, "We can handle it", while secretly requesting a few covert stealth missions (recon and strike) from clandestine airfields in Norway. Or maybe Sweden says, "Thanks, but no thanks" and NATO/US helps out anyway.

Actually, once we get a full understanding and control of the campaign file we can play some of this out with the AI (we have F-117s). Reading Usenet, they've been doing funky stuff with the campaign file in Notepad since the game was released.



The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run
#3848189 - 10/09/13 04:32 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Originally Posted By: MarkG
If this were a dedicated stealth sim I'd have the Reds ground another nuke boat off the Swedish coast, only this time tension escalates. For fear of greater conflict NATO is reluctant to get involved. Sweden says, "We can handle it", while secretly requesting a few covert stealth missions (recon and strike) from clandestine airfields in Norway. Or maybe Sweden says, "Thanks, but no thanks" and NATO/US helps out anyway.


Speaking of which, does anyone know why submarines were modeled in this sim?




I don't dream so much of a modern version of EF2000, rather whatever vision DID was dreaming of at the time. I've read they left some things out due to 1995 hardware, understandable but a real shame.

Look at the detail of the rail network, the bridges, junctions and even the track itself. I believe WarGen accounts for airbase supply routes (i.e. knocking out rail and road bridges helps weaken the base, making it susceptible to capture) but surly DID intended for actual trains to run along all those miles of track! I once watched in TAW's AWACS viewer an A-10 strafing a train, I'd love to see this in EF2000.

But submarines? I'd love to know what they had in mind!

#3849332 - 10/12/13 09:52 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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I should be finishing the routes today, then probably take a couple of days to make the PDF pages. It's been a slow process following each route with TFXplorer for accuracy. There's many discrepancies and you just know when the darkened route area stops but the road and rail continue, the routes are going to deviate from the moving map in some way (unless it's a tunnel). In some areas, without TFXplorer I would have gone insane trying to figure out the correct path! One day we need to update the MFD moving map to accurately reflect the game world.

I'm ready to finish this and move on to dissecting the campaign files.



The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run
#3849977 - 10/14/13 08:13 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Routes are finally finished, even marking rotated bridges and a couple of other miss-aligned tiles in TFXplorer...



These markings are for future study and won't be shown on final map as they appear fine in-game.

Again, just a cleanup and organization to release, then I'll start a new thread on EF2000's "WarGen" Dynamic Campaign. And oh man, it's one of my most anticipated subjects and project, starting with my favorite and possibly unique feature of DID's DCs, national alliances which can change mid-campagin...



In addition to full-blown programs as shown above, there were lots of interesting text and spreadsheet edits to EF2000's campaign back in the day...

EF2k Editing (see middle post)
EF2000 callsigns

There's a thread I can't find right now, an online squad edited the campaign file to place a NATO base in Finland and they started flying strikes deep into Russia!

#3851239 - 10/17/13 10:56 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Awesome!

In TAW, the routes can be derived from the terrain .ssd files, but there isn't the same mechanism in EF2000.

#3851414 - 10/18/13 01:32 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Taking me a bit longer than expected as I'm adding geographic vector graphics...





...to be smoothed out later.

++++++++++

Wednesday was appointments, lots of reading in waiting rooms...

Manual overstates DC.
Strategy Guide tactfully points out DC limitations.
Strategic Command Help goes far beyond Manual in most cases, claims to show lots of campaign file info hidden from player.

Should be fun. smile



The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run
#3851513 - 10/18/13 05:16 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Love your passion and dedication!


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#3851831 - 10/19/13 04:15 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Thanks, fellas. Motivation is two-fold...the game I love to play and the game I dream of developing, which I hope resembles the game I love to play. smile So what I learn with one maybe I can use for the other, it's all good/related.

#3855910 - 10/30/13 04:07 AM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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<Update time, sorry out of videos>

Everything is now there...



