CFS3
AnKor's new self-shadowing dll also casts shadows on other objects (building on building, plane on building, etc.).
AnKor's new self-shadowing dll also casts shadows on other objects (building on building, plane on building, etc.).
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Great! I was hoping that was the case. Hopefully one day this mod will be an easy install for all to use and take cfs3 up a couple of graphics notches.AnKor's new self-shadowing dll also casts shadows on other objects (building on building, plane on building, etc.).
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
There's also the option of doing it like a decal, the same way bomb craters are done. It may solve some of these issues, though I've ne'er tried it on something as large as a runway.
[QUOTE=Pat Pattle;869414...Do you have time to explore any of this Joost?[/QUOTE]
Perhaps coming weekend. Would you be willing to share some of your files with me?
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
Adding a damagebox and putting in the ground seems to work: I can land and take-off without any damage messages. I have used your 'carrier' .xdp, Clive and placed the runway model 10cm above ground level. I didn't explore how close to the ground I could get it before it starts merging with the airfield's groundplane. Texturing is a matter of modelling a plane with segments of the area covered by the original PSP .bmp. Texturing the individual segments should then give you the right scale. At least, that's what I think would work. With the new mod that makes shadows appear on buildings etc. this all probably gives the result we'd hoped for. (BTW, does anyone know if the carrier shows shadows or not?)Originally Posted by Pat Pattle
If Daniel has an idea how to make it work as a decal, it would also be an interesting option to explore...
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
The decal idea sounds good, would save on the modelling. Can they be applied in the facility file?This is a first experiment with shaped parts, the concrete apron at Detling. The textures ot great but it shows the effect.
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
That seems to work alright! At what height above the groundplane did you model the apron? Maybe I 'll give one of the ALGs a makeover using this technique. BTW, what's the model's name of the brown hut under your bottom wing? Is that stock CFS3 or did you cobble that together? I may have a use for that one ;-)
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
OK, this really has got me a little exited:
I did a rough calculation of the number of gMax square plane segments that - when textured with the work of our friend Gaucho - are needed to cover a 1,000 x 150 yards runway. I found that a single strip of PSP should have 3 x 29 holes so I rounded Gaucho's texture off to 1,5 strips, giving an area of 4,57 x 4,57 m. Slightly off scale and so is the colour, I think (most contemporary piccies seem to display a very dark colour - but yes, they are mostly B&W) but the result is there! I didn't even notice a drop in FPS!
BTW, Clive; I found an easy way to texture all the 2000 polys on this in one go: With all polys selected, tick 'Face' in the UWV mapping roll-out. Texturing 2000 polys by hand wasn't something I was looking forward to...
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
That looks really good Joost! I have seen colour photos around of new matting which looks a light grey, no idea if the steel was treated or not, I would have thought it went rusty pretty quickly.
The Detling apron is about 10-20cm, too low and it starts to disapperar when you get close to it. This only happens when there are buildings on it, not when its a runway.
The hut is ACC_hut_wooden, should be in the ETO install if not I can send it to you.
Interesting, the original runway I did is 1 rectangle, I hasn't thought about making it multi-poly.BTW, Clive; I found an easy way to texture all the 2000 polys on this in one go: With all polys selected, tick 'Face' in the UWV mapping roll-out. Texturing 2000 polys by hand wasn't something I was looking forward to...
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
They were made from steel with a high manganese content, so the matting was highly resistant to corrosion even without being galvanized. Typically they would start off light steel gray and get a darker patina over time. Eventually they might develop red rust depending on the environmental conditions, but for most of these temporary airfields that would be a decade or more later and long after they were out of service.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
So we want a 'medium' steel grey colour? Something in between brand-new and somewhat aged?
If you didn't do it multi-poly, how did you texture it then? Your screenie shows no distortion lengthwise and the PSP.bmp is square? When I applied the .bmp to a 1,000 yrd plane, it was horribly distorted.
About the hut, do you have the length x width in meters? I can use a placeholder box in gMax if I know the hut's dimensions.
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
if you apply a square map to a poly face it will repeat over and over. i think you can get away with one poly if the map is edited a bit.2000 polys on this in one go
14x7m oriented with the longest dimension along the Y axis.About the hut, do you have the length x width in meters? I can use a placeholder box in gMax if I know the hut's dimensions.
