WIP: FSX Solomon 1943 -- long --

[roger-wilco-66]

@ expat: this is great news! :-) I also experimented with CFS2 objects, but no luck, I get the same error like you. I even strayed to the IL2 corner, where you can get the models / meshes of most of the ships openly. There seems to be a conversion path to import them into GMAX and one might be able to recompile them with the FSX SDK module, but my first tests where unsuccessful. I must admit that I'm not very firm in GMAX, expecially with that voodoo thing with texture maps, and am too busy with the rest of the scenery project.
I also tried to contact Usio and asked him if it would be possible to recompile the GMAX CFS2 ships with the FSX sdk, but I got no answer. Oh well.

@ Jan Kees: thanks for the offer! There come to my mind:

- a F4U from the Black sheep squadron
- a F6F
- a A2A B-17
- Alphas B24
- Vertigos SBD, but there is already a Solomon livery (PutPut)
- a weathered and battered C47 would be nice , there's the image of "Margie" for example, see picture. Unfortunatly I don't know the unit exactly, only that it's USMC


Now, that I'm here already, what's the actual status of the project? So far, this week I finished the new waterclass part, which was very tedious, but rewarding. It gets rid of those huge blotches of coral reef undergrounds with their annoying repetitive patterns. I tried to model the waterclass after satellite images, and despite the very coarse QMID pattern, which it is bound to, it showed up quite nicely. Then I redrew the landclass of all islands for the third time, and now start to mop up small irregularities like rivers or streets that show up in the ocean (from the revised coastlines), wrong direction of coastlines, and so on. Ahhh, I also added a few naval sites and PT boat bases. That will continue for one or two weeks. After that I will go over the airfields with some cosmetics and then I'll release this thing finally. Way to go.


Cheers,
Mark

[expat]

Thanks Mark and for your dedication to this worthwhile effort.

expat

[Snuffy]

Outstanding work Mark! I can't wait for this to complete ... in the mean time I'll be looking into some of the other "enhancers" you mentioned.

Oustanding work Mark, very impressive! one of my projects was to do some airfields like this also. I did a collection of WWII objects and scenery for the donationware corsair project here for FS9. It's been my intention to recompile them for FSX and do a series or WWII airfields also focusing on as realistic visual experience as possible since Combat really isn't an option, at least not with my knowledge. My first airport was Munda based of some good photoreal data (see below) and my plans for the area was to redraw all the islands to more correct and realistic.

It's very obvious you have much more data (and time, LOL) to work with and your package is much more accurate than what mine would have been, well done!! I look forward to enjoying your work, it looks great!

Landclass is a easy fix, stiz has a good change in the library here that makes the Solomons more jungle.

Attachment 739

Just recompile those scenery items from that corsair pack to FSX and I'd be very happy!

[jankees]

@ Jan Kees: thanks for the offer! There come to my mind:

- a F4U from the Black sheep squadron
- a F6F
- a A2A B-17
- Alphas B24
- Vertigos SBD, but there is already a Solomon livery (PutPut)
- a weathered and battered C47 would be nice , there's the image of "Margie" for example, see picture. Unfortunatly I don't know the unit exactly, only that it's USMC

Unfortunately, I'll be traveliing until mid june, but I'll see what I can do when I get back

[dswo]

I'm looking for ways to complement Mark's scenery work. We have a start now on boat traffic and repaints.

Is there someone who could work on ambient sounds for the different airfields? E.g., jungle sounds for inland, beach sounds for coastal, maybe a repair shed sound, or incoming mortars for Henderson?

[roger-wilco-66]

FYI:

FSX Solomon 1943 has gone beta now. I hope there is not too much that needs corrections.



Cheers,
Mark

[Rich]

Unless it's outside your time frame slightly, HMS Victorious was around the Solomon Islands in 1943 operating with the USS Saratoga which I think was the only US carrier in the Pacific at that time.

