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SOH ADMINISTRATION
La Spezia project finally completed!
- Thread starter Rami
- Start date
kelticheart
Charter Member
Dombral:
If it looks so good now, I can only imagine how it will be with Tobob exact coastline replacement!
I have the same Venezia scenery, another place where I spent a lot of time in my life. Mine comes from a FS2002 VFR scenery I found a long time ago at Flightsim.com, is yours the same?
The potential for improvements in CFS2 is still great, and, yes Rami! This is CFS2 at its finest and, why not, SOH as well!
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
kelticheart
Charter Member
An idea for the Italian boot landclass
Hi everybody!
Following the comments I wrote above to Tobob about the land looks deep differences there are in my country, I thought about the problem I always had with CFS2 and Italy's landclass.
Over the years, I learned the term "landclass" in MS flight sims means the files the sim engine uses to place the texture tiles over a certain portion of territory, what we are fling over and we see from our cockpits to be simpler. I hope I understood well.
Providing, once again, I did understand correctly, the Italian peninsula should have landclass files (I gather they are located either among the *.bgl's in CFS2\scenedb\world\scenery subfolder or the specific single scenery \scenery subfolder we are using at any given time) telling the sim engine the deep differences in vegetation and land colours between the Po Valley and the rest of the country.
As I wrote to Tobob, the Po Valley is surrounded in a horseshoe pattern by the Alps chain on the north side and the Appennini chain on the Western, South Western and Southern side. It looks like central Europe, like Southern France or Southern Germany for example. The Po river is fed by a number of Alpine rivers and Appenini turrents, the mountains are thickly covered with hardwood trees and conifers, the land is very green during springs, dry during summer with great foliage colour change during fall. In winter, snowfalls are very common even at low altitudes. Just like Central Europe, as I said.
The rest of Italy becames almost all of a sudden mediterranean, with increasingly drier land and sparser vegetation, as soon as we get on the Southern side of the Appenini, heading Southward towards Firenze and Roma. While above 3,000-2,500' the Southern slopes of the Appenini remain covered with hardwood forest, below that altitude the change of vegetation types and looks is almost dramatic, helped by the exposure to salty air coming from the sea.
After this romantic blurting, here comes the question: would it be possible to create a lanclass file package for CFS2, covering the Italian boot in a way that this change in land textures is covered?
This would come in handsomly handy with the Tuskegee Campaign, for example. Both the 322nd F.G. and the bomber formations they escorted flew from airfields in Puglia, the boot heel for understanding puropose, and Med textures here are a must. Once they reached the Po Valley, no dry Med areas should be in sight anymore, but it's impossible changing texture sets: the sim engine should do it for us. Desert patches close to the Alps are truly ridicolous, believe me!
It was done for civilian sims, I downloaded an Italian lanclass package created for FS2002 from Flightsim.com a while ago. Unfortunately, it created so many conflitcs in CFS2 that it caused sudden CTD all the times. I had to remove it, still have it, but it's useless in CFS2. This thread was started to get the building of La Spezia harbour project going. La Spezia is another good example, as it doesn't look Med like Napoli
Since I saw miracles performed on several areas of the world with addon packages, like Uncle Tgt's last effort in New Britain-PTO or Jean Bomber/Tobob's North Africa, I am wondering why can't we fix this striking visual CFS2 problem. :mixedsmi:
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
Hi everybody!
Following the comments I wrote above to Tobob about the land looks deep differences there are in my country, I thought about the problem I always had with CFS2 and Italy's landclass.
Over the years, I learned the term "landclass" in MS flight sims means the files the sim engine uses to place the texture tiles over a certain portion of territory, what we are fling over and we see from our cockpits to be simpler. I hope I understood well.
Providing, once again, I did understand correctly, the Italian peninsula should have landclass files (I gather they are located either among the *.bgl's in CFS2\scenedb\world\scenery subfolder or the specific single scenery \scenery subfolder we are using at any given time) telling the sim engine the deep differences in vegetation and land colours between the Po Valley and the rest of the country.
