Description

These mods replace cfs3hyp.zip and cfs3hyl.zip. They add water (rivers, lakes, etc.) and remove shorelines (i.e. shoreline texture won't be displayed anymore but the sea is still there).

I've split the whole work into 2 different levels of resolution:

1) Only waterbeds of the front lines, i.e. main water areas or in other words small rivers won't be displayed. This mod covers the full frontline.
2) Waterbeds plus waterways (of France), i.e. most water areas are there underneath your plane. This mod doesn't exist as a whole anymore and has been replaced by sub-theater mods that are less hardware demanding.

Both versions include the flood caused (and maintained during the war) by the Belgians and the French in 1914 to stop the German advance. I've simulated the flood in Global Mapper using 1 arc-sec elevation data. The result is pretty close to what one can find on maps made during the war. The flood extends from Nieuport on the north to Dixmude on the south.


Mod 1 vs Mod 2 comparison

Here you can see my working data and the actual difference in terms of land coverage.



Mod 2 Subtheaters: (a) Yser-Somme, (b) Aisne-Velse, (c) Meuse-Moselle, (d) Bas & Haut Rhin

Here you can see the land coverage of Mod 2 sub-theaters

(a) (b) (c) (d)



Screenshot: The Somme River (Mod 1)*



Content

The mods consist of the following files



The New Water mods replace each of these files only. No changes are made towards other files of the game. Each mod (v1.00 and v2.00) consists of a set of these files but delivers a different level of resolution.

Mod sizes range from 50 to 60Mb. For comparison, stock CFS3 files account for 55.6Mb.

Installation

Choose Mod 1 if you only want major water areas. This would be a one-time install. However, if you want more water-shapes, you must choose among sub-theaters of Mod 2, the one that corresponds to the area you need in-game.

Use JSGME after having placed the mod root folder in the MODS folder.

Use at your own risk.

Links

dude, your work is good.

Now if you could also figure a way to make the trenches look better then WOFF will be in heaven

Thanks! I concur that would nice

Updated link; previous one was wrong sorry. Shame on me

Wow, that looks awesome in the pic's. Any idea how much more stress the 'whole of France' version puts on a typical computer system versus the small version?

I will give it a try in the next few days. Cheers!!

1st of all thank you Xav for your mods,there excellent..Flying with Jasta 15 from Habsheim in the Alsace region,I have fps drops from 60 to around 40-45 Xav.
I also see the water textures as shown in the circles also is it me or are my roads now rivers Thanks again for your mods. Hope these pics may help in any way?

Ade, that seems you were probably flying over water waste rcirculation facility.

Finally had some time to tinker with the latest patches - the watermap ver. 2.0 gives some "cascading" oddities on my AMD rig and a real hit on fps - dropping from about the 120s to about 50s or so - big drop - so I will set it aside for now (I'm sure there will be further refinements to it).

Von S

Thanks guys!



JJJ65 is right, that's a water waste facility.

Regarding straight line rivers, I think what you see are canals rather than roads turned into rivers. If you can provide me with coordinates, I can check more precisely.



I'm afraid this problem comes from the fact that CFS3 rivers are 'flat' (and thus, unfortunately the more variated the elevation data for the terrain, the more oddities to be observed with rivers). I think there is a way to make them fitting better on the ground by using vector files (in vector folder ) but I got no luck so far with them.

Regarding FPS impact caused by mod 2, I may release smaller water mods of the same kind for specific regions.

I initially created 8 subtheaters, from north to south: Yser river, Somme river, Aisne river, Velse river, Meuse river, Moselle river, Bas Rhin and Haut Rhin. I think that they can be used to relax FPS stress.

I tried v.2 and this is the result.... lots of new, but very blue rivers

@Jara and Xav...Cheers for the heads up guys, Il grab the coordinates when I'm at my PC later Xav. Cheers.

Shaders! I guess.