After a refit in the United States at the Norfolk Navy Yard during the winter of 1942-43,
Victorious sailed through the Panama Canal to operate with the United States forces in the Pacific. During this time, the code name for the carrier was USS Robin, from the character "Robin Hood," as the US Navy was temporarily "poor" in carriers. In April 1943, Victorious sailed for Pearl Harbor to join Saratoga's Battle Group, at that time the only operational American carrier in the Pacific. Her operations in the South Pacific area were conducted in the Solomon Islands. During this time Victorious was home to US Navy fighter squadron VF-6, flying F4F Wildcats, as well as its own Wildcats of No. 832 Squadron (832 Squadron's Avengers were at this time detached to Saratoga). Between May and July, 1943, Victorious and Saratoga provided air support for Allied forces, including the invasion of New Georgia. In late 1943, Victorious returned to the UK, to the naval base at Scapa Flow.

[g1f99059]

the amerincans first encountered j1n irving in the Solomon Island... there should be some of them somewhere

[roger-wilco-66]

the amerincans first encountered j1n irving in the Solomon Island... there should be some of them somewhere

hand me a FSX model of it, and I will place them Gekkos!
:-)

@Rich: there is a FSX Victorious out there, see

http://www.flyingstations.com/victorious.html
or
http://www.fs-shipyards.org/index.ph..._view&iden=251


Has anyone tried that, any opinions?

Maybe David / dswo can build a task force traffic file with it.
We would need a typical movement of such that carrier group through the Solomons for that, if anyone has some data on that he could post it here (Rich?) !


Cheers,
Mark

[dswo]

Maybe David / dswo can build a task force traffic file with it.
We would need a typical movement of such that carrier group through the Solomons for that, if anyone has some data on that he could post it here (Rich?) !

Aye, if someone will suggest a route, I will build a traffic file. We're going to have PT boats as well; see http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...36366&p=415696.

[g1f99059]

hand me a FSX model of it, and I will place them Gekkos!
:-)

there's one at flightsim http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm...h=j1n*&fsec=96
whether or not it is of the right type

[Rich]

Mark, Yes I know there is a FSX Victorious out there if you click on my signature it will take you to the download site, best getting it from there as any updates will also be there, the one at Flying Stations is the latest.

Not much around re Victorious movements in the Pacific 1943 for interest she was also involved in the Leyte shindig along with either Illustrious or Formidable both sister ships of the same class.

hand me a FSX model of it, and I will place them Gekkos!
:-)

@Rich: there is a FSX Victorious out there, see

http://www.flyingstations.com/victorious.html
or
http://www.fs-shipyards.org/index.ph..._view&iden=251


Has anyone tried that, any opinions?

Maybe David / dswo can build a task force traffic file with it.
We would need a typical movement of such that carrier group through the Solomons for that, if anyone has some data on that he could post it here (Rich?) !


Cheers,
Mark

[roger-wilco-66]

there's one at flightsim http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm...h=j1n*&fsec=96
whether or not it is of the right type

I downloaded it last evening, nice plane. It is even a native FSX model, which can be converted to a static scenery object (with the usual losses). I did that successfully. I will contact the author and ask if he lets me use it, and do a little research on where these were stationed.

Thanks for the head-up!

Cheers,
Mark

[roger-wilco-66]

Hi good people,

just a little WIP note, because I reached two milestones.

1. I finished converting the CFS2 object libraries - default and addon (mostly w. permissions of authors) so they can be used in FSX. That was a lot of (SCASM assembler) programming and I can convert almost any object from CFS2 to FSX now. Airplanes are partly probable, at least as statics, but not included yet. They are very complicated. I have reprogrammed around 600 objects (!!) organized in

- airfield infrastructure
- harbour and factory infrastructure
- civil infrastructure
- military infrastructure (like coastal defense, bunkers, etc)
- mil. vehicles and weapons
- naval vessels (ca. 40)

Actually, there are 300 objects, but the number doubles because I was able to extract the code for a damaged or destructed counterpart to each object. Shoot or bomb something, and it can be shown as destroyed. Theoretically.
Together with Jim Dhaenens Barakoma library we have almost everything we need for a nice FSX PTO scenario.

The other milestone is the integration of CFS2 effects like flak, explosions, sounds and all kinds of other freaky stuff. There will be quite some action in certain places (in fact, there is already). But I still have to learn about about FX programming (I love learning :-) ).