As I wrote to Tobob, the Po Valley is surrounded in a horseshoe pattern by the Alps chain on the north side and the Appennini chain on the Western, South Western and Southern side. It looks like central Europe, like Southern France or Southern Germany for example. The Po river is fed by a number of Alpine rivers and Appenini turrents, the mountains are thickly covered with hardwood trees and conifers, the land is very green during springs, dry during summer with great foliage colour change during fall. In winter, snowfalls are very common even at low altitudes. Just like Central Europe, as I said.
The rest of Italy becames almost all of a sudden mediterranean, with increasingly drier land and sparser vegetation, as soon as we get on the Southern side of the Appenini, heading Southward towards Firenze and Roma. While above 3,000-2,500' the Southern slopes of the Appenini remain covered with hardwood forest, below that altitude the change of vegetation types and looks is almost dramatic, helped by the exposure to salty air coming from the sea.
After this romantic blurting, here comes the question: would it be possible to create a lanclass file package for CFS2, covering the Italian boot in a way that this change in land textures is covered?
This would come in handsomly handy with the Tuskegee Campaign, for example. Both the 322nd F.G. and the bomber formations they escorted flew from airfields in Puglia, the boot heel for understanding puropose, and Med textures here are a must. Once they reached the Po Valley, no dry Med areas should be in sight anymore, but it's impossible changing texture sets: the sim engine should do it for us. Desert patches close to the Alps are truly ridicolous, believe me!
It was done for civilian sims, I downloaded an Italian lanclass package created for FS2002 from Flightsim.com a while ago. Unfortunately, it created so many conflitcs in CFS2 that it caused sudden CTD all the times. I had to remove it, still have it, but it's useless in CFS2. This thread was started to get the building of La Spezia harbour project going. La Spezia is another good example, as it doesn't look Med like Napoli
Since I saw miracles performed on several areas of the world with addon packages, like Uncle Tgt's last effort in New Britain-PTO or Jean Bomber/Tobob's North Africa, I am wondering why can't we fix this striking visual CFS2 problem. :mixedsmi:
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
Hi KH!
Thanks for the info and layout. Keep it comin!
The stock landclass and waterclass are in the main CFS2\scenery folder. ETO is covered by Sanders' LC. MTO by Malta and JB textures.
After reading your descriptive tales of the La Spezia area, I decided I'm going to place greener textures with EZ landclass using the existing textures.
To cover the area you are describing would be quite an undertaking, however large areas have been done before. Perhaps someone here knows how?
Note: I believe there is a way to add a custom landclass texture set called upon by its own unique number.?
p.s. The FS002 landclass numbers are probably different than CFS2. The textures could be used if they are renamed appropriately.
tobob
kelticheart
Charter Member
Tobob,
your Arsenale will look better than the real thing!
Since we are at it, I am doing my best to add little details, as close as possible to real life and historically credible, to the nearby (from an eagle's eye point of view of course!) Achim's airports of Piacenza-San Damiano and Reggio Emilia, where the RSI 1st Squadriglia "Asso di Bastoni" operated from beginning of 1944 to April, 25, 1945.
I am placing bridges over the Po river at Piacenza and Cremona, just northeast of Piacenza, and relocating correctly the industrial structures placed by Achim above the airport of Reggio Emilia, reproducing the Reggiane industrial area where Reggiane aircrafts were produced during WWII. Note for our mission guru Rami: they were completely destroyed by two Allied raids on January 7-8, 1944.
At the end of WWII, due to the war damages, the surrender conditions imposed by the Allies and the head of the aeronautical department murdered by ex-partisans four months after the end of WWII, Reggiane Air Division ceased to exhist and the company resumed their pre-war traditional line of work building railroad cars and engines.
Nearby bridges over the Po river, airport structures, workshops, living quarters, will all be adjusted/placed according to the very few WWII pics I am collecting from the web and present-day Google satellite shots.
I am planning to take a look at Ferrara and Milano-Linate as well.
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
P.S.: Rami knows about this already, but I'll be taking a two-week vacation starting this Saturday. I'll be back on Monday 29th, I'll get back in touch by then. Take it easy!
kelticheart
Charter Member
A few previews
Hi everybody!
