It's getting serious

[Rydiga]

Lot of reaktion to the somme post and a lot of very good ideas, I hope this thing is not getting to big. I thought of making some kind of checklist with all the ideas and see what can be done or not and who can do it. I like the idea with the in map textured soldiers, it's right, there should be more action at the frontline.


So here is what i thougt to be important for Somme

1. I'd like to have the Map be close to real (I made a pic of a map of this area and want to use it as a back layer, reffering to the map in mission editor. I removed all highways aso.) I'm still looking for rivers

2. Around the Tows wich are not in the frontline i wanted to place some fields but just there, I dont want a map like it is with fields all over.

3. In the area where the frontline is, all towns should look destroid, some ruins, burned trees aso.

4. Each side (or the whole) of the frontline should be cratered. I took a lot of pictures from crates, even better if it can be done with "terraforming" (dont know if its possible to fit a crater texture into a terraformed crater)

5. I like the trenchline idea very much, is it possible ?

Let me know what you think and what else can be done, it looks like this will turn out great. (thinking already about doing the whole west front )

Rydiga

[ArgonV]

Good list! I can tell you tho right now I wont beable to do much with Somme, if any for the time being. I'm super busy helping FlyXwire with the new GUI and getting more kites ready for release.
_________________
'Go Fly A Kite!'
-Jason R.
FS-WWI Project Leader

FS-WWI Plane Pack Site

[Flatline54]

Great list Rydiga. Sounds like you've got the bases covered. Keep up the good work.

[Dantes]

Well, the craters could be done with modifying the terrain but it might be a big hit due to the extra polys for making indents on the landscape all over. Will be interested to see how it works out.

The NASA site seems to be a great place to get crater images to overlay on the terrain front. A nice big picture of the moon's surface has dozens of usable crater textures. With the moon being white, it makes it relatively easy to alpha the craters for texture overlay.

I certainly like the idea of introducing for items like ruins, buildings, dead trees. It would really help give the area some definition.

Along those lines I'm guessing new objects would be introduced into SDOE. This is a question for previous modders: Is there a limit to the amount of objects that can be introduced into the PAR files? Does SDOE have a certain number of object slots attributed in the coding or can one add new objects till satisfied?

Glad to hear you got access to the GUI interface ArgonV. I know that you were chomping at the bit to truly MOD the whole SDOE package interface. If you or Fly need any pictures or artwork I have some kicking around.

By the way, I could not find the Tundra terrain in the WWII downloads but I think it is now called Smolensk. Hopefully, it will work with Rends tutorial.

S!

[ArgonV]

There is no limit on the number of objects at all.

FlyXwire has already gotten a good theme going. But I'm sure he wouldnt mind the inspiration!

Somme was based off of Smolensk which was based off of Tundra.
_________________
'Go Fly A Kite!'
-Jason R.
FS-WWI Project Leader

FS-WWI Plane Pack Site

[Recon3]

Almost finished reading All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (translated by A.W. Wheen). I had never read it before but finally found it in a used book store. There is a picture painted (verbally) regarding dead trees and ruined buildings. I'm at the part where Paul and his buddies are in charge of the storage depot.

If you guys could upgrade the Somme in that manner I would bow my head to you and forever be in your debt.

May I remind you guys (everyone), we are now on a journey that will impact the future of this game. I've never before (in my somewhat short existance with FS-WW1) seen such a combined effort to improve this particular mod. This says something about what we have already done and what we can achieve. I'm very proud to be a part of this team.


cheers, Recon3
_________________
WinXP
Core2 6600
EVGA680i
BFG 8800GTX

[ArgonV]

Recon3 you aint kidding there... I've seen more of a collective and combined effort and feeling towards FS-WWI this past month than I've EVER seen before! I've got chaps all over the internet wanting to help out and showing interest now in whatever way they can where they can. It's great! Mace, greg, wat32, Dantes, Rydiga, Hentzau, a chap from WOV, and even few IL-2 chaps! This combined with the efforts of FlyXwire, yourself, Flatline and Gypsy9 man we are on go to move mountians! We've even got oldbies to come back and show interest...

How bout this as our motto:
FS-WWI - The Future of Fighter Squadron...


_________________
'Go Fly A Kite!'
-Jason R.
FS-WWI Project Leader

FS-WWI Plane Pack Site

[ArgonV]

I've e-mailed Wakeup Tailgunner on this account and here's what he had to say:

ahh...so they want to add lots of detail....

well.....allow me to give the benefit of hard won experience

Before you do this, there are several things that have to be considered. First off, you have to look closely at the area you are going to model. The Somme actually had a LOT of small towns. There were also a lot of woods, roads, etc.

IF you are going to do this, I would suggets first off NOT to make the houses more detailed. Forget it. You will just kill FR's stone dead. Making the houses look more French would help. France, for anyone thats ever been there, is a pretty diverse place. The houses are not built like British towns, but instead vary greatly. Adding more different houses might help to improve the look, along with wrecked buildings. Lots of these.

Trees, as far as SDOE is concerned, are flat billboarded things. They look crap, but you may well have to live with this. You can improve things by adding extra polygons, but again, making woods is a problem. You can get better results ( by doing the IL2 method) but these look very bad down low. I have messed about with making some wooded areas, but it is not an easy thing to do without killing performance. This is shown by the fact that NO flightsim actually has done this well Making a forest fit the landscape....well THAT is not easy! Place your forests on flat land

Shell holes and trenches present a problem all of their own!

You CAN make them detailed, you can hand craft the trench network and make detailed areas of front line... but when I tried it on my PC I got FR's down in the low teens..... with a single plane. This is a problem.

