[WIP] Solomon 1943 V.2.0

I think I start a new thread about that.
Here's the newest accomplishments.
I thought the stock fx effects on smoke are to small, and too fps heavy once you try to enlarge them to make a decent smoke cloud of a bombed and burning area. Too many emitters and particles, and too much frequency in change.
So I employed stock cloud sprites, redid them in GIMP and made a nice, slow FX effect for them. The result is a large cloud, volumetric and slowly changing as well as moving, and best of all, almost no FPS hit. At least on my lowly system. The one you are seeing are going up to 3300 feet (black) and 2100ft for the volcano.
I also superimposed an orignal USAAF recon image of Lakaunai airfield on the landscape phototile, alpha-channeled it and colored it so it blends into the colors of the volcanic rock around it. Looks quite good, but I have to adjust the autogen annotation now.

If anyone wants to beta-test that I'd be happy to share this, to hear a few opinions or suggestions as well as some fps figures. This has to be carefully balanced, because it will become a very dense area.


Cheers,
Mark

Attachment 66533 Attachment 66534

Cool! That looks much more the thing. The smoke effects do tend to be a bit of a frame hog. I was wondering about using cloud sprites for a kiloton range mushroom cloud, messing about with nuclear effects. I also got to wondering if there was a way to tag the flack and smoke effects to a nav 1 or 2 freq as sort of an IFF so you didn't get the @&?$ shot out of you by your own side. Anyway, looks good!

Looking forward to this Mark.

That looks outstanding. Well done. :)

Apart from Rabaul, I also did the Halavo seaplane base (famous for it's NZ PBY operations) on the Florida Islands next to Guadalcanal in photo
real and with a high res mesh. The whole bay, with Gavutu/Tanambogo, Tulagi, the Mokambo naval base and some smaller islands as well as the coastline is photoreal. Still working on the blend masks , but I'd say it's 90%.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...ane%20Base.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...%2BMokambo.jpg

Looking great Mark, the Rabaul scenery is to say the least, terrific. Really looking forward to the release.

Am simply gobsmacked.:isadizzy: Brilliant detail, this is gonna be a keeper.

thats looking better and better each time

Thanks, guys. There's a nice photo documentary here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=halavo Great images, and a source of inspiration for me.

Cheers,
Mark

Looking forward to this.

I am also very much looking forward to this.

Perfect place to fly my A2A fighters.

Stunning pictures sir :salute:

Incredible! :applause: I've been drooling over this one for a while. I have my VMO-251 Squadron assembled and waiting(patiently).
Dunno what your future plans are, but, Espiritu Santo(Vanuatu) with Bomber 1 & 2 would be awesome. :salute: ...Don

Yes, Espiritu is in the pipeline, and along with it Efate, the R+R island. These simply belong to the Solomons.
But it won't be in the upcoming release, I'll add it later. I want to be done with this before the summer break in August!


Cheers,
Mark

The images look very promising Mark! I love the colours.

Cheers,
Huub

LoOks like a great place to flight and operational test Milton's Harpoon!

T

Nice idea, Fliger!

Well, the phototile work on the Florida Islands / Halavo is more or less finished. These blendmasks for the coastlines and expecially the reef structures are done. Best I could do with my novice capabilities.
I also placed the CV-3 Saratoga near the Tulagi harbor, don't know if she ever was there, but it is likely.

Some images (ignore the scenery objects, they sit on the old layout):

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...rida-Isl-1.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...rida-Isl-2.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...isl-gavutu.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...a-Isl-sara.jpg
Cheers,
Mark

Beautiful Mark, simply beautiful.

Anyone able to get USIO's superb WWII IJN ships to work as moving AI in FSX? I had them as stationary AI working fine in FS9 but seem to recall my experiments with FSX resulted in the models doing a no show and reckoned they would need some kind of FSX model conversion to work. It would be a fine add on to Mark's upcoming Solomon Islands scenery with these ships slinking in and around the Slot.

http://www.geocities.jp/usio_no_ibuki/

. . Mark, whose Sara/Lex is that in the screenie above?

Expat, not a problem at all with the Solomon ships. They are native FSX. The original Usio ships are not usable in FSX, because they are extended CFS2 models. FSX does not understand the damage model that is incorporated in the mdl file.

Extracting the static scenery ships out of the Solomon object library to make them AI is a fairly easy process.

Cheers,
Mark

Edit: That's Usio's Sara

This is the last photoscenery that will go in the update. Munda airfield, New Georgia.
Early WIP, the phototile has to be worked on thoroughly (saturating, blending, drawing ground elements) autogen has to be annotated, scenery objects, etc). But it already gives a nice impression.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/58324394/im...-photoreal.jpg

fantastic stuff! :applause::applause::applause:

Awesome.

Ripper!

....much appreciated also.

Great stuff Mark:ernae: