Scenery - airfield camera distance / zoom

[BorekS]

hi guys,
this time I would have a question related to scenery development / modding.

when I load the CFS3 game menu, some airfield scenery appears, based on the chosen location and it loads the selected aircraft at some place on the arfield. Ive noticed there is a few camera sets only, which are variously used to let switch and rotate the camera around your airplane. bit boring after some time.

is such menu scenery camera settings or the airplane position possible to change somehow?
usually I would like to check my airplane much closer zoom, to check the details and / or weapon loadouts...

well, you may say "check it simply on airfield before take-off. sure, but this would need to let the camera act like 1st person cam view, staying on the ground.

 

[Pat Pattle]

The short answer is yes! There are 3 files involved, the cutscenes .xml defines which animation is used then there's the animation files themselves (not moddable) and another (can't remember the name) which can be altered but is in the same folder.

It's been done before and I used to have some modded files.

Also the airplane position on the airfield can be changed in the facility file, look for the path entries at the bottom of the file, there will be 3 with co-ords that are close together.

The co-ords are the position in meters from the centre of the facility x and y. Don't get too close too buildings or vehicles though or the aircraft will explode!

 

[BorekS]

wow, thank you for the description!

I see, there is cutscenes.xml file, where, eg. for germany airfields I can find g_pregame_1.xml airbase cutscene link definition, and finally inside this xml I can see some kind of promising Camera FOV / PosZ / PosX / PosY values. sounds interesting!

ok, a closer FOV for g_pregame_1 first cut scene cam (test):

 

[popsaka]

Borek your pilots always look so cool... what's your secret?

 

[BorekS]

I am glad you like the pilot it is just a texture replacement for the german Wendler pilot, used for the Me-163B Komet add-on. those pilots used a special PVC cloth, protecting from accident risk of the liquid acid fuel.

Ive originally just simply made the Wendler cloth texture parts grayscale toned, but the final texture is made by gecko and his friends infact, cant remember who exactly did it, it isnt written in the package readme it seems (sorry for that).

then there is a pilot figure sitting in my ariplane models, the guy with oxygen mask, again in a PVC cloth. this one is encoded into the gmax models. for our MiG he should be repainted at least.

for the Korean / Vietnam / China MiG-15 we would need bit another pilot texture, but basically it may be a www2 cloth style, braun jacket, black or braun pupa and black pants. the later MiG pilots used white helmets.