You can make rough trenches with the 'feel' of a trench line, but beware. Depending on the tools you are using to make the terrain, you are in for a masive workload, with no guarantee that the end result will be usable. I had a few ideas to get round this, but nothing concrete

Again, shell holes...well, they could be done well enough by texture on rough ground. They don't need a 3D presence in the same way that, I think anyway, trenches need to. Ideally, though, you want to have a lot of water in them too....Again, I have some ideas as to how this could be done

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on terrain.... there isn't much 'simple' work to be done. Start with some new houses, more choice of house particularly. Forget the trees, trenches etc. until you are ready to roll..

BUT

FIRST, GET ACCURATE CORRECTLY SCALED MAPS OF THE SOMME. If you are going to re-do the terrain, you have GOT to bin the old Tundra mesh underneath. It's just wrong in so many ways "
_________________
'Go Fly A Kite!'
-Jason R.
FS-WWI Project Leader

FS-WWI Plane Pack Site

[FlyXwire]

FS-WWI - The Future of Fighter Squadron...

I'm juiced by all the enthusiasm, and it's great to know that multi-faceted developments are all being pursued simultaneously too...........very encouraging!!!

It's interesting to read WTG's thoughts on making a new Somme map, and the thing is to take his advice as positive support to move forward on the project as efficiently as possible.

Here's some more thoughts.............he mentions the FR hit that will be suffered by including more objects (more towns/buildings/trees/ground clutter etc.). At the same time he acknowledges the myriad number of small villages and towns that were present all over the Somme battle area (it's France after all)! Ok, here's an idea that might help to populate the area with built-up areas that might help alleviate some of the poly-issue that comes with it...........this is to "build" on his noting that many population centers lay in ruins close to the Front, and as a result of the interdictory artillery bombardment of the lines of communication behind the Front, and also as a result of the battle's ebb and flow over time.

Ruins can be a beautiful thing!

Yes, perhaps making texture-enhanced but relatively low polygon intensive "ruins complexes" might allow more dense placement of built-up areas on the map, but without the attendant frame-rate hits to our PCs?

Take a look again at this picture of my miniature wargaming terrain again if you would:



See the pocked-marked and destroyed sections of the modeled buildings on the lower terrain modules? Would it be possible to make a lot of low-polygon ruins for the Somme map project that would allow for greater density of placement on the map, without tremendous penalities to our PC frame rates?

Of course the object would be to model simple destroyed building "foundations" along with much texture-enhancing clutter painted onto these ruins objects, with a mind of achieving low ploy counts and therefore low system requirements to render.

Might including more low-polygon "ruins-areas" in lieu of high-poly towns and building arrangements help balance the need for terrain object density but without tremendous performance penalities?

What is the feasability and utility of this idea???

Ok, after this idea gets an airing here, I've also got some ideas on how to model forest areas without a lot of poly-intensive frame rate penalties too.........I hope.
_________________
Real aviators are very sharp and not so timorous. That did not help their good relations with the bureaucrats. -Willy Coppens-

[WingChaps]

For ruins 'units', take a look at the ruins contained in the WWI driveable ground units packages, which I think have been incorporated into the foundation WWI SDOE install. Harman_5 did a number of ruined buildings and piles of rubble that should serve... I don't know from Adam about whether they fit the FR bill, but they might be a basis...
_________________
Fair Winds and Following Seas,

WingChaps

[Mossie]

If your looking for French/Belgium buildings and ruins then I may be able to assit. I did a load of ground models for Targetware, over 100 (yes I know the other one) but they are low ploy and with high definition textures. I can easly build a seperate set for SDOE, with new or modfied textures, thus maintaing a difference.

Just a thought.

ArgonV you still have the trench and airfield maps I posted before ?

I have also got an allied map of the airfields (302 fields marked), Cross & Cockade provided, which has Long and Lat along with scale. Some German fields are marked, but only those used by the allies.
_________________
Mossie
WWI aircraft Library
http://ww1-Fluffy feathers/

[ArgonV]

No I cant seem to locate them Mossie...
_________________
'Go Fly A Kite!'
-Jason R.
FS-WWI Project Leader

FS-WWI Plane Pack Site

[Mossie]

I'll put together another set and any other data I have for posting on my site, will provide a link once completed.
_________________
Mossie
WWI aircraft Library
http://ww1-Fluffy feathers/

[ArgonV]

Yes I agree about poly count. We MUST keep it as low as possible... Texture enhancements would do most of the trick I would think! But SDOE's engine was wasnt made to handle a lot of ground clutter. Still, we can try! I hope Dantes and Rydiga and Hentzau and Mossie come up with some nice things!

Also to note on all of this, I DO have the Albert terrain which needs the same level of attention as Somme does. This already has a majority of the hi-res textures already done. Just needs more towns, ruins, airfields set up, railway rotated the other way, better bridge models, more trees, front lines need fixing (There are two front lines!) and the Mission Editor and the terrain need to be sync'd so the target, town and airfield icons match where they are on the map. Any chance on looking at this aswell?? Might be a better start than Somme! Or you could do both!!!
_________________
'Go Fly A Kite!'
-Jason R.
FS-WWI Project Leader

FS-WWI Plane Pack Site

[Dantes]

Do both? Argh! Your killing us!

What scale is the map? I would be interested in taking a look at it at least if you have a link handy.

Did some testing in AC3D.

Hopefully this image shows up:



The textures are temporary, the trench test is rudimentary (I need to learn how to do boolean carving into the terrain for trenches) and I expect it will all change. Still, a start at least.

I did some testing with the tricky blend of a grass layer and the frontlines. I think it is working.

I angled the terrain to give an impression of how it might look for low-level strafing attacks.

So far so good I guess.

Mossie, having that data to start mapping out the material would be a great help indeed. Thanks in advance.

S!