I am attaching a few preview shots of my GSL Reggiane Aircraft factory with an historical shot of prewar Reggio Emilia and present-day airport and industrial area.
I tried imitating the factory layout as much as I could, knowing well that what Reggiane looks today must have been different during WWII. Besides, industrial objects are somewhat scarce for CFS2 and I used some things that were not intended to be used as an industrial structure by their creators but something else.
The airport scenery is Achim's North Italy, with SdC's ETO landclass and textures plus all Rhumba's mesh files in place.
First shots shows the overview of airport and industrial area (fps count left on purpose); the second is the only historical picture I found of Reggio Emilia, I believe it's from the 1930's; third is present-day sat picture of the airport layout followed by two shots of my Reggiane rendition and its sat picture.
The airport is basically done, a very sparse structure without aircraft revetments, as there's no trace of them. Sat pictures can be extremely revealing of old WWII leftovers, go check Piacenza S.Damiano and Verona Villafranca (missing from Achim's sceneries), you'll see the WWII dispersal areas with their round parking spots are still very evident!
I still have to refine the factory, I want to lay railroad lines in front of it. Both RR station and tracks were there in WWII. Then, I'll release it.
Why am I doing this? Italian Social Republic put up a fierce resistance against bombers attacking northern Italian cities in 1944 flying from these airports. We have two repaints for Corrado La Posta's Macchi C.205 and Ignacio Mendive's Fiat G-55 depicting two aircrafts belonging to the 1st Squadriglia "Asso di Bastoni", based in Reggio Emilia.
Rami: you will HAVE to include air raids missions to major Italian Northern cities, bridges over the Po river and industrial parks with your La Spezia project, it all happened together between 1943 to the spring of 1945. This will make my dream come true, of a CFS2 air campaign re-enacting the great valor of both opponents in the skies above where I live. It was a fierce, intense piece of history.
See ya in a couple of weeks!
KH :ernae:
Hi everybody!
I am attaching a few preview shots of my GSL Reggiane Aircraft factory with an historical shot of prewar Reggio Emilia and present-day airport and industrial area.
I tried imitating the factory layout as much as I could, knowing well that what Reggiane looks today must have been different during WWII. Besides, industrial objects are somewhat scarce for CFS2 and I used some things that were not intended to be used as an industrial structure by their creators but something else.
The airport scenery is Achim's North Italy, with SdC's ETO landclass and textures plus all Rhumba's mesh files in place.
First shots shows the overview of airport and industrial area (fps count left on purpose); the second is the only historical picture I found of Reggio Emilia, I believe it's from the 1930's; third is present-day sat picture of the airport layout followed by two shots of my Reggiane rendition and its sat picture.
The airport is basically done, a very sparse structure without aircraft revetments, as there's no trace of them. Sat pictures can be extremely revealing of old WWII leftovers, go check Piacenza S.Damiano and Verona Villafranca (missing from Achim's sceneries), you'll see the WWII dispersal areas with their round parking spots are still very evident!
I still have to refine the factory, I want to lay railroad lines in front of it. Both RR station and tracks were there in WWII. Then, I'll release it.
Why am I doing this? Italian Social Republic put up a fierce resistance against bombers attacking northern Italian cities in 1944 flying from these airports. We have two repaints for Corrado La Posta's Macchi C.205 and Ignacio Mendive's Fiat G-55 depicting two aircrafts belonging to the 1st Squadriglia "Asso di Bastoni", based in Reggio Emilia.
Rami: you will HAVE to include air raids missions to major Italian Northern cities, bridges over the Po river and industrial parks with your La Spezia project, it all happened together between 1943 to the spring of 1945. This will make my dream come true, of a CFS2 air campaign re-enacting the great valor of both opponents in the skies above where I live. It was a fierce, intense piece of history.
See ya in a couple of weeks!
KH :ernae:
kelticheart
Charter Member
Back in town.....
I'm back!
Anything new in the La Spezia/Northern Italy project?
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
I'm back!
Anything new in the La Spezia/Northern Italy project?
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
Reply...
Hey Stef,
Not really. I did get a chance to test your "private stock" in Northern Italy, and sent you feedback. While you were on vacation, I released the Western Desert campaign, and sent Operation Mezzagosto out for beta testing.