Just taking a while for scaling and organization. For example, each target type is now in a separate DWG, all referenced (AutoCAD calls it "Xref") into a master DWG for controlling labeling and layout. I'm also drawing the individual airfields from the Manual, so it's going to take just a bit longer.

For an occasional break I'm playing with VB6's picture box for zooming and panning (using a lower res map outline for pure vector graphics...WMF)...



"WARGEN 2000"...LOL.

++++++++++

I've been playing occasional air-to-air Custom Combat in TAW and I'm actually enjoying the game again. Mostly it was the FLIR/LANTIRN implementation that frustrated me to no end, man those funky zoom factors and on two separate screens! I don't use it anymore nor do I strap anything under the wings, I prefer flying the F-22 in a more realistic manner and that's making it fun again.

So after the EF2K maps and a little progress on a DC viewer, I plan to re-visit the TAW cockpit files and completely rip all the A/G features out my pit and making it A/A only, leaving only JDAMS for flying the rare strike mission. No more so-called IRST/LANTIRN screens (which magically shows a camera view for the AIM-120). Maybe this time I'll stick to CAPs and escorting F-35s to target, where I had the most fun last time.

Plus the idea of a future (2020? vs. EF2000's past...2001) conflict fighting a Saudi nation turned extremists well AFTER getting their orders of Eurofighters and F-22s (oops...at least F-35s.).. yeah, that could be fun. And once again flying over the Red Sea at night under a star filled sky, from friendly Egypt to Saudi would have me crossing my favorite part of the map (endless numbers of oil platforms and refineries).

So I'm thinking, now that I'm getting my FLIR LGB + progressive DC (moving FEBA) fix with EF2000, I can disregard what I perceive to be the biggest flaws of TAW and enjoy it where it excels, the overall "AIR WAR". I need to think of both sims as a complete game with different gameplay (one multi-role [which I fly almost exclusively A/G] and one pure fighter).

So I guess I'm back to TAW as well and plan to get back to everything I was working on, starting with finishing the map (similar to what I'm doing with EF2000).

I gotta admit, watching Neph's training videos made me miss TAW and the F-22.

#3856450 - 10/31/13 06:36 AM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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So I finally finished sorting through my TAW stuff today. I lost some work a while back, stupidity during a bad situation, nothing I can't redo...

1. Some AutoCAD drawings of the GUI based on the gadget files (wanted to revise the UI a little, maybe make the AWACS window a little bigger and some buttons/features a little smaller).

2. Many if not most of the speech files defined including words spoken (unless unintelligible) and redneck rating. After so much EF2000 with the serious and always calm European tone, I simply can't go back to, "YAHOO! IT'S A HIT!" I still have the speech from another redneck sounding sim burned into memory, "SAM LAUNCH! SAM LAUNCH!", Jane's USAF being even worse, IIRC. I'd rather replace some of those samples with something more subdued or have silence. smile

3. Some work defining each color of the 256 palette. It's a matter of using the NV palette (256 shades of green) and changing each color one-at-time to red and then playing every part of the sim possible (including 3D model displays) to see what the color is used for.

#1, no big deal, #2 & #3, just time consuming, but I'll get it done. Today I played with the TAW Configurator and Texture Manager VB source while looking over the extracted files, I'm really ready to get back to this game. So much has already been accomplished by the CombatSim crew (judging by Neph's videos) and what better way to learn how a massive flight sim is designed than working with TAW extracted (other than having the actual source code). Another EF2000/TAW is on nobody's radar as far as I can tell so for this kind of game (ultra-modern flight sim w/full-blown DCs) it's this or nothing.

EF2000 will always be my favorite, holy crap I'm still getting some beautiful visuals from this old game, maybe I'm going blind! smile I know it's relative to what I'm currently use to, TAW's MFDs reminded me just how low-res EF2000's MFDs are but what'cha gonna do?