What's next?

- bring the beta version a step further - I corrected most of the reported issues of the first version and added numerous things and improvements
- populate the scenery with the new objects - that's a lot of work
- add the missing airfields to Bougainville / Buka
- add the first working layer of effects
- make native FSX AI ships out of the static versions so we can have moving traffic with them
- hopefully all the authors I have written to for permission of using their objects will respond.
- I am tempted to expand the scenery up to Rabaul, because this was a target in late 1943.
Hmmmm.

All the best,
Mark

[robert41]

Great stuff Mark. I have a similar set up in GW3. AI American and Japanese aircraft and ships throughout the Soloman Islands. Looking forward to your work.

[expat]

Superb Mark. Great plan. Thanks for your dedication to this.

expat

[roger-wilco-66]

Hello all,

a little note from the developer front.
First the downers:

I ran into some massive problems with SBuilderX, the software with which I design the scenery. It becomes very unstable if the scenery is getting large, which it does in my project. Even though I splitted it up into separate project files, it seems that I can not solve some of the problems. If there are any people here that know the software well enough, I would be glad if someone could lend me a hand on that and, for example, compile a project file on his system and have a look at it in FSX, just to rule out that I have local problems here.
The main problem that is evolving out of this handicap is that I can make a stable and simplified version out of the scenery, but then forget about all the good stuff (effects, complex stuff). That's not what I intend.

The other problem seems to be that in my workflow of converting CFS2 objects is a unit conversion bug. The objects do not show in the right dimensions. This is partially solved though, but it consumes a lot of time (...well over 600 objects to this day) if you have todo it over and over again.

The uppers:
I have a love/hate relationship with GMAX which is on the brighter side these days. After researching around on www.pacific-wrecks.com I had the idea to place all the known and visible historic shipwrecks as well as aircraft wrecks in the historically right place (approximatly, of course) in the scenery. So I extracted the models of the default CFS2 ships and the damage models of the CFS2 aircraft (that is hard work) and rearranged them in GMAX for the native FSX display. Thanks STIZ by the way for the help.
Also the conversion of the ships made by Usio into AI ships went positive. I can say now that almost all CFS2 ships (and other objects) can be converted into native FSX models or AI versions, in both the undamaged and the damaged version of the same object (but this doubles the effort). Thanks to David / dwso for his help on testing the beta ships from Usio.
Here are a few pictures of Havalo bay / Florida Islands, where I placed some crashed aircraft and shipwrecks. The wrecks will get new texturing now, as well as the aircraft.

The next beta release will follow if the first point with the problems is solved. There's no use in releasing a known faulty beta.

So, still, way to go.
Mark

[NoNewMessages]

I ran into some massive problems with SBuilderX, ... If there are any people here that know the software well enough, I would be glad if someone could lend me a hand on that ...

I still have a few days of freedom left and I have a familiarity with SBX, so check your PMs.

[expat]

Brilliant work Mark, thanks very much.

expat

[roger-wilco-66]

Well, this will be my last post in this thread. The next one will be in

FSX Solomon 1943 released

Beta 2 is released as of now, I expect no more changes in the scenery itself for the final release, so the end for the golden version 1 is near. Very near.


Cheers,
Mark

[Cag40Navy]

WOOHOO! Cant wait!

[hammer353]

Looks great, all we need is some combat missions

[MartinM]

Well, this will be my last post in this thread. The next one will be in

FSX Solomon 1943 released

Beta 2 is released as of now, I expect no more changes in the scenery itself for the final release, so the end for the golden version 1 is near. Very near.


Cheers,
Mark

Where where?

Thank you so much!!

[dogfish]

from reading your post, it is pretty obvious that this project is consuming a good amount of Your time, I am glad that there are still people that are willing to give it their all when they set out to do something, and only settle for the best that they are able to do, I'm sure everyone here greatly appreciates your efforts and cant wait till You are finished. Thank You for taking this on and adding a whole new dimension to the flight simulator world.

[trucker17]

I have searched the site, and have not been able to find the download....Is it still available....or available on another site.