That's the value of the bitmap data at my test point (FARP 1 with AZR map 6 loaded, I can see to the eastern border in NavMap view) X a 50 height multiplier, if I'm figuring this right. The question is, does the height data in your table span the range of 0 to 255, or does it start at some higher number? Give it a quick look at see what the range of the AZR maps are, if you would be so kind. I don't think a magic fractional number can be applied, or setting the multiplier to 0 would not give me an altitude of 0 in the game. See what I'm saying?

I may be off here, but it looks to me that that 1893 is the length in meteres to one side of the horizontal grid. Generally in order to determine how "mountaneous" your terrain is going to be you have to relate it to the horizontal dimensions. Hight to area size ratio.

I believe each grid suppose to be representing 2km, but from some reason that 2km becomes 1.893 km. Someting to do with with nautical miles or else?

I really do not know here and just guessing which is no way it suppose to be.

1893 and 3786 are the altitudes displayed on the HUD while the Apache is on the ground at FARP 1 with TerrainHeight=50 (default) and TerrainHeight=100. I don't believe it would in any way be linked to the size of the tiles. Try it yourself and you'll see what I'm talking about, it's interesting. Set TerrainHeight=0, too, and look at the flat terrain. If we changed the graphics to ocean/waves we'd have a water mission (probably be pretty boring).

I'll try EL as soon I am done with this below.

Thanks to Keithb and his ingenious program allowing extraction of the pictures of the terrain I made immediate use of it.

Below is the "lb2 terrain puzzle" on the left, at the moment in the lowres version. I am pieceing it together to see the sequence of the scramble. By reversing the proces I am hoping that ANY terrain photo material (as long as in scale) can be converted into new lb2 terrain and edited hightwise in grayscale as described in one of the earlier links. There is an issue of higher resolution maps, color palette and resolution of photo material for the new terrain to look at its best.

Again, thanks to Keith who made it possible.

It is yet early stage, but looks pretty (at least in my book). Progress and news are really unexpectedly rolling here fast at least at this stage. Sometime I feel, it would be well advised to take deeper breath and organise research and further digging in order for the important things not to get lost.

But in general .

That's the NTC terrain, right, not Azer terrain? I really need to load up NTC right now and see if I can get a handle on this. Good job, buddy! Keep in mind that the Nav map displays a 50X50 kM view, so that's the scale of what is loaded at any one time.

I haven't had this happen yet, i always can ALT+Q and ALT+X without any problems. Could this be related to the noCD patch? I have the ISOs on my hard drive and mount them with Daemon Tools on a virtual CD drive, so i never used the noCD patch. I will look into this further and see what i can find. Afterwards, i'll resume my work on OBJ and TEX files :-)

Mario

50 x50 km is covered by 12x12=144 tiles 256x256 pixels. So each tile 4166m /256pxls is of resolution 16.27 m /pxl. This is rather very low resolution, as MSFS uses 4.8 m/pxl and it is very blurry from close up. So for us to reach 4 would require to "pump up" each tile to 1024 pxls. That is too large size for the graphic memory even by todays standards.

And I was hoping for 2pxl/meter or even 1 pxl/meter because this is what is available nowadays in free satellite photography.

Perhaps we could come up with something later ...

I'm using the noCD patch and I can exit the program just fine, every time, running the Glide wrapper. When I exit I do get a screen showing credits and a Strike Eagle advert, I hit ESC a couple of times to skip those and it exits clean to the desktop. Maybe something to do with those splash screens not being supported? What exactly do you mean by "exit missions"? Doesn't it allow you to complete a mission and start another one, or do you mean exiting to the campaign screen?

I'm using the CD (put away the No-CD exe).

I'll try LB2 on a second PC to see if it's just mine. Might get a Network trace of a good LB2 Multiplayer session. From there I can use that as a baseline while I try hosting behind a Firewall. This will be a good bug to fix, once you guys get the game "expanded" with new terrains, etc., we'll all want to start flying them! :-)

OK, let's say I'm in an "Instant Action" mission.
I put the helo on however hold. Press ALT+Q, select NO, game goes back into play fine (slight delay for the sound to catch up). ALT+Q select YES this time. Game goes to a black screen, doesn't move. I then have to ALT+TAB into task manager (running previously). LB2.EXE isn't responding, I have to "kill" it manually to get back to the desktop.

Now if I just start the game, and I'm at the BASE screen (which would be cool to mod by the way), and exit to the OS, it works fine.

It's like the game can't get to the locker/chalkboard screen on mission exit!

It used to work though, so I've done something.

I'll do a fresh install, and see what happens.

Is the one on the left upside down as well as jigsaw puzzled?

The picture on the left looks exactly like the extracted c:\Janes\DATA\ART\NTC.BMP image.

Fantastic work, guys.

Very shortly, Keith and Polak will have light bulbs appear over their heads, and they will post remarkable things about the lessons learned from the terrain construction tools used for Gunship and Strike Fighters. In fact, TK's SF Terrain Editor and the Gunship height and tile maps may well be heading for a new home...

Carry on.

Incredible isn't it.

What map would people like to see if we're able to create them? What area could we build a new expansion on? Korea? Russia? North America?
China? India?

Longbow 2 may even get it's own forum soon on SimHQ!

EL,
I suspect the HUD readings are in feet, and the 'height map' file in Metres?

3786 feet would be 1154 M
1893 feet " " " 577 M

Next version of LBMap ready tomorrow, will display min, max and current heights.

Early test shows minimum of 28, maximum of 238 for demo map

Cheers,
Keith

I think a map with more rivers/canyons; maybe central europe or afghanistan/packistan would be excellent! I still think that the current maps are kind of flat

Hmm, maybe a BC/Alberta map? :-)

Afghanistan/Pakistan might be good.
Bosnia?

Set the TerrainHeight in your CA.INI to 60 or 70 and it will be more mountainous. The down side is that the poor resolution of the height map starts to become apparent as the terrain begins to show some pretty sharp angles. At a setting of 100, I could still fly the mission, but it was starting to look like the Micro Machines version of Longbow. All of the vehicles were still able to navigate the terrain, but I saw enemy tanks sitting on 70 degree slopes, etc. Kinda humerous.

The HUD reading is in feet, I have no idea what the "height map" file is, I suspect it's neither feet nor meters.
The AZR map, on the far right edge, has a piece of seawater, I believe. It may be interesting to see what the altitude of that is, both in-game and in the height map. My guess is, if it's ocean, the data = 0.

Thanks Fng2k for the kind words. Most of the credit for my education about Gunship! and in fact SF:P1 goes to you, Sir. And guess what, just today in my mail to Keith I'd mentioned that it would be so cool if you could be around with us here.You are foremost Gunship! person but I know that you would never hesitate to help and generously share knowledge and information no matter where.

So if you can, then please try to be, because it looks it is going to be fun and quite interesting ride.

New version of LBMap is up at my web site

Includes height display,
optional vertical flip,
can display maps in other folders
stuff I've forgotten....

EL - assuming they used satellite data for the terrain, that will have been in metres.
Maybe height from data file * default multiplier in CA.INI = actual height in metres?

Matt - Hi, long time no see!

Cheers,
keith