Since then, I've been splitting my time between flying Talon's RAAF 75th campaign, preparing for his USMC campaign, and working in the Balkans on Phase II. It's getting depressing...the situation just gets worse and worse!
Hey Stef,
Not really. I did get a chance to test your "private stock" in Northern Italy, and sent you feedback. While you were on vacation, I released the Western Desert campaign, and sent Operation Mezzagosto out for beta testing.
Since then, I've been splitting my time between flying Talon's RAAF 75th campaign, preparing for his USMC campaign, and working in the Balkans on Phase II. It's getting depressing...the situation just gets worse and worse!
kelticheart
Charter Member
Hi there!
What do you mean with "the situation just gets worse and worse!"? Did you reach a dead point with the Balkans or are you taking a beating from the Japanese flying with RAAF 75th Squadron?
I just saw your e-mail yesterday and I was going to reply to it today with something new I did the night before I left, plus something I did last night. I'll reply here.
Now Reggio Emilia has a credible train station group with a good length of Canion's RR tracks in front of the Reggiane plant and the airfield. Dual RR tracks, the main RR line Milano-Roma was doubled in the mid-1930's and most of it was capable of running electric locomotives. Unfortunately, Canion's RR track objects aren't very long, so I used a huge amount of them, but, since they are flat with basically no polygons, they are only affecting fps minimally. But I could happily use longer straight track section to minimize the placing time and the object count........
Likewise, I added another bridge on the Po river in Piacenza, to simulate the RR bridge which sits side by side with the road bridge. Both were there during WWII and targeted several times, until they were totally destroyed. I had to follow CFS2 textures to connect the road bridge to the road present in the textures, but its orientation is wrong, since bridges are built all over the world following the shortest distance between the two river banks and not diagonally. Not having a RR track to follow, I placed the RR bridge correctly.
I'll send you the definitive versions of both sceneries very soon.
Another important object that's missing from our libraries is a dedicated RR bridge, Canion's reproduces the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen with mixed road/RR texture, while Wolfi's is only a road bridge.
I have already an idea about how to do it fast, just create a second *.bgl mapped to a different railroad texture, and my choice is for Wolfi's bridge since its dimensions make it perfect for a European railroad bridge.
Unfortunately, I have no idea about creating new lib objects, so I only hope someone will read this and kindly do it for us!
We also need some more industrial site buildings to create more credible industrial parks.
As a quick reply to you asking me if I want to tackle the Fiat "Lingotto" factory building in Torino, I'll be glad to do it, as long as someone helps me finding the exact coordinates where this building lays, as I don't like approximations. The Reggiane plant was easy, since I used the Reggio airport as a guideline.
The Fiat factory is different, since the oldest plant, called Lingotto for its gold bar shape, was built at the outskirts of Torino in the early 1900's, but, fourty years later in 1942, city development had reached it and surrounded it already.
Moreover, I think we should ask Achim to build not only Verona-Villafranca, but replace as well old GZR's Ghedi-Montichiari (southeast of Brescia), as he did with RAF Debden. There are another few airports used by both Luftwaffe and RSI in Northern Italy which we may need. Campoformido near Udine is one of them, off the top of my head I have no idea if it's already in Achim's Italy pack, but from there flew the RSI formations equipped with Bf109-G10 and G10AS, challenging the USAAF formations on their way to Austria and Southern Germany.
Of course, I'll gather all of the info and satellite pictures I'll be able to find to help Achim build those sceneries.
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
Reply...
Stefano,
With the "worse and worse" comment, I am referring to the RAF in Greece. I began on April 6th, the day the Luftwaffe commenced their attack on Greece. Two weeks later, Athens was taking a heavy pounding, (during which "Pat" Pattle dies) both the Metaxas line and the Olympus-Servia line had been breached, and the Army of the Epirus was in the process of surrendering, the completion of which would shatter the Albanian flank and allow German troops to flood the Thessaly Plain and the Gulf of Corinth. Worse, most major Greek ports being used to evacuate Greek forces and civilians have been turned into flaming wrecks by the Luftwaffe.
