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#4512889 - 03/26/20 05:52 PM New theaters (development)  
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xjouve Offline
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[19/05/2020 - UPDATED this post with links to threads dedicated to my mods]

For information regarding,



This thread is to share dev progress.







Last edited by xjouve; 06/05/20 03:58 PM.

Best Regards,
Xav.
#4512919 - 03/26/20 07:46 PM Re: New theater: Questions of the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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xjove;

You should probably try to seek your answers through Polovski as he is our main interface for OBD. Hopefully he will see your thread and respond.

Best Regards


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#4512988 - 03/27/20 07:16 AM Re: New theater: Questions of the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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xjouve Offline
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Thanks Robert! I'll send him a PM. smile


Best Regards,
Xav.
#4513508 - 03/30/20 02:12 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Making progress.

I've succeeded today in producing fairly complex waterways for the area between Ypres and Nieuport. As some of you may know, in October 1914, to stop Germans in Belgium, the locks were open at Nieuport causing a first flood along the Yser river and above, down south to Dixmude. So, I'm trying to pay justice to this. I've used elevation data to simulate the flood, to get something as accurate as possible ingame (at the moment, I decided to go for not too much waterbeds).

Here are screenshots taken using original WOFF, exepting msh and hydro files. Well, it is not perfect, but given the complexity of the water network, my beginner level in QGIS software (used to merge layers), it is not bad for a first shot. Actually, hydro data consists in 2 types: water and shorelines. From what I'm obeserving here, the shorelines texture is not perfect to cross frontline areas as it uses green grass. I have to think about it.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

City of Nieuport where the flood came from. (Pretty well located ingame as it fits almost perfectly with hydro data.)

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

From the above screenshot: Nieuport on the north, Ypres on the south, and the location of the Spad, looking south.

[Linked Image]

Last edited by xjouve; 03/30/20 02:18 PM.

Best Regards,
Xav.
#4513509 - 03/30/20 02:17 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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BuckeyeBob Offline
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Very exciting stuff, xjouve!

Your flood tiles look very realistic. I look forward to your progress!


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#4513511 - 03/30/20 02:28 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Fullofit Offline
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Lovely!


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The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From out of my arse take the camshaft,
And assemble the engine again."
#4513518 - 03/30/20 02:58 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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xjouve Offline
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Thanks guys. I've quickly generated again shoreline files, so that the texture is only used for coastlines. In other words, you don't see green grass next to rivers and waterbeds in no man's land. Not sure which solution is better.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Last edited by xjouve; 03/30/20 03:06 PM.

Best Regards,
Xav.
#4513562 - 03/30/20 05:18 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Fantastic xjouve, you've just made my day, possibly even my week! I've been wishing for a long, long time, (all the way back to OFF really), that someone with the understanding of these files could take on such a project and give us the lowlands as water-logged as they should be. When you're done with this project there are some rivers and lakes we could used as well. biggrin

Cheers!

Lou

.


[Linked Image]

Three RFC Brass Hats were strolling down a street in London. Two walked into a bar, the third one ducked.
_________________________________________________________________________

Former Cold War Warrior, USAF Security Service 1974-1978, E-4, Morse Systems Intercept, England, Europe, and points above.
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#4513568 - 03/30/20 06:06 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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JJJ65 Offline
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That looks very promising, xjouve! Good luck and great patience!

#4513576 - 03/30/20 06:26 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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VonS Offline
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@ xjouve, superb terrain-modding, this is a very exciting development for WOFF - you sir are the "gTerl of WOFF terrains" (those who fly custom maps in FE2, especially the Austrian/Italian map, will get my reference smile ).

Happy flying all,
Von S


~ For my various FM/AI/FPS/DM Mods. for First Eagles 2, WoFF, RoF & WoTR, and tips for FlightGear, recommended is to check over my CombatAce profile (https://combatace.com/profile/86760-vons/) and to click on the "About Me" tab while there. ~
#4513636 - 03/30/20 11:54 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Robert_Wiggins Offline
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i wonder what impact the generated flooding will have on existing airfields. Will it put some out of business in campaigns? It may be time to think about fitting floats to our scouts!

Last edited by Robert_Wiggins; 03/30/20 11:54 PM.

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#4513648 - 03/31/20 02:46 AM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Thumbs up and success on this! aroundthetree

#4513662 - 03/31/20 08:02 AM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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xjouve Offline
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Thanks everyone! Your encouragement is welcome.

@Robert: Actually, I haven't seen any aerodrome transformed into an aircraft carrier so far ^^

Last edited by xjouve; 03/31/20 08:33 AM.

Best Regards,
Xav.
#4513807 - 03/31/20 09:55 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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xjouve Offline
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I like the atmosphere

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]


Best Regards,
Xav.
#4513917 - 04/01/20 03:42 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Wow. The reflection in all the water completely transforms northern Flanders. Well done.


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#4513918 - 04/01/20 03:47 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Not to mention more landmarks to navigate by. Hope you can do this magic to all major waterways all the way down to Alsace.


"Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From out of my arse take the camshaft,
And assemble the engine again."
#4514102 - 04/02/20 12:25 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: Fullofit]  
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xjouve Offline
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Thanks guys.

Originally Posted by Fullofit
Not to mention more landmarks to navigate by. Hope you can do this magic to all major waterways all the way down to Alsace.


Sure; landmarks! You have said it all! Following rivers, and spotting villages underneath, which is also what I want to integrate.

What I'm doing here for the Ypres' area is a first step to acquire knowledge and to set up methods and material to quickly replicate for other areas. From what I see, it is not rocket science. The only thing I'm afraid of, is limitation of what can be done, and what cannot. However, for such an old game engine, CFS3 is remarkable.