May I suggest you to remove your Panama Red's or Ankor's mod please, and then see how it goes? (pure guess on my side ^^)

Regarding the color of water, using Gecko's Mod is a very good option https://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohfor...on-Water-Colors?p=1207162&viewfull=1

The subtheaters idea sounds excellent - I look forward to newer developments with these mods, also with the latest airfields position replacement mod that will allow new global layer compatibility with JJJ's historically populated airfields. Great stuff all round.

Von S

I agree. Great stuff. I'd like to see a mod that replaces all roads and RR tacks/stations as well . Those sharp angles need to smoothen out a bit. And would be extremely useful with navigation.

As promised XAV the Coordinates are ..N47'46'52 E07'24'39 Closest airfield is Habsheim, thank you.

So far this is looking fantastic. My only concern is how its going to effect the performance of the game engine, and how it will shift everything that's been made thus far. Everything about WOFF is built around the data and positioning that's already in the game. Will this be messed up causing all kinds of wired stuff like missing dromes, rivers passing though villages... etc.. etc.

Hallo @xjouve,

now I have tested your 2 water-mods. The big one decreased my FPS too much, the smaller one a few (it was okay).
After the test I thought "Great, but … something is wrong."

After a cup of coffee I knew it.
The rivers / waters are all too visible. There are 2 reasons in my opinion.
1: The bright blue you can see even with much miles distant. Rivers / waters on the country are not blue normally, but more a combination of grey, brown and green. So small creeks and medium-sized rivers merge with the environment. It's very difficult to see them from altitude.
2: The small and medium-sized rivers in your mod are quite bride in my eyes. Small rivers and creeks are more narrow and … don't forget the trees on the left and right side of the small river / creek, which grow with their trree-limbs over the water in reality.

What does it mean from the perspective of a pilot? He has speed and altitude. Result is, he recognizes only the bigger rivers / waters and can only use these for visual navigation.
So let me make a humble recommendation: Develop only the bigger and big rivers / waters. It is more realistic for visual flight and navigation, better for stabil FPS and ... perhaps less work for you!

Greetings!

Water treatment facility! ^^ I'll remove it.




AFAIK, v1.00 doesn't cause too much FPS drop. Regarding v2.00, it is probably not worth using at the moment (I mean with contemporary computers), so I'll upload my subtheater mods.

You won't see any airfield disapearing, however, of course you could see rivers crossing villages (which is something that happens in real life BTW). Apart from that, rivers and other water areas might not fit very well with stock CFS3 landcover, which is not accurate.




1) Oh yes I know. The color of water is set by another file that is called cfs3h2o.dds. I haven't included a modded one. I can suggest that you try Gecko's great mod https://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohfor...on-Water-Colors?p=1207162&viewfull=1
2) What you see is accurate OSM data https://download.geofabrik.de/europe/france.html Actually, removing many shapes would be a massive job (however, removing shapes of water areas that didn't exist by the time of the war could be easily done as they are not too many). In mod v1.00 you only have major water areas, it seems me okay. Regarding trees, I totally agree. That's why I started adding trees over waterways in my landcover mods.

v1.10
- Removed most of Canal du Nord (not yet in service in 1914) - Flanders region in WOFF
- Removed water treatment facility near Habsheim - Alsace region in WOFF
- Removed Lac d'Aillette (put in service 1983) - Marne region in WOFF
- Added Bassin de Monampteuil (key navigation point for pilots, named 'réservoir') - Marne region in WOFF

Thanks Xav i still have small fps drops but your mod definitely does add to the WOFF environment ..Thank you (Using 1.10)

I just had my first flight with the water mod 1.10 version installed. This shows great potential! The rivers have a much more natural shape and path, and are much easier to navigate with (can be seen from farther away and provide many more unique landmarks).

I agree that the water colours could use some tweaking, and the wavy texture gave me some funny zebra strip effects at certain points, but this is minor stuff.

Combined with the XJ0-Terrain (1 arc-sec hi) 2.01 topographic mod I am getting a pretty noticeable FPS hit (down to 29-35 fps from 60 with no mods), but I seem to be the only one getting this.

All-in-all, a very good start and I hope you carry on developing it!!