It is now April 23rd, and the Royal Air Force is at Argos on the Peleponnese. The Royal Air Force gets a small reinforcement of five Hurricanes from Crete that morning to augment the twelve flyable Hurricanes they have left. That night, forty Zerstorers show up, and turn all but the five airborne Hurricanes into scrap metal, strafing the base for over an hour.
This forced the Royal Air Force to evacuate to Crete. (I'm working on Mission 20 at the moment)
Stefano,
With the "worse and worse" comment, I am referring to the RAF in Greece. I began on April 6th, the day the Luftwaffe commenced their attack on Greece. Two weeks later, Athens was taking a heavy pounding, (during which "Pat" Pattle dies) both the Metaxas line and the Olympus-Servia line had been breached, and the Army of the Epirus was in the process of surrendering, the completion of which would shatter the Albanian flank and allow German troops to flood the Thessaly Plain and the Gulf of Corinth. Worse, most major Greek ports being used to evacuate Greek forces and civilians have been turned into flaming wrecks by the Luftwaffe.
It is now April 23rd, and the Royal Air Force is at Argos on the Peleponnese. The Royal Air Force gets a small reinforcement of five Hurricanes from Crete that morning to augment the twelve flyable Hurricanes they have left. That night, forty Zerstorers show up, and turn all but the five airborne Hurricanes into scrap metal, strafing the base for over an hour.
This forced the Royal Air Force to evacuate to Crete. (I'm working on Mission 20 at the moment)
Still chuggin' along! :salute:
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tobob
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tobob
Robert John
Charter Member
Tobob,
That's epic.
Robert John
That's epic.
Robert John
kelticheart
Charter Member
Hey that reminds me of implementing that exact function in cfs2autocoast.
There will be a new version of all those EURW files in the future, where stuff like that will be fixed. Of course if you place custom scenery that depends on the old Beta EURW, that may need to be reworked then.
dombral
Charter Member
Dombral:
If it looks so good now, I can only imagine how it will be with Tobob exact coastline replacement!
I have the same Venezia scenery, another place where I spent a lot of time in my life. Mine comes from a FS2002 VFR scenery I found a long time ago at Flightsim.com, is yours the same?
The potential for improvements in CFS2 is still great, and, yes Rami! This is CFS2 at its finest and, why not, SOH as well!
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
réponse un peu tardive , la scene de Venise vient bien de Flightsim et s'appelle "DPu" dansFS2002 elle s'intègre très bien dans le jeux CSF2. L'ébauche de la rade de La Spezia de notre ami Tobob est magnifique , le résultat final devrait etre de toute beauté , je vais enfin pouvoir mouiller ma flotte italienne en particulier les 3 cuirassés Roma Littorio et Vittorio Veneto .
La Méditerranée et l'Afrique du Nord vont devenir l'endroit privilégier pour un tourisme guerrier.
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kelticheart
Charter Member
Piacenza Po river bridges and Reggio Emilia
I agree with you, Dombral! I like that "warrior tourism" expression, I never thought about CFS2 in such terms, but you really called it as it is in reality for all of us!
To Rami and anyone else who might be interested:
Please, find attached my completed versions of the Piacenza road and RR bridge/rail station complex over the Po river, plus my interpretation of Achim's Reggio Emilia airport scenery with the Reggiane aircraft factory nearby, both in GSL and layout format.
Reggio Emilia buildings are sparser than Achim's original layout because I used the late 1930's B/W picture I attached above as a guideline. The Reggiane factory lays in its historical location, which is the same as today's, to the left and just below of the airport. Please, refer to the Reggio Emilia sat pictures I attached above.
Enclosed you will find also a flatten switch you'll need to add to your scenery.cfg, if you want to see Piacenza rail tracks and railstation displayed correctly with all of Rhumba's mesh installed. There are some slight ups and downs in the mesh that made the rail tracks appear as half-buried in the ground and the railstation buildings floating in the air. This flatten switch coverage is so small that you will not see anything strange, but just the objects laying flat on the ground, as they should.