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
That's looking really good guys, you can't really tell it's raised off the ground. As far as decals are concerned, you can place them into a facility, and they may be useful for those odd shaped locations like individual blast pens and such, but what you've got may end up looking better for most areas. Or maybe once you're done you could make some individual planks or small sections that can be assembled in any combination for those smaller areas.
Hi all,
I have this, but it's not perfect, too hight I imagine
other photo
Suippes GC 1/5
Excellent scenes Andre!
There's some taller netting somewhere I think, maybe in the BoB install?
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
I had a look at these airfields in ETO1.5 and did not find the PSP mat appearing even if the airfield .xdp calls for SurfaceType="steel_mats" .
There are several SurfaceType= called for dependind of the airfield: steel_mats,tarmac,grass,dirt,concrete,planks. but the runway folder only holds 2 textures dirt an concrete so I guess the other SurfaceTypes are missing from the game unless they are listed elswere.
For these airfields, the PSP was painted directly onto the ground texture. That's why the 'grey area' has such a 'blocky' appearance. Due to the scale of the ground texture the individual holes etc. cannot be seen. The runway definition file for the fighter ALG in the objects folder is called 'ACC_Runway1500_psp_Fighter' and does have 'steel_mats' as its surface entry. This last bit only controls aircraft reactions to the ground surface like tire squeaks and other effects. At the time, it was the best I could do.
All the info in this thread was never followed up on until now by creating a new PSP model with a fitting texture which is placed on the airfield (as described in the posts above). The result can be seen in the screenie thread. So there might be an update to those three ALG airfields with the new PSP model.
When I am done experimenting and satisfied with the result, I will probably upload a tutorial which explains how to create your own PSP runways etc. with the new texture and some example PSP gmax models. It's not all that difficult but I think it's good to make sure that the PSP is of the same scale overall. Right now, the texture covers an area of 6x6m (2x16 planks, slightly narrower - 0.375m instead of 0,381m - than the real-life thing) and the model (a plane) should be 1 cm above the ground.
BTW, I have replaced most of the painted PSP with the new PSP model on the fighter ALG. From the air there's actually hardly any difference besides a slight colour change, so the ALG airfields in v1.50 were not that bad after all. It's on the ground, when you look out of your cockpit, that you now really see that your on PSP. So it's expensive eyecandy (polys) for the UI and airfield lovers...
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
A big bump for this thread!
There's a new airfield in the works, RAF Bolt Head which used bar and rod matting.
Unfortunately I've lost all of the textures for this project, did anyone manage to keep theirs, Joost maybe?
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
Ah, a new airfield - I like!!
I do have some unfinished Square Mesh Tracking texture files that I could send over, if you want. You could use that to texture a runway plane in gmax. It shows a SMT surface of 10 rolls wide and 2 rolls long, laid in a half-brick pattern. A single roll of SMT was approx. 3.25m (10ft 8in) wide by 23m (75ft 6in) long according to Wikipedia but I am not sure I used those exact dimensions: This would make the texture 32.5 x 46m while CFS3 likes power-of-two textures (so the texture should show a square surface).
The notes I found with the files mention other dimensions than those on the Wiki page but I did not save the sources I got them from, so I can't consider them reliable anymore. They also say that the individual mesh squares on the texture are three times larger than they were in real life which I think is correct. IIRC at the time, I found it impossible to find a combination of the correct mesh scale, historical roll size and looks plus a decent ingame resolution etc. All in all, I was not happy with it and with my present knowledge I probably can produce something better. But you're free to play with it.
However, ready-to-go is a finished tutorial on creating the PSP surfaces you might have seen in some of my screenies or the P-47 development thread. It comes complete with the necessary texture files, gmax sample files and illustrated instructions to create PSP surfaces of any dimensions. You could use that as a placeholder until a better SMT texture file becomes available.
BTW, If you are referring to the airfield itself; I am sorry to say that I don't have anything on it. I think it was one of your projects, not one of mine.
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
Excellent news. Great thread ! Keep us up on the progress !
Yes please Joost! I've managed to get some Sommerfeld tracking down but no decent screenies as yet, I'm still tinkering with the Z position to stop the flickering.I do have some unfinished Square Mesh Tracking texture files that I could send over, if you want.
CFS3 Battle of Britain Website: https://cfs3bob.wixsite.com/cfs3-bob
CFS3 ACC Member & ETO Expansion Group
You got a PM!
ACC Member, ETO and PTO contributor & librarian
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