Ok, so I'm trying to get cities and villages to be very precisely located ingame. Same story for the frontline.

Let's see this. Inserting new elements of water into the game, produces some orphan designs: if you look at the following screenshot, the addition of watershapes logically introduced Ypres' moats (black circle). Indeed, the medieval city of Ypres is surrounded by moats. However, in WOFF Ypres is located way too south and is oversized. In order words, the beautiful moats were orphans when I first integrated watershapes into the game. What you see here consisted in fields only.

You can also see the Zillebeke lake where the frontline was (yellow circle) ; and Zillebeke in blue, not to mention Ypres and Hollebeke as a result of LCF modifications.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

As I just said, to achieve this, I've worked again on the LCF file. First of all, I made the routine of converting TIFF palette image to LCF to be compatible with Copernicus' CORINE Land Cover. CFS3 palette is not bad per se, it is 'limited' but can be enough for our needs, but the main problem is that it is not a commonly used palette as those in widely available data on land covering.

So now, the conversion of TIFF to LCF supports many more colors. As for now, it is not really enriching the outcomes but each CORINE RGB code gets its corresponding CFS3 id.

Here's the CORINE data for Ypres' area (for which I've added my own RGB code for the frontline).

[Linked Image]

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to used it as a full replacement of the CFS3's (or WOFF's). So I had to insert it into the orignal game's file. Clearly not the ideal solution; but to my surprise the ingame result is not too bad actually. This file is telling CFS3 engine, pixel by pixel, which landclass is to be used there and there.

[Linked Image]

From what I can see ingame:

  • Villages like Zillebeke and Hollebeke are oversized: what can be done? (1) reducing their shape into the LCF, (2) changing the landclass assignement from medium cities to small cities or (3) creating new textures. Quick answers: (1) no, not enough room for reducing more; (2) yes, for a try but it will impact larger urban areas as well, (3) yes, but I do need a texture designer.
  • Cities like Ypres which are linked to watershapes might benefit from specific design. Texture designer needed here. lol
  • Frontline must be enlarged. However, this might be a possibility of changes during the war.
  • Actual Ypres layer is located a bit too north and might benefit to be relocated couple of pixels down on the LCF file




Last edited by xjouve; 04/02/20 12:36 PM.

Best Regards,
Xav.
#4514129 - 04/02/20 02:39 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Wonderful stuff going on here Xav, outstanding really. The problem with the location of the cities in CFS3 has been known since shortly after its creation. It's almost as if someone harnessed the principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability, no doubt by hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (likely a nice hot cup of tea in this case), and used the cobbled generator to make all the cities in the CFS3 landscape leap simultaneously three miles to the east, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy. As to their scale being off, well, that's another issue altogether.

Now to having new textures designed, the problem you are going to have there is this: If you are wanting to create more accurate landscape features such as notable cities, well-known woods and forests, old fortifications, and the like, you will need to have custom texture tiles for each of them and the corresponding facility files and global layer changes to match. I have discovered this myself with some of my own small landscape mods, such as Havrincourt Wood, the Lille Citadel, and most recently the little town of Mont St. Eloi. The only way I've found to place these into the CFS3/OFF/WOFF landscape requires the creation of a lot of new files and textures, and while the end result is worth it the time it takes is a bit staggering. As example, Old Mossy Face required eleven landscape tiles to create, and each of those eleven then had to have the different season tiles created for it along with the changing front lines textures as well. A very large undertaking, in particular when it was just little old me having to do it all. Again, not saying it isn't worth it, it's just that you should know the scale of such projects before beginning them.

Food for thought.

Lou

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

.


[Linked Image]

Three RFC Brass Hats were strolling down a street in London. Two walked into a bar, the third one ducked.
_________________________________________________________________________

Former Cold War Warrior, USAF Security Service 1974-1978, E-4, Morse Systems Intercept, England, Europe, and points above.
"pippy-pahpah-pippy pah-pip-pah"

#4514141 - 04/02/20 03:14 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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xjouve Offline
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Hi Lou,

You did a great job. I saw what you've done, this is amazing. smile I think that a major part of the lanscape can be reproduced; however to achieve even more precision, it is no doubt that texture work, just like you did, would be required.

I've just succeeded in using a 4x larger LCF file. The precision is now way better. I've also put the Ypres layer over the CFS3 layer but using Global Mapper and coordinates (not only Photoshop like I did before). I then realized that the original CFS3 theater is about 4km too far on the north.

Have a look, on the left side of this screenshot you can see the village of Merkem (from the LCF) located on the Blankaart lake (from geo data).

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

I'm gonna try to enlarge the LCF even more.

Last edited by xjouve; 04/02/20 03:15 PM.

Best Regards,
Xav.
#4514144 - 04/02/20 03:31 PM Re: New theater: Questions for the DEV [Re: xjouve]  
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Thanks Xav, nice to know you're a fan of my work.

I find it amazing that such accurate landscape detail is actually achievable in the old CFS3 engine, good on you for sorting this out. As for the misplacement of the cities, it does not seem consistent over the entire Western Front. In some places the cities are too far north, while in other places they seem too far east. I've wondered over the years if somehow, when the cities were originally mapped to the rest of the CFS3 world, the template or whatever is used to do it, got stretched or distorted somehow. I don't know of course, it's only an observation from years of flying over the terrain in CFS3/OFF/WOFF.

I am wondering, with your project here, what kind of FPS and/or performance issue this might have on our flying set-ups. Any ideas there?

Cheers,

Lou

.

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