#3859087 - 11/06/13 07:04 AM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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Originally Posted By: MarkG
For an occasional break I'm playing with VB6's picture box for zooming and panning (using a lower res map outline for pure vector graphics...WMF)...
Thanks to DrKevDog, who has found an unimplemented file in EF2000's díd.dat of the same form used as TAW's moving map, we can now produce a 6400x6400 bitmap of the EF2000 world.
Would that be of any interest as a backdrop to your work?

#3859201 - 11/06/13 03:11 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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mikew, that reminds me, here's the VB6 source to all of my TAW projects...
http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/TAW_VB.zip

The only "finished" project is TAW Configurator but I have a few more features I want to add. Still have lots to do on TAW Texture Manager and I'm working on that one now. Unfortunately I'm not one to comment my code and my settings are a bit Registry heavy, I'm working to change that.

About the map file, what I'm using as a background map is an AutoCAD drawing saved as a WMF file, so graphics are vector (no resolution lost/pixilation when zooming in). But I am interested in DKG's discovery (always nice to know my options), are you guys updating the MFD moving map?

++++++++++

I'm totally sold on EF2000 (always have been) but I've had a change of heart with TAW, especially after playing it the last couple of weeks. It's foolish of me to ignore the opportunity of understanding how a flight sim is designed working with an extracted TAW. Plus, most of my complaints (i.e. sloppy cockpit line-work) are fixable, while dropping LGBs on static targets like buildings is still pretty well done (I forgot you can load LGBs internally if you do so manually). TAW could be a fun sandbox for future what-if scenarios with an undated F-22 (full touch screens, colored NV, etc.).

So while I work on printable maps for EF2000 (this thread) I'm doing the same for TAW, in fact I find that going back and forth between the two helps keep them fresh, not getting burned out with working on the same game for too long.

F-19, I've come a long way (there's excellent examples provided by 3D engine and the community), but I have sooo far to go to have anything close to playable, I need something complete to play NOW. That's something I didn't think about a couple of years ago, you can work on your own game which could take a really long time, but you have to take time to just kick back and play something, thus my return to DID sims.

Man, I meant for this to be a short post, it just happened. smile

#3859220 - 11/06/13 03:49 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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And the next TAW "mapping" job will be the complete GUI...



...if just to modernize it a little for today's bigger screens.



The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run
#3859338 - 11/06/13 09:28 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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<This is a post full of old pics I found>

A follow-up to the above, the sloppiness I was referring to...



...is totally fixable...



It's just a matter of drawing it from the text file, then redrawing it correctly and replacing vertex coordinates.

Much like we did the HUD...



Another pic of an extracted text file...



++++++++++

And THAT'S what I lost, I had some work on the pit making my MFDs full touch screens (no surrounding mechanical push-buttons). I'm kicking my own arse for not taking a progress pic, it was working! I figured it was plausible that a future F-22 upgrade would get F-35 like touch screens (although individual screens), even had tabbed looking buttons (as you see in F-35 simulators)!

I was also using simpler solid coloring/shading so that this (showing a graphics screw-up)...



...looked more like this on most surfaces...



Similar to Aeyes (worn) vs. Stopworks (new), we just don't have the resolution to properly do worn IMO, and besides, this is suppose to be new upgrades! smile

++++++++++

Oh man, just found some other pics, I forgot about adding ships to the campaign!...



Even if warships don't work properly in the DC at least we can get some super tankers in there to give the Red Sea more activity!

++++++++++

I'm feeling the love again! whoohoo Just gotta finish the maps first.

#3861142 - 11/11/13 03:06 PM Re: Mapping out EF2000's world [Re: MarkG]  
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MarkG, thanks for the VB code!

These open fine in VB5 with the usual slight modding of the project file. smile

It seems that VB5/6 are still the easiest way to implement GUI applications on Windows in 2013. The VB5 IDE installs and works fine on Win7-64, and everything that I've compiled with it works on Win8.1.

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