To see Piacenza bridges over the Po river take off from Achim's Italian scenery Piacenza-San Damiano airport, veer due North/NorthWest immediatley after takeoff and fly for just a handful of seconds. When you'll see the Po river and the urban textures on the ground attached to the river, the bridges and the train station should pop up in sight right away.
In order to display these two sceneries correctly you will need all of available scenery objects uploaded here at SOH: ETO repaints of CFS2 stock hangars/buildings by Captain Kurt, Canion's libs, Wolfi's libs, Dave Mangum's German buildings, Gary Burns' RAF BoB library updated by Pen32win, Mask Rider's PTO objects and Leroy10's early trees.
Inside you will also find ETO textures I did for two Mask Rider's/Leroy10's PTO objects: I replaced in the watch tower and the guard post the bamboo textures with wood boards, more proper for an ETO scenery. Unzip the file with the folder option "ON". Place the contents of \INFO\textures inside your CFS2 root \SCENEDB\INFO\textures folder.
Warning: be sure you are replacing these textures in an ETO install of your CFS2, otherwise you'll have wood boarded objects in the Pacific!
Everything will be packaged in a proper upload when this project will be completed. Since Sander just answered above to one of my questions about some display problems with his early EurW beta textures, these custom sceneries remain beta and not definitive. I'll fit them to the corrected textures that will come.
My next attachments will be Achim's Piacenza-San Damiano and Ferrara, both reworked according to what can still be seen of the WWII airport infrastructures in Google's satellite pictures.
My, CFS2 future is brighter than ever!
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
I agree with you, Dombral! I like that "warrior tourism" expression, I never thought about CFS2 in such terms, but you really called it as it is in reality for all of us!
To Rami and anyone else who might be interested:
Please, find attached my completed versions of the Piacenza road and RR bridge/rail station complex over the Po river, plus my interpretation of Achim's Reggio Emilia airport scenery with the Reggiane aircraft factory nearby, both in GSL and layout format.
Reggio Emilia buildings are sparser than Achim's original layout because I used the late 1930's B/W picture I attached above as a guideline. The Reggiane factory lays in its historical location, which is the same as today's, to the left and just below of the airport. Please, refer to the Reggio Emilia sat pictures I attached above.
Enclosed you will find also a flatten switch you'll need to add to your scenery.cfg, if you want to see Piacenza rail tracks and railstation displayed correctly with all of Rhumba's mesh installed. There are some slight ups and downs in the mesh that made the rail tracks appear as half-buried in the ground and the railstation buildings floating in the air. This flatten switch coverage is so small that you will not see anything strange, but just the objects laying flat on the ground, as they should.
To see Piacenza bridges over the Po river take off from Achim's Italian scenery Piacenza-San Damiano airport, veer due North/NorthWest immediatley after takeoff and fly for just a handful of seconds. When you'll see the Po river and the urban textures on the ground attached to the river, the bridges and the train station should pop up in sight right away.
In order to display these two sceneries correctly you will need all of available scenery objects uploaded here at SOH: ETO repaints of CFS2 stock hangars/buildings by Captain Kurt, Canion's libs, Wolfi's libs, Dave Mangum's German buildings, Gary Burns' RAF BoB library updated by Pen32win, Mask Rider's PTO objects and Leroy10's early trees.
Inside you will also find ETO textures I did for two Mask Rider's/Leroy10's PTO objects: I replaced in the watch tower and the guard post the bamboo textures with wood boards, more proper for an ETO scenery. Unzip the file with the folder option "ON". Place the contents of \INFO\textures inside your CFS2 root \SCENEDB\INFO\textures folder.
Warning: be sure you are replacing these textures in an ETO install of your CFS2, otherwise you'll have wood boarded objects in the Pacific!
Everything will be packaged in a proper upload when this project will be completed. Since Sander just answered above to one of my questions about some display problems with his early EurW beta textures, these custom sceneries remain beta and not definitive. I'll fit them to the corrected textures that will come.
My next attachments will be Achim's Piacenza-San Damiano and Ferrara, both reworked according to what can still be seen of the WWII airport infrastructures in Google's satellite pictures.
My, CFS2 future is brighter than ever!
Cheers!
KH :ernae: